BODHI DAY SERVICE
SUNDAY DEC 11th – 10:30 AM
With guest Reverend Katsuya Kusunoki
from the Seattle Betsuin (Temple)
Our Supervising Minister & Rinban of the NW Shin Buddhist Temples
Bodhi Day is the day Buddhists celebrate the Buddha’s Enlightenment. According to tradition, Buddha (Siddhartha) had forsaken years of extreme ascetic practices and he resolved to sit under a Pipul tree and simply meditate until he found the root of all suffering, and how to liberate one’s self from it.
Reverend Katsuya Kusunoki is the Head Minister of the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple. Sensei was born in Nagasaki, Japan, the second son of a temple family. Today his older brother Naoya is the 17th generation of their family to serve their family temple. Sensei is a graduate of Miyazaki University where he majored in primary education and his hobby is to watch and play baseball and softball. While a college student he took a break and spent almost two and a half years in a Japanese volunteer program similar to the Peace Corps in America coaching baseball in Zimbabwe before returning to Japan to complete his studies. After graduating he spent three years teaching 3rd and 6th grade classes before deciding to become a minister.
Sensei’s advanced training includes the Hongwanji-ha Rituals course for leaders (Gonshiki). He is a Hongwanji-ha certified Special Rituals Minister, a certificate only he and our former minister Rev. Sala Sekiya hold within the Buddhist Churches of America. Sensei’s first assignment in America was to the Lodi Buddhist Temple in 2010 and he was transferred to Seattle in April of 2017. Sensei and his wife Ayano have a son, Yuiya, who was born in September 2016.
