Jill Rees: Welcome Press

 The best thing I’ve ever done in my life is keibi, looking after the Centre at the SGI -UK Centre at Taplow Court.   In fact I can say, as so many of us do who are dedicated Keibi Group, ‘My life is keibi.’ Keibi is the Japanese term for ‘to protect and care for’, so I can say my life is to protect and enable the revealing of the highest form of Life itself, which is the Buddha. This makes my life overflow with joy, whatever the circumstances.

When I started practising, I had three very young children and we were desperately poor, crammed into a tiny battered old house, and struggling to buy nutritious food each week. My daughter had been diagnosed with anaemia as we couldn’t afford meat. I wasn’t able to go to activities, as my husband was a long distance truck driver and rarely home in time for me to make the meetings. Nevertheless he made sure he was back in time for the Discussion meeting once a month, and each year he would take one week of his holiday to care for the children while I went to Taplow for a week’s keibi.

The first time I did keibi various poisons came out of my life, I didn’t get on with anyone, fought with my room mate, and hated that they made me sit at the computer, which I hadn’t ever learnt to work and kept making mistakes.  I would have done anything rather than sit at that damned computer, but they said I had to challenge that feeling of negativity.  I said ‘No but I just hate computers’. When I got home I was called by an employment agency I had applied for work unsuccessfully with several months before. They said, ‘We have a part time job – Have you ever had any experience with computers?’ I worked part time whenever I wanted after that, and we have never been short of money since.  Later on I became a teacher, and was always in charge of using computers in the curriculum in every school I taught in.

On a personal note it may seem strange, but I’d always felt bad that I didn’t have any relatives in Wales, the area of the UK my family are from. My grandmother had left Wales to work in England and her brothers hadn’t had any children, yet I still felt a connection with that area and with my ‘tribe’.

                I found myself chanting for a Welsh cousin. I did keibi with a woman who looked just like my daughter (but older!), and I looked like her mother (but younger). We come from the same part of Wales and have the same surname, and we feel sure we must be related. Anyway, we call ourselves keibi cousins and I often visit her in Wales, and a couple of years ago we spent Christmas together.      

I developed myself on keibi. There was never any toilet paper in the staff toilets, and I used to report it each time to the senior staff. They would say ‘Thank you’ and smile enigmatically, but never did anything about it. It used to drive me mad. One day, not on keibi but in Taplow for something else, a member was complaining in the Ikeda New Century Hall about the lack of toilet paper in the main guest toilets. I looked around for keibi but no-one was there, so I went to the cupboard and fetched the rolls for the toilet area, then I collected the rubbish and tidied it. I finally understood the enigmatic smiles. Who is responsible for the upkeep of the Centre, of Buddhism and of the World, and for looking after my fellow human beings? I am!! Since that time I’ve always taken action and done everything I can to help, wherever I find myself. If I or my other keibi friends are around the place, everything will run smoothly.

Two years ago I was responsible for training the team of Stewards who would look after an Earth Charter Exhibition we staged at a local College of Further Education. Our job was to always be there protecting the panels and caring for the visitors. My fellow-trainer said, ‘You can really tell who has done keibi and activities at the Centre!’ When we were on duty, everything was done properly and ran smoothly with no accidents and with a lovely atmosphere. For example, I decided to walk round to the far side of the panels, when suddenly a gust of wind blew the panel I was next to over. I was right there, easily reached out and caught it before it fell, and put it back in place. A woman in a wheelchair would have been hit by it if I hadn’t been there at the right moment.

Keibi teaches you that you can’t leave anything to chance in this world. We are the stewards of the Earth. Every day now is a keibi day for me. In the morning I chant for everything to go smoothly for everyone round me, for everyone to be safe and happy. This puts me in rhythm with the world around me. If I need to see someone, I look up and they’re walking in, or they call on the phone! All my family and people I know have good fortune in their lives. I know how to use the Strategy of the Lotus Sutra: if something goes wrong, I put more energy into Buddhist activities, visiting a member or telling someone about Buddhism, knowing that this is what will correct the underlying problem. I am never stuck, because I can always change my karma!

So if you want to change things in your life, volunteer for keibi at the your Buddhist Centre.  It’s the shortest way to Buddhahood!

Jill Rees

992 words

First published in Africa Sun, Lagos 

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