Monthly Archives: August 2023

Nichijo, Blog

Nichijo: The Path to the Lotus Sutra

This is another in a series of articles discussing the book, Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo.

John David Provoo grew up in San Francisco’s Richmond district to the north of Golden Gate Park. He often played in the park’s Tea Garden and regularly visited San Francisco’s Japan Town. As a child he was a fan of all things Japanese and that, as a result, led him to Buddhism.

Buddhism rang a bell for me at a very early age. The very first time I heard the chant of a Buddhist priest, though I could not translate a single word into English, I had the distinct feeling that I understood exactly what was being said.

The chant meant that there was another reality within the common one, obscured from awareness. Just as the words of what I was hearing were in my ears but not understood; a greater reality was all around us, within our ordinary perceptions, but unintelligible. I felt that the chant called out to learn the secrets.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p16

As a priest, Nichijo would later understand that what he felt as a child was the meaning he would learn from Chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra – this world is the Buddha’s Pure Land.

Without anyone to lead him, the young Provoo made up his own Buddhism.

In 1926, my family moved twenty miles south to Burlingame. I couldn’t visit the park as often and made efforts to recreate the experience. I made a shrine in my room, and bought little Buddha incense burners at Woolworth’s. I clipped from the pages of National Geographic whatever pictures of Buddhist statues and temples I could find and displayed them on my altar. I would stand before this array, light incense, bow and chant my made-up chants.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p18

In his childish way, he sought the Buddha’s path:

One day when I was eleven, I used scissors to cut off all my hair, as short as I could, wrapped myself in an orange bedspread, and with a small bowl, walked into the hills. I was trying it on, play-acting how it was to be the young prince embarking upon a spiritual path. I sat down beneath an oak tree to meditate. By dinnertime I returned. A little too young to depart for Asia, but that was my childhood dream. The path would be ready for me, when I was ready for it.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p19

By the time he reached high school, Provoo could imagine himself studying in Asia. After his family moved back to San Francisco, Provoo began exploring the city’s existing Buddhist temples.

I learned about the Triple Jewel: The Buddha, the Dharma (the Teachings) and the Sangha (the Community). You do not find enlightenment on your own. I had realized that I needed to find genuine instruction in order to progress. I finally met Bishop Masuyama Kenju at the Hongwanji temple in San Francisco and under him took the next step to become formally accepted as a novice priest.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p20

Eventually Provoo was elevated to a full priest of the Jodo Shinshu, but he found himself lured away from his priestly life.

I continued with my Buddhist studies but two parts of my nature were developing, at odds with each other. Just when I had taken vows accepting poverty, I had been steered into San Francisco’s fast lane. I was the sincere, searching, scholarly mystic …a Buddhist Priest; and I was the flamboyant and theatrical prodigy of materialistic America. I was becoming a man with two heads, irreconcilable heads.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p24

In the midst of this conflict between Provoo’s two natures, he approached his Jodo Shinshu mentor, Bishop Masuyama:

My horizons were expanding. I explained to Bishop Masuyama that I wished to go to Japan and pursue further studies in the Shin school of which the Bishop was a part. The Bishop explained that his position in the Shinshu was a hereditary one and that in his own mind he felt that I was beyond that teaching already and that I was ready for the Lotus Sutra, the highest teaching, which the Buddha had taught during the last eight years of his life.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p24-25

This all sounds apocryphal to my trained journalistic ear, but I’m setting aside those misgivings to celebrate the conversion of Provoo.

For a short time, I took up the study of Zen under the great Zen Master, Nyogen Senzaki, mentor to the “Beat” generation a decade later, but then I became aware of the Lotus Sutra.

Sometime in 1936, I received a copy of the latest translation into English of the Lotus Sutra, by H. Kerns. It came as a complete revelation to me. It was one of those experiences in which someone else had verbalized my innermost thoughts and put them into print. There are hundreds of schools of Buddhist teaching, each one emphasizing a certain sutra in a certain way. I discovered my own innate concurrence with the Lotus Sutra, it became clear that I should focus my studies through the Nichiren School, which is based in Japan and formulated almost entirely around the Lotus teaching. The Lotus Sutra is the final teaching of the historic Buddha, transmitted to a multitude of followers on Vulture Peak. It proclaims the Buddha to be the embodiment of eternal enlightenment; the realization that this is the perfect world: and that Nirvana and the everyday world are one in the same. The Nichiren School was established to reaffirm this as the ultimate doctrine.

“Namu myoho-renge-kyo”, literally, “Adoration to the Lotus Sutra.”

Or, as I say after my years sculpting my understanding of this sutra, I ‘ve come to think of it this way:

“Adoration to the Lotus Sutra, Adoration to the mysterious perfection of everything,
just as it is.”

That chant, with that meaning, is as deeply ingrained in me as breathing, and it has been a vision that comforted me through years of the most terrifying events in the most horrible circumstances.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p27-28

Table of Contents

LS32, Blog

My Penultimate Cycle Through the Lotus Sutra

Yesterday, after reciting The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva, I completed my 96th cycle through the Lotus Sutra.

I began my daily morning practice reciting the Lotus Sutra in Shindoku on March 15, 2015. I use the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha of Greater New England’s Myoho Renge Kyo Romanized, which divides the Lotus Sutra into 32 parts. On Aug. 13, 2015, I began reading aloud the Lotus Sutra in English as part of my evening practice, reading the same portion of the sutra that I had recited in shindoku in the morning. In July 2019, I began reading The Sutra of Contemplation of the Dharma Practice of Universal Sage Bodhisattva after the end of the 32 days of the Lotus Sutra and the  Sutra of Innumerable Meanings before the start the Lotus Sutra again.

20230826_romanized-cover-arrows-series

As I progress through the 32 days in Myoho Renge Kyo Romanized, I mark my place with a Post-It note arrow. At the end of cycle I add the Post-It arrow to my collection inside the front cover of the book. It takes 16 arrows to fill one column. Originally each column represented 512 days. When I added the Contemplation of Universal Sage and the Innumerable Meanings Sutra each column grew to 544 days.

The sixth column is the penultimate. I plan one final column before concluding this project.

The idea for this project sprang from Rev. Ryusho Jeffus‘ book “The Magic City: Studying the Lotus Sutra.,” in which he explains that a “yojana” is both a measurement of distance and of time. He says:

“I wonder what you could accomplish in your life if you made a commitment from today for 500 days to practice on a regular consistent basis towards the achievement of some change in your life? Would you be able to travel the entire 500 days without giving up or abandoning or forgetting your goal and effort?”

At the start I planned to see what sort of things I could accomplish in 500 days, but Rev. Jeffus chided me, saying a 500-day journey is trivial. He suggested a 10-year timeframe would be more useful for judging the merits of the practice of Nichiren Buddhism.

The year 2024 will be my 10th year of practicing Nichiren Shu Buddhism. I will complete my final 16 cycles through the Lotus Sutra in February 2025. At that point, I plan to pause and consider what I’ve accomplished.

Daily Dharma, d24b

Daily Dharma – Aug. 28, 2023

When they hear even a gāthā or a phrase [of this sūtra] with their pure minds, they will be able to understand the innumerable meanings [of this sūtra]. When they understand the meanings [of this sūtra] and expound even a phrase or a gāthā [of this sūtra] for a month, four months, or a year, their teachings will be consistent with the meanings [of this sūtra], and not against the reality of all things.

The Buddha declares these lines to Constant-Endeavor Bodhisattva in Chapter Nineteen of the Lotus Sūtra, describing those who keep and practice this Sūtra. The words of the Sūtra are not specific directions for how to live. We need to interpret them and apply them to our lives in the world today. There are many others whose experience and guidance can help us see what the Sūtra means, and who can benefit from our experience.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

LS32, Universal Sage, Uncategorized

Between Day 32 and Day 1: The Five Kinds of Buddha Eyes

Having last month considered how to amend both body and mind, we consider the five kinds of Buddha eyes.

Thereupon the buddhas of the ten directions will each extend their right hand, gently stroke the practitioner’s head, and speak these words:

“Well done, you of good intent! Well done! Because you internalize and recite the Great Vehicle sutras, the buddhas of the ten directions will expound the method of self-amendment practiced by bodhisattvas: Neither cut off all ties to the impulses of desire, nor live fully in the ocean of such impulses! Contemplate the nonexistence of what is grasped as mind!

“Conceptualizations arise based on error that is mistaken for truth; in this way delusion gives rise to the concept of mind. In the same manner that wind has no foundation in the air, aspects of phenomena are without origination or cessation. What is guilt? What is bliss? As one’s mind – by nature – is emptiness, guilt and bliss have no owner. All phenomena are the same as this – they neither abide nor decay.

“Amend yourself in this way: Contemplate the nonexistence of what is grasped as mind! A phenomenon does not stay fixed in itself. All phenomena conform to liberation, to the truth of the extinguishment of suffering, and to complete tranquility. Grasping things in this way is described as ultimate self-amendment; it is described as fully composing self-amendment; it is described as self-amendment free from aspects of guilt; it is described as destroying the distinction of mind. Those who practice this self-amendment will be as flowing water: pure and clean in body and mind, not staying fixed in themselves. They will be able to discern Universal Sage Bodhisattva, and the buddhas of the ten directions as well, in any moment of concentration.”

With their bright light of great compassion, the World-honored Ones will then expound the truth of formlessness to the practitioner. He or she will hear the explanation of the ultimate principle of emptiness (śūnyatā). There will be neither fear nor alarm in the practitioner’s mind after hearing the explanation and, when the time comes, he or she will be prepared to take up the true status of bodhisattvahood.

The Buddha addressed Ānanda:

“Practicing in this way is called doing self-amendment. This self-amendment is the method of self-amendment of the buddhas and great bodhisattvas in the ten directions.”

The Buddha said to Ānanda:

“When followers of Buddha undertake to amend themselves of unwholesome and harmful karmic acts after the Buddha has passed away, they must resolutely internalize and recite the Great Vehicle sutras. This comprehensive teaching is the buddha eye of the buddhas, it is the means by which buddhas perfect the five kinds of vision, and, from it, the Buddha’s three manifestations arise. This is great evidence of the Dharma, and it attests to the realm of nirvana. It is within such a realm that the Buddha’s pure threefold manifestation is able to come forth. This threefold manifestation is a source of benefit for human and heavenly beings, and it is supremely worthy of reverence. It should be known that those who internalize and recite the comprehensive Great Vehicle sutras will be endowed with the Buddha’s merit, and that they will lastingly eliminate unwholesomeness and live in keeping with the Buddha’s wisdom.”

See The Five Kinds of Buddha Eyes

Blog

Purification Prayer

20230827_Edwin-Purification-web
Rev. Kenjo Igarashi offers purification prayer for my grandson, Edwin, during Kaji Kito service at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. My son, Richard, holds Edwin as Edwin’s mother, Alexis, prays.
Nichijo, Blog, Books

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo

I first heard the name Nichijo Shaka in 2017. It came up in a discussion about a one-time shami of Rev. Kenjo Igarashi of the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. As far as I know this was  Rev. Igarashi’s first and last attempt to train an American to become a Nichiren Shu priest. It did not end well. When the shami left, he became a follower of Nichijo Shaka of Hawaii. The impression I was given was that  Nichijo Shaka was a Nichiren priest who sought to strip out everything Japanese from Nichiren Buddhism and to create an American Lotus Sutra teaching. He called his effort the Buddhist School of America. I imagined a renegade Japanese priest running an unsanctioned operation. I was wrong on several counts.

nichijo-bookcover
Available for purchase on Amazon

Wanting to know more, I found Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, a book published in 2014. Reading the book in 2021, I learned that Nichijo Shaka, who was born John David Provoo on Aug. 6, 1917, in San Francisco, had another connection to the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. Before Provoo sailed to Minobu in 1966 to complete his training as a Nichiren Shu priest, he spent the last five months of 1965 studying with Bishop Nippo Aoyagi Shaku, who served in the Sacramento Church from 1964  to 1968. According to the book, Provoo conducted Sunday school in English at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church, lectured to English-speaking groups outside the church and worked at a local hospital during that period.

I have tried to find collaborating information on the life of John Provoo and especially Nichijo Shaka’s efforts to create an American Buddhism, but I haven’t found anything. No one who attends the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church today remembers a blue-eyed Caucasian priest-in-training running the Sunday school 55 years ago. Rev. Igarashi, who came to Sacramento in 1989, dismisses Nichijo Shaka as a trouble-maker. I’m told followers of Nichijo Shaka still gather, but I’ve been unable to find one who who is willing to talk to me about his teachings. Nichijo Shaka died in 2001.

But these connections to Sacramento are not what makes John David Provoo famous. As the book’s back-cover blurb explains:

This is the personal saga of John David Provoo. In 1940, the young American Buddhist studying at an ancient monastery in Japan was urged by the U.S. Embassy to return home. In 1941, he enlisted in the US Army in San Francisco, and was soon stationed in the Philippines. Within six months of the outbreak of war, he was captured along with thousands of others on the island fortress of Corregidor, in the mouth of Manila Bay.

In the early months after capture, the Japanese used him as an interpreter, a role that created suspicion in the minds of some that he had become a collaborator. After years of privations in POW camps in Taiwan, he was moved to Bunkwa Camp in downtown Tokyo, and forced to make propaganda broadcasts with others, including Iva Toguri, from Radio Tokyo, until the end of the war.

In the post war years, he was continually harassed by the FBI throughout a second Army enlistment. In 1949, he was discharged, taken immediately into federal custody and charged with treason for events on Corregidor and taking part in radio programs. His trial was foreshadowed by the conviction of Iva Toguri, cast by the government as the non-existent “Tokyo Rose”.

This book is his personal narrative of the events that led up to his prosecution and his final return to the training for the Buddhist priesthood.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo is written as a first-person tale told by John David Provoo, but the final version of the book was rewritten by John Oliver. Here’s the About the Author blurb:

John Oliver earned Bachelor degrees in Political Science and Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1969. In the 1970s, he discovered his passion for homebuilding, and has spent most of his life as an artisan building contractor in California and Hawaii. In a chance encounter with Bishop Nichijo Shaka on the rural Big Island in 1983, he found a direct use for his liberal arts education. His collaboration with Rev. Shaka resulted in the biography, “Nichijo”, copyrighted in 1986, but never published. In 2014, living in semi-retirement in Sonoma County, California, he finally found the time to complete the thoughtful rewrite that was begun nearly 30 years before. “Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo” was released in October of 2014.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p248

 

Having read the book for a second time, I’m going to attempt to set aside by journalistic skepticism, and accept as fact what is written in Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo. There are some fascinating aspects of how Provoo came to be a Nichiren Shu Buddhist priest.

Table of Contents

Nichijo: The Path to the Lotus Sutra
Nichijo: The Disciple Finds His Master
Nichijo and Nippo
Nichijo: A Novice Priest at War
Nichijo: The Right Reverend
Nichijo: The Buddhist School of America
Nichijo: The Missing Piece of Provoo’s Story

Nichijo: Errata

Daily Dharma, d31b

Daily Dharma – Aug. 27, 2023

Thereupon Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom Buddha said to King Wonderful-Adornment, ‘So it is, so it is. It is just as you say. The good men or women who plant the roots of good will obtain teachers in their successive lives. The teachers will do the work of the Buddha, show the Way [to them], teach them, benefit them, cause them to rejoice, and cause them to enter into the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi (Perfect Enlightenment). Great King, know this! A teacher is a great cause [of your enlightenment] because he leads you, and causes you to see a Buddha and aspire for Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.

These lines are part of a story told by the Buddha in Chapter Twenty-Seven of the Lotus Sūtra. The Buddha uses this story to remind us of how much benefit we get from our teachers. When we see the world with the eyes of the Buddha, and know that he is always thinking of how to lead us, we can find innumerable teachers, and know to show our gratitude to them.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

LS32

Day 32

Day 32 covers Chapter 28, The Encouragement of Universal-Sage Bodhisattva, closing the Eighth Volume of the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.

Day 32 Text with annotationsPlay MP3

Having last month considered Universal-Sage’s question, we consider Universal Sage’s vow.

“World-Honored One! The bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās or upāsikās who seek, keep, read, recite and copy this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma in the defiled world in the later five hundred years after [your extinction], if they wish to study and practice this sūtra, should concentrate their minds [on study and practice] strenuously for three weeks. When they complete [the study and practice of] three weeks, I will mount a white elephant with six tusks, and appear before them with my body which all living beings wish to see, together with innumerable Bodhisattvas surrounding me. I will expound the Dharma to them, show them the Way, teach them, benefit them, and cause them to rejoice. I also will give them dhārāṇi spells. If they obtain these dhārāṇis, they will not be killed by nonhuman beings or captivated by women. Also I myself will always protect them. World-Honored One! Allow me to utter these dhārāṇis spells!”

Thereupon he uttered spells before the Buddha:

“Atandai (1), tandahatai (2), tandahatei (3), tandakusharei (4), tandashudarei (5), shudarei (6), shudarahachi (7), botsudahasennei (8), sarubadarani-abatani (9), sarubabasha-abataru (10), hu­abatani (11), sōgyahabishani (12), sōgyaneku-kyadani (13), asogi (14), sōgyahagyadai. (15), teirei-ada-sōgyatorya-aratei-haratei (16), sarubasogya-sammaji-kyarandai (17), sarubadaruma­shuharisettei (18), saru-basatta-rodakyōsharya-atogyadai (19), shin-abikiridaitei (20).”

[He said to the Buddha:]

“World-Honored One! It is by my supernatural powers, know this, that a Bodhisattva can hear these dhārāṇis. Anyone who keeps the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma [while it is] propagated in the Jambudvipa, should think, ‘I can keep [this sūtra] only by the supernatural powers of Universal-­Sage.’ Anyone who keeps, reads and recites this sūtra, memorizes it correctly, understands the meanings of it, and acts according to it, know this, does the same practices that I do. He should be considered to have already planted deeply the roots of good under innumerable Buddhas [in his previous existence]. He will be caressed on the head by the hands of the Tathāgatas. Anyone who copies this sūtra will be reborn in the Heaven of the Trāyastriṃs̒a Gods immediately after his present life. On that occasion, eighty-four thousand goddesses will come and receive him, making many kinds of music. A crown of the seven treasures will be put on his head, and he will enjoy himself among the ladies in waiting. Needless to say, [more merits will be given to] the person who [not only copies this sūtra but also] keeps, reads and recites it, memorizes it correctly, understands the meanings of it, and acts according to it. Anyone who keeps, reads and recites this sūtra, and understands the meanings of it, will be given helping hands by one thousand Buddhas immediately after his present life. He will be fearless. He will not fall into any evil region. He will be reborn in the Tusiita Heaven. There he will go to Maitreya Bodhisattva who, adorned with the thirty-two marks, will be surrounded by great Bodhisattvas, and attended on by hundreds of thousands of billions of goddesses. He will be given the benefits of these merits. Therefore, anyone who has wisdom should copy this sūtra with all his heart, cause others to copy it, and also keep, read and recite it, memorize it correctly, and act according to it.

“World-Honored One! I will protect this sūtra with my supernatural powers so that it may be propagated and not be destroyed in the Jambudvipa after your extinction.”

The Daily Dharma from July 5, 2023, offers this:

Anyone who keeps, reads and recites this sūtra, memorizes it correctly, understands the meanings of it, and acts according to it, know this, does the same practices that I do. He should be considered to have already planted deeply the roots of good under innumerable Buddhas [in his previous existence].

Universal-Sage (Fugen, Samantabhadra) Bodhisattva makes this declaration to the Buddha in Chapter Twenty-Eight of the Lotus Sūtra. In our mundane practice of the Wonderful Dharma, it is easy to overlook our place in the world and the benefits we bring to all beings. The magnificent character of Universal-Sage reminds us that despite our feelings of insignificance, we are the result of countless lives of practice and equal in our merits to this great Bodhisattva.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com

Lee: Tanaka

Gauging Tanaka’s Importance

One might well argue that Tanaka Chigaku’s principal importance lies not so much in what he said but in whom he influenced. Although most of his followers were humble folk, rather far down on the ladder of success, however it might be measured, a fairly large, and surprisingly varied, group of important people counted themselves among his disciples: Takayama Chogyū, who though tragically short-lived is now reckoned to have been one of the Meiji period’s pre-eminent scholars; Anesaki Masaharu, perhaps Japan’s most influential interpreter of Buddhism to Western readers; Miyazawa Kenji, a farmer-poet of sublime genius; Inoue Nisshō, a radical terrorist active in a number of ultranationalist plots in the 1930s; and Ishiwara Kanji, an army officer who regarded the Mukden Incident, which he helped plan, as the first stage in the spreading of the Kingly Way throughout the world.

But what inspired these people and led to the achievements in which Tanaka took pride was Nichirenism, and so we return to the paradoxical fact that what makes Tanaka, basically anti-intellectual, important derives from his scholarship. Like other Buddhists, Tanaka was able to find in the teachings of Nichiren, with their chauvinistic overtones, ample support for the secular government of Japan. But he went beyond this, and it was in his ideas of syncretism, his reinterpretation of Nichiren Buddhism in Shinto terms, that he made his unique contribution to modern Japanese life. He imbued Buddhism with a nationalistic bias that made it possible not only for an individual believer to support his political leaders unswervingly, but for the Buddhist church itself, as a vehicle to facilitate the achievement of political ends, to assert itself positively in the secular world from which it had long been excluded. The impact of Nichirenism upon mainstream Nichiren Buddhism cannot be accurately measured, but it was certainly felt.

Nichiren and Nationalism

Daily Dharma, d4b

Daily Dharma – Aug. 26, 2023

The Buddhas seldom appear in the worlds.
It is difficult to meet them.
Even when they do appear in the worlds,
They seldom expound the Dharma.

The Buddha proclaims these verses in Chapter Two of the Lotus Sūtra. Later in the Sūtra he explains that in reality he became enlightened far in the past and will continue to lead all beings to enlightenment far into the future. The reason the Buddhas appear so rarely is not because they conceal themselves. It is because we do not recognize them for what they are. We cannot see the air we breathe, but it is crucial for our lives. Because of this we often take it for granted, unless we are so afflicted, or the air is so poisoned that we cannot breathe. Then we are aware of it. Likewise, the Buddha Dharma is available to us all the time.

The Daily Dharma is produced by the Lexington Nichiren Buddhist Community. To subscribe to the daily emails, visit zenzaizenzai.com