New Year Message 2007

Greetings from Japan!
Akemashite Omedeto~! Happy New Year!! Bonne Annee!!!

The following is a poem I came across recently. It is really encouraging because it very much describes what I have been studying through Taimyo Kata:

“People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway. ”

- from Mother Teresa’s hospice, Calcutta, India

A little more about how this poem found me:
I read the poem in an email announcement from Shigeru Watanabe in Shiga, Japan at the beginning of last December. At the time, he was organizing a local Taimyo meditation session for our December 10 event. (Since it was written in Japanese, I forwarded a copy of his message to Taimyo practitioners who could read Japanese.)

Akiko Kurosawa of Fukushima, Japan helped me find the English translation (Akiko began her practice of Shintaido under the guidance of Lucian Popa while she was living in Vancouver, Canada – more than 3 years ago). According to our research, the poem was written on the wall of the hospice house founded by Mother Theresa in Calcutta, India. A similar piece appears in” The Paradoxical Commandments, Finding Personal Meaning in a Crazy World” written by Kent M. Keith. Our guess is that Mother Theresa adapted the teaching of Kent Keith for her prayer form….

In any case ―

Let’s keep brightening the “little world” around each of us! *
With Sho-sei-i,
-Ito

P.S .
See the following sites, for more information!

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa

http://www.kentmkeith.com/index.html

* Ichigu wo terasu!