This is another in a series of articles discussing the book, Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo.
For my purposes I want to gather everything about John Provoo’s mentor into one spot since he comes to Provoo’s aid in his journey to becoming a Nichiren priest at several places.
In Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo the name of Provoo’s mentor is said to be Aoiyagi Shoho, who later became Bishop Nippo Aoiyagi Shoho. A photo at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church, where he served from 1964 to 1968, is captioned Rev. Nippo Aoyagi Syaku. His photo is displayed in the anteroom inside the entrance to the temple along with the 12 other priests and priests in training who served the Sacramento church since its founding in September 1931.
However, a history of Worldwide Propagation of Nichiren Buddhism written by Ryuei Michael McCormick, spells his name Nippo Shaku. This spelling helps explain where John Provoo later got his Buddhist name. 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. See note at end.
In 1935 Provoo gave up his lush life as a radio entertainer and took a lowly clerk’s job at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco in order to focus on his Buddhist studies. For several years, Rev. Aoiyagi and Provoo studied.
Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p31Reverend Aoiyagi had written to the temple authorities in Japan, telling them of my conversion and desire to enter the monastery there. It was Reverend Aoiyagi’s wish to accompany me in order to introduce me, sponsor me and facilitate my entry into formal training. I gave notice at the bank and paid my fare on the NYR line to Yokohama, Japan.
In March of 1940, the day of my embarkation arrived, several robed priests came to my house, a temporary altar was erected in my living room, and incense and prayers were offered. The entourage left in a caravan of automobiles, stopping at several temples on the way. When we arrived at dockside, several hundred well wishers, many of them Japanese, were there to see Reverend Aoiyagi and myself off.
During the cruise from America to Japan, Provoo developed a deep feeling that his mission would be to bridge East and West, an ambition that would end up getting him tried by the U.S. government on charges of treason.
Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p37-38Our arrival as young priest and master in Yokohama was on one of those rare days when Mt. Fuji is visible. The lower slopes were covered with clouds, and the ancient volcano shone brightly above giving it the appearance of floating in the air. There was a reception for Reverend Aoiyagi and me at the hotel in Yokohama where we spent the first night. The following day we made the 100-mile train ride to the beautiful valley on the far side of Mt. Fuji.
We arrived in the town of Minobu in the late afternoon and found a room in the Tamaya Inn. In the morning we arose long before dawn to climb Mt. Minobu to the temple to arrive in time for the morning otsutome, the worship service conducted each day in the founder’s hall.
Following the service, Provoo was coached on what would happen when he had his audience with Mochizuki Nichiken, the Lord Abbot of Minobu.
Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p38-40I was then taken to a huge reception hall. At the far end of the hall the Lord Abbot was seated on a raised dais. I was required to make several bows as I proceeded down this long, massive hall toward him. I felt as though I were growing smaller and smaller as I approached and the Abbot loomed larger and more formidable. Finally I reached the dais and made my last bow and looked up. The Abbot said to me, in Japanese, “It is well you have come. You are my disciple. Now get out.” It was not until that moment that I knew that I would be accepted. It was a great honor to be accepted as a novitiate by a master who was over thousands of monks and priests.
Before Rev. Aoiyagi left to return to the United States, he and Provoo explored the temple complex together.
Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p40-41We climbed the mountains behind the main temple. We were going to a small temple very high up the slopes of Mt. Minobu.
I had gone on some distance ahead, since my legs were much longer than Aoiyagi’s and reached the temple a few minutes before him. The priestess of the temple bowed as I approached but as soon as she could see me closely, her eyes grew large, and her expressionless face could not mask her anxiety. I bowed and greeted her in Japanese. As she made tea and prepared oranges for her guest, she did not turn her back or take her eyes off of me for one second.
Soon Aoiyagi approached the temple and the priestess looked anxiously back and forth as between he and I as we conversed in English. When Aoiyagi explained to the woman that I was a priest from America, she asked, “What’s that?” Aoiyagi replied that America was a land far across the ocean, and she said, “But his eyes … They’re blue.” Aoiyagi explained that there were many in America that looked like me. Only then did the priestess relax. She said that when I first walked up, she had thought that I was the fox-god. I was the first Caucasian she had ever seen. Imagine, she thought she was in the presence of the fox god, and she served him tea and oranges.
Provoo did not hear from Bishop Nippo again until 1950. In the interim, Provoo had spent three and a half years in Japanese prison camps. Following the war, he had been held for eight months without charges or counsel in postwar Japan. He had been honorably discharged from the Army and re-enlisted only to spend three years under a cloud, the last six months of which he was held without charges or counsel in military stockades. He would spend a full three years at West Street federal detention center in New York City without bail awaiting trial for treason.
Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p191-192Another event [in 1950] raised my spirits even further. One day I heard a familiar voice chanting on the sidewalk outside West Street. It was the voice of Bishop Nippo, my beloved master. “Namu Myoho-renge-kyo,” he chanted, finding a tone that resonated against the grey brick walls. Inside, I began chanting, too.
Nippo had come all the way from Argentina, having heard of my plight through the international press. He had come as soon as he found out that I was in trouble. He had gone to the authorities at West Street and identified himself as my spiritual advisor, but had been told that they had spiritual advisors on the prison staff, a Protestant and a Catholic, and that was all that were allowed in the facility. In their minds, that seemed to cover all bases. Nippo returned to Argentina without seeing me, but just our voices resonating through the brick walls and iron bars had been an uplift.
Bishop Nippo, according to Provoo, spent the war in the Tokyo area, often living in subway stations, caring for homeless children, orphans of the American bombing raids. After the war, he had returned to the United States, had started a temple in Salt Lake City, and then one in Argentina.
Even though the Army had investigated Provoo’s actions during his captivity immediately after the war and cleared him of all charges – they’d given him an honorable discharge and even allowed him to re-enlist – the federal government tried Provoo on four counts of treason.
Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p186I held little hope that I would ever escape my situation alive. It was being a prisoner of war all over again. But, understanding that, I knew how to deal with it. I had spent three and half years as a prisoner of the Japanese brutal military machine, never believing that I would live to see the end of the war; and so, I had learned to function with goals that didn’t assume that I would survive. There is a certain freedom in actually abandoning your own physical existence. I had done so over and over again since 1941 and now, I found myself in a dire predicament again. Each time, finding that I had survived, the cloak of mortality had descended over me again, renewing my attachment for living, and with it, the belief that I had something to lose. Now I was free again, free to act fearlessly, the freedom of the doomed.
The book details the delays and missteps of the prosecution. Eventually he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on Feb. 17, 1953. His conviction was overturned on appeal on Aug. 27, 1954, and he was finally released on March 14, 1955, after the judge in his second trial tossed out all of the charges.
In 1965, Provoo received an invitation to return to Minobu.
Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo, p224-225It had been over twenty years since I left Minobu, and the Lord Abbot who had been my master had passed away and there had been several others in the meantime. One day, I received a message from Murano Senchu, a priest of the Nichiren school in Japan. The message announced that the present Lord Abbot, Fujii Nichijo, was coming to America as a representative of the world’s Buddhists to a special session of the United Nations. The message outlined the Lord Abbot’s itinerary and invited me to join his entourage.
I was unable to join them at the special U.N. session in San Francisco’s Cow Palace, or at the conference with top Mormons in Salt Lake City. When the party arrived in New York, I caught up with them in the lobby of the Waldorf Hotel. I kneeled on the carpeted floor before the Lord Abbot. The Lord Abbot helped me up and greeted me warmly. I was invited to join the entourage on their trip to Canada, where the Lord Abbot was to conduct services for a large Japanese community there. The services were followed by a banquet and sitting with a magnificent Japanese feast before me, I was handed a note, written in the Lord Abbot’s own hand: “We are waiting for you at Minobu.”
Of course I wanted to go, it would take a little while to prepare myself but I definitely would go. Returning to Pennsylvania I quickly settled my affairs and got in contact with my old master, Reverend Aoiyagi Shoho, now the Bishop Nippo. I had last seen Nippo at Minobu in 1941. In 1951, while I was being held at West Street, Nippo had come all the way from Argentina but hadn’t been allowed to see me. I had heard Nippo’s voice chanting from the sidewalk below. Now, in 1965, Nippo was in Sacramento, California, and I arranged to join him there.
In McCormick’s history of Worldwide Propagation of Nichiren Buddhism, he offers this summary of Nippo Shaku’s propagation efforts:
Nippo Shaku (1910-1991) was another missionary to the United States who established temples and actively taught Odaimoku. He was one of the first Nichiren Shu ministers to attempt to teach Nichiren Buddhism to the general population of the U.S. He came to assist the Los Angeles temple in 1935 and then became the head minister of San Francisco in 1936. In 1954 he established the Salt Lake City temple. Beginning in 1962 he began to teach Nichiren Buddhism in the southwestern U.S. In 1969 he established the American Buddhist Center in San Francisco and also taught at the California Institute of Asian Studies and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area from 1969–1981.
For purposes of my own narrative, I assume Nippo Shaku’s 1964 to 1968 stint in Sacramento was part of what McCormick calls his teaching in the southwestern U.S.
I’m clearly wrong when I suggest that Nichijo chose his second name, Shaka, from Nippo Shaku. No excuse. Not paying attention. Other sources suggest Shaka stands for Shakyamuni and that’s why he chose the name.