Celebrating Thanksgiving, In So Many Words

by Takahiko Hayashi I’d like to wish everyone a joyful Thanksgiving weekend. 2024 has been a year of both joy, with the celebration of the 90th Anniversary of our Mission Headquarters in America, and much turmoil, given the natural disasters that seem to occur with increasing frequency. Yet, as a...

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The Making of “Stories Inspired by Oyasama”

“Stories Inspired by Oyasama” is a short film series brought to you by the Website Sub-Committee of Tenrikyo Mission Headquarters in America. It is a global collaboration inspired by love for and desire to share testimonies of Oyasama’s Parental Heart. Two of the creators, Michael Yuge (New York, NY) of...

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Japanese Garden at Roosevelt High School

By Keiji Uesugi The Japanese garden at Roosevelt High School (RHS) traces its history back almost 100 years to the prewar era of L.A. In the early 20th century, Boyle Heights served as an extension to LA’s Japantown known as Little Tokyo, which resulted in the large presence of Japanese...

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Remote Vocal Group Course by Wakako Kawasaki

Shortly after moving to New Jersey, I became an instructor of the Children’s Japanese language classes for native speakers at Tenri Cultural Institute since I was once a teacher at elementary schools in Japan. After that, I obtained a master’s degree in Voice Pedagogy and Performance from a music college...

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“Folgers in Your Shrine: Revisiting Tenrikyo”: Second Installment of Rev. Michael Yuge’s Interview in College Podcast

“Folgers in Your Shrine: Revisiting Tenrikyo” is a second interview by Rev. Michael Yuge, Executive Director of Tenri Cultural Institute of New York, with Sarah Walsh, a college student at Washington College. Her podcast is part of a series entitled “Come Pray with Me,” in which she interviewed guests from...

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Seeking Inner Well-Being in a Return to the “New Normal”

by Takahiko Hayashi Our basement room is filled with half-baked interior-redesign projects that quite never made it to the finish line. In the worship room, our new aquarium, with fishes adopted in March of last year, has spread itself out, along with used sanitization bottles of all stripes and colors...

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My Thoughts on the Changing Perspectives of the Mask

by Takahiko Hayashi In the early stages of the Coronavirus pandemic, government health officials urged us not to buy masks. Their reasoning was that these precious resources should be preserved for healthcare workers and that the masks will not prevent you from getting the virus. We were told that even...

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Tenrikyo Language Institute

By Megan Omoto Hi, I'm Megan Omoto from Seattle, Washington and in April of 2019 I started school at the Tenrikyo Language Institute in Jiba. I'm in the Japanese Language Course along with 36 other students from around the world. I decided to enroll to TLI after I graduated from...

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My Oyafuse Experience

By Tomikazu Okura I decided to join Oyafuse this year because I thought it was a timely opportunity for me to experience living at the Jiba. There were a couple of options for me here at the Jiba but I thought studying at TLI would be a nice transition rather...

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