May We Gather -- Now Available as Online Video
On Tuesday, May 4, Asian-American Buddhist Spiritual Leaders joined to honor ancestors and the victims of Anti-Asian violence. The event was hosted by the Higashi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles and the video is now available (see below).
The Buddhist Temple of San Diego by action of the Board of Directors is listed as one of hundreds of Asian-American Buddhist Temples/Organizations. On the May We Gather website you will also see individual members of our Temple listed among the hundreds of supporters.
May We Gather is organized by three Buddhists of Asian heritage, Rev. Dr. Duncan Ryūken Williams, Dr. Funie Hsu, and Chenxing Han. All three are distinguished in their fields. Our Sangha members know Williams Sensei especially well as he spoke at the Temple on his book American Sutra. Dr. Hsu grew up in a multi-lingual household and started as an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles; she is now a professor at San Jose State University. Author Han recently published Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists.
Background on May We Gather from Official Press Release
May We Gather: A National Buddhist Memorial Ceremony for Asian American Ancestors (www.maywegather.org) is the first national Buddhist memorial service in response to anti-Asian violence. The ceremony will be livestreamed from Higashi Honganji Temple in Los Angeles, which was vandalized earlier this year. The event will be freely broadcast online and will bring together Asian American Buddhists and their allies to heal in community together.
On May 4th, 2021, exactly seven weeks, or forty-nine days, will have passed since the Atlanta shootings claimed the lives of eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, including the 63-year-old Buddhist Yong Ae Yue. In many Buddhist traditions, forty-nine days after death marks an important transition for the bereaved. May We Gather will feature Buddhist chanting and reflections from forty-nine Asian American Buddhist leaders of South, Southeast, and East Asian descent in a communal ritual to honor people who have died from acts of anti-Asian violence in the United States.
The 90-minute-long event will be held on Tuesday, May 4th, 2021 at 4pm PDT (7pm EDT). We welcome Asian American Buddhist temples and organizations as well as allied communities and individuals of all backgrounds to participate in this ceremony by endorsing the gathering, sharing it widely, and watching the livestream on May 4th.
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Note: The illustration for May We Gather is by Rob Sato (click to see Instagram account).