A Buddhist monk responds to spiritual awakening  

Cultural News November 2007 Issue

 

Bishop Seicho Asahi of Los Angeles Koyasan Buddhist Temple standing in front of the Diamond Realm (Vajra Dhatu) Mandala in the Koyasan Temple in Little Tokyo. (Cultural News Photo)

 

 

By Takeshi Nakayama and Shige Higashi

 

   Before Buddhism was brought to Tibet from India in the ninth century, the Esoteric Teaching or Vajrayana tradition, the latest development in Buddhism, was brought from China to Japan by a monk named Kukai in 806.

 

   The Los Angeles Koyasan Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo is the headquarters in  North America for Japan’s oldest Buddhist school Shingon (true word) –Shu (school). Shingon Buddhism is also called Koyasan (Mt. Koya) because Kukai was granted Mt. Koya from the Emperor Saga in 816 and established a monastery there.

 

   What Shingon priests say resembles phrases of Tibetan monks. Bishop Seicho Asahi, head minister of the Los Angeles Koyasan Buddhist Temple explains, “In Buddhism, from birth to death we have life within the physical body, and at the time of death, we lose our physical body but our spirit continues to live, and we get another physical body at rebirth. We keep repeating this cycle of birth and death.”

 

   People create Karma by thinking, by speaking, and by acting, and good Karma becomes one’s virtue, Asahi points out. “If you create really bad energy or Karma, you have a responsibility to cleanse it ... When you cleanse all the bad Karma, you are no longer in this cycle of birth and death, and join the Universal Life that we call Nirvana.”

 

   Bishop Seicho Asahi, recently appointed head of Los Angeles Koyasan Buddhist Temple and Koyasan’s North American Mission, is a versatile minister who previously acted as Buddhist chaplain at maximum security Folsom Prison near Sacramento where his previous assignment, Northern California Koyasan Temple was located.

 

    One priority at the prison involved making the inmates laugh, Asahi says. “In prison you have to belong to a group ... your life is always at risk, and there’s no chance to laugh. So at least once or twice during each session, I made them laugh. They became relaxed, more eager to learn and friendlier.”

 

    Asahi shared Buddhism teachings with inmates at Folsom Prison from March 2003 to March 2007, after some prisoners demanded a Buddhist chaplain. Prison officials called Koyasan Temple in Sacramento, and Asahi volunteered to serve one-and-a-half-hour evening sessions twice a month.

 

    “Four years ago, there were only six or seven prisoners interested in Buddhism,” remembers Asahi.  By the time he announced his transfer to Los Angeles, the number of attendees increased gradually to 43 people—Whites, Blacks, Mexicans, Asians and Muslim Arabs—Asahi discloses.

 

   The number of Buddhists in the U.S. is increasing, too, Asahi notes. “There is a lot of interest in yoga, and many people like Buddhism because it is open to any faith.”

 

    Folsom was “a real eye-opening experience,” Asahi says. “I enjoyed the work, and I think the inmates who came to the sessions enjoyed it. Most of them were really nice people, very honest, very calm .... They were not animals or demons. "

Asahi also explains that inmates at Folsom Prison stay more than 15 years to a life term. Many inmates are really searching for the meaning of life.  

 

     There are three traditions in Buddhism: Theravada began in 5 BC, Mahayana started around 2 AD, and Vajrayana about 7 AD, Asahi explains. Koyasan belongs to the Vajrayana tradition, similar to Tibetan Buddhism of the eighth to ninth century.  “I believe those three traditions, and all religions, are the path to the same summit ... Each goes toward the same goal--enlightenment,” Asahi says.

 

   Intent on adding ministers to spread Buddhist teachings, Asahi has trained eight people -- five have acquired the minister’s license and one is taking final tests at Mt. Koya. The examinations are now available in English, and headquarters is considering adding tests in Chinese.

 

   At Koyasan Temple in Los Angeles, Asahi leads meditation sessions, translates ancient texts into English, makes and plays the taiko, teaches Japanese vegetarian cooking, and is busy updating the temple’s accounting system.

 

    “I’d also like to share the culture of Japan through taiko,” states Asahi, a taiko player who started a taiko group in 1993 and made more than 100 drums while at the Sacramento temple. “We established our own way of making taiko, with a grant from the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. We made a brochure and video about taiko and sent them to 50 elementary schools to teach students about culture and art.”

 

   Hiroshima-born Asahi, who succeeds Bishop Taisen Miyata, graduated from Koyasan University at Mt. Koya in Wakayama prefecture, Japan. He came to Los Angeles in September 1981, and served as a minister for nine-and-a-half years. He transferred to Northern California Koyasan Temple in Sacramento and served for 16 years before returning here in April 2007.

 

   Koyasan Buddhist Temple is located at 342 E. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, (213) 624-1267, www.koyasanbetsuin.org.

 

   Takeshi Nakayama is a free-lance journalist who lives in Walnut, California.

  

   Shige Higashi is the editor of Cultural News.