Introduction

Working at Buddhist Information is a true challenge. When we advertise that we operate 24 hours all year long we sincerely mean it. There are no answering machines, nor do we ever ignore the phone or incoming e mail. When the phone rings, or we discover new e mail we are right there answering it no matter what we were doing, it"s just part of the job requirement.

We never know from one day to the next what new challenges our job will present. Recently a Chinese man who had just moved here committed suicide. His family was devastated, they spoke no English, were not Buddhist, but they did want him to have a Buddhist Funeral. His family had traveled here from all over the world, but because of the way he died nobody would agree to bury him. In desperation the hospital official in charge went through the phone book and called the local BIONA number. We performed a burial service for him the next day.

The funeral director had never participated in a Chinese funeral. As we walked in, sat down, and began the ceremony the family started to wail, it was a kind of ritualistic keening. The funeral director was shocked by this behavior and apologized after the ceremony but we had expected something of this nature to occur because we had witnessed similar scenes in the past.

Buddhist Information never charges a fee for any service and we told the funeral director this when he spoke to us on the phone. It was really funny to watch him try to figure out how we were supposed to be paid; he knew that there must be a mechanism that he just didn"t understand because we were a different religion. He offered us a fee, he offered us an honorarium, he offered to donate directly to BIONA, and then he offered to give us some of the finest Indian incense I have ever seen. Under any other circumstances we would have been thrilled to accept it because we make incense offerings all day long, but not accepting donations means that we do not take anything from people for providing necessary services.

I am honored that my father asked me to introduce his new book, "A House on Fire." "A House on Fire" is a continuation of his series on "The Lotus Sutra," which includes "Stop Suffering: A Buddhist Guide to Happiness," "Day by Day," and "Inside the Lotus Sutra." His goal since the beginning (back when BIONA still consisted of one desk and a huge, dilapidated dresser) has been not only to make Buddhism available to everyone, but to also make it easier to comprehend. His series of books are meant to make "The Lotus Sutra" less confusing, I have found them helpful, and I hope that you will too.

Bartholomew M. Klick