Buddhism

LAYTON -- The public is invited to a free Songkran Festival, the Thai-Lao New Year celebration, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. April 14, at Wat Dhammagunaram Buddhist Temple, 644 E. 1000 North, in Layton.

OGDEN -- The Rev. Jerry Hirano looks relaxed as he sits in a room in the Ogden Buddhist Church, where he has been the minister since 1999. With him are his assistant ministers, Annette Koga and Mike Monson.

Hirano is also the minister -- or kaikyoshi in Japanese -- for the Salt Lake Buddhist Church and chairman of the Buddhist Churches of America Ministers Association.

He also teaches advanced classes in Jodo Shinshu, a branch of Mahayana Buddhism, which recognizes all people as potential buddhas.

OGDEN -- The public is invited to participate in a special event next Saturday at the Ogden Buddhist Temple. It's the annual Obon Festival, the congregation's most colorful annual event.

A custom of honoring the deceased spirits of one's ancestors, the festival will mirror a more than 500-year-old Japanese Buddhist custom that now takes place in a host of locations each summer around the world.

OGDEN -- The Ogden Buddhist Church is offering a course in Buddhist ethics beginning March 16.

NEW YORK — Ellis Gene Smith, the son of a Mormon family from Ogden, Utah, who is believed to have compiled the largest collection of Tibetan books outside of Tibet, has died in New York at age 74.

OGDEN – The public is invited to join the Ogden Buddhist Church congregation at 1 p.m. Sunday at the church, 155 North St., for its Eitaikyo and November Shotsuki Hoyo service.