| Shokai | A form of spiritual training session which was instigated at Shogyoji by the late Head Priest, Reverend Master Reion Takehara (Daigyoin-sama). During the war it was commonplace for people to evacuate or escape from the city to the countryside; an action known as Sokai. Daigyoin-sama took this secular term and altered it to give it a positive conception of confronting rather than running away from life. The two characters in the term Shokai mean respectively "letting flow" (sho) and "opening" (kai) and thus describe a period of spiritual practice designed to allow the waters of faith to flow freely both in the individual and inter-personal dimensions. As Rennyo Shonin exhorts us in the Ofumi (I.16, On Sarae No Sho): "Constantly dredge out the Channel of Faith and let the water of Amida’s Dharma flow freely". |
