The Buddhist Way

As Honpa Hongwanji Mission celebrates 120 years in Hawaii, Bishop Thomas Okano says it is modernizing and becoming more than just a Japanese organization. But one thing remains the same: the quest for human enlightenment

Wednesday - May 13, 2009
By Chad Pata
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their own men and tons of raw materials that were needed back home. The Okanos reunited the family in Singapore and the Awa Maru sailed away, where despite its promised safe passage, it was summarily sunk by four torpedoes from the American submarine USS Queenfish. More than 2,000 people perished with but one survivor.

“Funny thing, my father wrote to my grandfather and told him we would be on the Awa Maru,” remembers Okano. “After it sank he wrote another letter, but it never got to my grandfather, so he thought we perished in the water. So they had our funeral, a memorial service, and in Buddhist style we have a weekly memorial service for seven weeks.”

Shortly thereafter, the elder Okano became sick with malaria and as treatment facilities were so poor at this point in Singapore, he was put onto a hospital ship. The family stowed away and the Okanos finally returned to Japan in May 1945.

There was no way to send a telegram to alert the family of their return, and as fate would have it, they arrived home on the night of their fifth memorial service. The Okanos took a train to their village of Feidani and walked the last mile home through rice pad-dies.“We got muddy and when we arrived home it was late at night,” recalls Okano. “My grandfather saw the five of us there and he was so certain we were ghosts that he asked, ‘Do you guys have feet?’ because in Japan ghosts do not have feet!”

The reunion was rapturous and the last two memorial services were called off. But the joy was short-lived, for the family lived in the prefecture of Tottori, less than 100 miles from Hiroshima. Fortunately, the Chugoku Sanchi mountain range protected them from the fallout from that bomb dropped on Aug. 6. The war, which for the Okanos began with planes flying over their home, ended with the loss of more than 100,000 lives a short drive from their home.

They remained in Japan until 1951 when Okano’s father was reassigned to the temple he had left a decade prior in Pearl City.

“We were uprooted by the American government and we didn’t have passport or anything,” says Okano. “So the American government concluded that this family made a journey around the world and now are completing the journey back here to Hawaii.”

Okano went on to graduate from Waipahu High and attended UH before going to receive his formal Hongwanji training in Japan.

His wartime experiences and his dedication to his father made following him into the ministry an easy choice. He continues to try new ways to grow the ministry. They now have a high school that focuses on peace education through the awareness of our interdependence on one another.

“We try to create in the minds of youngsters that peace is possible; it should be our way of life in this earthly existence,” says Okano. “Initially a lot of people said, ‘What, peace?‘But peace education is beginning to catch on.”

Another avenue of outreach will happen in September when they open the Annon Café in Tsukiji Restaurant at Ala Moana Center. For two weeks they will celebrate their 120th anniversary along with the 750th anniversary of the passing of the movement’s founder, Shinran Shonin.

They will introduce those interested to the Pacific Buddhist Academy, and a section of the buffet line will be dedicated to Shojin Ryori, healthy vegetarian food that is an expression of their appreciation for receiving limitless compassion of Amida Buddha.

Bishop Okano welcomes all to come visit, as long as they come with the proper goals in mind.

“If you join the Buddhist church to become rich or famous, you came to the wrong church,” says Okano. “You go because your goal is enlightenment, and how to gain this enlightenment is with Buddha’s guidance. He reaches down to our heart, we cannot grab it. He says don’t worry, follow my path, you will find pure land.”

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