BHIKSHU HENG SURE:
I've got to add something, too. Barbara, I was at that retreat, too, and I had the same experience, which I, in fact, forgot. Shr Fu had said, "You all probably had affinities with Universal Worthy Bodhisattva in the past but you will forget about tonight." I did in fact (forget) until your reminder.

This morning we heard from Professor Tom McMillan who spoke eloquently about interfaith and now I would like to introduce Sally Mahe, Project Manager of the United Religions Initiative. She has two Masters degrees and has taught government and civics. She has two daughters, Katie who is here and Lizzie who is in Japan. She also organizes the Vietnamese Cooperation Circle, United Religions' Vietnamese community group down in San Jose area.

Sally is a real visionary. She has a dream for religions coming together peacefully in the face of all of the defeats and obstacles. You have to be willing to take a lot of knocks and she has done that and not lost her idealism. When we went to the United Religions Initiative gathering in Salt Lake City, Sally met many of our Dharma Realm Buddhist Youth (DRBY) members, so today I am happy to invite her to speak.

SALLY MAHE:
In Salt Lake City I was so impressed by the depth, commitment, and intelligence of the members of DRBY, many of whom are educated here at the City of 10,000 Buddhas. I wanted to write a special letter to the communities that helped them become who they are... to tell them what kind of impact they made. And then my mother became ill and I had to go back to the Midwest, and I had never had a chance to write that letter. Now I have come to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, and Heng Sure said, "You can just explain what you would say in the letter that would help people understand the importance of young leaders coming into the work of interfaith cooperation."

United Religions Initiative is a global organization. It's dedicated to daily enduring interfaith cooperation, stopping religiously motivated violence and creating cultures of peace, justice in healing for the earth, and for all living beings. That's our purpose statement. Following that are words that people honor very dearly in our preamble which is " ... we value voices that honor others and we listen to voices that are not often heard." And we have taken young adults in our world very seriously as part of that group of people whose voices are not always heard at the global level of organization. And when we bring young people into United Religions Initiative, we really hope that their presence is central to the work.

So, it was with great delight and a vision of the future, that the young participated in every way possible at our conference. There was a big Buddhist bell on the stage and at the beginning of every session, one of the young people would reverently strike it, opening and closing the meeting.  

In part of the conference, we worked in small groups, and there would be one person from the group who had to report the work to the entire group in the big session. And so often, we looked around, and it was the young adult who was taking the leadership speaking for their group, participating fully.  

When I arrived, they asked me to organize a public forum for the community of Salt Lake City, so we could share with them who we were-and what it meant to walk for interfaith cooperation.

I was overwhelmed that within 24 hours, we had to put on a presentation where a couple of hundred people would attend. I asked the young adults from the Dharma Realm Youth Group to help, and they just came into the light with all of the gifts and ideas they had to offer. They worked hard at poetry, at dance, at chanting and music, at telling stories, at Taekwondo. Dana even did Chinese jump rope for everybody. It was a thrill to see our future enfold before us ... young adults sharing their deep values and their talents, working together for others, making our world new and revitalized. Thank you.  

~ To be continued