Notes From A Burning House

Wednesdays are the Zen Center’s big night.  There are three sitting periods instead of one, and this is the night that private teaching interviews are available. On Wednesday nights, I have sometimes seen every cushion with a butt on it. That is the night we typically see some Korean faces.  When our founder was alive, the Center was very much a mix of Korean Buddhists and western Zen students.  In more recent years, those folks have gravitated toward the more traditional-style temples.

Our center in L.A. occupies a duplex house in a residential neighborhood near the Miracle Mile -  a strip of Wilshire Boulevard known for its museums, the La Brea Tar Pits and the El Rey.  Johnnie Cochran’s law offices were here, as well.

During my final days as Abbot of this Center in 2003, we began researching the house’s zoning and use permits.  The house was built in the 1920’s and for some time was owned by a Christian Science Church located next door, at the corner of Olympic Boulevard (one of the heaviest-traveled streets within the city).   They held Sunday school classes in the house for a while and thus the house had a unique housing situation: it was essentially zoned as a residence and a church at the same time.  When the Zen Center acquired the property in the early 1980’s, this unique zoning situation was very important. Besides the dual use permit which would permit the Center to operate as both church and residence, the old church permit pre-dated later mandates to provide lots of parking.  (In the second half of the last century, parking became a hot issue in L.A. Very hot.)

Among the documents we found through the zoning office was a restrictive covenant - a legal decree by the property’s first owner, that the house should never be sold to or occupied by black people or "asiatics."  It was an astonishing document to read.

The covenant cannot legally be enforced, thanks to a Supreme Court decision that was delivered this day in 1948.  The case was Shelley v. Kraemer and it declared such covenants (once common) to be unconstitutional.

Since that time, the neighborhood has changed quite a bit.  Nearly all of the homes are owned by African-American families, and our house has housed a great many "asiatics."  One might imagine the author of that covenant feeling restless in his grave.

Good.

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