New Year’s Message — Realizing Our Interconnectedness

Happy New Year to all of you. May I take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support and “Dana” that enabled us to meet and exceed our goal of $15 million for the Dharma Forward campaign.  

To me, it is a reflection of how all of you value the teachings, your local temple, and our BCA and the Institute of Buddhist Studies. It is gratifying to know that we all share the same aspiration to move the Dharma forward, especially to those who have never encountered the Jodo Shinshu teachings.  

The image in this photo is the artwork of an amazing artist, Paula Pietranera, who folds and makes cranes. We have all seen folded origami cranes, but what is unique about Paula’s artwork is that all of the cranes in this piece were created from a single sheet of paper. Each crane is connected to all the other cranes. Her artwork is called “Renzuru” or “connected cranes,” and she learned that art in Japan.  

We got her permission to use her artwork for the BCA calendar for 2026, as it is a beautiful expression of our theme for this year, “Realizing our Interconnectedness.”  

Look at the world around us today. Conflicts and wars. Political divides.  Frequent mass shootings. From a Buddhist standpoint, it is disturbing, to say the least.  

Buddhism teaches us to realize our interconnectedness. How can we harm or kill someone if they are really a part of each of us? We might differ in our political views or religious views, or even ethnic and cultural views, but deep down, we are all human beings.  

Thich Nhat Hanh explains this beautifully and even humorously by using the example of cookie dough. We put all of our ingredients together to make cookie dough, then we scoop out the cookie dough and place them on the cookie sheet. 

All of the cookies came from the same dough. They are of the same essence. But what if some of the cookies started to say, “I am the best cookie. I am the perfect color. You are too dark or too light.” Or, what if another cookie said, “Hey, move over! You are getting into my space on the cookie sheet!” It would be absurd if cookies started to converse that way.  They don’t know they are of the same essence.  

Aren’t we humans the same as those cookies? We ourselves do not see our interconnectedness. We do not see our essence, our humanity. This leads to all kinds of cruelties and injustices in the name of this or in the name of that.  

We have so much to offer the world in our teachings. We need to share our teachings of interconnectedness with a world that only sees divisions and barriers.  

Just like astronauts who all say that their view of the world changed once they went into outer space and saw our fragile Earth from that perspective, we too must share the Buddhist view of the world that is interconnected, that is without borders in one sense. From outer space, you cannot see any borders between countries or states. All you see is one fragile, beautiful Earth that is shared by not only humans, but by innumerable forms of life.  The human race is not the master of the Earth. We are just one tiny part of it.  

I understand that Ellison Onizuka, the Japanese American astronaut who died in the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster in 1986, said after his first trip into space on the Space Shuttle Discovery, “I have seen the Pure Land,” to describe his view of the Earth from outer space.  

Although in our Nishi Hongwanji orthodox doctrine, this is an expression they would frown upon, to me, how could anyone argue with what Ellison Onizuka saw? It must be an unbelievable perspective to see our Earth from outer space.  

I hope that our efforts to share the teachings with others will lead to a world and society that will begin to see our interconnectedness and find a way to live with each other as human beings, as sentient beings, on this one and only planet that we have to live on, our precious Earth.