Rev.

Tetsuo Watanabe
President
Autumn Grand Service
October 1st and 2nd, 2005
Good morning, everyone! Congratulations on this Autumn Grand
Service!
You must be feeling the coming of autumn. I hope you are all fine.
To Great God and Meishu-sama, we have just dedicated a warm
prayer for the Autumn Grand Service in this crisp air. I, together with
you, also would like to express sincere gratitude that we have Kyoshusamas presence today, and that we could receive Johrei and a very
important guidance from him.
I always feel strongly about the following questions every time I listen
to the guidance from Kyoshu-sama. They are:
1. Do I really believe in the existence of God?
2. Do I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that we were given a
life and an individualized part of God?
3. Do I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that we have paradise
within us, and that Meishu-sama is always there, nurturing and
cultivating us tirelessly?
You probably feel grateful that Kyoshu-sama is kind enough to give us
guidance through his personal experiences, responding to the above
questions, which concern the important foundations of our faith that
we need to confirm thoroughly. I encourage you to learn from Kyoshusamas words today by reconfirming these solid foundations of faith,
and then practicing them.
Here, I would like to introduce the members of pilgrimages from
overseas who are here with us today.
(1)Fifty two members from Thailand

(2)Three members from Korea

(3)Fifteen members from Sri Lanka
(4)Fifty nine members from the United States of America
(5)One hundred and twenty two members from Brazil
(6)Five members from Taiwan
(7)Two members from Argentina
(8)One member from Peru
(9)One member from Mexico
Totaling 260 members from eight countries.
Welcome to Atami Sacred Grounds!
Incidentally, as the day of the Autumn Grand Service is also Art Day,
Sandai-sama`s works of dyed textile art (norizome) are exhibited
today, and I feel her works could contribute to our spiritual
environment. This is her third exhibition, and hundred of her works
are displayed including, Tunisia (viatical impression), which won a
prize at the Kohu-kai Exhibition. They are all fantastic works. I
encourage you to enjoy them later today.
While working as the president of MOA Foundation of Art and Culture,
Sandai-sama has been engaged in artistic activities such as, dyed
textile art, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and poems of Japanese
Waka, which are all based on Japanese tradition, wishing the
realization of salvation through the pursuit of art guided by Meishusama. We shall learn from her performance and be positively engaged
in art activities, which is one of the three pillars of salvation.
Changing the subject, I hope that you remember the main content of
my greeting for the Ancestral Grand Service this July. I was talking
about a man who drowned in the frigid Potomac River, after giving
away the rescue rope to two other survivors after their airplane
crashed into the river. And I also spoke about the Spiders Thread.
Let me summarize it again. A man named Kandata, who was an
arsonist, had done only one virtuous deed in his lifetime by saving a

spider. Remembering his virtue, Buddha took a thread of a spider,

and threw it down to him in hell from heaven. However, Kandata
became afraid, seeing lots of people climbing up behind him and
clinging to the thread. He shouted downward: Hey, you sinners, this
thread belongs to me! Get off! Get off! The very next moment, the
thread snapped off and Kandata was sent down to hell again. I hope
that you are starting to remember this story.
I would like to introduce a post-fin story of this today. It is anonymous
but connotative.
Since the event, Kandata had been writhing in hell for hundreds of
years, but one day, Buddha was standing by the pond of lotus during
his promenade and was peering into hell silently. For whatever
reason, he threw a thread of a spider once again into hell.
Kandata found it immediately, and was clinging so unto it, trying to
pull himself near it, but he held back right before he did so, and was
at a loss as to what to do. Wait a minute! Suppose I start climbing
up this thing. I am sure people would come to climb up one right
after another behind me. I might have the same thing happen to me
all over again then! What was he going to do? He seemed to
receive an inspiration after pondering over and over again.
Kandata first called over one of the people who was near by, and said,
Hey, you. Come here. He had this sinner climb up before him. He
guarded the thread strictly so that nobody else followed right after
the sinner, and after making sure that the first sinner had reached the
verge of the pond of lotus in heaven, climbing far away out of sight,
Kandata allowed the next one to climb up by saying, Next, you! Go!
After seeing through the second one getting out of sight, he sent the
third one. The reason he was doing so was to send people who were
near by as fast as possible, until he could see that no one would come
after him when he was climbing.
It seemed like a very good idea, though practically not easy.

One

hundred, two hundred, five hundred, and one thousand had already
been sent by Kandatas arrangement.
The number of people,
however, had increased and never seemed to decrease. That was
because the number of sinners has increased as more of them had
been sent down to hell one after another.
Kandata, intentionally or unintentionally, kept sending the sinners off
by saying, Next, Go! Before very long, some sinners started to
express their gratitude by saying, Gee, thanks. You should go before
us. Kandata replied by saying things like, You go ahead and take
care, Be well, No need to rush. You will be all right, for I will be
watching after you.
Although Kandata kept sending off more than two thousand, three
thousand sinners, the queue of sinners was never ending. But
strangely enough, Kandata involuntarily felt the surge of joy as he
kept sending off sinners one by one toward heaven, keeping his eyes
on the precious thread not being snapped off.
Kandata seemed to have forgotten his initial purpose of climbing up
the thread; but he was now single mindedly making sure that the
thread was never cut off, thereby sending sinners one after another
up to heaven.
This is the story. What do you think about it?
The other day I had a chance to tell this story to a young boy, who
was appeared to be in the age of rebellious stage. You say that
Kandata will help me survive even if I do evil things and fall into hell.
I replied, Well, it depends, you could be told, `Oh, its you. I have
been waiting for you to come. Since you have come all the way here,
you dont have to rush. I ask you to stay here helping me for, say, at
least 600 years. ` I am sure he would. When you see him, say hello
to him in my place.
When I went to see Kyoshu-sama and shared this post-fin story with

him, the first thing he said was, I think that the joy of Kandata was a
projection of Supreme Gods happiness onto him.
I was very
impressed. I, then, could learn many important things from the words
of Kyoshu-sama.
Kyoshu-samas comment reminded me of what Meishu-sama had
taught, If I have to go to hell after taking all humanity up to heaven, I
dont mind going. Meishu-sama also added, If you are the kind of
person who wants to send others to heaven, even if you have to go to
hell, you will be allowed to dwell in heaven. I have no doubt that
Kandata was physically in hell as he was, but he was, at least
spiritually, allowed to be in heaven. The joy that Kandata felt was the
most decisive evidence, because, as Kyoshu-sama said, it was
projected onto him from the joy of Supreme God.
According to a poem by Nidai-sama;
Yoki kokoro tsutomete okose kasanare ba
Itsuka makoto no zen-nin to naru
Do your best
To think and act virtuously;
And, as these thoughts
And deeds accumulate,
You truly will become a good person.
When we try to accumulate good thoughts and put them into practice
whenever possible, we will be allowed to have a soul which is
projected onto this present world of Gods joy, thus becoming a
person of altruism. Though at times our paths look dark or bright, we
can step firmly with full peace of mind, knowing that we are
individualized part of God, we will be nurtured by Meishu-sama to be
his instruments. Then, paradise within our innermost self will become
brighter as well.
In Heian Kyo Sacred Grounds in Kyoto, the second stage of the

construction of sacred grounds of soil: Heian Kyo Sacred Grounds is

progressing. I am heartily grateful for your long-term dedication,
which is making this possible. As the mission of constructing a Sacred
Grounds is to build a prototype of paradise on earth, and as we are
now engaged in the project, we shall build our faith, and become a
person of faith to be allowed to dwell there.
We have received the guidance from Kyoshu-sama at this Autumn
Grand Service teaching us how we can direct our minds and hearts
most effectively to develop our faith. We shall study the guidance
and put it into practice by understanding the will of Kyoshu-sama
behind his words today, and prepare for the coming Meishu-samas
Birthday Service on December 23.
I will close my words with the prayer that infinite Light of Great God
and Meishu-sama be bestowed upon all of our expansion work and all
of us. Thank you very much.