A Movement of the Heart:
The Story of West Covina Buddhist Temple
By Frederick Brenion

Ultimate Concern must lead to an Ultimate Desire that all shall indeed be made well. That all shall have their hearts awakened. And in this Ultimate Desire there is birthed an act, an aspiration expressing itself as Ultimate Commitment, as Ultimate Vow, that this very thing shall indeed be accomplished, even if it takes 10 thousand kalpas or more.

It always begins with a movement of the heart.

Twenty-six centuries ago there was a man who sat beneath a tree. He had a great concern about the lot of humankind. That we are born to suffer, and the strength of youth must fall to age, sickness, and death. His desire was great to meet the challenges of life. And in the meeting he triumphed at last and saw the truth of Reality. He awoke with a commitment in his heart to share this knowledge with all and to relieve the sufferings of humanity.

With a movement of the heart he arose and began his life’s mission. He was awake to what was needed. He was Buddha.

For a generation he tirelessly taught. Hundreds, thousands followed him, hung on his words. Many, the Arhats, choose to follow him into the woods to deepen their understanding.  Many others remained in the cities and towns, supporting the Buddha and the Arhats with their gifts and their love.

One of his followers, a young man named Ananda, asked him once how it was that Buddha’s face glowed with the most beautiful light. Buddha smiled and told him a simple story of how there once was a man named Dharmakara who had seen his own Buddha and beholding his Buddha’s light was moved to a great concern for all—that they too may have what he had seen. And his concern grew into desire, and desire into aspiration, and he vowed in the face of all suffering to create a space where all who were burdened through life may come to hear and learn the Great Dharma and find peace.

In the strength of such an Ultimate Vow, a Vow so basic that it can only be called Primal, Dharmakara became the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life, the Amida Buddha—a sign and a symbol of all that Buddhahood is and can be for all.

Such was our Buddha’s story, to lead all those who, like Ananda, want to follow and listen. Our Buddha skillfully showed Ananda the great Bodhisattva Path that would be a vehicle that could carry all to such heights, and fill all to such depths, realizing our deepest vows and bringing them to fruition.

In time, the days of the Buddha came to an end, but his teachings continued, and his followers grew. And in time, as often happens, many of his followers forgot the deeper meanings of Buddha’s lessons and fled into the forests and monasteries for their own concerns. The mass of the laity, whom the Buddha loved deeply, were forgotten. Their only task was to pay and pray, so that the monks could lead their own lives of solitude.

But not all forgot, though centuries had passed. Many of the monastics did remember the deep teachings, and they knew, as the story of Amida told, that they could not find awakening until all found awakening. The Great Mahayana movement was underway. And at the helm of the ever-launched Great Vehicle was the greatest of all the Arhats: Nagarjuna! None have ever equaled his intellect. Those among the wise in the West say there are none to compare him to except for the likes of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kant. Some in the East have called him the Second Buddha. But he knew himself as a student, a student of the Buddha. It is to that understanding that he summons all.

Such was the power of Nagarjuna’s logic that few could follow him to such arid heights. If Nagarjuna had left it at that he would have become the destroyer of the Buddha’s intent. But Nagarjuna was wise. He knew that in bringing to clarity the teachings of his teacher, only few could follow. No, Nagarjuna was wiser, and in so doing revealed his compassion. He showed also that Buddha had opened an easier way that all could follow. A way whose conclusions were those that his own hard logic had tortuously reached. That our intellect, in the face of Dharmic Reality, is helpless, that we can only call for Infinite Life and Light to guide us.  To simply call for this Life, this Light, this Amida Buddha, was all that was needed. This call is the Nembutsu. Safely now did the great Mahayana Vessel set sail for that Pure Land where such Light and Life is found.

As often happens with philosophers, as soon as one is done, another rises up and says, “No, no, no, it’s really this way.” Nagarjuna’s school, the Madhyamika, would meet its equal in that of the great Vasubandu and his School of Yogacara, the way of Mind Only. Logic met logic, argument swirled around argument. Even today, in the mighty schools of Tibet, their tenets are still argued out. And yet these great teachers find agreement in one point, the same point, that the story of Dharmakara, the path of the Bodhisattva, the triumph of the Primal Vow, was the way for all. We the people were not to be forgotten in the arguments of the schools.

Buddhism grew and spread across the lands. The Dharma went southwards and reached Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand, then eastward into Cambodia and Vietnam. There were forays even into the West. Monks were sent to the Greek lands that Alexander the Great had carved. In time there were even rumors of a Buddhist presence in the great Egyptian city of Alexandria, and that was during the time of Jesus Christ. But the great progress of the Mahayana was to be found in going northward into China and Tibet. From China it made its way to Korea, and then to the lonely, but ever beautiful islands that are Japan. There it took its deepest root, and there would find its greatest fruition. And from there, transplantation from the Far East to the Westernmost of Western Lands, America, so that Buddhism at last has become truly a worldwide religion.

But all this took time. The centuries passed, and as happens, the easy way was clouded over. And yet the Compassion of the Buddha still showed through. Good teachers would rise up to remind, to solidify, and to make ever clearer the path of Buddhahood that we all could walk. China’s gift to the Buddha was in Tan-luan, Tao-cho, and Shan-tao. They placed their hands and kept spinning the Pure Land wheel. Each made an opening for all ever larger to pass through. Each made clearer the intent of the deep vow of all Buddhas that all shall be reached, that all shall achieve. That all that was needed was an opening of the heart, a movement of the heart, a heart that expresses itself in the cry for light, for life.

And so the teachings reached the Great Islands of the East. Japan was ready to embrace, and then in time to add of her own. Genshin clarified greatly for the needs of the people. But even then the people were lost in the turmoils of the times. The gift of Buddhism had been in Japan for centuries now, but it was kept only for the monks, the rich, and the powerful. The people were again forgotten.

Then, like a wind that would clear the mind and cleanse the heart, arose a monk who wanted to find a better way. He himself was lost in the contrary thoughts of the schools. But he followed the Buddha’s path as a true student. He studied the works of the great teachers before him and the way became open for him. He knew what needed to be done. He left the airy heights of the monasteries of Mount Hiei and went to the people and taught. And the people listened. His name was Honen. And he was the master of all masters. The vow of the Amida leapt from heart to heart, and hope was rekindled across the land.

Among his listeners was one who was also a monk and strove in his own power and might to reach the Dharmic crown, and found it denied. How could this be? He studied more than all others. He practiced more than all others. And yet he was surrounded by wall after wall, not realizing that all walls are of one’s own making. In despair he left and went down to the great City of Kyoto, where Honen had his school. There this monk heard and was made glad. The way of liberation was made clear. His doubts settled. His commitment in tune with that of the Amida Buddha. He followed and learned, and in him, the great contradictions of life would soon find its deepest unity. He was to be monk and married, priest and layman. He might be neither to some, but to others he had found All. And to all who knew him he was called Shinran, the Shonin.

It is a funny thing, though not so funny when it happens, that when the way is clear there are those who would deny passage. Honen and his school was a challenge to the high and the mighty. Rumors and lies spread about the liberation that was being found in the simple way. Honen and his people were cast into exile. Young Shinran, soon with family in tow, found himself castaway, and yet he continued to learn and to listen. And then he began to teach. In far away isles the message of Amida, the message of the movement of the heart to vow began to hold sway with the commonest of the common. What the high and the mighty had purposed was confounded. And as often happens they called back and began the age long attempt to compromise and to control. Shinran would return but his eyes were open and he placed all that he learned from Honen, and from the great masters before him, on a firmer foundation that would withstand the ensnarements of the world. He wrote his great work, the Kyogyoshinsho.

Even in his old age Shinran taught, and the people came to him, even from distant provinces. Yet his message was always clear and forthright. Entrust to the Vow that is placed in your heart. It is your life. It is your light. It is your Shinjin, which is that very act of entrustment. Call on the Vow, the Vow whose intent is expressed as Nembutsu, summed up as a name: the name of Namu Amida Butsu. The Nembutsu! Born through gratitude, it brings the light and life of the Vow to one’s heart and mind. It is all that was ever needed. The ever-moving heart of the Dharma.

Shinran’s passing came. His wish was for his body to be cast into the river to feed the fish. But his granddaughter held her Oya dear.  His ashes were treasured and became a focal point for the poor, the needful, and the lost, to gather round and share. Quietly the Nembutsu Way grew, though that troubled the Powers of the land. His heirs studied and kept intact his writings. And in time the headship of Shinran’s family came into the hands of a man known as Rennyo.

Rennyo was a child of love. But his mother was not a wife. She was cast away, he was kept, if only to live in the shadow of a stepmother. It was almost like a fairy tale. And like a fairy tale it found Rennyo a happier task. He became the heir, the rightful heir, because his heart was right. It was right in his desire for the true teaching to be spread. And spread it did. He traveled the islands of Japan. He spoke and wrote to the followers. And his letters are still read to this day, such is the soundness of his teachings. By the end of his life the Jodo Shinshu—the true teaching of the Pure Land—had become the largest Buddhist group throughout Japan. The easy way was spreading from household to household.

But even strength has its trials. Future leaders would hold, maintain, argue, and divide. Japan itself was going through its own inner struggles and found its resolution in a retreat into itself. Japan separated from contact with the world, and the Jodo Shinshu, the school of Shinran, grew contented within itself.

Once again funny things happen, and the world came knocking on the door of Japan. America, the earthly land of the West, came in the ships of Commodore Perry. Japan began to awake to the needs of facing a modern world. Buddhism in Japan needed to awake. The easy way needed to be dusted and cleared to meet the challenges of the age.

One man from the Jodo Shinshu rose to that challenge. His name was Manshi Kiyozawa. He studied the great thinkers of the West. He knew that the teachings of Shinran needed to be expressed anew to meet the new concepts that were to soon sweep Japan. He struggled. He studied. He challenged himself and everyone he knew. And he was rejected for a time by the Shinshu. He felt himself a failure. His health was broken. His life was in disarray. And yet he was faithful to what he had received. A small band of students gathered around him and they kept the flame of Shinran’s intent lit for a future age. Haya Akegarasu, Kaneko Daiei, Soga Ryojin, and from them, Shuichi Maida, Gyoto Saito, and Gyomay Kubose kept what was entrusted, and the School of Shinran at last entered the larger world that was waiting.

But what world was it entering? The nation itself was advancing in power and might, but was it advancing in Dharma Spirit? Wars and rumors of wars flowed about. Many of the people found they needed to find their life in other lands. Perhaps some thought that Buddha’s story of Amida’s Pure Land in the West might be found in semblance in that Western nation of America. And so they came to a land they knew not. To a land that knew not of the Dharma. To that land they brought that Dharma. But would it grow there? And would it find a new way of being lived there?

It would, it could, because it came through a movement of the heart. The Primal Vow cannot rest until it rests in all lands and moves in all hearts.

And so they came to Hawaii, to California. They came as laborers, as workers in the fields, tillers of the land. They came, they settled, and they built communities. And with them came the Dharma. The Nembutsu was chanted in the great valleys of California. The Shoshinge was echoed in homes and parlors. Priests came from our Honzans in Japan and temples grew on new soil. The great Betsuin of Los Angeles was established. The seeds of Shinjin—that movement of the heart in entrustment—were strengthened.

And yet there were great struggles still to face. How to gain acceptance when other communities looked down upon you? The dark stain of racial division clouded the promise of the Land of the Free. Narrow-mindedness sought to restrict the mighty wings of the Dharma. And then the great catastrophe befell. The clouds and storms of war enveloped Japan and America, enveloping the world. It did not take long before fear blinded the hope of the New World, and our people were gathered into internment camps throughout the country. Manzanar, Mindoka, Poston, Topaz, Tule Lake, amongst many others, are names that never shall be forgotten, but even then, courage, hope, and strength whispers still through their ruins. The promise of Hongan brought endurance. The promise of Hongan, the Primal Vow, that all shall be accepted, that none shall ever be lost, continued to move through many hearts.

And the days of war finally ended. Our people returned to rebuild, lay down new plans, established solidarity. Our communities began to strengthen. The lessons of the past, demanded diligence towards the future, to ensure that such things should never happen again. And in the valley of San Gabriel, our community in West Covina began to grow and rebound. A community center was established to share the cultural riches of Japan. But something was lacking; the one thing necessary that moves behind and through such cultural expressions, that gives them meaning. And that, being lived, would assist the task of adapting to the new cultural expressions that must surely come, for to live is to change. Change is the essence of life. It was the Dharma that was needed, Dharma, expressing itself as the Primal Vow.

And so it was that in 1959, a couple, Kimio and Mary Hatakeyama, felt a movement in their heart to ask for a Dharma school for their children here in the city of West Covina. And their hearts were answered by the hearts of others, and so the story of the West Covina Buddhist Temple began, after beginnings that go back to when a wise and compassionate man sat beneath a tree and his heart was moved. Back further to the beginningless beginning of time when the Primal Vow was felt in the first beating of hearts.

Please join us in the celebration of our history as West Covina Buddhist Temple. This is a history that is moving forward, because where there is a movement of the heart, there is a path towards the future, a future promised as Pure Land.

It always begins with a movement of the heart.

Namu Amida Butsu!