Mental Dust of Anger

Tenrikyo Pearl Church Monthly Service ‘ 2008 March Monthly Service

Good morning. I would like to thank all of you for taking the time to attend the March Monthly Service here at Tenrikyo Pearl Church and thank you for your kind and sincere offerings. I am sure God the Parent and Oyasama is really happy to see you all here today and to have performed the service with joy and in high spirits!

Mental Dust of Anger

Have you ever gotten so angry that you could barely control yourself? I”m sure most of us have. I for one am no exception. In my younger days, for sure, I had a short temper and my wife, Taeko can tell you all about it. I don”t know about girls, but I think most guys have a tendency to get violent or do something that would put himself or other people at risk. Once while driving with all the kids in the car, I argued with my wife and I got so angry, I drove the car at 80 miles an hour! Later I realized that I put my family in danger. I hope she learned a lesson: never argue with the driver. (joke) Seriously though, I thought that if I let anger get the better of me, I would end up doing something that would really be stupid and regrettable. So from that time on, whenever I got angry, I would try to calm myself down and make every effort not to put myself and other people at risk. If I was driving, I would drive very slowly or if I”m in the house, I would go outside and take a walk. This would help me calm down.

Rev. Kikuo Tanaka in his pamphlet, "Dust and Innen," explains:

The dust of anger is to become angry at what someone has said or done. To become angry when displeased with anything said by others, to become angry over someone”s error or mistake, to become angry recklessly even over a tiny thing simply because you are in a bad mood, to lose patience and become angry. These betray a narrow, mean mind, and all such anger arising from a short temper is dust.

Rev. Tanaka goes on to say that anger arises because of our own willfulness, and because our minds are impure.

Rev. Yoshitaro Ueda wrote in a book on the eight mental dusts, "In a bestseller book, it says that when we get angry, a poisonous hormone is secreted and the blood vessels shrink when active oxygen is produced. The walls of the blood vessels and the DNA are damaged by the active oxygen.

Moreover, medical studies show the blood becomes glutinous or thick. Consequently, it will cause a heart attack and/or brain stroke. The mind of anger causes disorders in the body.

From the Anecdotes of Oyasama, the Foundress of Tenrikyo, Story #137: Oyasama taught

Isaburo Masui the following:

"Some (people) are good within yet bad without, and there are also people with the opposite character. To be sure, anger, selfishness and irritability are unadvisable. A single word is important. One achieves harmony in the family by the way one breathes in and out to form the very words one speaks."

Further:

"Isaburo, you are gentle and sociable to everyone outside your house. When you are home and face your wife, you become angry and shout at her; that is the worst thing you could do. Never do it again."

Masui suspected that his wife might have complained about him, but on considering that God knows and sees through everything, he simply decided he would never get angry again. Thereafter, he was never irritated by anything his wife said."

Also, someone asked Oyasama, how can we tell if we have purified our mind? Oyasama said that if we get angry we will know that it is still dusty.

I would like to mention that there are other types of anger and that not all anger is mental dust. For example, being angry at yourself for not doing what you”re supposed to be doing might be helpful in developing resolve and determination to do the right thing. The anger that comes from a preventable injury or disaster is good because you care about a person or situation. The parent”s anger at a child”s bad behavior is not necessarily bad especially if it”s from the parent”s love for that child and the parent”s desire to show the child that the parent cares and wants the child to improve his or her behavior. For example even after several warnings a child still goes near a cliff or uses bad words or steals something, you will scold the child, sometimes severely, to correct his or her behavior.

In the Ofudesaki, we read:

Think of you humans admonishing your children.

The anger, too comes from love. V: 23

Through the years, I think I have calmed down a lot’ Even my wife says, "You”ve gotten a lot better." Sometimes I think it”s from old age, maybe I”m too tired to get angry. But I know for sure, performing the service everyday helps me to stay calm, stay positive and not get frustrated.

In the Ofudesaki, we read:

This dust is difficult to sweep away.

But if you only begin the Service’ XIII: 22

If only your minds are truly accepted by God,

I shall sweep away any dust whatever. XIII: 23

If only the innermost hearts of all humankind

are swept clean, XIII: 24

Then, the whole world will be spirited

and joyousness will come of its own accord. XIII: 25

Announcements
1. I would like to thank those who came out to the All Tenri Cultural Center Cleanup Hinokishin Day February 18th, President”s Day and the monthly community Hinokishin Day at Ala Moana Park on March 4th.
2. This Sunday is Mission HQ monthly service from 9am and the following Monday is Nioigake Day from Mission HQ.
3. On Tuesday, (the 1st Tuesday), April 1st, we will have the monthly Mission HQ Community Hinokishin Day. Meet at Dendocho at 9am.
4. Please mark your calendars for the BGA annual Spring Camp and General Meeting which will be held on March 21-23 (Fri-Sun). Please encourage your kids to join the camp and friends to come out to do hinokishin! Also on Saturday, March 16th, we will have camp preparation hinokishin at TCC from 9am. Lunch will be provided!
5. In April of 2010, the Women”s Association will be celebrating its 100th Anniversary. April 18 will be the Oyasama Birthday Celebration and Young Women”s Club Convention and on April 19th, the 100th Anniversary General Meeting will be held. In building our hearts toward the 100th Anniversary, the Women”s Association will be promoting the theme, "Mind of Gratitude on a Daily Basis." Along with this theme the Women”s Association is encouraging everyone to make a daily contribution however small, in gratitude of our daily blessings. The contributions should be gathered during every monthly service until the 100th Anniversary and sent to our upper church affiliation, which in turn send the contributions to church headquarters.
6. Please welcome, our church live-in: Chance Chong and home stay student Taketo Ikehara.

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