Message from Bishop Marvin Harada
The Dodgers and The Butterfly
I am not a huge baseball fan, and during the season, I don’t watch many games, but I love to watch the postseason playoffs and the World Series every year.
This year was even more exciting because the Los Angeles Dodgers were in the playoffs, and then made it to the World Series. I watched every game and they were all so exciting with great pitching, lots of home runs, and stellar defensive plays, by both teams. And I watched the final game in which the Dodgers won the championship and the World Series on Oct. 27.
We can’t help but feel touched to see the winning team run out onto the field and jump for joy like little kids again. It is such a rare opportunity to win a World Series, and those players and coaches no doubt worked so hard to become champions. We also feel for the losing team, as they too worked hard and dreamed of being champions as well.
The Dodgers players were hugging each other, piling on top of each other, just like Little League players would if they won a championship game. I think that is part of what is so moving about seeing such a scene, to see grown adults become little kids again. We can all relate to such a feeling of pure joy.
Buddhism points to the awakened life as like “becoming a child again.” It doesn’t mean that we should become kids and go through the terrible twos again, or anything like that, but what it is trying to say is that children have a real innocence, a sincere heart and mind, that we must “rediscover” as adults. Buddhism is saying that as we age, we lose that childhood innocence, spontaneity, and joy for simple things.
When we were little kids, just to get an ice cream cone brought real joy to us, didn’t it? After we become adults, it takes a four-star restaurant and something like bananas foster or crème brulee to get the same kind of joyous response. An ice cream cone from the local Baskin and Robbins just won’t do it for us.
I will never forget some years ago, when my wife was still teaching elementary school, the school had an annual “Read Across America” program in which teachers would bring in people from the community to read to the kids in the classrooms.
My wife always insisted that I do this and I would go to her kindergarten class and read a few children’s stories. One year, I read a book on “Happiness,” and after reading the story, I thought I would dialogue with the kids a little and I asked them, “What makes you happy?” I thought they would say something like, “Having a birthday party,” or “Getting a new video game,” or something like that.
However, to my great surprise, one little girl said, “It makes me happy when a butterfly lands on my nose!”
I would never say that. Not in a million years. I would say something like, “When I hit a big jackpot in Las Vegas,” or “When I hit a good shot on the golf course,” or “When someone compliments me on my sermon,” or something to that effect. I would never say something like, “When a butterfly lands on my nose.” That is the childlike innocence, spontaneity, and pure joy that children exhibit, that Buddhism says we have lost, but should return to.
Namuamidabutsu,
Rev. Marvin Harada, Bishop, Buddhist Churches of America
