Reverend Masato Kawahatsu believes, 

“Kami Sama (God) placed a single-cell organism on the earth 3.8 billion years ago and gave birth to life with absolute and unconditional love. If we chanted the words, ‘thank you’ or ‘arigato‘ and polished our hearts with appreciation, each person would change, which in turn would change the world. Having a heart of gratitude, as opposed to not having a heart of gratitude, is the difference between being happy and not being happy.”

He explains, 

“The word arigato has two parts to it. In Japanese ari means ‘to have’ and gato means ‘difficulty’ or ‘hardship.’ All the things we have, we receive through difficulty. Because of the difficulty, we have the opportunity to grow from it, with a heart of appreciation.”

Rev. Kawahatsu was born in 1946 in Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan, and spent his formative years on Nakajima Island. In 1964 he entered the Japanese Naval Academy, but after much inner debate about the purpose of his life, he resigned his commission to enroll in the Konko Seminary. In 1971 he was assigned to serve as a minister at the Konko Church of San Francisco, followed by several years of ministerial service in Hawaii. He returned to San Francisco and was eventually promoted to head minister of this church for over a decade.

Rev. Kawahatsu is the founder of the Shin Shin Gakudo school of martial arts, teaches calligraphy, and presently serves as a Senior Minister of the Konko Church of San Francisco and Head of the South San Francisco Konko Spiritual Training Center. He and his wife, Alice, live in San Francisco’s Japantown.