In the U.S., coronavirus, which had once been under control, have started to increase cases again.

I’m glad that Japan was able to hold the Olympics even under these circumstances.

On a personal page,

Recently, I went to a charity event called 1dayLA.

If you volunteer at a high school or pre-school for about 3 hours, you can get a free ticket to a concert.

I attended a concert at a big new stadium featuring Justin Bieber, Jaden Smith and other great artists.

This event was religious related and believing the Jesus that one way to change your life.  Justin Bieber who is a famous artist, he also believes about Jesus and that he changed him.

Many of my friends are Christians, so they often invite me to church on Sunday morning.

I’ve been to a couple of barbecues, and I find that everyone is so nice that it kind of a bit scares me.

My first impression is that most of them are calm and peaceful.

At the end of the event, there was a speech by the organizer, and there were enthusiastic Christians and also a big funs of Justin were,,,.

They were crying.

They were crying and loudly agreeing with every word he said.

For the first time in a long time, I was reminded of the cultural differences between religions and countries.

I felt like I am a foreigner for it had been to a long time.

Even though I was familiar with the language and life in America, I found it difficult to understand deeply just because of the differences in faith.

At the event, we held up “love” and “Freedom”.

And said that we need to all help each other because of the situation. The speeches were wonderful.

It was a very pleasant event,

However, most of the people at the event were not wearing masks, and there was a gap between what they were saying and what the people were doing.

The gap made me feel confused and unsure of what was love and helping each other.

When I asked my Christian friends, they said that there are no Christian leaders who wear masks because it is against their religion to do so.

My initial opinion was that wearing a mask is a way to prevent the spread of infection, and for those who have not been vaccinated, the act of not wearing a mask is itself an act that is far from love and helping each other.

But,

What I learned is that there are many ways to think.

Death is not a bad thing, death is eternal life, and if we have completely different ideas about death, I can understand why we don’t care whether we wear a mask or not.

As a result, what I’m trying to say is…

It is necessary to have an accepting heart and to understand.

I found myself assuming that they were not very trustworthy, even though I haven’t tried to know them.

By participating in this event, I realized that I was becoming more and more close-minded, and that I was building walls and assuming they were different people because of their different beliefs and thoughts.

In many cases,

Can I really know that fact for myself without experiencing or acting on it?

Relationships,

Friends,

Family,

Religion,

All of them need to be acted upon.

Through this event, I realized how small-minded I am and how I have been assuming that I am a different person because I think differently.

I used a topic of the masks as my subject.

What you really need to do is acting, and have experience to really know who they are and the difference between I and them.

When I first came to the U.S., I was very open-minded to talking anyone.

Before coming to the U.S., I had traveled to many countries such as India and Malaysia and had a great experience, so I thought the world was one.

After I started living in deferent contrives, I had a lot of experiences that made me misunderstanding and lose trust in many people, and I was completely shut out of the world.

Most of the time, it’s me who judges things and people and creates barriers between myself and others.

That is way this is my fixed mindset, and it always gets in the way of having fun.

But maybe that’s just I needed to know.

In the past, I had no thoughts of my own and I don’t care who I am so, I could only live by conforming to others.

If I have no thoughts of my own, how can I understand the thoughts and things of others?

If I don’t have any thoughts of my own, I will live posseting on many things, like religion and a partner.

And when we are betrayed by others, we retreat into our shells out of fear because we ‘don’t have ourselves’ or ‘don’t know ourselves’.

So,

At this event, I found it kind of feeling strange to me that I had been so adamant about refusing who not wear a mask, or the mesa on Sunday without even knowing about what is it.

I had been living my life in a defensive posture, building walls.

Building walls and turning away from the act of trusting, and testing people’s mind from the beginning, which was making me untrusty and of course I couldn’t trust them.

I don’t think I would have felt this way if I had known about the Christian approach to death from the beginning.

Learning about myself and others one by one in this way is very enjoyable, and one of the things I am glad that I came abroad for.

In the past, I remember being taught in Japan that religion is very controlling and dangerous because of Aum Shinrikyō, Islamic extremism, etc., so I didn’t have a good image of the word “religion”.

After accepting that idea as well,

I’m going to try to show up at the mesa that my friend is inviting me.

Zen Jin