A crisp and curling brown oak leaf and a delicate white rose petal symbolized the year just passed and the year to come at the Buddhist Temple of Toledo’s new year letting go and welcoming ceremony.
About 60 congregants filled the temple Sunday morning to take part in the ceremony, which began with a group reading of the daily liturgy that included a recitation of the five remembrances.
“I am of the nature to grow old,” the reading began. “There is no way to escape growing old.”
The group reading continued with reminders of the inevitability of ill health, death, and separation from loved ones.
It concluded with “My deeds are my closest companions. I am the beneficiary of my deeds. My deeds are the ground on which I stand.”
The congregation gave thanks for their teachers and requested wise and compassionate guidance.
“I dedicate my merit for the sake of all beings,” the congregation recited.
The liturgy concluded with wishes that all sentient beings could be free from clinging and hatred, could enjoy happiness, be free from suffering, and “have the joy that has never known suffering.”