Hawaii’s Soto Zen (Honolulu: schools, live in, office)

[Tiger Beer]

The last time I was in Honolulu, I recall quite a few Soto Zen schools/temples/churches or whatever you want to call them.

Are these unique to Hawaii? I live in Japan now, and haven't come across something like them before.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Hawaii Soto Zen establishments look a heck of a lot like going to a Catholic church. I saw church pews, and an altar, and statues - very interesting to say the least.

I also saw cultural type things like 'Japenese classes,' 'flower arranging', etc.

I guess I am curious if these are only open to Japanese-Hawaiian, or is there a greater mix of people that attend these, or can attend these, and how welcome they may or may not be?

I'm also a bit curious when they have 'mass/service/worship' or whatever words you'd use - what words would you use? Also, what is it like? Etc.

[thesycophant]

A little searching turned up that Soto is a sect of Japanese Zen Buddhism, with a relatively large number of members in Hawaii. Here's an article (http://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/eng/regional_office_hawaii.html - broken link) from a website devoted to Soto Zen Buddhism. There are apparently nine temples on the islands, and the Mission has its headquarters right near the Japanese consulate in Honolulu. Here's the Wikipedia article on Soto.

[Tiger Beer]

The Soto Zen temples are beautiful. Interesting how Catholic they seem...in having pews, statues, setting...just replace everything Catholic with things Buddhist. Interesting, for sure.