Attended a service today for Thomas Hamilton Murray. Just T for those who claimed him as a friend. This was a combination funeral and 49 Day Memorial service. He died on June 10 at the age of 75.
Mr. Murray became a member of the Sacramento Nichiren Budddhist Church about a year after I did. He had been practicing Nichiren Buddhism since the 1970s with Nichiren Shoshu of America. After the 1991 split between Nichiren Shoshu and Soka Gakkai, he stayed with the temple, attending services at Nichiren Shoshu Myoshinji Temple in Pinole. Mr. Murray discovered Nichiren Shu from the church website. He was very happy to have joined Nichiren Shu, with its focus on the Eternal Śākyamuni Buddha and the Great Bodhisattva Nichiren Shōnin.
As a Nichiren Shoshu practitioner he had made something like 19 trips to Taisekiji in Japan. But he had never been to Minobu. In February, he convinced Rev. Igarashi that his Sacramento, Chicago and Long Beach parishioners would love to travel to Minobu, where Nichiren lived in the latter years and where his ashes are buried. A date for the trip was set and then the pandemic cancelled everything.
At the service today, Rev. Igarashi said Thomas finally made it to Mt. Minobu. Nichiren will greet him on his way to the Pure Land of Mt. Grdhrakūta to join the constantly abiding Śākyamuni Buddha.
