Offering a Japanese-to-English translation of a news bulletin from Tenrikyo’s official website:

The day after the Great Tohoku-Kanto Earthquake on March 11, a special prayer service (onegai-zutome) was conducted at the Main Sanctuary of Tenrikyo Church Headquarters. The Shinbashira*, Zenji Nakayama, led the prayer service on wooden clappers while the former Shinbashira Zenye Nakayama sat in front of the kazutori (counter).

The prayer service was conducted at noon on March 12 and the next two days. Followers from surrounding regions joined Tenrikyo Church Headquarters staff and students from Shuyoka and Tenrikyo schools (preschool through high school) for the occasion.

Prior to the prayer service on the first day, Hiroaki Yamazawa, Director-in-Chief of Religious Affairs, said: “There are many people who are missing or who are all alone seeking help in the disaster zone. May we pray so that the situation in the disaster zone settles and that as many people as possible will be rescued safe and sound.”

Further, congregations overseas responded immediately to this unprecedented disaster. Missions in Brazil, Columbia, Europe, Indonesia, the Philippines, Oceania, Singapore, and the United States all joined to conduct prayer services together with the services conducted at Church Headquarters.

Tenrikyo Mission Headquarters in America, Tenrikyo Mission Headquarters in Brazil, Tenrikyo Oceania Centre, and Tenrikyo Mission Center in Singapore are presently collecting relief donations. In this way, Tenrikyo followers across the globe are sincerely praying that their fellow brothers and sisters find some relief during this tragedy.

Translation of caption from original article:

A picture from Sunday, March 13: Followers from Tenri City and nearby prefectures gather in the Main Sanctuary of Church Headquarters to pray that the situation will settle as soon as possible in the disaster zones.

(Translated by TR Translation Staff. Click here for the original article in Japanese.)

Links to more information on the Disaster Relief Fund:

• Relief Fund for Japan’s Earthquake and Tsunami [Tenrikyo Mission Headquarters in America]
• March 11, 2011 Earthquake & Tsunami Relief [Joyous Fragrance blog by Hiroko Okazaki]

*Note: The Shinbashira is the spiritual and administrative leader of Tenrikyo. The current Shinbashira is the fourth person to hold the position. He is also a sixth-generation descendant of Oyasama, Tenrikyo’s founder.

Gary Sakai in Tenri City.

The following is a faith experience essay by Gary Sakai. He graciously allowed us to publish it on TR.  A portion of this article was translated into Japanese and appeared in issue no. 240 of the quarterly magazine Arakitoryo (published August 26, 2010; pp. 136–138).

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Image source: Reuters

I was shocked and saddened like everyone else about the earthquakes and tsunamis that hit northeastern Japan yesterday. Although images from the affected areas are starting to come in, I am sure we won’t know the full extent of the damage until later. Information from Aomori and Iwate is especially hard to come by at the moment.

While Tenri is more than 300 miles from the affected areas, naturally, people here are gravely concerned about how family, friends, and fellow church members are faring during this disaster.

A special prayer service at the Main Sanctuary will be held at noon over the next three days starting today (3/12). I was surprised at the turnout the first day, most of the worship halls appeared to be filled; I also a few mothers with their infants and young children.

All 159 grand churches and 84 directly supervised branch churches have also been requested to do the same.

I have also gotten a hold of a mass mail that churches in the U.S. are also conducting prayer services.

Progress December 2010 Issue cover

The Tenrikyo New York Center’s monthly newsletters, Progress & Seijin, have been released on to the web for the month of December 2011.

English (pdf, 833Kb)| Japanese (pdf, 1.33Mb)
*there is no web page that holds links to these documents

Update: Besides this one:
Progress & Seijin Archive Page

Origins February 2011 Cover

The Tenrikyo Mission Headquarters of Hawaii monthly newsletter, Origins & Makoto, have been released on the web for the month of February.

Origins & まこと No. 234 (Feb. 2011)

Church Headquarters Main Sanctuary in the month of January 2011.

The Tenrikyo newsletter for the months of January and February 2011 have been published on Tenrikyo Online.

An excerpt from the New Year’s Day Service article:

After offering his New Year’s greetings to God the Parent, the Shinbashira expressed gratitude for the blessings God the Parent provided during the past year: “Though we may have fallen short, we worked hard to carry out the tasks of the season throughout the past year by inquiring into the truth of the teachings as well as keeping in our heart the Divine Model of Oyasama so as to measure up to Your intention. We are truly grateful that Your profound parental heart has guided us by providing us with so many blessings.” He continued: “We Service performers and other Yoboku are determined to settle the truth of heaven firmly in our mind so as to be able to show by example the preciousness of the teachings. We are also resolved to strive for the construction of the Joyous Life World by boosting our efforts to make progress in our spiritual growth.” Toward the end of his prayer, he said, “We humbly ask You to continue to provide us with Your blessings so that the world will be reconstructed into the Joyous Life World, where all people are filled with overflowing, radiant joy.”

January 2011 articles

• New Year’s Greetings from the Shinbashira
• New Year’s Day Service Ushers in the 174th Year of the Teaching
• The Shinbashira Delivers New Year’s Address
• Annual Sechi Festival Draws 70,800 Pilgrims
• December Monthly Service: Followers Express Gratitude for Past Year’s Blessings
• Former Japanese Ambassador to Colombia Speaks at Tenri University

February 2011 articles

• The Spring Grand Service for the 174th Year of the Teaching: About 70,000 Followers Rededicate Themselves to the Divine Intention
• Tenrikyo Associations Announce Their Guidelines and Plans for 2011
• Lay Minister Preparatory Course Starts
• Shinbashira’s Sermon at the Spring Grand Service
• Tenrikyo Hawaii Convention 2011

Articles from the Tenrikyo newsletter comes in late to the web, which is why this is released so late. It may also be noted that the newsletter is published on the 26th of each month, meaning the most recent February newsletter was published on February 26.

Also adding a couple of extra articles from Tenrikyo Online that didn’t make the physical newsletters:

• Students Training Seminar in Brazil Draws a Record 224 Participants
• Haiti Earthquake Victim Visits Home of the Parent

Tenrikyo tends to be largely ignored by the Japanese media, so it was noteworthy to see a Tenrikyo-related facility being mentioned in an article on Asahi.com. It appears that the “Tiger Mask donation phenomenon” has even found its way to Tenri Yotokuin Children’s Home.
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With the months of the Tenrikyo Hawaii Convention 2011 approaching I am anxious to see you near my hometown in Hawaii and speak with all of you!  However, if you are still unsure about whether you should attend the Convention, I would like to share with you reasons, that I believe, why you absolutely MUST attend the Convention.

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Wife Harue and the Shinbashira, Zenji Nakayama, in New Year's Photo

Above is the photo taken from the Tenri Jiho (天理時報), the Tenrikyo newspaper which is in Japanese.  The quality isn’t very good because I had to use a camera to get this photo from the newspaper (hopefully, we can get a good scanner soon).  Every year, they have such a face, as if it would totally ruin the photo if one of them cracked a smile.  Regardless of what can be read from their facial expressions, the Shinbashira had encouraging words (translated on the Tenrikyo Newsletter website) for this new year of 2011.

May I extend my warmest New Year’s greetings to all of you. I trust that you have been able to welcome in the New Year in bright spirits. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation for the efforts you devoted to the tasks of the path during the past year.

We borrow our body from God the Parent and are thus being kept alive by the constant divine blessings. Let all of us, therefore, commit ourselves to cultivating the mind of gratitude and the spirit of making repayment so as to respond to God’s boundless parental love. Also, let all of us seek to translate the joy of living into the actions of hinokishin—starting with whatever we can—as well as efforts to sprinkle the fragrance of the teachings and engage in salvation work.

I sincerely hope that we followers of the path will unite our minds again this year and continue our steady efforts to take further steps forward on the path of single-hearted salvation.

New Year’s Day

Zenji Nakayama

The Shinbashira

(From Tenrikyo Online)

Editor’s note: The translation above has been updated so it reflects the physical English newsletter. You can see the first translation of the Shinbashira’s New Year’s message here.

The Tenrikyo International Website on December 13, 2010.

The Tenrikyo International Website has, once again, been updated with a new interface.  The bloated language bar is now at the bottom of the page and they have included an over-sized rotating banner at the top of the front page.  It’s so dominant that it seems to be the banner of the entire site.

The website, same as before, uses WordPress (like this website) and seems to just be focused on filling in the basic content in the many languages it supports.  Hopefully, they will implement news from the Tenrikyo Newsletter, so we can all keep up with the news digitally.

tenrikyo.jp

FYI, you can access the website with the “tenrikyo.jp” domain name without the “.or” for less painful keystrokes.  I’m not sure when this change had occurred, but it’s just a small convenience.  This is also applicable to their email addresses.  It’s just cleaner.

Hit the jump for an image of the old website.

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Tenrikyo Information Center as part of the Yakata

Avery Morrow sent me an article on the Oyasato Yakata which he created on Wikipedia.  This article is quite extensive; it even has the dates in which describes when each part of the Yakata was made and each of their purposes.

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