Aloha,
I find it interesting that there is talk by some in the Internet world about my religious background. I am influenced by Christianity, Buddhism, Shintoism, and Taoism, and I have incorporated all of these teachings into my fusion that I practice with a strong emphasis on Buddhism, which is my foundation in this great mixture. I am open-minded to the unknown but I dream of compassion and peace for the human race. Striving for compassion and peace is not a religion, but rather a way of life, just as it is to live with anger, hatred, and violence.
Buddhism is a way of life where one trains to better oneself with the goal of attaining limitless compassion, wisdom, and peace when one becomes a Buddha. Until then, one is a Bodhisattva if he or she is motivated by pure compassion and love. One pays respect to the teachers of compassion or the many Bodhisattvas and Buddhas that came before. Buddhism is a training of the human soul, mind, and body. There is no worship of a god or gods. There is no threat or pressure on others to be a Buddhist. Shakyamuni Buddha or the founder of Buddhism believed there were thousands of Buddhas before him and there will be many more after him. He just put it into writing. The Buddha nature or that of limitless compassion exists in the human soul; we need to nurture it and make it come to full fruition.
There is a general belief in karma or cause and effect. If we live a good life, we build good karma and if we live a bad life, we accumulate bad karma. Our lives and the generations that follow us, even the unborn generations are affected by our actions. When you do good things, positive things can come back to you and those around you. Likewise, when you do bad things, negative things can come back to you and those around you. Positivity attracts positivity and negativity attracts negativity. When one lives a positive life, many positive people do positive things in return in a natural way with no strings attached. When one lives a negative life, it comes back to haunt them in many different forms. However, negativity can still attack positive people, but positive people find a way to overcome it without contributing back to the cycle of negativity or violence. This upsets “evil” because they would rather see us suffering with sadness or retaliate and take revenge and be a contributing member of “negativity”. Positive people seem to have a lot of positive friends around them and a number of them can even influence sad and angry people to be more positive. In contrast, negative people turn off positive people, thus, they are often surrounded by other negative people. Bodhisattvas like Achala try to help negative people from suffering and get onto the path of positivity. You see many people who do this such as people helping our at-risk youth from gangs, drugs, and violence. Thus, we must do positive actions rather than negative actions because with karma, what goes around comes around. For every cause, there is an effect.
Different Buddhist sects or practitioners have various ideas of what happens after we die such as a pure land (heaven), reincarnation, different realms, or a world similar to the one we live in now. However, we can only find out the unknown upon our death. More importantly is how we live. We can die with love, compassion, and happiness or we can die with anger, sadness, and suffering. Bodhisattvas and Buddhas reach out to help the suffering of the living and the dead since they are interdependent. The importance of death is critical because one must strive to live well so when it is time to die, one can pass on knowing he or she did the best in life. We must try to address our suffering now instead of relying on “death” to end it all. Many Buddhists believe that if you die suffering, your soul moves on as a suffering soul. However, a suffering soul can still achieve happiness and even Buddhahood. But why not make the most of our life now. Once this life is over, it is over. There is no turning back. We can overcome negativity and help others overcome negativity, ecpecially those who are facing tougher challenges. I only want people to be happy. It is painul to see the suffering in peoples’ eyes. It is hard to see the pain of individuals resulting from the actions of people with the mens rea or intent to do violence on others such as murder, rape, and assault, which is the highest form of negativity. The other form of negativity results from people with the intent to hurt others verbally, literally, and spiritually.
I am trying my best to overcome my human weaknesses. In facing negative people, I do my darnest to stay positive. Sometimes my inner thoughts tell me to just fight negative people back, blow for blow. Moreover, my wish for more financial security sometimes clouds or delays my ideas for the people of Hawaii and the United States because I am worried about paying my bills so I scramble to work on my business when I find time. Further, I have so many projects I want to complete, and I pack my schedule with a lot of appointments, thus, I need to improve my time management skills so that I am not chasing time. Also, I am so driven towards my goals for society, and in order to achieve them, I seek the expertise of many people. You often need a team to make a big idea come to reality. As of this date, I have over two thousand individual contacts in my cellular phone alone. I bonded with so many people through social networking, which often included alcoholic beverages to “break the ice” or lessen the formality or stress. My DUI incident on October 16, 2007 reflects my error in judgment as I socialized with business leaders at a dinner party and later at another social gathering. Finally, my personal desires are a threat to my drive to be purely good because a truly good person puts all others before himself or herself for everything. I know we as politicians often show all our successes, and I have done my share, but I want to show you all my weaknesses that I am determined to overcome. When I make a mistake or believe I could have done my work for Hawaii and the United States differently with a better outcome, I will tell you.
We as individuals and collectively can change the world for the better. Let’s do our best! We all can live a compassionate and happy life. Live life to the fullest! Let’s achieve peace within, peace in our world, and possibly beyond.
With Warmest Aloha,
Jon Riki Karamatsu
JON RIKI KARAMATSU 