Special Places,Sacred Spaces: Two Traditional Buddhist Temples in Nihonmachi Los Angeles

Introduction

Little Tokyo sits in the shadow of downtown Los Angeles’ towering ultramodern architecture. Yet the expressive heart of the community lies in the past, in a nomenclature and poignancy most visibly communicated by the traditional Buddhist temples located within the urban Japanese enclave. As one of only three official Japantowns (nihonmachi) in the United States, Little Tokyo presents a unique experience for those interested in Buddhist architecture and humanistic space in an American context. This article explores the meanings and ideas immanent in the community’s spatial configurations with respect to two of its most significant buildings: the Nishi Hongwanji and the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Churches (Figures 1 and 2). In this discussion, Yi-Fu Tuan’s writings continue to be influential in understanding the relationship between environment and human subjective experience. Of the many insights regarding the binary of space and place, his claim that “The human mind appears to be disposed to organize phenomena not only in segments but to arrange them in opposite pairs” (Tuan, 1974, p. 16) is most relevant to Little Tokyo’s ethnic and spiritual vitality. The advent of industrial modernism in the 19th century brought into focus a number of cultural binaries that persist today, among which include the material and the spiritual, Western and Eastern, and the modern and traditional. These dualities transition into dichotomies when considered as opposites, when contemplated as clear antipodes designating contrary conditions from the external vantage point of objective assessment. However, lived experience is subjective in nature. Individuals and communities frame their personal and collective identities in narratives that derive from internal perspectives. Cultural binaries no longer hold as extremities on the ground level of daily life. Indeed, the experiential expediency of Tuan’s binary thought reaches a limit in the nonduality ubiquitous to Buddhist epistemology. Instead, quite often the past and present become assimilated into cultural memory as a simultaneous experience. This is especially the case in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, where the two Pure Land Buddhist churches discussed below are a crucial part of this dynamic. This article draws attention to notions of space and place, the sacred and profane, the inner and outer, and the vertical and the horizontal with respect to the architectural configurations of the neighborhood. Yet the example of nihonmachi Los Angeles highlights how these “opposites pairs” merge within the lived experience of an environment. The argument here is that the dualities embedded in the community resolve into one holistic experience with respect to cultural memory, history, and religious faith.

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Figure 1.

Nishi Hongwanji Los Angeles Betsuin. 815 East 1st Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012.

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Figure 2.

Higashi Hongwanji. 505 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

Methodology

In arguing for a holistic experience deriving from the dualities within Little Tokyo, it is important to reinforce that these binary relationships are not imposed from the external vantage point of scholarly investigation. On the contrary, the binaries in this discussion stem from the community itself. What research has shown is that rather than closed systems of limited scope, binaries can be valuable tools that expand and sharpen a particular concept, just as binocular vision gives one a more expansive, three-dimensional view of the world. For example, the traditionalism of the Nishi and Higashi churches sits in stark contrast both in materials and orientation to the nearby modern skyscrapers a mile or so away. Each style was employed separately by their respective owners and signifies a distinct set of aesthetic and cultural values that inherently contrast with one another. In recognizing these distinguishing characteristics, one can then understand how these binary elements do not militate against each other but inform one’s experience through their differences. Located a half mile from each other, the Nishi and Higashi churches retain large conspicuous roofs that heroically communicate their Eastern cultural heritage. Modeled in varying degrees on traditional temples in Japan, these buildings nevertheless coexist with contemporary Western structures in distinction but without contradiction. Materials from Japan such as tiles, statues, texts, and ministers sanctify these buildings for spiritual use. Their exterior design and interior artifacts point to a deep emotion and nostalgia surrounding their religiosity and physical existence. They exhibit a level of sentiment and tradition that Little Tokyo itself embodies, and still exists within, the soul of many of its eldest residents.

A similar holism exists with the concept of sacred space. The method used here utilizes the initial framework of binary thought with the understanding that such an approach has its limitations. Indeed, that is what the essay in essence argues. For instance, many postmodern scholars contend that Eliade’s influential view of sacred and profane space is somewhat narrow and ossified, given the number of other ways that the sacred is expressed. In American Sanctuary: Understanding Sacred Spaces, Louis P. Nelson claims that “[sacred] places become inscribed as sacred through belief and practice, they are inextricably linked to sociopolitical identities, and their sacred meanings are not stable.” (Nelson, 2006, pp. 5-6). As discussed below, the Japanese Pure Land temples situate the practitioner within a direct spatial configuration where the sacred and profane are distinct areas of understanding. However, these separations, while profoundly conceived, are not permanently fixed, but become fused together under the larger umbrella of cultural praxis. Tuan himself claims that the concept of center found in many cultures “reconciles” the inherent bipolar tendencies of humanity’s proclivity to formulate binary antinomies (Tuan, 1974). In fact, such an understanding of the sacred/profane is in the end consistent with Eliade’s work as well. He states in The Sacred and the Profane that the inherent paradox between the two states is resolvable through what he calls “hierophany,” a “manifestation” of the sacred in ordinary/profane objects: a stone, tree, a human such as Jesus, and so on (Eliade, 1959, pp. 11-12). Religious-oriented humanity seeks to “sacralize” the world, to make, express, or “charge” the profanity of the ordinary and everyday in terms of the sacred. This is precisely what we find in Pure Land Buddhist churches in general, with Little Tokyo being a particularly salient example.

But the larger methodological point of this essay is not to critically challenge the artifacts and assumptions present in nihonmachi Los Angeles, but to understand the community in terms of its existing spatial configurations. The aim is to weave a narrative that combines objective information with the subject’s humanistic content in order to communicate its highly emotive essence. Humanistic in this setting is informed by Tuan as well. That is, in contrast to a positivist analysis of material fact, this discussion privileges “perceptions, attitudes, and values” when trying to understand the cultural import of an environment. Such an approach seems justified, given the ethnoreligious context of the neighborhood. Spiritual beliefs can be strongly held and deeply personal. They have the ability to contribute as much to an individual’s identity as race and family heritage. This analysis highlights the porous boundary among religious and cultural signifiers. Research shows that these “soft” attributes are as equally important as the “hard” features of structural form when understanding how architecture can create both a sense of place and sacred space. Little Tokyo is steeped in spatial and social contraries such as these. It is a particularly rich location where “opposite pairs” exist simultaneously in a community intensely aware of its identity in terms of the cultural dichotomies within and around it. It is a place where the Western and Eastern, the modern and traditional, and the material and the spiritual exist concurrently. As a function of architectural space, the neighborhood’s emotional and cultural energy is palpable and compelling.

Space and Place

Like other religious groups that built churches and temples when immigrating to America, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Buddhists found themselves in a land completely devoid of the cultural or historic precedents of their homeland. Their religious structures subsequently became vital homes of cultural safety and spiritual solace as they sought to survive in a foreign environment that often saw their presence in the light of racism and bigotry. In fact, one of the first things that confined Japanese citizens did when forced into internment camps was to establish a Buddhist church. For many Japanese immigrants throughout the West Coast of the country, Buddhist churches were the only place where a deep connection to their native culture could be found. In this difficult environment, immigrant Buddhist communities also sought to secure a safe existence in America through the founding of official organizations. The Buddhist Churches of America (BCA) is seminal in this respect. Originally called the Buddhist Mission of North America, Japanese Buddhists changed its name to the BCA while in internment camps as a way to assimilate into American society, as it was thought that the term church would seem less foreign than temple. Today, the two terms are used interchangeably.

Richard Hughes Seager claims that immigrant Buddhist religion in the United States “tends to be concerned with the more intimate concerns of memory, solace, and spiritual practice grounded in ethnic, linguistic, and ancestral identity . . .” (Seager, 2012, p. 6) In this sense, the ethnocultural context of Little Tokyo merges with the religious nature of its Buddhist temples to create an overwhelming sense of place. Although the Japanese began to populate the West Coast in the early 20th century, the community’s historical and affective epicenter rests in the 1940s, with the traumatic removal and incarceration of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II. In the specific setting of Little Tokyo, the physical existence of the Nishi and Higashi churches signifies the desire to keep alive the nonphysical memory of its cultural and religious heritage, one made keenly significant during the harsh treatment of Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. While the city of Los Angeles sometimes characterizes the community as multicultural, the area is hermetic enough for one to feel like a foreigner while walking down its streets. Indeed, the words, “Immigrants wanted to have a community where they would feel comfortable with their native tongue” chiseled on a prominent sidewalk underscore this feeling (de Bretteville, 1997, p. 70). Just Nearby, a 40-foot wide semicircular memorial—the “Go For Broke Monument”—commemorates the sacrifices of “. . . young Japanese American soldiers from Hawaii, the States [and] America’s concentration camps . . .” who fought in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. A total of 16,131 names are etched on its surface. The monument stands as a physical and deeply moving testimonial to the hardships and dedication of the Nisei (second generation) fighters and their families. Both the incised names on the “Go For Broke Monument” and sidewalk inscription linguistically express an emotive-historical sentiment that is utterly sincere in their secular/patriotic essence and unassailably affecting in their literal impact. Just down the street from the sidewalk inscription, a traditional Japanese watchtower stands pointedly at the entrance of the Japanese Village Plaza. The structure is a symbolic marker of cultural identity, positioned in homage and deference to the community’s ethnic heritage with the use of a rural artifact from the homeland amid the bustle of a contemporary city. Together, these artifacts form the heart of an aesthetic, social, and emotionally infused space. The Nishi and Higashi churches are located in meaningful proximity with these cultural signifiers, and thus, work in conjunction with respect to the community’s humanistic character.

Two Temples

The Higashi and Nishi churches belong to the Jodo Shinshu (“True Pure Land”)—or “Shin” Buddhist sect, one of the most prominent Buddhist denominations in the United States. Jodo Shinshu originated in the early 13th century with the teachings of Shinran Shonin. The sect split into two entities in 1602, and now exists as the Higashi (East) Honganji and Nishi (West) Hongwanji. The two are separated politically but not spiritually, as they essentially share the same religious beliefs, although only Nishi Hongwanji temples belong to the BCA. In fact, discussions with priests of each temple confirm that while each utilize different spellings in their names, both “Hongwanji” and “Honganji” are romanizations referencing the core belief of the Pure Land sect, which is centered on Amida Buddha’s “Primal Vow,” as discussed further below.

The Higashi Honganji Buddhist temple was the first Japanese church founded in Los Angeles. Originally established in 1904, the temple moved a number of times in the 20th century before settling into the present building in 1976, designed by Hayhiko Takase (Discover Nikkei, 2010). Temple documents state that the Higashi temple’s roof design was inspired in part by the famous eighth-century Tōdaiji temple in Nara (Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple, 2004, pp. 52-53). According to temple documents, its mune-zukuri style is the first of its kind built in the United States. The entire roof is constructed with traditional gawara tiles shipped from Japan at great expense. Municipal fire codes prevented the Higashi church building from being constructed completely of wood, as the Tōdaiji temple was built. However, specially crafted golden tiles called shiba gawara placed at each end of the ridge of the roof augment the auspiciousness of the building, as the same golden tiles are found on Tōdaiji temple as well (Higashi Buddhist Temple, p. 52). While other Asian temples in the United States utilize the large roofs of Eastern tradition, the gawara tiles shipped from Japan and the ornamental gold shiba gawaras capping the ridgeline are features that uniquely certify the building’s Japanese heritage. They establish a direct spiritual and architectural lineage from the cultural depths of Japanese history.

The existing Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Church, designed by Y. Tom Makino and Toshiaki Miura, dates from 1969, and has been considered by many to be the heart of Little Tokyo for decades (McCarty, 2006, p. 22). It was patterned after the Hongwanji temple in Hiroshima, as that is where a great many of the church’s Issei (first generation) members originated from prior to the Second World War (Masuyama, personal communication, July 7, 2014). Founded in 1905 in a makeshift building on Jackson Street, in 1931 it was the first temple in America to be designated as Betsuin (an official subsidiary branch of the mother temple in Kyoto serving as a headquarters for the other churches in the district) after the community moved into a new building on First Street and Central Avenue in 1925 (“A Brief History of Los Angeles,” 1969, p. 4). This earlier temple retains an impressive Japanese style entrance gate (karamon) placed above its front portal (Figure 3). Gates such as these signify a transition from a profane to a sacred space. This oriental element is integrated with Western-based motifs, such as its Art Deco brick façade with Egyptian pilasters topped with lotus capitals, a popular motif at the time (Holley, 1985, p. B1). In the Buddhist tradition, the lotus flower is a symbol of purity and enlightenment. The placement of these elements together demonstrates the dual goal of culturally assimilating into American culture as well as highlighting the spiritual message embedded in the building’s function as Buddhist temple. This twofold reference is in perfect keeping with the ongoing history of Little Tokyo. As the building’s restorer James McElwain claims, “Souls of their motherland and American materials—this is a building so much like America, the land of immigrants” (McCarty, 2006).

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Figure 3.

Hongwanji Betsuin (karamon entrance gate.) 100 North Central Ave. Los Angeles CA 90012.

Important to this discussion, the earlier Nishi temple on First Street and Central Avenue was designated as an official landmark of the city in 1986, and eventually became the home of the Japanese American National Museum in 1992, which currently sits opposite its new pavilion that opened in 1999. Its permanent exhibit, “Common Ground,” documents the World War II Japanese internment in explicit detail (Kikumura, Hirabayashi, & Hirabayashi, 2005). Family portraits combined with everyday objects from the internment camps are charged with intensified meaning. Little girls in pretty dresses and wizened men dark with the outdoors are seen huddled together in dusty, wooden encampments. Detainees were eventually permitted to conduct kabuki dance performances and observe Bon Odori (Obon), an extremely important holiday to the Japanese immigrant community. The festival is one that seeks to save the souls of ancestors from misery in the afterlife. In order to merit salvation, seven past generations are said to return home during the days of Obon. The notion of returning home would of course be a sentiment close to the hearts of an immigrant community enduring unjust hardships in a foreign land they sought to make their home. The Obon Festival remains a major event in Little Tokyo to this day (Masuyama, 2007). That the former Nishi Hongwanji church was used as a venue to document the cultural adversities and celebrations of the Japanese reveals the close spiritual connection between Buddhist belief, ethnic sentiment, and architectural expression. Indeed, the old Nishi temple now houses the “Go For Broke National Education Center,” whose major exhibit now sits where the altar once stood, the sacred heart of the former temple.

Sacred and Profane/Inner and Outer

The significance of what has been said thus far centers on the dual roles that these Buddhist Pure Land temples retain as both sacred spaces and cultural places. As far back as the prewar years, the BCA notes that “The Buddhist church was foremost a temple to hear the Dharma, but its secondary role was a social gathering place” (Munekata, 1974, p. 459). Although the social component of these buildings seems subordinate to their religious function in this quotation, one should keep in mind that the roles should not be understood hierarchically. In both the Nishi and Higashi sites, the social and the religious fold upon one another in a spiritual blending that takes place within the confines of the buildings. Because churches were initially one of the few places where the Japanese minority could congregate as a foreign ethnicity, sites such as these became—and remain—places of collective solace. They are “special places” that have a twofold character. Stories from practitioners, such as the Nishi Hongwanji’s official historian Eiko Masuyama (personal communication, July 7, 2014), speak fondly about how as a child they would both play, take classes, and attend social functions, as well as worship, meditate, and participate in religious services. These cultural and religious experiences helped form an emotional bond between the individuals and the building that merged the various activities in their hearts and minds. Different parts of the temple serve different functions at different times. The main shrine area (hondo) of any Pure Land Buddhist temple retains an altar area (o-naijin) that creates a sacred space proximate to the nonsacred pews behind it (gejin). However, even the sacred altar area could at times be cleared to allow for performances. The distinction between the sacred and profane exists just as it does in other religious traditions. Yet here, the sacred and cultural synthesize as a temple to form a special place where the religious and social fuse into a holistic spiritual experience. The spiritual in this regard includes not only formal doctrinal beliefs but also emotional and personal feelings and memories. It is a spiritual blending that also spills out into the neighborhood of Little Tokyo.

The issue emerges, then, as to how everyday places can also be sacred spaces simultaneously in the way that has just been articulated. How can one thing, in this case the Buddhist church, have two such seemingly divergent concurrent qualities? The question is a perennial one. The problem goes back at least to the age-old dichotomy of mind/body dualism, with how our physical bodies can also be the locus of a discrete individual spirit. These special places, as I have called them, have the same binary nature. It is therefore useful to understand them as we might understand our own nature as physical/spiritual beings, as an awareness that combines both elements into a unique simultaneous subjective personality. For although our being is one that has a dual nature, we experience ourselves holistically. The spiritual and material coalesce. They are superimposed upon one another and coexist as twin aspects of a unitary consciousness. Much like physical materiality can be both Newtonian and quantum simultaneously, the “opposite pairs” of spatial form and content can be understood as a singular reality with multiple dimensions, one sacred and one profane.

The Japanese temples under discussion retain that same character with respect to their social and sacred qualities. In a foreign environment where individuals are acutely aware of their distinctiveness as a nonindigenous ethnic group, sacred spaces and doctrinal beliefs from the homeland can feel nostalgic. Churches can become vessels of a community’s shared values and collective attitudes. Their religious valence can be as sentimental as any cultural artifact or memory, experienced on the common plane of spirituality. Interestingly, these special places often seem like a mere a vestige of a distant land. In an interview within the temple, Reverend Kazuaki Nakata of the Nishi Hongwanji thoughtfully reflected on the size of the L.A. temple compared with that of the mother temples of the Hongwanji in Japan. Like so many of the Shin priests in America, Nakata studied at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, and is very familiar with the large buildings and extensive grounds of the Nishi Hongwanji headquarters. Nakata somewhat wistfully claims that Buddhist churches in the United States—while quite handsome—nevertheless seem like smaller, fainter replicas of the structures from his homeland. It is an emotionally based insight that carries over to the Japanese communities in America in general. Little Tokyo exemplifies this tendency of creating smaller buildings that reference larger ones in the homeland. The neighborhood itself is a sort of pale cultural reflection, where a city of 13 million is rendered in insufficient miniature. It is an idea latent in the name Japantown (nihonmachi) itself: An entire nation (Japan) is condensed into a small “town” as an echo or memory-image of the immigrants’ place of birth.

The notion of binary scale is also prominent with how the design of Pure Land churches is intimately linked to its members’ concomitant sacred religious beliefs and cultural heritage. A close look at the heart of the temple space reveals how belief and heritage coalesce upon one another. Shin Buddhists believe that the path to enlightenment entails faith in the Amida Buddha’s oath/call “to save all beings by bringing into his Pure Land, the realm of enlightenment, all who say his Name, entrusting themselves to his Vow” (Nishi Hongwanji Commission on the Promotion of Religious Education, 1974, pp. 77-79). Indeed, “Hongwanji” translates as “Temple of the Primal Vow” in reference to his oath/call. The sincere desire to admit Amida and his compassion into one’s heart is done by the genuine recitation of the nembutsu (“Namu-Amida-Butsu”), which is meant to inspire compassion in those who “Take refuge in Amida Buddha” by calling out to him by name. Amida is the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life, and Shin temples are arranged to exemplify his realm. This Buddha resides in a pure “Land of Bliss” located in the general direction of the West. The o-naijin is constructed as a symbolic representation of the Pure Land, a place where “one hears heavenly musical instruments constantly being played. And the ground all around is golden in color, pleasant to look at.” (Gómez, 1996, p. 16). The highly decorated and opulently illuminated altar area represents a utopian space of spiritual contentment, a golden world of limitless light and stainless purity known as the Western Paradise, a “Pure Land” where the mind can achieve enlightenment.

The o-naijin shrine is the expressive and symbolic heart of the church edifice, and the spiritual focal point of Shin Buddhist belief (Figure 4). The central object (gohonzon) is typically a gilt wood statue of Amida on a lotus flower surrounded by radiant golden striations within an elaborate architectural framework. This shrine building (Kuden) is designed to resemble a traditional Japanese palace, underscoring the spiritual nobility of the Buddha’s teachings and its elevating character within an earthly setting. The shrine building is decorated with ornaments that represent the attainment of nobility through noble deeds, as well as chrysanthemum-laden lamps that signify Enlightenment. The entire central shrine is raised upon a dais symbolic of Mt Sumeru, the cosmic center of the Buddhist universe. The intricacy of the space is intentional and emotive, as it is meant to communicate the limitless, boundless benevolence of Amida and his realm. A hymn written by the religion’s founder Shinran Shonin used in conjunction with the shrine capture its vastness:

From within each and every flower,

Thirty-six hundred thousand kotis

Of Buddhas appear, equal in number to the rays;

Their signs and marks are like the golden mountain

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Figure 4.

O-naijin (left) and Kuden palace (right).

A kotis is an imprecise unit of measure used to convey a very large number (ranging from 100,000 to infinity). For Shin Buddhists, this inconceivable spatial reference captures Amida’s “Immeasurable Wisdom and Compassion.” The shrine’s golden brilliance is meant to radiate Amida’s compassionate call from the Western Paradise. Its appeal is an emotional one, rooted in a poetic/emotional language consistent with the linguistic expressions and sense of place found in Little Tokyo mentioned above. Bishop Kodo Umeza of the BCA writes,

The call is the voice from our true and real home,

the Pure Land. If we have no home to return to, our

lives will be spent wandering aimlessly. Only when

we find that our home is everyone’s home can we look

at each other as fellow brothers and sisters, parents and

grandparents, and live with love and respect for one

another. Let us keep our temples and churches close to

us, continue to hear the nembutsu teachings with our

friends, and live our lives praising the virtues of Amida Buddha

Shinran’s poem and Umeza’s remarks illustrate the spiritual and deeply personal elements of Buddhist Pure Land religious belief with respect to the affective significance of their temples. The Buddhist temples in Little Tokyo, the historic home of the Japanese in Southern California, thus, help anchor its Buddhist inhabitants within a culture and community that resonates from the structural and linguistic heart of their religious beliefs.

The structural elements within the o-naijin reinforce the connection between the religious and cultural spaces under discussion. Significant here is that a basic feature of the exterior temples, the karahafu, is also found on the internal Kuden palace housing the central image of Amida. The large sweeping roofs of both the Nishi and Higashi temples are a signature element of oriental architecture. In one form or another, large prominent roofs are found on a great percentage of other BCA churches as well. The horizontal spread of their distended eaves shelters those beneath from the material elements of weather. Yet the concept of protection extends to the nonphysical as well, since the church and its teachings provide a spiritual sanctuary for those within. While traditional architecture in Japan originated in China, the inverted “U” shape of the two churches (and other Pure Land churches) is an undulating bargeboard, or karahafu, that identifies the structure as Japanese (Tanabe & Tanabe, 2012). Indeed, the oldest example of the feature is from a miniature shrine at Hōryū-ji in Nara, which is a site intimately linked to Japanese cultural identity (Neighbor Parent, n.d.). Its sometimes delicate yet pronounced nature imparts a noble and elegant quality to the front of an auspicious building. Its placement on the entrance of a shrine or palace associates the structure with elevation and aristocracy, which in a Buddhist environment implies the prestige and dignity of the Four Noble Truths. The subtle arch of the karahafu also acts as an entrance gate mediating the sacred and profane world, as seen in the karamon above the entrance of the earlier 1925 Nishi Hongwanji temple, which is essentially an independent karahafu. On the existing Nishi and Higashi churches, its upturned form rises amid the horizontal landscape of the roofline like a symbolic mountain, echoing the o-naijin’s connection to Mt Sumeru and communicating the elevating quality of their interior space.

Here, then, we can see how the physical structure emanates the cultural and religious sentiment of Shin Buddhism. The internal Kuden palace, as a structural apparatus that retains a karahafu, mimics the external roofs of these churches, creating a radiant correspondence in the transition from its smaller to larger size. The smaller shrine building houses the central icon, and sometimes a calligraphic depiction of the nembutsu. Thus, the palace not only contains Amida’s image but his compassionate call to embrace his realm. Smaller here should be interpreted not as diminutive, but reflecting an inner, personal space. In this sense, the central image within the Kuden palace signifies the church’s internal spiritual message radiating out as the external structure, which in turn expresses the emotional and cultural heart of the community in architectural form. It is emblematic of the nembutsu embedded in the hearts and minds of the Shin Buddhist. For reciting “Namu Amida Butsu” is not a petitionary prayer or sacred mantra, but both an outward expression of inner gratitude to Amida and his compassionate call from the Western Paradise, implicating the inner soul and outer space of the faithful:

Amida Buddha is not the object I am calling, rather the subject who calls me. It transforms the ordinary and mundane into the path of awakening. . . . Nembutsu enriches our lives with deep spiritual connection and makes every moment special, manifesting the Pure Land here and now. (Briones, 2016, p. 9)

The roofs of most BCA churches retain another architectural feature that blend its religious and cultural beliefs and histories. One of the earliest Japanese roof styles derives from single-story minka structures, which literally means “people’s house.” The form thus retains an inherent connotation of home that, as we have seen, Buddhists connect to their temples in America. Minka roofs are characterized by shape in terms of their resemblance to forms that relate to the human body. One such style, the domestic gasshō-zukuri or “hand-clasp style,” is a simple gable with long steep sloping sides that connect at an apex to resemble a pair of hands pressed together in prayer (gasshō; Locher, 2010, p. 57; Figure 5). Gasshō is an integral part of Jodo Shinshu temple etiquette and belief. Along with the nembutsu, it is seen universally by Shin Buddhists as a “natural expression of reverence and gratitude” (Midwest Buddhist Temple, n.d.). Placing the hands in gasshō in conjunction with Buddhist prayer beads encircled correctly around them symbolizes respect, dharma, oneness. The simplicity of the hand gesture correlates to that of the simple gasshō-zukuri roof style, however, a depth of cultural meaning permeates the collapsed space it articulates whether in a religious or nonreligious context. In a written Dharma Talk, Reverend Ken Yamada of the Berkeley Higashi Honganji temple states,

I heard of a group of American junior Youth Buddhist Association (Jr. YBA) students who visited Japan. One day they took a trip to Hiroshima to visit the Atomic bomb museum. If you’ve ever seen the memorial, you know that it can be a moving and emotional experience . . . As the teenagers looked at the memorial, tears started to well in their eyes. Then someone started to gassho. One by one, they put their hands together in gassho, quietly bowing their heads. How else could they express their thoughts and feelings about what they saw and what they felt . . . (Yamada, 2008)

According to Yamada, the simple gesture is the highest form of respect, and a representation of the community’s deepest aspirations and innermost feelings.

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Figure 5.

Buddhist Church of Arizona’s minka roof.

The triangular hand-clasped gasshō-zukuri form is found on the hipped-gable roofs of the Nishi headquarters in Kyoto, while the Los Angeles Nishi Hongwanji Betsuin combines the karahafu entrance gate and the gasshō-zukuri shape as part of its architectural design. It is unclear to what extent its material appearance on the roof of a Buddhist temple is to be understood as an intentional reference to hands set in gasshō. Simple gables can be found in every culture. But what seems to have taken place is that at some point the universal gable form became associated with the praying hands gesture as a function of cultural tradition and visual resemblance in the villages where the gasshō-zukuri form predominates. In terms of temple architecture, the triangular gasshō shape deriving from the depths of Japanese culture blends together with its sweeping eaves to create the sense of a mountain, which is intentional. The correlation between mountains and noble architecture has a long history in Japan (Coaldrake, 1996). As the uppermost point of an edifice, the roof signifies a zenith or pinnacle, a fertile symbolic quality that has the capacity to represent the activities below its summit in the highest possible manner. In the Asian religious tradition in general, roofs can be seen as cultural monikers, symbolic mountains, and even transitional gates between sacred and profane spaces governing the transition between the heaven and earth. Hence, in Japanese Pure Land Buddhist architecture, cultural tradition and religious doctrine unite in the symbolic weight of mountains and prayer.

The rooftop “hands” of the Nishi temple in essence suggest the unification—or bringing together—of Amida’s wisdom and compassion into one’s soul and the sincere gratitude of the Buddhist, who is likewise filled with wisdom and compassion. Overall, the building evokes a sense of culture, home and shelter, a protective place where Shin Buddhist’s take refuge, the nembutsu (literally: “I take refuge in Amida Buddha”). Its appearance in architectural form thus epitomizes and communicates Jodo Shinshu’s central teachings while simultaneously expressing the cultural heritage and spiritual heart of the community in architectonic form.

In terms of argument and analysis, these observations are not merely speculative. Tradition is key in understanding the meanings embedded in the perception, attitudes, and values that both of the above churches represent to the community within which they reside. As discussed above, the temples in focus here looked directly back to architectural examples from Japan when considering the design of their buildings. Their traditional precedents were important and intentional, as an essential function of these buildings was to evoke the warmth and security that memories of their homeland tend to foster in one’s heart. Indeed, while raising funds to construct the Higashi temple, leaders created a brochure titled “Higashi Hongwanji Coming Home” in order to generate financial support (Higashi Buddhist Temple, p. 50). Both the current Nishi and the Higashi churches are significant buildings precisely due to their ability to do so. Otherwise, these organizations would have been happy to stay in their former residences or construct edifices more in line with Western models. However, at the time of their construction in the 1960s and 1970s, Japanese immigrants no longer felt threatened as an ethnic enclave or the existential need to assimilate with the American populous. They were therefore comfortable building large-scale temples based on traditional Japanese practices as a way to communicate the congregation’s cultural and spiritual beliefs. It seems clear that one is able to read them as such.

The Vertical, Horizontal, and the Sacred

Spatial and cultural binaries exist in Little Tokyo outside the temples as well and help explicate how the neighborhood and its Buddhist architecture work holistically in creating a special place of culture, sentiment, and sacrality. A tall 55-foot traditional fire watchtower (yagura) stands across from the former Nishi Hongwanji temple on First Street in Little Tokyo Village (Figure 6). Originally built in 1978, its metal construction replaced an earlier wooden version that deteriorated due to insects and the elements (Guzman, 2009). It is a cultural emblem derived from rural Japan. In small villages, its height and function imbued the structure with associations of security and local identity. Its placement in Little Tokyo fulfills the same purpose. The tower’s roof is a simple gable resembling the “hand-clasped style” of traditional minka structures. Its secular heritage shares a cultural and architectural affinity with a smaller gasshō-zukuri bell tower belonging to the current Nishi church further down First Street. Although the Nishi belfry is spiritual in purpose and quite a bit shorter than the yagura in Little Tokyo Village, the two draw attention to the representational and cultural currency of towers and the verticality implied in that type of structure. The stature of the traditional “Yagura Tower” is of course less impressive than, say, the contemporary 53-floor 777 Tower 2 miles away. However, given its context amid the history of Little Tokyo’s Japanese Americans, its cultural meaning is far greater than the difference in their height might imply. The watchtower stands as a symbolic barbican of sorts, guarding against the social injustices of the past.

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Figure 6.

Yagura Watchtower, Little Tokyo, Los Angeles.

The religious buildings discussed above utilize the horizontal plane of architectural design in a different but related manner. They exist as material hallmarks of spiritual shelter and cultural refuge. Ordained church hierarchy from both of the Shin churches make specific reference to the horizontality of their sacred structures. Internally, the o-naijin area of Jodo Shinshu shrines is expressly horizontal in its structural and semantic orientation. Its lateral energy emulates the effulgent landscape of the Pure Land and horizon line of the Western Paradise. The Higashi temple has a particularly low structural profile, even more so than that of its Nishi neighbor. While speaking to the author in the church, Reverend Peter Hata of the Higashi Honganji stressed how its temple’s horizontal nature de-emphasizes the verticality often found in Western buildings in its immediate downtown vicinity. In fact, the Higashi church property is directly adjacent to Little Tokyo Towers (Figure 7), an acutely tall retirement home built in 1975 primarily for Japanese Americans. The proximity of the two buildings in effect creates a didactic microcosm of cultural “homes.” Inherently nonreligious, the towering retirement home succeeds in highlighting the East/West differences of religious/secular buildings in the starkest physical manner.

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Figure 7.

Little Tokyo Towers.

The concepts of horizontality and verticality speak to the essence of sacred space in Shin Buddhist architecture. Sacred buildings are constructed along the horizontal plane in association with the Pure Land Paradise of the West, while verticality—although still culturally emotive—tends to be linked to the secular. The towering commercial downtown buildings in Los Angeles underscore this observation as much as Little Tokyo Towers. In Buddhist sacred space, one moves into a physical and spiritual space where a deep sense of interconnectedness can take over the mind. However, like the idea of self-identity accepted as provisional under the Buddhist worldview of “no-self,” sacred space is also accepted on a contingent basis in Buddhist environments. For example, Pure Land temples implement a sacred/profane dualism in the o-naijin/gejin distinction even though they are used at times for social purposes. Yet it is still a special space of culture. Memory and meaning keep it so. The overarching purpose of these special places is one of attaining a depth of mind. The metaphysical transition comes from the move away from material concerns into a place of deep reflection, spiritual awareness, and emotional insight. This is why we have seen that sacred architecture has been so identified with concepts of the home, for that is the dwelling that people connect with on the most subjective, reflective, and affective of levels.

A relatively recent dharma talk addressed the notion of the horizontality and verticality explicitly in terms of interconnectedness and holism. According to Reverend Shumyo Kojima of the Soto Zen temple in Little Tokyo, the directionals—while retaining their fundamental distinction—nevertheless underscore the interconnectedness of all phenomena. Verticality for Reverend Shumyo is seen viz. ancestral connections, as “the vertical thread of life that connects us through the past, present, and future.” The temporal and cultural link that the Yagura Tower represents evidences this succinctly. Horizontality is associated with the ontological strands linking all things in the earth and sky: “These threads are the work of the earth intricately interwoven in multiple layers” (Kojima, 2016, p. 4). Ultimately, Reverend Shumyo’s insight speaks to the holistic quality of the ideas discussed above. The overwhelming dynamic has been one of the interconnectedness of people’s hopes, feelings, values, and histories with the art, buildings, environments, and monuments that exist to evidence them. Little Tokyo captures the horizontality of sacred form and the verticality of mundane life in a poignant way. It is a place where “opposite pairs” such as these resolve into one holistic experience with respect to the formation of memory, history, and religious faith. These elements coalesce, intertwine, and reverse themselves like the threads of life that link culture, religion, and the material and spiritual artifacts within its borders. The Buddha’s teachings are written in sutras, which is a word that means “thread.” The traditional temples that stand amid the ultramodern high rises of downtown Los Angeles therefore seem to exemplify the dharma in structural form.

Conclusion

Nihonmachi Los Angeles is a special place in the ongoing history of Los Angeles. When writing about architecture from a humanistic perspective, one emphasizes the subjectivities surrounding the brute object of the buildings under consideration. The binary nature of Little Tokyo is one of the interactions between people’s hopes, feelings, and values with the art, buildings, and environments that exist to evidence them. It should be emphasized once again that the goal of this research was not one of a positive demonstration of incontrovertible fact. Indeed, that is not the point of the structures’ and monuments’ existence as well. In analyzing these artifacts and their resident community, one notices that prevalence of terms such as tends and evoke and suggest when discussing the energy and vitality of the neighborhood. These are words that access subjective/spiritual reactions that assuage the objective reality of architectural form. The term binary itself retains a mathematical connotation, which, as argued above, is ultimately untenable within such an affective community like Little Tokyo. Hence, the focus on holistic experience. These “special places” are an amalgamation of the dualities immanent in the neighborhood as a whole. The primary arbitrator between the human spirit and material form is the language of symbolism. In arguing for a blending or coalescence of the various “opposite pairs” in the community, the principle unifying and symbolic concept at work is that of the heart. It is a term that is critically important to Buddhist doctrinal thought, as well as the essence of sentiment, emotion, memory, and nostalgia. The Nishi and Higashi Buddhist Churches utilize the cultural power of tradition as a primary mechanism to bridge the dualities immanent within their community together. Sacred spaces and special places form within and around the human heart. This is the ultimate meaning one can extrapolate from the two temples discussed above and the feelings they were constructed to house.