Buddhist temple offers calm in busy urban area

Nestled in between a True Value Hardware store on one side and a busy McDonald’s on the other side is a beautiful, historic place of calm and quietude.

It is the 100-year-old Shingon Shu Buddhist Temple on Sheridan Street, which parallels Keeaumoku on the Ewa side. The temple’s placement is surprising because Sheridan is a relatively short street of very mixed enterprises. The King Street end of Sheridan is anchored by an overwrought gas station/car wash, and after just a few blocks the street ends at Kapiolani Boulevard with an Ossipoff-designed pet hospital.

In between are a jumble of hostess bars and the back end of big-muscled corporations such as Walmart and Meadow Gold Dairies, and a Hawaii biggie we all know as HMSA.

When the temple was finished in 1915, the area was far different. It was considered country. The neighborhood has changed dramatically, but the temple has remained almost unchanged over the 10 decades. It has stood — remarkably — as a place of peace, of calm.

“We have survived,” says the Rev. Reyn Yorio Tsuru. But the temple has done better than that. While it primarily serves the areas of Makiki, Moiliili and Kakaako, it is growing, which can’t be said of all Buddhist temples in Hawaii.

In the simplest terms, his temple is “successful in the sense we are still here,” according to Tsuru. “Our ministers are mostly trained here rather than Japan and we’ve expanded our message and made it more accessible by not having services only in Japanese.” Tsuru also says the temple has become more independent of its main sect in Japan, which gives it more flexibility in all areas.

Shingon Shu is considered a neighborhood temple. Its size is big for Hawaii, but by Japanese standards it is quite small.

Design of the temple by architect/builder Katsutaro Nakagawa began in 1913.

“It is as close to traditional Japanese architecture as you’ll find outside of Japan,” Tsuru says. Sweeping hip/gable roofs are its signature, with distinctive hand carvings at practically every cornice. A few steps up to the temple entrance is a carved phoenix that represents death and rebirth.

Inside, there is a beautifully carved wooden frieze above the steps to the altar called Clouds and Waves, which certainly is appropriate for Hawaii.

And at the entrance are two imposing 10-foot-tall, free-standing carvings of cypress; one is called the God of Thunder (which looks pretty angry) and the second is titled the God of Wind.

In the temple archives are early 1913 invoices from Nakagawa that note his company was the general contractor and painter. On one invoice, among several charges, was a cost of $13.75 for a carpenter for a full day. Compare that with what carpenters in Hawaii are paid hourly today — about $34.

A little-known fact is that high above the ceiling of the temple is the original altar built in 1912 before construction even started. It is where the Japanese workers worshiped. This was a tradition meant to assure worker safety and that the construction would go well. It is no longer in use since its sole purpose was to pray for the aforementioned safety and success of the building process.

Over the years the temple has undergone several restorations. The first was in 1929. The architect, Heigo Fuchino, was self-taught and became the first licensed architect of Asian ancestry in Hawaii.

IN 1970 it was decided the temple needed to be brought up to the standards of the current building code. And while most of the wood in the roofs and walls is original, some of it had to be replaced. Interestingly, this restoration was handled by Robert Katsuyoshi, a relative of the original architect. The latest restoration was in 1978.

“Today the temple is very much alive. It’s in use every day for services,” Tsuru says. “People from HMSA down the street come up during their lunch hours. And we do funerals. A big part of temple life are memorials that bring families together for whatever reason. This is greatly practiced in Hawaii.”

He says his temple is one of the few with its door wide open every day — from 5 a.m. to sundown. For peace. For calm.