Join us For Hanamatsuri (Flower Festival) Celebrating Buddha's Birth
Plan Now to Attend
On Sunday, April 7, you will be able to joy our most colorful service of the year. In celebration of the Buddha’s birthday, we decorate the Hondo (main hall) and a special shrine with beautiful flowers, many brought by Temple members. Arrive before 10 a.m. for time to bathe a statue of the infant Buddha, in a ceremony we call Kanbutsu.
We will post the details of scheduled events for that day very soon; roughly Kanbutsu starts at 9 a.m., the service starts at 10 a.m., and is expected to ene around 11:30 a.m.
Hanamido: Our Special Shrine. If you are free on Saturday, April 6, join other Temple members as the decorate the Hanamido, shown above and below in the “Hanafast” video. We start at 1 p.m. in the Dining Room on the Office Level of our main building. Park in our off-street lot, and enter through the double doors to take elevator or stairs up one floor, to find us.
Hanamatsuri: The Flower Festival. We celebrate the birthday of the Buddha by decorating the Temple with beautiful flowers, because the sutras tell us the bushes and trees burst into bloom upon the birth of the infant who became the Buddha.
Kanbutsu: Bathing the Infant Buddha. In the Hanamido shrine, a small statue of the infant Buddha stands, point up to the sky! This also mimics the sutras, which tell us the infant stood upright upon birth and made a proclamation! The sutras also say that the event was marked by “sweet” (gentle) rain falling from the skies. To commemorate the falling of the rain, each Hanamatsuri, we start taking turns bathing the statue from 9 a.m.
Ten-Year Anniversary of the Speed “Hanafast” Hanamido Video
Watch our Hanamido being prepared at super speed, thanks to this time-lapse video.
Temple Member Roger Coppock, who took and posted this video in 2014, asked to share these comments, ten years to the date of the event depicted below.
A decade ago, the Dharma School of the Buddhist Temple of San Diego gathered one Saturday to decorate the wire frame of the Hanamido altar with Carnations and other flowers. This usually takes about 2 hours. However, this particular Saturday the Tijuana TimeRip moved North and encircled the Temple. The Sangha decorated the Hanamido with flowers in only three minutes and 45 seconds!
The stress of this leap in time is clearly visible on all who were there that day. Dharma school students have grown into adults. Adults grew silver hair and lost teeth.
Gassho,
Roger