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End of Year Report from the WebMaster of CampRoss.net
A big THANK YOU to all of the regular visitors to Nichiren's Interfaith Coffeehouse! The website now receives more than a 1000 clicks a day! At the beginning of this year, the Coffeehouse had received just over 250,000 clicks (combined total from 1997-2001). In 2002, this more than doubled to 619,000!
As anyone can see below, I went kind of crazy this year adopting webrings.... I have done this for three reasons:
(1) I have found WebRing to be an invaluable source of traffic. The increase in traffic to my personal websites every month is very much related to my use of WebRing as advertising. I hope other webmasters find it just as valuable....
(2) It is a way of doing my part to keep the internet clean of broken images and links.
(3) I am an internet junkie. ;-}
Over the years, I have been successful at keeping the costs for my websites to a bare minimum. Currently my annual cost amounts to just over $200/yr for four domain names (CampRoss.net, LotusSutra.net, BuddhistInmates.net and Ryuei.net) and the cost to remove the banner advertisements from the crosswinds server which houses the Coffeehouse. Up until now I have been paying these costs myself. However, it appears that in 2003, I may actually break even... or better, which is my goal for next year.
In 2002, 70 items were purchased from Amazon.com totaling $1303, which translates to $75 in referral fees for me. To those of you who made a purchase from Amazon.com via the Coffeehouse, THANK YOU! I have taken these fees as credits and am building a nice library of suttas, commentaries and other books referenced by Ryuei on the internet.
In June 2002, I began a new project to experiment with alternative revenue streams. I created my first adult oriented webpage with free dating resources which has turned out to be quite successful. By sending adult-focused traffic to this site, in six months I have already surpassed the revenue Amazon.com generated in twelve months. I suppose the old axiom Sex Sells is true after all.... Anyway, it is because of the ease in which Adult Friend Finder succeeded, that I decided to put some extra effort into their other programs as well. I have since adopted a couple dozen adult oriented webrings (mostly in Dec). Thus my dating webpage has now become the new homepage for my adult webrings, keeping them completely separate from the family oriented webrings listed at CampRoss.net. I have also created three new dating webpages with less or no adult content:
Asian Friend Finder
European Friend Finder
Friend Finder for Grads & Dads
Adopt one last WebRing for the year. This 87th ring is for . | 11/13/02 |
| Adopted my 47th and 48th WebRings today: and LGBT Pride Street. | 11/7/02 |
| Added to the Coffeehouse the newly created webpages for the
Mystic Lotus Nonsectarian Ministries in the Nichiren Tradition, as well as Kaiundo Company, both of whom have Gohonzons available for the general public.
| 11/2/02 |
| Adopted my 39th ring, for religion, people, cultures and geographic features... Open to all sites which explore the East/West and North/South dichotomies from any perspective.
| 5/5/02 |
| Family Values: the Way of Life for Lay People a new chapter from Ryuei's unpublished book on the Pali Canon.
Added two new Yahoo Groups to the Discussions Around the Lotus Pond: The Lotus of the Mystic Law for an interfaith study of the Lotus Sutra and Sutra Salon for an interfaith study of the Buddhist Canon.
| 5/4/02 |
| What is the Buddha Dharma? another chapter from Ryuei's book on the Pali Canon.
| 5/1/02 |
Happy Odaimoku Day!Today is the 750th anniversay of the first time Nichiren DaiShonin chanted Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. Many people mistakenly believe that this was the first time anyone ever chant the Odaimoku. However, there is some evidence that the occassional chanting of the title of the Lotus Sutra dates back to (at least) the time of Chih-i, founder of T'ien-t'ai Buddhism. Even so, Nichiren was indeed the first to proclaim it as the sole path to Enlightenment, as he did in his first public sermon, 750 years ago (japanese reckoning) at Seichoji on the 28th day of the 4th month, 1253, when he also renamed himself Nichiren.
New picture taken today of the Hoando (new home of the DaiGohonzon) at Taisekiji.net!
Message from Rev. Shoryo Tarabini in Tokyo after their morning service (Nichiren Shu).
First hand account of chanting to the rising sun this morning on Mount Wilson with the Nichiren Shu Los Angeles sangha (a 50 year tradition for their temple).
| 4/28/02 |
| Daisaku's Ikeda's essay for Earth Day, Transform Self to Heal the Earth, appeared in the India Times today.
| 4/22/02 |
| Congratulations to the seven families of the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of Houston who officially converted to Nichiren Shu today in a ceremony led by the Rev. Ryuoh Falconer (of the Portland temple)! John Petry, Esq., and current NONA president, also flew down to Texas for the ceremony. | 4/21/02 |
| Who's Who on the Gohonzon? by Ryuei: an EXTENSIVE character-by-character explanation for each person and deity on the Great Mandala of the Nichiren School. While it is specifically refering to the Shutei Gohonzon of Nichiren Shu, I think all Nichiren Buddhists will enjoy it.
| 4/20/02 |
| The Buddhist gods smiled as I was able to upload my files almost continuously for 36 hours; I awoke this morning to find my computer had finished its task! ;-) If any graphics still don't still don't appear correctly, remember to first click Reload. If the problem still persists, please email me the exact webpage where the problem occured. Thank you! If you would like to know what Crosswinds is doing to prevent this from ever happening again click here.
This afternoon I drove up to LA with a friend to attend an interfaith service for Hanamatsuri to celebrate the Buddha's birthday and to meet the Rev. Daniel Montgomery, author of Fire in the Lotus, who was the keynote speaker for this event at the Japanese American Cultural Center. It was a great pleasure to see Pure Land, Zen, Shingon and Nichiren priests and laity in one room together, practicing Buddhism. Pictures coming soon.
| 4/14/02 |
| Today the Crosswinds server which houses this site in NYC, overheated and sent my data into oblivion. I am now beginning to upload the files again, but there is almost 300MB of data and last time it took about three days to get upload it all. I will post here again when everything is back to normal. Your patience is appreciated.
| 4/12/02 |
| A tale about the
Zen Master Bankei and a Nichiren Priest
Created something new in the CampRoss.net family of websites (at Angelfire.com), my first foray with a more adult theme: People and Places for Alternative Lifestyles, dating resources for ALL kinds of people.
| 4/6/02 |
| Added Chapter One of the book on which Ryuei has been working since college on the Life and Teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha using the Pali Canon as his primary source material: The Life of the Buddha.
Chapter Two: The Deer Park Sermon: the First Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma.
Chapter Three: The Human Condition
| 3/26/02 |
| Added a bookstore to Ryuei.net!
Fixed my links to SGI President Ikeda's peace proposals for 1998-2000 and added 2001 & 2002. This year's proposal is called The Humanism of the Middle Way -- Dawn of a Global Civilization and discusses the realities of our post-9/11 world.
Fixed my link to Miss Guidance's Daily Scolding archive for 2001 on my SGI page and added 2002.
| 3/25/02 |
| Added an essay from Ryuei on Following the Path: the 37 Requisites to Enlightenment in the Pali Canon.
Ryuei finished updating his Overview of Buddhism, editing some text and adding two new excellent books with non-sectarian overviews to the top of his Recommended Reading list.
Closed the Yahoo Group BuddhaWithin in the spirit of reducing internet clutter, because it has been slow for quite some time.
| 3/24/02 |
| An article appeared in today's Washington Post on Mariane Pearl and the SGI called A Widow's Strength Inspires Faithful: Public Statements Demonstrate Pearl's Buddhist Beliefs.
| 3/23/02 |
| Jacquie Stone's translation of the Abutsubo Gosho (better known as On the Treasure Tower) posted to Irgosho from her doctoral dissertation.
| 3/22/02 |
| Happy Vernal Equinox on this first day of Spring!
Are you a member of Nichiren Shu in North America? If so, you are invited to join the Yahoo Group for the NONA National Council! Their stated goal is "to provide all members of Nichiren Shu with quick online access to their elected National Council officers." They also provide an electronic archive of their Council meeting minutes and other pertinent data.
| 3/20/02 |
| CNN transcript of Larry King's interview with Mariane Pearl.
| 3/19/02 |
NewsHour transcript of Jim Lehrer's interview with Mariane Pearl.
Article by Daisaku Ikeda in today's Speaking Tree section of the India Times called Multiple Ways of Seeing Things. | 3/18/02 |
| The old SGI_UK_NET Yahoo Group was deleted today by its moderator but it was resurrected by another who requested it to be listed in the Discussion Groups in the Coffeehouse. They also have their own new Geocities homepage.
| 3/12/02 |
| Photo journal now online of the Tokudo Ceremony held at Daiseionji in Germany on Feb 16th where two women and two men were ordained as novices in Nichiren Shu. Congratulations to Shamini Shokyo Rees-Glannister of London, Shamini Shoka Giannini of France, Shami Shoko Milesi of Rome, and Shami Shoken Conley of London!
Finished typing the 18th century Zen Master Hakuin's fascinating but long-winded Letter to an Old Nun of the Hokke Sect .
Tientai.net added new material from Chih-i's The Prose and Verse of The Lotus Sutra on the title and text of Chapter Two, up through the 'ten aspects.'
| 3/11/02 |
| Today Nichiren's Coffeehouse surpassed 300,000 clicks. Since the beginning of the year, we've been averaging about 5,000 clicks per week. Thanks!
| 3/10/02 |
| Check out the newest Nichiren Shu group in Houston, TX featured on the Portland temple's online newsletter. | 3/8/02 |
| As many of you know, Yahoo! Clubs has been actively converting to Yahoo! Groups, as they have long been warning. I have changed most of the links on my Discussion Groups webpage, but there are still some which have not migrated. In a few days I will check and update the clubs once again.
| 3/7/02 |
Today a group of 88 Malaysian converted en masse to Nichiren Shu at a ceremony officiated by four priests from Tokyo. These converts are members of the Penang Nichiren Shu Buddhist Association who recently ceded from Nichiren Shoshu. The ceremony took place at the temple owned by the Association in Penang. The Association first learned about Nichiren Shu on the internet at NichirenShu.org. (Source: Nichiren Shu News 4/1/02)
| 3/5/02 |
| If you would like to support this website, all books bought at Amazon.com linked from Ryuei.net and Nichiren's Coffeehouse produce a 5% commission. Thirty-seven books were purchased here in the past year. (THANK YOU!) The three most popular books were (1) Thomas Cleary's translation of The Flower Ornament Scripture; (2) Jacquie Stone's Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism; and (3) John Stevens' Sacred Calligraphy of the East.
| 3/4/02 |
| Transcribed the 13th century Japanese Zen Master Dogen's chapter on the Lotus Sutra from the Shobogenzo called Hokke-ten-Hokke or "The Flower of Dharma Turns the Flower of Dharma."
| 3/1/02 |
| Added a new pic of my shrine to the Eternal Buddha to CampRoss-ji with its latest addition of two halographs by Nichiren, drawn after he was visited in a dream by Fudo Myo'o and Aizen Myo'o.
Two new bodhisattva-inmates listed in Texas and our first inmate from Delaware.
| 2/23/02 |
| Remembering Daniel Pearl (1963-2002), the American journalist who was killed by terrorists in Pakistan. His wife, Mariane Pearl, is a member of SGI-France and so one can find other messages from her in the Buddhist discussion groups. However, you can read her statement today to the world by visiting CNN. Finished editing a large new addition for Ryuei.net:
In April 1999, Ryuei led a series of seminars on Zen and the Lotus Sutra at the Berkeley Zen Center. This is an expanded version of the transcription. Two articles which you might enjoy from his Appendices:
The Seven Parables of the Lotus Sutra
Zen Masters on the Lotus Sutra
Plus I added one new Tibetan Buddhist inmate listing to PA.
| 2/22/02 |
| Visit a great site: The Buddhist News Network for the latest scoop!
Getting caught up today adding many other new links to my pages from various sources.
A few days ago I fixed an error which has long been bugging me in the Coffeehouse.... One of my counters said that the Coffeehouse averaged only 6 unique people a week, but my other counter (which is on more pages) has been averaging about 2000 clicks a week. So, either something was wrong, or just a few people have been using this site a lot! Finally... I figured out how to access the latest javascript for the first counter and then replaced my old code. Now in the past few days, this site has been averaging 100+ unique visitors a day! That makes a whole lot more sense...;-} to see the difference a functioning counter makes. | 2/20/02 |
| Signed up for a free monitoring service by InternetSeer.com which will check all the links on this webpage (which has one of the most comprehensive listing of pages in the Coffeehouse) on an hourly basis to assure that all changes and additions upload correctly and remain functional. You will see nothing new on your side, but it will enable me to more easily keep a tighter ship. | 2/18/02 |
Happy 780th Birthday to Nichiren DaiShonin!
Obtained two new domain names today: Ryuei.net and BuddhistInmates.net!
I will be gifting ownership of these domain names to Michael McCormick and Betty Buck, respectively, while maintaining my admin status for both domains.
| 2/16/02 |
| Added four new photos to the Coffeehouse today: a new pic of Ryuei and his family taken last Xmas; Betty Buck, BIS founder in her Oregon home; plus pics of two buddhist prisoners in AZ and TX.
| 2/15/02 |
| Finished adding 37 new inmates (from the past month) to the Buddhist Inmates Sangha in 15 states, exactly doubling our size! As of today, we now have 74 bodhisattva-inmates in 19 states. Three new US States were just added: MA, NJ & PA. Plus our first Death Row inmate (in San Quentin, CA) who is newly seeking Buddhism.
I just discovered today that due to increased traffic (a good thing!), my Geocites website has exceeded its alotted bandwidth and so has been temporarily shut down for the past couple of days (not a good thing). I have therefore moved my large photo journal of the Las Vegas strip to Crosswinds. This should free enough resources to keep my Geocities site up & running all the time.
Please feel free to visit the new home for my Las Vegas photo journals: Luxor Pyramid | Excaliber | Mandalay Bay | MGM Grand | New York NY | Downtown | 2/14/02 |
| Happy Chinese Lunar New Year! It's now the Year of the Horse... Hee-haw!
| 2/12/02 |
| Redesigned and moved the Buddhist Inmate Sangha to a new home in the Coffeehouse. | 2/11/02 |
| Article appeared today in the San Jose Mercury News called "Where We Worship" highlighting the San Jose Nichiren Buddhist Temple.
| 2/8/02 |
| Several people have requested a simpler system for determining if a given gosho in the SGI's latest translation effort, The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin is considered to be authentic by Nichiren Shu and the other Nichiren Schools. Thus I have added a new list by number in the WND table of contents to my Gosho webpage.
Today the 350 year-old temple, Shinkoji in Chiba, Japan, seceded from Nichiren Shoshu. Rev. Sugano notified Shinkoji's believers by a letter on Feb 17. He told them they could individually remain with Shinkoji as an independent temple or return to Nichiren Shoshu. According to Jinzai-net, Sugano is not expected to join the reform priests in the immediate future.
| 2/4/02 |
| Seattle Incident Case Ends: Nichiren Shoshu Withdraws its claim of Libel against the Soka Gakkai. Both sects promise in legal agreement not to defame each other (in regard to this issue) again. | 2/1/02 |
| An article appeared today in the online newspaper, "The Times of India," by Daisaku Ikeda: Explode a Spiritual Bomb of Compassion.
| 1/30/02 |
Tientai.net has added more newly translated material to the web!Chih-i's "The Twenty-Five Preliminary Ways & Means for Observation of the Mind" from The Great Calm-Observation, Volume Four (Ch. Mo-ho Chih-Kuan, Jap. Maka Shikan).
The beginning of Chih-i's The Prose & Verse of The Lotus Sutra (Ch. Fa-Hua Wen-Chu, Jap. Hokke Mongu) which covers a general introduction, the analysis of the Sutra as a whole, and the beginning of the first chapter. | 1/28/02 |
| Long ago deactivated in the old Yahoo system... WebRing has once again turned on the automated Ring Order function. After some reflection on my part, I have set most of my rings to list by Popularity. Therefore, those sites which give and/or receive the most hits will be rewarded with the highest listings and they will reorganize on a periodic basis.!Click here to surf Don's 30+ WebRings!Happy 27th Birthday (US reckoning) to the SGI!
Added the first OFFICIAL SGI message board in English (to my knowledge) which began a few months ago, hosted by Soka Gakkai Japan and co-sponsored by the SGI and Sokanet. It is called Viewers' Voices, but I have it listed in Discussions Around the Lotus Pond as Sokanet Voices. | 1/26/02 |
| Don adopted the Original WebRing. :-} All Californians are welcome to join! I've already added CampRoss-ji, as well as Ryuei's homepage and the San Jose Nichiren Buddhist Temple. | 1/24/02 |
| Added two more inmates in IL and FL to BIS, plus one photo from KY. More additions coming soon!
Official dated today: WebRing is now completely free from Yahoo! The last DNS changes were made yesterday, Jan. 21, 2002, plus other recent changes. | 1/22/02 |
| Redesigned my shrine at CampRoss-ji to the Eternal Buddha with Four Bodhisattvas to be more symmetrical and enshrined Avalokitesvara as a shoten zenjin | 1/16/02 |
| Today I adopted my 30th WebRing, , a large ring dating back to 1996.
Notice: the Auto Management function at WebRings has now been turned on. All sites in any of my rings which do not have a Navigation Bar will be automatically removed from the ring. If you need help with the code, just let me know!
| 1/15/02 |
| Today the Olympic Torch passed in front on my home in San Diego on its way to Salt Lake City. ;-} Photo below.
Took a new photo of myself sitting in front of my shrine to the Eternal Buddha for this webpage. Photo at top. | 1/14/02 |
| Added some very nice Buddhist Prayer Beads for both lotus seed malas and custom-made stone juzu to the Buddhist Accessories listed at the bottom of my Gohonzon webpage.
Updated the Buddhist Inmate Sangha by adding a new inmate in IL. More updates to come shortly!
| 1/11/02 |
| Updated BIS by adding 2 new pics from IN and another new inmate in SD who would like a pen pal. More updates to come shortly! | 1/10/02 |
| Added a .pdf file created by Rev. Shinkyo Will Warner (NShu-Kentucky) of the Jogyo Auxiliary Practice, a re-vision of a Jogyo Book created by his sensei, the Rev. Shingyo Imai, and L.C. McClinton in Boston a few years ago. Linked it into my Lotus Sutra and Nichiren Shu webpages.
Reformated Ryuei's Overview of History for readability and also interconnected it with Amazon.com and the Coffeehouse.
| 1/9/02 |
| Added a nice general Overview of Buddhism by Ryuei which he's posted in a variety of clubs. Includes a good study guide for both beginners and long time practitioners.
Ryuei on chanting Nam or Namu: Does it really matter? added to #3C in the Gohonzon Shu.
Ryuei on What is the Gohonzon? added to #82 in the Gohonzon Shu.
Ryuei on the Eye Opening Ceremony
| 1/6/02 |
| Added Ryuei's humorous annual Xmas rant Santa is the Future Buddha to the archives of his webpage and to my listing of Buddhist Tales.
Don created a new generic WebRing ID, Lotus33, and transfered my six spirituality rings to it (, , , , and ).
| 1/5/02 |
| Happy New Year to All my Friends and Visitors to Nichiren's Coffeehouse!!! May Peace grow ever stronger within our own hearts in this time of Great Change. May the winds of peace come soon to our planet at war within ourselves and in the world around us. May the winds of peace calm the minds of those in authority in the nuclear powers within the Land of the Moon, India and her sister Pakistan. May the winds of peace once again blow in the Land of Afghanistan, war torn and ragged after decades of war within her borders. May the winds of peace blow in the Lands of Israel and her step-sister Palestine to end their seemingly eternal conflict over land and religion. May the spirit of institionalized conflict be set aside forever in the Nichiren schools (and more importantly within our own hearts) so that we may ALL discover and rejoice in our similarities, rather than emphasize our differences. Namu Myoho-renge-kyo, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.
Don's personal story Living Through the Age of AIDS, written in 1995 for (but never printed by) the World Tribune, will be featured in January 2002 in the gay oriented Consciousness of Angels, an HIV educational website by a fellow daimoku chanter.
Activity Report: By the end of 2001, Nichiren's Coffeehouse surpassed a quarter million clicks (252,100) by appx. 9,300 visitors since 1997. Thank you! I'm glad so many of you find it useful and informative.
What's New will now be archived by year. Click here to visit the Archives for 2001!
| 1/1/02 |
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The Olympic Flame passes in front of my home
in San Diego on January 14 on it way to Salt Lake City.
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