1st The Head Priest said, “If you lie and deceive people, or say different things to different people and spend your time just messing around for fun, there will be no way for you to engender ‘respect’ or ‘veneration’.”
2nd
 The Head Priest said, “If we have our own ‘calling’, we will find our own ‘place’ where we can settle. We will be content to find our own ‘place’. The problem is, however, that we become envious of the places occupied by others and attempt to steal them.”


3rd The Head Priest said, “It is my parents with their unconditional love who best protect me.”
4th The Head Priest said, “What we can all do now is re-appreciate our relationship with our parents. If those given life in this world feel gratitude towards their parents, it becomes the starting point for a sense of ‘filial piety’.”
5th The Head Priest said, “Shin Buddhism is a school for lifetime students who constantly revere the teaching they receive.”


6th

The Head Priest said, “People complain they cannot understand the meaning of the nembutsu, but that is really quite alright. It is because we don’t understand it that we listen to the teaching of the nembutsu.”
7th
 The Head Priest said, “We know ‘we are ignorant’. An awareness of this fact is of vital importance.”
8th

The Head Priest said, “To learn how to learn is the Buddha-dharma.”
9th The Head Priest said, “All that we ordinary beings can do is simply bow our heads. When we come to consider why it is our parents do so much for us, who have done nothing for them, we come naturally to respect and revere them.”
10th The Head Priest said, “It is of vital importance as we journey in the way of the nembutsu to know whether we have an awareness of sin or not. If we do have such an awareness, then we can also become aware of our good past karma.”
11st The Head Priest said, “On our journey to seek after truth it is more important for us to go back to our own problems than to think about serious external affairs.”


12th The Head Priest said, “Making a friend will bring you encouragement and you will find joy welling up inside you. This will lead you to change quite naturally.”
13th A temple follower said, “Whenever I’m given the chance to listen to the Buddha-dharma, I never understand it and forget it immediately. Therefore I visit the temple every day.”
14th Reverend Kemmyo Sato, Director of Three Wheels, stated, “The experience of listening to His Holiness the Dalai Lama has confirmed for me the truth of the Shin Buddhist teaching that I have long been following, in England as in Japan.”
15th The Head Priest said, “The key to the regeneration of Japan is the restoration of family life.”
16th Former Primate, Konyo Shonin, said, “Unless you take responsibility for yourself, you can never receive the merit of Other Power.”
17th The Head Priest said, “Our way of seeking after truth in daily life is to transform ourselves through personal encounter with those around us. This is not only our training but also our goal.”
18th A Dharma friend said, “Our former Master, Daigyoin-sama, did not ‘preach the Dharma’ but talked about ‘his joy in meeting the Buddha’.
19th Reverend Kojun Shinohara said, “The day my mother became my mother is my birthday.”
20th The Head Priest said, “Because the Original Prayer is the prayer that benefits others as well as the self, if you ask solely for your own salvation, you will be unable to encounter the Buddha. Unless you care for others, you will never be able to find your own salvation.”
21st A girl student living at the temple said, “Putting my trust in the temple elders, I entered the temple. I cannot really tell you what the temple is like yet, but at least I would like to take responsibility for saying the word ‘yes’ right up to the very end.”


22nd A middle aged Dharma friend declared, “Previously I made up my mind to do everything I could with single-mindedness in order to show gratitude for all that had been done for me. Certainly that decision was an important step for me. But my decision to include that which might seem almost impossible was a further, even more important step.”
23rd “I now understand how, just as my mother protected me, so my grand mother used once to protect my mother.” A young girl listening to her mother give a talk of thanks a session of introspection.
24th “When I pronounced the nembutsu, I was awakened to the joy of life for the very first time since being born into this world.” A Dharma friend at a morning assembly.
25th “If we all concern ourselves exclusively with human affairs, then we will lose the ability to see our own reality for what it is. We should never forget the Buddha’s Original Prayer embracing us just as we are.” Head Priest of Shogyoji Temple.
26th “We tend to look on problems and sufferings as ‘bad’. The worst thing, however, is if we try and conceal them.” Head Priest.
27th “The essence of Buddhism lies in bringing us face to face with Love and Compassion. The Samgha is a place where we are awakened to Love and Compassion.” Head Priest.
28th “I now understand how, just as my mother protected me, so my grand mother used once to protect my mother.” A young girl listening to her mother give a talk of thanks a session of introspection.
29th “When I pronounced the nembutsu, I was awakened to the joy of life for the very first time since being born into this world.” A Dharma friend at a morning assembly.