On Northwest 10th and Davis, just blocks away from Chinatown in downtown Portland, Oregon, sits the historic Buddha Building established in 1911. It is surrounded by commercial businesses presenting deluxe yoga studio space and beautiful eastern style rugs, but it is perhaps the truest vestige of eastern influence around Portland. The Buddha Building was the first site of the Oregon Buddhist Temple, the first Japanese Buddhist temple in Oregon and the oldest surviving congregation. Now the Oregon Buddhist Temple sits on NE 34th and Powell, where it has stood for 50 years, but it was certainly a journey getting there. The community, or Sangha as they refer to themselves, started as a group of Buddhist Japanese immigrants in 1903, founded by Reverend Shozoui Wakabayashi, and moved to the Buddha Building soon after it was built. As their community grew, the congregations’ needs proved greater than the Buddha Building could provide, so they bought a plot of land and meant to build a new, larger temple there just before 1940. Alas, this was not to be, as Japanese internment interfered. The scattered members of the old congregation who returned to Portland after their imprisonment were no longer in a position to build their new temple. Their numbers depleted, their financial positions markedly different, the Sangha members sold their land and focused on rebuilding what they had lost. Twenty years later, they bought another tract of land and built their current temple, which is much larger and grander than the retired Buddha Building which enjoys historic building status and is now, somewhat anticlimactically, office space.
I visited the Oregon Buddhist Temple just after their weekly 10am Sunday meeting during a time their schedule designates as Dharma Exchange. This is the time when the adults among the Sangha, with the help of a ‘guide’ discuss how they apply Buddhist principles and practice to their daily life. This is also the time that the children among the congregation take part in a sort of Sunday school. The day I visited however, the congregation was cleaning in preparation for the holiday Bodhi Day, cleansing the brass bells and instruments and burning incense. The children’s choir practiced for the festival as well. Because of the irregularity of the activity, I had time to observe community and talk with a member of the community as well as the priest presiding over the congregation.
Simply looking around the place of worship, I could see that the community looked about half Asian American and half white. Talking with Brenda, the community member I conversed with, she almost immediately confirmed this observation. She told me how the congregation, as stated earlier in the history, was made up originally of all Japanese immigrants. Then, later, there were more marriages between the Asian members and people of other ethnicities, primarily white – not altogether surprising as Portland is 72.2% white according to the 2014 United States census, making it the whitest major city in America. Of course, Brenda stipulates, in the 1960’s and 1970’s there was an influx of white practitioners who came of their own accord, without the influence of a partner who was already a member. That was how she, herself, came to practice there. Brenda told me how she actually has had a pen pal in Japan since she was eleven years old and that they still continue to talk today. This pen pal sparked her interest in Buddhism and so she has really been a life long practitioner as she looks to be approaching 70. Brenda says that she had just visited Japan last year to see her pen pal. Her own Japanese, while once fluently spoken, has faded, and she laughs that the same could be said for her friend’s English. “It’s much easier if we just get together.” Brenda tells me that she was told the temple and alters of all the Shin temples look alike but she never believed it until when she visited a temple in Japan and felt that she was “back at home”.
I ask the Priest how her congregation associates with other temples in the states and internationally. She replies that they are followers of Jodo Shinshu, or Shin in the Pureland sect of Mahayana Buddhism, the most common sect of Buddhism found in Japan. She talks of the thousands of temples in Japan of this type and the many in America with which they have an affiliation. While she named temples in the United States as far as New Jersey that they had had contact with, she says they have the strongest ties to those on the west coast – Washington, California, others in Oregon, and many in Hawaii– in short, the states with the strongest history of Japanese immigration. The Oregon Buddhist Temple is part of the Buddhist Churches of America conglomerate whose head temple is in San Francisco, and whose connection the Oregon temple values and looks to, to lead within the United States. The head temple of the Shin sect is called Nishi Hongwanji which is located in Kyoto Japan.
Jodo Shinshu was founded by Shinran Shonin who lived in the Kamakura period of Japan from 1173-1262 CE. Shiran was a disillusioned monk and so sought retreat where he had visions that lead him to another monk who would become his teacher and guide, Honen. Under Honen, at the age of 29, Shiran reached enlightenment though the Amida’s Vow, or the primal vow which denotes,
“If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the lands of the ten quarters who sincerely and joyfully entrust themselves to me, desire to be born in my land, and call my Name, even ten times, should not be born there, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment. Excluded, however, are those who commit the five gravest offences and abuse the right Dharma.”
The Primal Vow is number 18 in a list of 48 vows in which Amida Buddha detailed the virtues of his Pure Land. To prove that the Primal vow could offer salvation for all, lay people included, Shiran married and ate meat, practices that were prohibited for practicing monks, and he and Honen were later exiled from the community, in part because of these actions. While Honen had founded the Pure Land Path, Shiran extended it, and taught the “True Pure Land Way”. This practice, as repeated by the Priest of the Oregon Buddhist Temple, emphasizes renouncing the ignorant self, true and deep listening to the Dharma, and the trust in the infinite wisdom and compassion of the Amida Buddha, the Buddha of infinite light and life or the eternal Buddha. The priest preaches deep listening to the practitioners of her temple. She hopes they use meditation and community engagement to realize the truth of the Dharma. She does not “push”, which is why she feels they have so many returning members who feel comfortable developing their Buddhist understanding within the community instead of pressured to conform to all beliefs. People are encouraged to integrate gratitude and reflection into their daily lives. A brochure on Buddhist Etiquette that I picked up at the front desk recommends reflection inward before and after meals on the food that sustains us and lets us continue studying and listening to the Dharma. The Priest says that most members of the congregation have alters at home where they may recite parts of the Dharma, or on perhaps busier days, just bow to the alter with hands in prayer. The temple’s website states that “All people, regardless of ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and political or religious affiliation area welcome”. Further, all members and guests are welcome at the classes and ritual festivals that the temple hosts. Before 10am services on Sundays, there are 9am meditation classes, and combined with the Dharma exchange and Sunday School mentioned previously, there is a bi-weekly Buddhist study class and holiday celebrations close to every month.
The Temple sustains itself through the generosity of their patrons, or through Dana, whether through financial donations or donations of time. There are annual dues of $200 per person, or $400 per family, and the temple hosts fundraisers usually surrounding holiday celebrations with food and social activity. In 2003, the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA), of which Oregon Buddhist Temple is part, put forth the goals for Jodo Shinshu Buddhism: to be considered a major religious tradition in the United States, to become a religion that would be recognizable to American citizens, and to expand the breadth of Shin Buddhism to a multi-cultural community. The fiscal estimate to enact these goals is 30 million dollars.
Indeed, it does seem that Buddhism is slowing permeating American mainstream culture, from yoga studios to meditation classes. This may be desirable and certainly healthy for Americans who are entirely too stressed and perhaps take themselves too seriously, but should ritual and Dharma not also be taken along with the other practices? Extracting certain aspects from a culture that seem relevant is the American way, but almost always leads to superficial understanding and lessens the effects of practice. For its part, the Oregon Buddhist Temple combats this stereotype of American appropriation because it values ritual, tradition, and practice as one.
Web Sites Used:
http://www.oregonbuddhisttemple.com/index.html
http://web.mit.edu/stclair/www/amida.html