Thursday, January 01, 2009

New Year's Message

Dear Readers:

I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to those of you who supported my efforts to stay online over the past year by reading and commenting on this blog. As readers, your encouragement has been, and always will be, the greatest force to help me continue to write in English and draw efutoes for this blog. I am also deeply indebted to you for the many kind and encouraging words given to me, on this blog or through Facebook, when my father, Rev. Seicho Taniguchi, passed away in October of last year. Through this experience, I have come to realize that there is a sizable group of people in the world who are devoted to achieving the objectives of the Seicho-No-Ie movement and willing to lend a helping hand through the Internet whenever the need arises.

I have a feeling that this year will witness a new development online that combines this group of people, who may be spread throughout the world, and creates a more organized entity by which a new channel of propagation might be opened. I don't know yet how this will be done. But I know that it should be done because online communication has the power to change the world, as it was clearly demonstrated in the recent American Presidential election.

Seicho-No-Ie now has a few unofficial online gatherings on Facebook. The members of these groups are from the United States, Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Switzerland, Germany, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Japan. On another social networking system, Orkut, there are numerous Seicho-No-Ie groups comprised mainly of Brazilians. I don't see many obstacles that prevent the people in any of the groups from communicating and helping each other online, except for one -- language. This obstacle may seem formidable but it is not insurmountable if we can employ our global resources more effectively. I hope this will be done in the near future.

In the meantime, please feel free to share your thoughts on this topic, as well as others, on this blog or via e-mail. May your year be filled with joy and happiness in God. Thank you very much.

- MT

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Rev. Masanobu,

Thank you very much for your message. I also want to thank all members whose efforts allow us to get Facebook Groups. Despite the language issues, these difficulties have been very enlightening for me to understand the meaning behind the words. Indeed Internet is an amazing tool to spread Seicho-No-Ie teachings. A Happy New Year for you and all members.
Gisela

Anonymous said...

Rev. Masanobu

First, thank you for the great work for this wonderful moviment. And thanks for the english site! Now, here in Brazil, we can read yours messages of light!

I'm a young leader, vice president from the Youngs (AJSI - Associação dos Jovens da Seicho-No-Ie) from Brasilia, Brasil and I feel a decrease in the young's leadership here. I know that God will guide us, for sure, but do you have any suggestion for this?

Rev.thanks for the attention and sorry for my english. I need practice more and more, Hahahaha! In the moment we are working hard here for guide the youngs for the Academy of Ibiuna-SP. And we gonna work more and more!!!

Happy new year Rev!

Rodrigo Bacelar
Brasília - DF, Brasil

Masanobu said...

Rodrigo,

Thank you for your encouraging words. A decrease in young membership has been observed in Japan, too. But I thought SNI youth membership was increasing. It is likely that the cause of the decrease in Brazil is different from that in Japan. So, I have no idea on it. Do you come up with any?
- MT

Anonymous said...

Rev. Masanobu,

In Japan we have a decrease too? Really it1s time to work! But we have this wonderful philosophy to help us. For us, nothing is impossible!

Maybe we can use music or something like that to attract the youngs. In Brasil we see this in others religions, and the results are amazings! We can make more musics with positive messages! Maybe can be a way in all the world!

Rev. Masanobu, I wanna thank you for this conversation. It's good can talk with you! It's good have a contact with Japan!

So, when you come around for here, in Brasília???

Thanks one more time!

Rodrigo Bacelar
Brasília - DF - Brasil

Masanobu said...

Rodrigo,

>>Maybe we can use music or something like that to attract the youngs.<<

This reminds me of a song produced in Brazil for our movement. You people in Brazil excell in musical talent. I am therefore expecting see truly Brazilian SNI songs emerging from the continent.

>>So, when you come around for here, in Brasília??? <<

I don't think I can make it to Brasilia this August. Maybe some other year...

- MT

Anonymous said...

Someone wrote that we are all atheists until we take the vow to live the truth seamlessly, moment by moment in our daily lives.

bereweber said...

hola dear Masanobu

I understand the loss of your father much better now. On January 17th my father died in Mexico, I couldn't assist to his burial because of the distance, but I was happy to have spent some days over Christmas with him. As I wrote in my blog, I feel that the beauty of life is contained in its fragility. We must be thankful for every day we see the sun shine, and for every cup of warm tea we can hold in our hands, after all of little details and small things is that God feeds our hearts.

as for the Seicho-No-Ie movement, I knew nothing about it, but since I read this post a while ago here in your blog, I have read a bit more about it, it seems to me like a wonderful movement, guiding people through the good feelings humanity have.

thanks for sharing all this knowledge via your blog dear Masanobu! as well as for sharing your lovely efuto!!

Masanobu said...

berenice,

Glad that you did some research on SNI. It is a non-denominational religious movement to spread the teaching, among others, that all religions emanate from one universal source/God.

Please come back here from time to time and comment.

- MT