December 29th, 1968
Sunday, December 29th, 1968
Shunryū Suzuki-rōshi
Sunday, December 29, 1968[1]
Next Tuesday we will have no lecture, so this may be—will be the last one for this—at the end of the year we clean up our house and we throw [out] old things which we do not use anymore. And we renew our equipment, even things in the—furniture we renew it. And after cleaning our room we—we put new, new ______ ___ ____ and which is distributed from temple like this. We take off old mats and put new ones, like this. This is—when in temple we have prayer for the—to control fire, this is what you call it ___ ______ ____ __ “taking care of fire,” it says in Japanese.
And this is—in temple at end of the year we have ceremony to read Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra—600 volumes of Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra. But actually we cannot read 600 pages of sūtra, so the priest conducting the ceremony read one—one volume of the 600 sutras. Then we have one volume, one of 600—[inaudible]—just to turn it instead of reading. And so the most important volume will be recited by the priest who is conducting, and we—and you receive this kind of prayer card from the temple. That is what we do.
And end of the year is the most busy days. We have to clean up our rooms, and if you have some debts you should pay. For someone to collect the money he lent, and for the most people it is time to pay the debt. And then we—after cleaning up everything, spiritual and physical, we decorate New Year’s decoration so old times [?]. Those should be done before twelve o’clock. And after twelve o’clock there is no need for you to pay—pay back the money you owed, so the man who—who wants to collect his money ___ __ __ ___ even after twelve o’clock, if he had chosen [inaudible].