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

After his ordination, Nichijo Shaka sought to create a training program for foreign students in Japan.

I had been trying to arrange a program for foreign students to be established at Minobu, and though I had the support of the Lord Abbot, I was meeting some resistance from the administrative hierarchy. A few days before my departure for America, I went to meet with the order’s leaders at Shumuin headquarters in Tokyo. When they repeated their reluctance I confronted them head on and harangued them for their provincial attitude. I said that when I had established a temple in America, I would open the gates wide to all who wished to study the Lotus; Chinese, Koreans, Caucasians, anyone – Nichiren was a saint for the world, not just Japan.

As Nichijo Shaka prepared to return to America he received some telling advice when he questioned Archbishop Nichijo Fujii about establishing his temple in America.

How would the temple survive, how would I know where to build it, how would I raise the funds? The Lord Abbot answered, “If your teaching is valid, everything will support you; if it is not, nothing will.”

Nichijo Shaka sailed for America this time with a sense of meaning and mission.

Much had been resolved inwardly and outwardly during my training. I felt that the very nature of reality almost by conscious design, had guided me through the worst ordeals of life to reveal the innate symmetry of karmic justice: That whenever I had abandoned my fate, something unexpected had come to my rescue; that each time I was placed in captivity, among my captors there had been an ally; that within every destructive thing lies the seeds of its own destruction; that the machinations and maneuvers of my legal defense had not been able to prevent my conviction, it was the ruthlessness and dirty tricks of the prosecution that had ultimately freed me; that within a seemingly omnipotent government, dispassionately bent on my execution, there were men of justice. The perfect void within which all visible things exist acts as a mirror that reflects hatred and evil back on themselves; and love, giving and compassion back on themselves, too. Hatred need not be reciprocated, it is self-destructive; and love need not be rewarded, the giving of it is the source of happiness.

In 1967, he had intended to sail from Japan to San Francisco but during  a layover in Honolulu he was instead enticed to stay in Hawaii. Nichijo Shakya eventually received some heavily forested land in the Puna District of the Big Island and established the Buddhist School of America. According to a Honolulu Advertiser newspaper article, by 1981 he had trained and ordained 17 priests, many of them women.

Nichijo Shakya concludes his testimony:

For years, I had been burdened with feelings of guilt, rage and resentment. Now a major change was taking place within me. Everything began to fit. I was increasingly aware of that vast area above and beyond self-centeredness: When I was young, and for marked periods thereafter, this consciousness had been my usual state. Now it was returning, and in greater depth.How marvelous that change, the constantly evolving process of life, never ceases! We go towards the light. “The Kingdom of God is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it.” The idea took on new depth and imminent meaning. As tears of anguish bring clearer sight, so do years of justice denied bring glorious vision and some glimmer of knowingness. Life is the real trial, and without this insubstantial phantasmagoria of phenomenal existence, there can be no Nirvana. The ceaseless burden of expiation, alienation and exile has been lightened. The forest is filled with birdsong, and the faded flowers thrown from my little shrine cabinet take root and flourish in abundance. I think continually of the wonderful people who have come to my forest retreat to share with me the loving care and friendship while learning of the Dharma teaching. Each one is to me a perfect Lotus of truth.

“All things work together for good” has become electrically real. The higher power, intelligence, grace, eternal-that-which-is by whatever term we might employ, recreated the entire spectrum of the universe in splendor and in peace. Clarity resulted from meditation, and I became aware of the beautiful cosmic creativity and spontaneous nature of existence. In all of this, everything happened just as it should, without any preordained plan or intention of my own. It was as if I had spent the major portion of my existence trying to bring life to an arid plot of wasteland, and at long last miraculously there appeared flourishing fields of grain. Now my entire being resonates with a gratitude beyond understanding or expression. Words fail.

All praise and adoration be to all things, such as they now are; ever were; and ever will be.

In love and reverence, Nichijo, September 1984

Daniel Montgomery’s Fire in the Lotus contains a section on Nichijo Shaka.  For purposes of comparison with Nichijo’s testimony, I offer Montgomery’s error-prone view of Nichijo’s Buddhist School of  America.

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In my article on Nichijo and his mentor Nippo I said:

He took Nichijo from Archbishop Nichijo Fujii, his master when he was studying at Minobu after the war, and Shaku from Nippo Shaku, the teacher who guided him on his journey to Minobu.

Clearly that’s wrong on its face since Nichijo’s name is Nichijo Shaka, not Shaku. I also misspelled Shaka as Shakya in another article.

If I find any other obvious errors I will correct them.

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

On Saturday, Jan. 1, 1966, John Provoo sailed for Japan to resume his training at Minobu to become a Nichiren Shu priest.

Again my ship docked at Yokohama, this time in an era of peace. There was an enthusiastic reception for me, the prodigal “Furobo-san,” as they called me, since they could not pronounce “Provoo,” and a banquet in a fine hotel. Many among the Japanese population who knew my story had adopted me as their own, and I felt fondness in their welcome. Then the train ride to Minobu: I was overjoyed to find that it had been untouched by the war.

Provoo was raised to the rank of Sozu (Right Reverend) and began his instruction with Archbishop Nichijo Fujii.

Each morning after the otsutome, I would go to the Lord Abbot’s villa. Every two or three days the Abbot would say, “is there something you wish to ask?” and I would offer my interpretation of a particular point and ask if it was correct. I also began to ask if I might be included in a very high training, the “Arai Gyodo” – the “One Hundred Days in Winter,” an ordeal of cleansing and purification. The Lord Abbot would put me off.

I had easily entered into the life of the monastery. The regimen that had been difficult and harsh to me as a young novice [in 1940-41] was now easy. I didn’t have the pressure of being in a strange country that was preparing for war against my own, and the students in my English classes at Minobusan College were not sickly and green from malnutrition.

Eventually the Abbott relented on Provoo’s request to participate in Arai Gyodo and he was allowed to enter the 100-day ascetic practice.

After three-quarters of the hundred days had elapsed, I had reached the state of mind that I wanted this to go on forever, and I could understand why the old ones had come again and again. One old monk died during the ritual, and I could see what a sublime death it was, and we were certain that the old monk had been happy to have ended that way.

Having been prepared in this manner, the participants were ready to receive the highest teachings of the order. The attendant masters delivered occult training in the healing arts based on the 16th Chapter of the Lotus Sutra. The teachings of the Arai Gyodo are secret and are not described to outsiders.

After completing the 100-day ascetic training, Provoo was promoted to rank of “Bishop” with the authority to ordain priests and given the name Nichijo Shaka.

Following my ordination ceremony, I walked down to the village of Minobu’s outer gate, to make the traditional procession up through the winding main street of Minobu chanting “Namu Myoho-renge-kyo.”

I was known to everyone in the village, and today, wearing my new insignia of high rank, I was honored and congratulated by all. The proprietors of every shop and inn asked me to stop and chant a sutra before each of their shrines. It was a triumphant procession, Minobu’s version of a ticker tape parade. After some hours, I reached the huge Sammon Gate, entrance to the temple grounds, and retired to my quarters.

My first official function with my new rank came a few days later, when late one cold evening a schoolboy came to my quarters. The boy had come all the way up the dark stairs and through the monastery grounds to find me. There was an emergency in an old woman’s home down by the river in the poorest part of the village. The woman wanted the “blue-eyed priest and no other.”

I got robed, banked the ashes over the coals in my hibachi to keep them going until I returned, and gathered my sutras and my cape. Guided by the schoolboy, we made our way down the mountain to the old woman’s hut. The dilapidated thatched building was in an advanced state of disrepair. The old woman greeted me at the door and invited me to enter. She was bent way over from age and wore an old padded robe that was faded and had the stuffing coming out in several places. The straw mats on the floor were unraveling and her feet were bare; she hadn’t even tabi. In her hibachi there were only a few small lumps of charcoal and it wasn’t enough to keep the cottage warm, not with the holes in the walls.

Her tragedy was that her hibari bird was dead in its cage. It had died from the cold. She wanted the Lotus Sutra chanted for the happy transfiguration of her dead bird’s spirit. I was touched by this and agreed.

Her shrine was clean, there were artificial flowers and a glass of water as an offering, and there was incense there for me to light. I took off my cape and began the service. I opened my sutra and chanted at least five chapters, the long version of the ceremony.
When it was over, the woman seemed much moved and had become very peaceful. She tried to make tea, but with her small amount of charcoal she could only make the water lukewarm, and the tea was weak when she served it.

She rummaged around in her belongings and found two 100-yen notes, wrinkled and dirty, were worth about six cents. She didn’t have the proper envelope, so she wrapped the notes in white paper and knelt down to offer them to me. It was the hardest danna I would ever have to accept. Danna is a Sanskrit term denoting that offering given to a priest which bears the connotation “…where it is understood that there is neither gift, giver nor recipient.” To have refused to accept it from the old woman would have been unthinkable. It would have been a cruel insult.

I returned to my quarters in the monastery. In the following days I arranged, in an indirect way, to have charcoal sent to the old woman’s house as well as some nonperishable foodstuffs.

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