Big Sur Today!

Aaron and Ben on Big Sur...making our way on a beautiful, sunny, spectacular day!
I chanted about this vacation for months...and we are having a great time! 

Big Sur

Santa Cruz, California

Here we are in Santa Cruz California. 


What a beautiful place! 
This picture was taken from the wharf last night at sunset. 
Today we spent at the beach...playing in the water, hiking, running, climbing huge rocks. 


We had dinner tonight at Shadowbrook...the most romantic and interesting restaurant in the world...built into the side of a hill with huge tropical vegetation everywhere...just lovely. The boys liked it as much as I thought they would! 


It's great to just relax and enjoy ourselves together! 


Tomorrow we head down the coast to Big Sur. The boys have never seen that. I'll post more pictures! Nam Myoho Renge Kyo! 

We're on Vacation!

Here we are staying on the beach in Santa Cruz California! 


When we lived in San Francisco this was our favorite place to take a day excursion. I always longed to stay the night and wake up here on the beach. And now, with my two sons, we are waking up with this view this morning! (It will look like this in a few hours after the fog has burned off- right now I have a moment to write a blog!)


It has been a magical, music-filled vacation so far. We stayed with our friends Amy and Ian and their son Andrew for the first part of the trip in beautiful San Anselmo in Marin County. There is only one Marin County in the world...land of hot tubs and hybrid cars at the base of Mt. Tamalpais! 


We spent Saturday up on the mountain playing music with our friends. We were there celebrating Julia and Cliff's thirteen years of marriage. This very event was a benefit of Julia's two-year practice of chanting! Ben sang some of his original songs, I sang John Denver songs, everyone played guitar and sang, then we came down the mountain...taking the Bolinas Fairfax road (! what a wild ride !) and Amy and Ian hosted a party for us in their redwood-decked home nestled on the mountain side. At one point in the party almost everyone there joined us for a few minutes of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo! And Danielle, and Julia and I did Gongyo together for the first time! 


Every morning the boys and I have done a rousing gongyo and chanted daimoku. It is incredible to chant with their low voices! 


On Sunday we headed to Donna, Peppino and Aleza's house in Benicia. We went to a benefit concert for Voena, the world-renowned children's choir out of Benicia. I wish I could go back in time and join this choir. Their costumes were colorful, flowy scarves and they moved freely in a joyous dance of life! They are headed to the London to sing for the Olympics this summer! Then Peppino played and Aleza sang. I wish everyone reading this blog could have been there!


The next morning we all chanted together and will reconnect for another of Peppino and Aleza's concerts in the LA area on Friday. 


There is nothing like friendship, is there? We have been friends with all these people since we lived in California from 1984-1998. And seeing them again it feels like no time has passed - except we don't have babies ~ we have grown children bursting with potential! We have raised young men and women who are poised to make their mark on the world! 


I received an email from a reader today who feels hopeless...she wonders how I made it through the times when I felt hopeless myself. And there were plenty of those times. 


And I say to my reader and to all of you ~  please don't give up. I look at my joyous life now...at my sons who love spending time with me as much as I love spending time with them...we are traipsing though California laughing and joking and loving life! We are free to enjoy every moment as it passes! We are safe, we are happy, we are healthy. And every morning our voices rise in harmony as we fill our lives with the rhythm of the universe and chant Daimoku together. 


And I say...all of our happiness was BORN in those dark times when I did not give up. We've met with several of my Buddhist mentors so far this trip. One of them remembered me crying. A lot. But I kept chanting and didn't give up. I forged a new life through my tears. 


My prayer has always been  ~ I am determined to BE the BUDDHA OF ABSOLUTE HAPPINESS! I am determined to be happy and enjoy my life so that I can be an inspiration to those who are still suffering...and I can inspire them with my own life! I am determined that MY LIFE is an example that ANYONE can be happy! Let me use every moment, every chant, every word out of my mouth to make a cause for my happiness, and the happiness of others. 


This has worked for me! Look at me taking my wonderful boys on their victory lap! They are happy and successful and we are appreciating life together! Don't give up! happiness is yours to claim. 
Claim it THROUGH your tears, not despite them! Claim your happiness NOW!!! You are a Buddha!!!

Aaron and Amos in California

Amos Snell and Aaron at 

Amos's house in Vallejo California

We are celebrating Aaron's graduation from college, and his entry into medical school by going on "Aaron's Victory Lap" to visit all our dear friends in California. 

We're staying with our amazing friends in San Anslemo (Marin County) right now. Today was our day with one of my first Buddhist Mentors, Amos Snell. Amos was the leader of the first Buddhist meeting I ever attended. He told me "This practice is way too hard for you...you'll never be able to do this." And, of course, I HAD to show him! I was so determined! 

At that time we had meetings every single night...and Amos had a way of putting things that totally inspired me. 

And he inspired me with his life. 

"You a Buddha! Dream BIG!" 

I've repeated Amos's words to many young practitioners! 

We spent the afternoon listening to his stories and encouragement. He told us about his daughter. When she lost her second set of teeth in an accident they both sat down and chanted for her third set of teeth, and she got them!

Amos encouraged Aaron to accept the challenge to live a limitless life. 

Amos told Aaron to think beyond his own everyday concerns and think about how much potential he could have if he practiced consistently everyday, and fully believed that he could take on ANYTHING with his practice. 

And if he doesn't chant sincerely he could be cheapening his ability to really help other people in the future. 

Amos said life can be like the frog at the bottom of the well who can see directly above him, and aim for the light, but there's so much more he can accomplish....there's a whole world beyond the well... Aaron compared that to an ant who has no idea how tall a building is...to just aim for the impossible. Amos kept saying the word "limitless"...and asked Aaron to consider giving himself endless potential by practicing consistently and giving his all to the practice. 

Amos told Aaron about meeting Martin Luther King in Alabama when he was young. King told him "By the time you're sixteen, if you haven't found something worth dying for, you are not living your life." Amos was later imprisoned four times by joining MLK in his fight for civil rights for all. 

Then he moved to San Francisco and started his family. His grand daughter is now at Soka University where she know's Kate's daughter Sarah. I'll get to meet her when we go to Soka University next week! What a small world! 

Thanks for all the encouragement Amos!

Another Awesome Benefit!

I remembered to get a shot of the sun to show you on Saturday!


This is the second time in my life I have influenced the weather.


I know, I know, it sounds impossible, but I'm going to tell you about it anyway.


The first time was on my wedding day.
December 20th 1987.
We woke up in Oakbrook Illinois and it was so overcast that the clouds were hanging so low that we felt we could touch them. It was a cold, cloudy and ugly day.
My good friend Etjen, who was in my wedding,  joined me and Paul and we chanted for an hour and a half and the sun came out and every single cloud went away. I even had a friend say "Jamie, I KNEW you couldn't be married on a cloudy day!"


Well, this Saturday, the day of Aaron's graduation from the University of illinois,  I looked up the weather for the weekend. Rainy...thunderstorms...not very many clouds...they didn't cover a wide expanse, but there was no wind to blow them away. They were predicted to make things awful all weekend. At least that's what it said on the weather app on my iphone. 


Well, I thought...just the challenge for this votary of the Lotus Sutra!


I chanted sincerely with full concentration for an hour and 15 minutes for the wind to blow the clouds away. I chanted by all the power vested in me as an honorable votary of the Lotus Sutra, just like Nichiren Daishonin, just like YOU. And I could feel my prayer working. I mean it!


And we had two beautiful days. No rain, perfect weather. We spent most of the weekend outside, walking around U of I's quad with Aaron and Ben and every other beautifully dressed family and graduate. It just would not have been the same in the rain!


Remember, Daimoku is for the impossible!! Make it happen!

Great Picture, and a New Financial Benefit!

 

Jumping into their future! 

My son Aaron and his friend Katie on their beloved quad 

at the University of Illinois.

A here's two very recent experiences I think you are going to love~!


You know it is true that you can chant for anything. Anything. 
My constant prayer day and night, (and even when I am not in front of my Gohonzon I have this prayer in my heart)...is that all the people who are suffering, hopeless and searching will find out about Nam Myoho Renge Kyo and have the opportunity to experience the power of chanting. My prayer is actually to END suffering in this world...through my transformation, my example, my prayer and my heart. THAT is my constant prayer...to experience my life as the Buddha, being the Buddha, doing the work of the Buddha...as so many of us are! 


AND, along the way there are things I need to accomplish that. I must be happy. I must be financially self-sufficient. I must build upon the foundation of fortune in my life to be healthy and able to attract what I need when I need it.


So ~
Tomorrow Aaron and I embark on "Aaron's Victory Lap" to California. He was born in San Francisco and we have many friends to visit all up and down the coast of California...we have friends and memories, and new memories to make. Ben joins us after his test on Friday. He is in the midst of career research and this trip will be awesome for him! He's thinking of joining the world of education...and so many of our friends are educators. 


OKAY - the experience:
Last week I just decided that what I really need right now is $5000 out of the blue. A windfall. Right now. So that's how I chanted. I chanted in front of my Gohonzon, I chanted in my car. I am a votary of the Lotus Sutra and I need this now to accomplish my mission! I have made contributions to the SGI with every paycheck...putting money into my bank of financial fortune by helping the SGI grow. I contribute sincerely, from the heart. 


Last Wednesday the doorbell rings and my financial advisor, a wonderful friend is there. I forgot I made this appointment and run around tidying up. She shows me my "portfolio" of funds and accounts that are finally all in one place. WOW! I ended up finding $5000 that I didn't even know I had. The effect was  immediate! 


Thank you life! Thank you Gohonzon! 


Today I pack! Today I complete all I need to do to set forth on this journey free and clear...the Buddha of Absolute Freedom with my fabulous Buddha Boys! We are visiting my Buddhist mentors, and my two dear friends who began chanting after knowing me and the boys for 10 years. We are spending time with Hal, Kate and Sarah, and Donna and Peppino D'Agostino (the famous, talented guitarist) and their daughter Aleza! We are staying at the fabulous "Flynn Inn" with dear friends from my days at the Bay Guardian Newspaper in San Francisco. And we will be participating in an anniversary ceremony for our friends Cliff and Julia, along with Danielle, amazing earth mother and her family. We'll be soaking up the energy of Mt. Tamalpais and communing with the ocean...the powerful ocean...too cold usually for me to swim in, but so wonderful to soak in the energy!


California here we come!