LIHUE — Hanamatsuri Week activities start Monday, said the Rev. Kosen Ishikawa of the Koloa Jodo Mission, chair of the Kauai Buddhist Council Hanamatsuri celebration.
Hanamatsuri means “flower festival” in Japanese. For Buddhists around the world, it celebrates the birth, on the eighth day of the fourth month, of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, who later became enlightened and known as Shakyamuni Buddha. Hanamatsuri symbolizes the variety of flowers that were blooming in Lumbini Garden, Nepal, when Gautama was born under a gentle rain approximately 2,500 years ago.
Kauai will celebrate Hanamatsuri Week with a series of activities starting Monday and continuing through the week, culminating with Hanamatsuri services at the Lihue Hongwanji Mission, April 8 from 9:30 a.m. to noon.
Kapaa Jodo Mission, located on Hauaala Road across Ke Ala Hele Makalae, will open the week by hosting Candle Nights, open houses at temples from 6 to 8 p.m. Each night, a different temple will celebrate Candle Nights — Tuesday at the Waimea Shingon Mission, Wednesday at the Koloa Jodo Mission, Thursday at the Kapaa Hongwanji Mission, and Friday at the Kauai Soto Zen Temple in Hanapepe and the West Kauai Hongwanji, Hanapepe Temple, coinciding with the Hanapepe Art Night.
“The purpose of these open houses is to offer a place and extra time for prayer, meditation or quiet time at Buddhist temples,” Ishikawa said.
“We will turn off lights and use candle lights instead. By opening temples in the evening, we hope younger people will come to the temple to enjoy relaxed moments by candlelight.”
On Saturday, ministers from the Westside temples — the Rev. Noriaki Fujimori of the Waimea Higashi Hongwanji, the Rev. Tomo Hojo of the West Kauai Hongwanji, Waimea Temple, and the Rev. Kohtoku Hirao of the Waimea Shingon Mission — will host a second service for animals who were road kill victims.
This year’s service will be held at the Hofgaard Park in Waimea, starting at 6 p.m.
“In Buddhism, all life is equally precious,” Hojo said. “We invite people whose pets have passed to celebrate their life. This is a good opportunity to think about how precious life — all life — is.”
During the Hanamatsuri Service on April 8, the Kauai Buddhist Council will host its first Buddhist Book Fair in conjunction with the service celebrating Buddha’s birth.
“At this Buddhist Book Fair, we’d like to show off great varieties of Buddhist teachings, and reduce numbers of old ‘new books’ which were once a new book, but never read for many years.”
The featured speaker at the April 8 celebration will be Mark Daniel Seiler. Seiler is a poet, musician, master carpenter and board member of the Koloa Jodo Mission, Kauai Buddhist Council, and Lawai International Center.
Seiler’s first novel, “Sighing Woman Tea,” was a winner at the Pacific Rim Book Festival in 2015. His second novel, “River’s Child,” was recently awarded the Landmark Prize for fiction.
Info: 245-6262 or 635-8530
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or
dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
