Why We Are Born Hiroko Magara, head of the ... - Rissho Kosei-kai

Birth by Aspiration: Why We Are Born 

Hiroko Magara, head of the Chapter Wives Group 

at the Chichibu Dharma Center 

I was born the second daughter of the Tomita family in Tomé-Açu, in the 

Brazilian state of Pará. My parents had crossed the ocean from Yokohama 

to Brazil on the Japanese emigrant ship Argenchina-maru in 1963. They 

settled in Tomé-Açu, in the highlands of the Amazonian jungle. Just before 

their first harvest of pimenta (a kind of pepper), my father died of liver 

cancer at the age of twenty-six. My mother was just twenty-five at the time, 

and was left with three children: my brother, five years old; my sister, two; 

and me, just six months. Farming virgin land was much too hard for my 

final_spiritual_journey_Magara.doc 1

mother by herself, so she decided to go back to Japan. However, shortly 

after the ship sailed, she handed her wallet to her five-year-old son and 

committed suicide by throwing herself into the sea. Following our mother’s 

death, we arrived in Japan safely, thanks to the help of many people. 

My brother was taken in by relatives on our mother’s side in Tochigi 

Prefecture, and my sister and I were taken in by our paternal aunt’s family 

in Saitama Prefecture. I was raised by my adoptive parents, but when I 

entered junior high school, I was taken in by another uncle’s family. I felt 

sorry for myself, unable get over the feeling that my parents had 

abandoned me in childhood. This state of mind lasted for years. 

At the age of twenty I married a young man and, like my mother, 

before long I gave birth to three children. After several years of marriage, 

my husband and I had an opportunity to own a home, exactly what I had 

wished for. At my aunt’s suggestion, I went to the Chichibu Dharma Center 

of Rissho Kosei-kai for the first time to receive advice about the direction in 

which the new house should face. I met the chapter head and the area 

leader and told them about my childhood and how I had grown up. They 

listened intently and urged me to join Rissho Kosei-kai. 

Right after I became a member in 1995, the Chichibu Dharma Center 

marked its thirty-fifth anniversary, and I was assigned the responsibility of 

sharing my spiritual experience during the ceremony. On this occasion, Rev. 

Masuo Nezu, a former vice chair of Rissho Kosei-kai’s board of trustees, 

who had been invited to give religious guidance at the Chichibu Dharma 

Center, kindly sent my manuscript to the Brazil Dharma Center beforehand. 

On the morning of the ceremony, I received a fax from the Brazil Dharma 

Center saying, “We, your brothers and sisters of your birthplace in Brazil, 

always watch over you and pray that you will carry out your important 

responsibility during the ceremony. Please come back to Brazil someday to 

pray for your parents to rest in peace.” I remember how moved I was to 

realize my good fortune in having such encouragement from sangha 

members on the other side of the planet who hardly knew me. 

After that I had a chance to meet Rev. Yoshikazu Mori, a former 


minister of the Brazil Dharma Center, at Rissho Kosei-kai’s headquarters in 

Tokyo. He looked at a receipt in Portuguese found among my father’s 

belongings and said, “Your father bought cans of baby formula every time 

he traveled a long distance to shop. At that time it was difficult to get baby 

formula on a plantation in the jungle. Even in such a difficult situation, 

your father took many days to get to Belém, which was very far from 

home.” 

That impressed me deeply, and my heart went out to my parents. I 

had an immediate opportunity to install a focus of ancestor appreciation at 

home, and was overjoyed to be able to venerate my parents personally 

through chanting of the Lotus Sutra. Then I became involved in the practice 

of leading and guiding others to cultivate our minds in the light of the 

Buddha Dharma, because I wished to share the teachings of Rissho Koseikai 

with others. Since the time I was made head of the chapter wives group, 

like-minded members of the group have offered me mental and spiritual 

support. Now two of my “children in the faith” have received the focus of 

devotion. 

Five years ago in 2005, when the Chichibu Dharma Center celebrated 

its forty-fifth anniversary, we welcomed Rev. Norio Sakai who came to give 

us religious guidance. He is now an emeritus member of Rissho Kosei-kai’s 

board of trustees. I had a chance to talk with him about my personal history. 

After that, Rev. Sakai traveled to Brazil and when he returned he brought 

me some soil and seawater from the area near where my parents are buried. 

This helped me renew contact with my brother. We had been out of touch 

for nearly twenty years, and we three siblings could finally meet again. 

Also, during his stay in Brazil, Rev. Sakai asked Rev. Takayuki 

Nagashima, the minister of the Brazil Dharma Center, to find my father’s 

grave. I had heard that it was deep in the jungle and overgrown with 

vegetation. However, I soon had news that this was totally untrue. 

Surprisingly, my father’s grave was found in the southern town of Tomé- 

Açu in Belém. Rev. Nagashima visited the grave and held a memorial 

service there on behalf of my brother, my sister, and me. The area is right 


on the equator, and it took Rev. Nagashima three hours by plane, plus six 

hours by boat and car, to get there from São Paulo. Thank you, Rev. 

Nagashima, for showing us the way to our father’s grave. He also gave me 

news of our uncle, Hiroshi Muroi, who is our mother’s cousin. Rev. 

Nagashima had asked after him. Mr. Muroi had tended our father’s grave 

for nearly forty years. The ministers of both the Chichibu and Brazil 

Dharma Centers then fully understood that I wanted to visit my father’s 

grave and meet Mr. Muroi to thank him. My wish to visit Brazil came true 

in a very special year: 2008, the centenary of Japanese immigration in Brazil, 

the fiftieth anniversary of Founder Niwano’s visit to Brazil, and Rissho 

Kosei-kai’s seventieth anniversary. 

On September 6 of that year, I flew out of Tokyo’s Narita International 

Airport, bound for Brazil. At the Brazil Dharma Center in São Paulo, Rev. 

Yoshikazu Mori and Rev. Nagashima, the former and current ministers, as 

well as many sangha members, gave me a warm welcome, adding greatly 

to my joy. 

Ten people, including Rev. and Mrs. Sakai, went with me to visit my 


father’s grave. We traveled nearly 3,000 kilometers to the far north from 

São Paulo to Tomé-Açu, and I was surprised to hear that it was only fifteen 

years earlier that electric power had become available in Tomé-Açu. 

When we arrived in the town and met Mr. Muroi, who had tended my 

father’s grave, he apologized over and over, saying, “I brought your 

parents to Brazil, and if I had not brought them here, they would still be 

alive. I’m terribly sorry for that.” 

He had acted as a go-between for my parents’ marriage and 

suggested that they go to Brazil. He also had laid my father to rest, and had 

been carefully looking after his grave, which I had thought had been 

abandoned. 

I felt Mr. Muroi’s anguish and remorse, which was beyond anything 

we had imagined. It breaks my heart when I think of his feelings and try to 

understand them. I was barely able to tell him, “Please don’t blame yourself 

anymore. I came here to thank you for tending my father’s grave for 40 

years.” 

The grave is in a quiet spot on a small hill. It is very big and 

impressive. When I stood in front of it, my powerful yearning for my father 

vanished, and my mind went totally blank. Right after that, I whispered, 

“Dad, I was finally able to see you again.” Tears began to run down my 

cheeks and would hardly stop. I’d never imagined I would be able to stand 

with my Dharma friends in the land where my parents had struggled to 

build a new life. I was overwhelmed by a flood of emotions. 

We then chanted the Lotus Sutra with Rev. Sakai leading us, and my 

fellow sangha members prayed with deep devotion. This chanting had 

finally come to pass after about 40 years, and by a curious coincidence, the 

date was the same as that of my mother’s death. Thus it was all the more 

appropriate for us to chant the sutra for both of my parents in front of my 

father’s grave. 

In Tomé-Açu the sun is very hot. Moreover, it was the dry season, 

and we were parched with thirst after our sutra chanting. As I stood in the 

unbearable heat, my heart went out to my parents, who had faced the 


urdens and challenges of working in such an extreme climate. I felt a 

surge of gratitude for the Buddha’s having arranged to bring about that 

moment. 

During our Lotus Sutra chanting, we saw two butterflies flitting 

around the gravestone. My elder sister mumbled, “Oh, . . . Dad and Mom 

have come here.” I wondered if the butterflies were sent by my parents to 

express their gratitude. 

After the sutra chanting, Mr. Muroi said, “Now I feel relieved. I will 

continue to look after your father’s grave, so don’t worry about that.” His 

face seemed to be shining, as if he had been freed from forty years of 

spiritual suffering. 

On the morning of the day we left for São Paulo, we felt sad about parting 

with Mr. Muroi. When we hugged him, we got a whiff of what seemed to 

be the odor of soil and perspiration. The smell was just like that of the land 

of Tomé-Açu itself. We felt a funny kind of nostalgia and warmth, and with 

his arms around me it seemed as if my father were hugging me, and tears 

welled up in my eyes. I hoped Mr. Muroi would live a long and healthy life. 


Rev. Sakai also kindly arranged for me to meet the Akao family 

again. Mr. Akao was the on the consular staff of the Japanese Embassy in 

São Paulo when we lost our mother forty-two years earlier. The Akao 

family took good care of my brother and sister and me for about two weeks 

before we left Brazil. We felt fortunate to be able to thank them in person 

for their great kindness. 

All of the encounters during our trip had once seemed impossible, 

and it seemed miraculous that they actually came about. The twelve-day 

trip went by with lightning speed under the protection of the gods and the 

Buddha. It was a wonderful trip filled with miraculous and emotional 

events. 

The journey was made possible partly thanks to the compassion and 

prayers of many people: Rev. and Mrs. Sakai , who traveled with us and 

always treated us with great kindness; Rev. Nagashima; Ms. Mori, head of 

education at the Brazil Dharma Center; Ms. Otsuki, head of my chapter at 

the Chichibu Dharma Center; my sister; delegate members from Japan to 

Brazil; sangha members of the Chichibu Dharma Center, who sent us on the 

trip; and the sangha members who welcomed us at the Brazil Dharma 

Center. 

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep 

appreciation for every arrangement that made it possible for me to go to 

Brazil to visit my father’s grave. I had tried to imagine for a long time how 

my father must have worried about his children, who were soon to be left 

alone, when he was laid up with his illness. I also tried to imagine how my 

mother felt when she decided to end her life despite leaving her children 

behind. I also remembered my long resentment over being abandoned by 

my parents 

One sentence in a book I read around this time startled me: “When 

you stop searching for causes as the reason that you have to deal with 

difficulties and suffering, and instead look toward your aspiration as the 

reason, you can then regard even the troubles you encounter as perhaps 

even clearer evidence that you were born because you have that 


aspiration.” 

That sentence is from Kaisosama ni Naraite (In the Footsteps of the 

Founder), by Rev. Kosho Niwano, president-designate of Rissho Kosei-kai. 

I understood that since I had been born into this world with the 

aspiration to be the child of my parents, they had given me this life with the 

aspiration that I should lead it as fully as possible. I was guided to the 

Buddha Dharma as if by natural consequence. Through their lives, my 

parents showed me that living by the Buddha’s teachings would enable me 

to get over my troubles and fulfill my dreams. The best way to venerate my 

parents would be to become a person who is helpful to others. 

I would like to express my appreciation for the opportunity to share 

my spiritual experience on this occasion on the hallowed platform of the 

Great Sacred Hall. I vow to devote myself toward further dissemination of 

the Buddha Dharma mission, with the intention to reciprocate all of the 

favors I have received from so many people, such as Rev. Nezu, who gave 

us so much help from the very beginning; Rev. Sakai; the successive 

ministers of the Brazil Dharma Center; and the members of the Chichibu 

and Brazil Dharma Centers. Thank you very much, everyone. 


This personal testimony of faith was given at the service on July 1, 2009, in the 

Great Sacred Hall at Rissho Kosei-kai headquarters in Tokyo.

Why We Are Born Hiroko Magara, head of the ... - Rissho Kosei-kai

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