Celebration Marks Buddha’s Birthday

Hanamatsuri, the Japanese Buddhist celebration of Gautama Buddha’s birthday, will be observed Sunday at Weller Court in the heart of Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo District.

“Hanamatsuri is not solely the celebration of the birthday of one person who lived in history,” said Bishop Kenko Yamashita of Zenshuji Buddhist Temple. “Hanamatsuri truly is an expression of our joy in being able to encounter the dharma (teachings of Buddha) today.

“For it is that encounter that gives us opportunity to receive the eternal life of the Buddha,” said Yamashita, the 87-year-old president of the seven-temple Los Angeles Buddhist Church Federation.

Yamashita will officiate at the 1 p.m. service, which will feature 20 children dressed in elaborate costumes for the holiday. (Most other ethnic Buddhist traditions celebrate Buddha’s birthday and his enlightenment about the time of the full moon in May.)

Hanamatsuri festivities Sunday begin at 11 a.m. with performances, in succession, on a Japanese folk harp, in karate and kendo, and in Taiko drumming at Weller Court, 123 S. Onizuka St. After a one-hour religious service, a children’s karaoke competition and other activities will follow.

Stories about the baby Buddha, though found only in Buddhist texts centuries after he lived, are often told on the holiday--as they will be at 11 a.m. Sunday at the International Buddhist Meditation Center, 928 S. New Hampshire Ave.

The baby Buddha was said to have walked seven steps soon after his birth in Lumbini Park in northernmost India. In a new collection of clergy essays published by the Buddhist federation, the Rev. Shokai Kanai of Nichiren Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles wrote that he started to doubt the authenticity of the story when he was in grade school and continued his doubt through his college years.

But upon studying Buddhism, Kanai said, he realized the allegorical intent of the story--a foreshadowing of the adult Buddha’s step-by-step diminishing of his karma and overcoming the six cycles of birth and death which Buddhism says humans normally face in reincarnation. “The seventh step symbolizes nirvana, the state of enlightenment” achieved by the adult Buddha, the priest said.

CONFERENCES

*

A three-day conference, “Celebrating Gay and Lesbian Commitments and Ministries Within the Episcopal Church,” begins Friday at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena with speakers from Yale Divinity School, University of the South, Church Divinity School of the Pacific and Loyola University in Chicago. Seen as a preview of issues at the Episcopal General Convention this summer in Philadelphia, the conference costs $145 for registration. But some events are open to all, such as Eucharistic liturgies at 8:30 a.m. Friday and 8:30 a.m. next Saturday with retired Bishop Walter Righter and the Rev. Malcolm Boyd preaching, respectively. (818) 796-1172.

*Martha Ellen Stortz, who teaches theology and ethics at Pacific Lutheran Seminary in Berkeley, will address the 9th annual Women Connecting Women conference at the downtown Los Angeles campus of Mt. St. Mary’s College next Saturday. Once an all-Catholic conference, this year’s event has been expanded to include all women interested in Christian unity, a spokeswoman said. The conference, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., costs $15 in advance; $18 at the door. (213) 477-2640.

DATES

*

About 2,000 members of the Sikh Dharma community in Southern California will gather Sunday at the Los Angeles Convention Center for an annual Baisakhi celebration commemorating the founding in 1699 of the Khalsa society, an order within the Sikh religion. Traditional Indian music will be featured in the ceremonies from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Yogi Bhajan, the spiritual leader of Sikh Dharma in the Western hemisphere, will be the principal speaker. Free and open to the public. (310) 2010954.

* The Very Rev. Thomas Hopko, dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary, Crestwood, N.Y., leads an all-day Lenten retreat next Saturday at St. Katherine Greek Orthodox Church, 722 Knob Hill Ave. in Redondo Beach. The retreat, starting at 9:30 a.m., is titled “In God’s Image and Likeness: The Human in Orthodox Christian Tradition.” The Eastern Orthodox Easter falls on April 27 this year. (310) 540-2434.

* An exhibit of photographs showing the community work and organizing of Catholic-run Dolores Mission, First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Victory Outreach and St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church opens Sunday at the Los Angeles Central Library in downtown Los Angeles. The opening is 1 to 4:30 p.m. with talks and music in the library’s Mark Taper Auditorium. (213) 740-8562.

* The U.S. Catholic bishops’ Campaign for Human Development soon will accept applications for grants from anti-poverty and social change projects that assist low-income people in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, according the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s Office of Justice and Peace. Applicants for grants, which are limited to a maximum $10,000, must attend a workshop on April 11 or 16. (213) 637-7560.

* On April 13, model Passover Seders will be held at 10 locations in Los Angeles County for groups in need by the Jewish Family Service and a B’nai B’rith women’s organization. The first night of Passover is April 21. (213) 673-7007.

FINALLY

*

An artist-in-residence at a religious institution? A good idea, according to a synagogue and a seminary in Southern California.

* Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills has been selected as one of three synagogues in the country to develop a pilot artist-in-residence program.

Ruth Weisberg, who heads the temple’s selection committee and is dean of fine arts at USC, said the winning applicant--using virtually any form of artistry within a $10,000 budget--will work with synagogue members to “create a work of art of lasting value and to make our congregation receptive to artists.” Proposals for a work involving a Jewish theme should be made to the temple. (310) 288-3742.

* The faculty of Claremont School of Theology has named three members of Pomona College’s theater arts department as artists-in-residence. A dinner honoring the artists--Betty Bernhard, James Taylor and Carol Davis--will be held Friday at 6 p.m. in the Davis Lounge at the seminary, 1325 N. College Ave.

Notices may be mailed to Southern California File, c/o John Dart, L.A. Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or faxed to Religion desk (818) 772-3385. Items should arrive about three weeks before the event, except for spot news, and should include pertinent details about the people and organizations with address, phone number, date and time.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MEDIA

After three decades on the air, the commercial-free “Religion on the Line” has been dropped by KABC-AM. The Sunday night call-in radio program with clergy panelists ended March 23. A sports talk show replaced it on Easter night.

Father Gregory Coiro, spokesman for the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese and a frequent panelist, said he was very upset at the news while expressing appreciation for the show’s 30-year run.

“It’s a big loss to the religious community--Jewish, Protestant and Catholic,” said Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark of La Mirada, president-elect of the Southern California Board of Rabbis.

KABC spokesman Bill Lennert said disappointment is inevitable when any long-running program is dropped. Discussion of religious topics have not disappeared from the station, he said. “We have shifted from a religion-only discussion to general public affairs, including religion, in a ‘Spotlight on the Community’ program 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. on Sundays,” he said.

Lennert said that religion often comes up on some KABC talk shows, including the show hosted by Dennis Prager, who preceded Truman Jacques as host of “Religion on the Line.”

Coiro said that he hopes another radio station will pick up the program.