As part of my series of articles discussing the book,Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, I’m reprinting here the portion of Daniel Montgomery’s Fire in the Lotus discussing Nichijo Shakya. This material, which was published in 1991, has several factual errors. For example Montgomery suggests Rev. Shobo Aoyagi was at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church in 1940 when John Provoo formally converted to Nichiren Buddhism. Aoyagi was in San Francisco. Montgomery also mischaracterizes why Provoo’s conviction for treason was overturned. Several other facts differ from those in Nichijo’s book.
Buddhist School of America
Nichijo Shaka is the most colorful and controversial Nichiren leader in America. In spite of his Japanese name, he is a Caucasian American from San Francisco. Born John D. Provoo in 1917. He was introduced to Oriental philosophy by his mother, who was an early Montessori advocate. She later converted to Buddhism under the guidance of her son. Provoo was so impressed by Buddhism that in 1940 he accepted the Precepts (formally converted) under the Rev. Shobo Aoyagi of the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church. Never one to do things by halves, he went to Japan to study for the priesthood at Mount Minobu. He had been there seven months when his studies were cut short by a call from his draft board back in California (Young East, Autumn 1965, 13).
The draft board ignored his claim to be a theological student and assigned him to the army, which soon shipped him back to the Orient, this time to the Philippines. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines in 1941, Provoo suddenly found himself in the thick of desperate fighting. However, with the fall of the American fortress of Corregidor, he was taken prisoner.
Provoo was one of the few American prisoners who could speak Japanese. Moreover, he had a lively interest in Buddhism and Japanese culture. The Japanese found him a willing spokesman for the prisoners — perhaps too willing. Within two days of his capture, he was thought to have made accusations against an American lieutenant which led to the latter’s execution. As the weary years passed, many American prisoners, who were living under appalling conditions, came to resent Provoo’s behavior and favored treatment from their Japanese captors. They believed that his cooperation with the enemy had passed over to collaboration. “The consensus among the men on Corregidor,” says Lt. Gen. John Wright, a former fellow-prisoner, “was that Provoo was a traitor, a turncoat, a self-centered individual not to be trusted.”
When the war ended, Provoo was at first overlooked in the flush of victory, but his fellow prisoners of war had not forgotten him. Eventually some of them managed to get him charged with collaboration with the enemy — treason — and brought to trial. Throughout the trial Provoo steadfastly maintained his innocence, but former prisoners lined up against him. Among them was no less a personage than General Wainwright, the highest ranking American prisoner of war. Provoo was found guilty and condemned to a federal prison. His lawyers, however, had not yet given up, and carried his case to the Supreme Court of the United States. There he was declared innocent on a technicality: the statute of limitations had expired. Provoo’s conviction was reversed, and he was set free.
In 1965 a large Japanese delegation came to the United States to participate in the 12th Congress of the World Association of World Federalists. The delegation was headed by Archbishop Nichijo Fujii, the highest ranking abbot of Nichiren Shu. After the close of the congress some of the delegates, including Archbishop Fujii and Professor Senchu Murano, made a tour of the United States to meet American Buddhists. In New York City Professor Murano was approached by John Provoo, who asked to be introduced to the Archbishop. The two got on well. Provoo became the personal disciple of the Archbishop, who took him back to Japan to continue his studies at Mount Minobu.
Provoo concluded his studies satisfactorily. He was ordained a priest, and in 1968 the Archbishop gave him the right to train and ordain future American aspirants. Provoo changed his name to Nichijo Shaka — Nichijo in honor of the Archbishop and Shaka for Shakyamuni Buddha. By 1981, when he came to the “Big Island” of Hawaii, he had trained and ordained 17 priests, of whom many were women. (The Honolulu Advertiser, 30 August 1981)
Nichijo Shaka never attempted to start a mass movement. His aim was to establish an American training center for serious students who would then bring orthodox Nichiren Buddhism back to their home towns. Because he wanted his center to be purely American, he refused to accept official support for it as a Nichiren Shu foreign mission. He lived simply as a Buddhist monk, and it was not until Dr Richard E. Peterson of the University of Hawaii gave him the use of three acres on the “Big Island” that he was able to build a permanent center.
Like Nichiren, who was finally granted land on Minobu only to find his health deteriorating, Nichijo Shaka found himself in the same predicament. He founded the “Buddhist School of America: Perfect Law of the Lotus Teaching” when he was too ill to supervise it properly. Therefore he ordained the Rev. Nichizo Finney as his successor, and took him to Minobu to complete his training. (History of Nichiren Buddhism in Hawaii, 34, in Japanese)
Nichijo Shaka’s career is drawing to its close. The success or failure of his efforts now rests with those he trained, and their impact remains to be seen.
Fire in the Lotus, p251-253