Orange County Buddhist Church  

    September 11, 2001.  My wife got up at her usual 5:30; I followed at my usual 5:45.  When I got to the kitchen, she was already having breakfast.  She asked me to massage her shoulders.  We rarely watch TV in the morning, but, since I was facing it while massaging her, I turned it on.  All of a sudden, there it began.  We could hardly believe what was happening.  Like most people, I think, we thought it was a horrendous accident; then came the second plane crash and we knew it could not be so.  At some point, I asked my wife if her nephew still worked in New York.  She said yes, and we both thought, “Oh, no!”  She wasn’t sure if he worked in the World Trade Center, but thought he might.  I didn’t think to check on the Internet at the time.

    She had to go to work, so I told her to call Fuji Bank in Los Angeles to find out whether their New York branch was located in the WTC, although we were both pretty sure that it would be located there.  Where else would a major bank be located in New York City?  As I continued to watch and saw first one, then the other, tower collapse, my shoulders and gut tightened, I cried from time to time at the horror and stupidity of it all, and I was having a difficult time fathoming it all.

    We learned later that my wife’s sister and her husband had been watching the news prior to going to sleep (I think it was around 10 at night in Japan), and, of course, they could not go to sleep when they saw what was happening.  In the meantime, I had checked the Internet and found that, indeed, Fuji Bank was located in the World Trade Center and way up near the top at that.  It was at 2 WTC, but I did not know which of the two towers was #2.  I was not sure it made any difference any longer, since both towers had already collapsed.  When my wife came home that night, she called New York, but, of course, all lines were overloaded or down.  She called Japan and found out that her nephew and most of his co-workers had evacuated the building – the second one to be hit – immediately after the first one was hit, and they were nearly all safe.  He had called his parents, because his name was among those listed as missing!  Of course, we were relieved to hear the good news, even while grieving for everyone else.  But it’s not the same, you know?  My shoulders and gut almost immediately relaxed, but I got teary again, although this time with joy.

    What came to my mind as this was all unfolding was Issa’s haiku, “Tsuyu no yo wa/tsuyu no yo nagara/sarinagara.”  “The world of dew/is the world of dew,/And yet, and yet.”  I know that everything, including myself, is impermanent, and yet, when someone close to me has encountered death, I realize how shallow that knowledge is, when I return to my delusional and delusive world.  It is at times such as this that I realize once again how dependent I am on Amida to carry me through this world with any semblance of meaning.  Namo Amida Butsu.

Gassho,
Donkon Jaan, 
Rev. John Doami

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