Oblation or Inflation

Once again, as they had for 700 years, the chosen priests of Japan's Nichiren Buddhist sect trouped to the temple of Hokkekyo to undergo 100 days of purification and study. At the temple gateway stood Chief Priest Nissei Nakakita, asking the novices for six times last year's entrance fee. For three months of contemplation and 700 duckings in the ice-cold waters of the temple pump, 58 novices paid the inflated rate. Outside "the door that is not opened" devoted followers waited eagerly for their cries as freezing water coursed down their naked bodies.

For 59 days the prayers and the cries came on schedule, then suddenly the door opened and out marched strapping Novice Eshun Sato and 53 colleagues. They told a bitter story. "We novices had to wait hand and foot on the oldtimers," said Sato. "To convey a message or request to a fifth-time priest, I had to speak to a priest who was taking the rites for the second time, who relayed the message on up by rank. I protested to Chief Priest Nakakita, and for this I was beaten up by the oldtimers [he showed scars on his arms], Nakakita gave us bad oil for the well pump, and the oil dripped into the well and gave us all diarrhea. Then we ran out of water. Nakakita told us we would have to yell as if we were sluicing ourselves with water so the visitors would think we were going through the rites. For two days we went into the yard fully dressed and went through the motions. Finally the oldtimers demanded that we give them a New Year's present of money. But they didn't get it. We ran away."

Hokkekyo was not the only place in Japan last week where the interests of God and Mammon were becoming entangled. Shinsho Temple's plump, leathery Abbot Araki had to journey 40 miles to Tokyo to find out where his temple and its 350 employees stood under the new Labor Standards Act. So far his only word of encouragement has come from Temple Warehouse Keeper Shigeru Shinohara, head of the union of which 252 temple workers (including all 22 priests) are members. "We want regular wages," Shigeru said, "but no regular eight-hour working days. Sometimes a whole delegation of believers shows up late at night, and we are quite agreeable to working odd hours. Our union intends to inform the Labor Ministry that we wish to maintain our union just for economic purposes."

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