Tenko Nishida (1872 - 1968) and the Ittoen Community

The Ittoen shrine in the photo above has as it's principle object of devotion a circular window through which one can see the beautiful natural landscape outside the building.
While in Japan we visited the Ittoen Community now led by Tenko-san's son or grandson.  Roshi Bernie Glassman has a strong personal connection with one of Tenko-san's primary spiritual heirs (can't remember the name now) who is no longer at Ittoen.  I have been deeply moved by Tenko Ishida's teachings and want to share this.  Tenko-san was a Japanese business man who had some kind of realization or awakening experience around 1904, after which he gave away all his possessions and took up a life of homelessness, voluntary poverty, selfless service, and eventually communal living in a community completely depended on what he called "the light" for their support.

Tenko Ishida and the Ittoen Community -- website: http://www.ittoen.or.jp/english/E-whatis.htm

The Foundation of Ittoen Life
Enabled to Live-We Are Accepted and Sanctioned to Live.
It is said that human beings eat to live, and that in order to eat, we do our work. Underlying this is a view of human beings and of human life which holds that the purpose of human beings is to live, and it is human to work with the aim of eating.
It was Tenko-san which turned this around 180 degrees, and held that this life is provided to us, that we are enabled to live without our striving to survive. And precisely because we are accepted and enabled to live by Light, we work as a way of thanksgiving. And we are provided with the food that is necessary for life. Tenko-san lived on the basis of this faith. And Ittoen life is founded on this way of living, this view of human beings and of human life.
When we look back on human history and development of human society, we find that the desire for survival (for living and for eating)and assertion of rights has turned into its opposite, and has become a cause for conflict in human society, and various types of disputes and struggles. Now, to say, “in order to live, in order to eat," is to "have the will to survive."
One may ask, can human beings survive if we negate this? Is it possible for us to live without asserting and insisting on our right for self-survival?
Tenko-san founded a way of life which will never create a seed for conflict, precisely by totally renouncing one's claim to this right to self-survival.

Life of Sange (Penitence) and Geza (Sitting at the Lower End)
-Being penitent to one another,and praying (being reverent)to one another.
Human beings tend to be self-centered and selfish, and our desires are practically limitless. Our hearts seek comfort and pleasure, and to be superior to others, and even without our being aware, we hurt others and give birth to all sorts of negative things such as jealousy, desire for revenge, and hatred.
In the final analysis, human beings have really no ground upon which to insist on our being righteous or claim rights. On the contrary, the only way is to be self-critical of the egotistical feelings that are inside us from the depth of our being, and to ask for forgiveness and be penitent for the deep-going sins which push us to keep on creating negative impediments for others.

I have searched for the root
of all the troubles of the whole wide world,
and I have found that it lay within my own heart.
From this knowledge,sprang this act of worship.

 
It is vital for us not only to find the cause of one's own troubles within oneself, but also to take a straight look at the reality that even the root of various troubles and conflicts in the larger society and world exists within our individual selves, and to have a heart filled with deep sange (penitence).
In all spheres and matters of life, we look at our own shortcomings first and foremost, rather than blame or criticize others. And we place ourselves at a lower position than others, and live according to the standpoint of suffering people and weak people at all times. This is the "life of sitting at the lower end ("geza"). "When people live their lives and engage in their day-to-day work with this kind of spirit mutually, and encourage and support one another, then there is no room for conflicts to emerge.