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Class helps busybodies fit Buddha into lives
Church has seen resurgence since Japanese American took reins
UNION CITY — Six years ago, Shoyo Taniguchi was teaching ethics to dental students at Kagoshima University in Japan. Today, she is the resident minister at the Southern Alameda County Buddhist Church.
As a young woman, she envisioned herself becoming a scholar in English literature, studying poets such as William Blake. Now the Alameda resident spends her time reading, discussing and meditating on Buddhist writings, also known as “sutras.”
“I didn’t like it too much,” recalled Taniguchi about her experience in Japan. “So I quit and I became a minister. I enjoy sharing what I learn with people who have never had a chance to learn about Buddhist teachings.”
Established in 1961, the Southern Alameda County Buddhist Church is part of the Jodo Shinshu or “Pure Land” sect, otherwise known as “Shin Buddhism,” which grew to be the largest Buddhist denomination in Japan before coming to the United States.
But on a recent Wednesday evening, the sect matters little to the half-dozen people who have turned out to attend the class, “Buddhist Course for Busy People.”
It is an eclectic group. A few people in attendance are longtime members of the Buddhist church, who say they still have a lot to learn about Buddhism. One woman says she lives nearby and is simply curious about Buddhism. One man has brought his teenage son. Another man says he was raised Christian, but his wife is Burmese and a Buddhist, and he has found the teachings to be practical in his own life.
“I was raised very fundamentalist — Nazarene Christian — and Christianity talks a lot about you and your relationship with God,” Sean Mason said. “Buddhism says a lot about method. And I’m more interested in method now than I am in relationships now. That’s what I’m finding attractive about Buddhism.”
After a brief meditation session in the adjacent house, Taniguchi enters, holding five large texts of Buddhist writings with yellow, orange and pink notes marking selected passages.
At the outset, she urges those in attendance to interpret the readings in their own way and to test out every theory.
The first passage deals with a discussion of Buddha’s teaching that some questions — such as whether the world is eternal and whether the soul is the same as the body — are better left unanswered.
“What we cannot prove, we do not answer,” Taniguchi said. “This is what the Buddha called the noble silence.”
Taniguchi, a 60-year-old Japanese American,is a small woman with a disarming smile that curves downward at the corners. She wears glasses, but often takes them off and closes her eyes as she speaks.
While studying English literature in Japan, she met her future husband, Zuikei Taniguchi, a Buddhist minister who lived in Alameda.
In 1983, she enrolled at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, which later became part of the Graduate Theological Union, where she studied bioethics. In 1996, she accepted a position at Kagoshima University in Japan to teach dental and medical ethics. But she said she found herself missing her life in Alameda.
“I missed the temple so much,” she said. “I didn’t want to make Buddhism into an ivory-tower product. I wanted to pass down its precious jewels to society, not make it into something scholastic.”
So Taniguchi decided to return to Alameda and began volunteering at the Southern Alameda County Buddhist Church, where she later was hired.
Larry Gissible, a 60-year-old Union City resident and a consultant, said he first came to the church nine years ago to attend the “Buddhist Course for Busy People” class.
Although he was raised Methodist, two years later he joined the church and now serves as the religious and education chair.
“As I studied, I came to realize that Buddhism fit with the way I viewed the world,” Gissible said. “I also found the church fulfilled a social need.”
Gissible said the church has about 250 families on its membership roster, although its regular attendance is much smaller than that.
Since Taniguchi became resident minister in 2004, the church has had a resurgence, particularly with the children, he said.
“The children’s dharma classes are four times as big as they were (before Taniguchi arrived), and the attendance has doubled,” he said. “But the ‘Buddhist Course for Busy People’ is for anyone with an interest or curiosity about Buddhism. We’re seeking people from all levels and all backgrounds.”
“Buddhist Course for Busy People: Readings and Selected Buddhist Writings That Enhance the Quality of Life” is held from 7 to 9 p.m. every other Wednesday at the Southern Alameda County Buddhist Church, 32975 Alvarado-Niles Road. For more information, call (510) 476-1415 or visit http://www.sacbc.org.
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