Members of Amidaji: Hokai Sylvie Kirsch from the Cook Islands

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My grandmother brought me up Catholic. My first husband was Protestant, we’d agreed to allow our children to grow up and make their own spiritual choices. It was when my 13-month-old daughter passed away and a catholic priest refused to bless her grave because she wasn’t baptised. The implication that my daughter was abandoned in hell because she wasn’t baptised devastated me. How could this so-called “god of love”, one to whom I’d put my faith and devotion all my life, not gladly receive the soul of an innocent child in his arms? I went through a spiritual struggle over the next few years, shifting towards the Protestant Reformed Church and trying to make sense of the growing inconsistencies. Eventually, I lost my faith in Christianity. I then went on a spiritual journey to find the true manifestation of all-embracing compassion.

Like many of my Amidaji kin, I began by grappling my way through various spiritualities and philosophies. Studying in earnest, I would eventually peel off the veneer of salvation, to discover that each was riddled with inconsistencies, and all lacked any true, universal compassion. What seemed like a purposeful journey ended up being stuck going around in circles in a meaningless labyrinth, from which there was no escape.

At some point in my mid-thirties, I washed up on the shores of Buddhism, and at last, I perceived a language that made sense to me. I took refuge in the Buddha under the tutelage of Eric Rommuluère and became a Zen practitioner for several years.

In 2010 my husband and I left Europe to live in the Cook Islands, where I continued my practice with an online Zendo.

In 2013 I prepared and practiced for Jukai, the receipt of the precepts, and having sewn my rakusu and read various relevant texts I had reached the final lap, which was Ango, the mandatory retreat. Yet again, everything fell apart as I suddenly realised, I couldn’t commit to the necessary time for the zazen which was supposed to correspond to the 3-month Ango period. This realisation meant I was unable to progress any further in my practice. I was shattered and fell into deep despair at my failure and my insufficient capacities as well as the disillusion that Buddhism, finally may not offer the all-inclusive compassion I had been seeking for so long.

My husband, a stone carver, sensing my disarray, asked me to find an image of the Buddha that he would carve for me. I searched on Google, found an image that captured my attention, and printed it out to show him. He then asked what Buddha this was. In my haste, I’d forgotten to look. I returned to my computer and read the caption, Kamakura Buddha Daibutsu, a statue of…
I cannot explain this fraction of a second moment, but my life turned upside down as I read the name AMIDA BUDDHA. I knew I had been graced with salvation, I knew that Amida was a true reality. I sat for several moments, weeping and repeating AMIDA BUDDHA, not yet comprehending why, but profoundly certain that I had been embraced by the all-encompassing compassion I had been seeking all my life…

After recovering from this experience, I immediately searched to learn more about who Amida Buddha was and found Paul Roberts’s Yahoo group. Paul and the group were where I took my first steps in learning about the Jodo Shinshu faith. Paul explained to me that what I had experienced was shinjin. It was also Paul who, in 2014, introduced me to Reverend Josho Adrian Cirlea for whom I’m deeply grateful for his continued guidance and spiritual support ever since.

Namo Amida Bu

Hokai Sylvie Kirsch
Hokai Cook Islands

Hokai works on the French translation of Amidaji books into French . She also has a blog - Hokai's Notes where she shares her personal reflections on the Dharma.