Many of Ven. Reion Takehara’s companions gathered at the dojo, and he began to devote himself to listening to the dharma at the morning service meeting and several lectures a year. In this way, the basic form of the current Shogyoji Temple was born.
While Ven. Reion Takehara was alive, in the 14th year of the Taisho era (1925), his first disciple Mrs. Miyo Nonaka (Ekai-sama) joined the Sangha. Immediately after attaining faith, she conveyed her joy of faith to her relatives and friends, and as a result, many followers came into existence one after another. She also built a house near the temple, opened the house to the public, and welcomed it as a lodging for the priests who came to the temple. This was the beginning of the formation of the current “Taya” system where many followers live in or near to the temple.
The word taya can be traced back to the days of Rennyo Shonin (1414-1499) and means places of accommodation set up round a temple where followers can stay and study Buddhism. In the case of Shogyoji a number of followers moved into the temple or settled round about it in order to attend morning and evening service, thus spontaneously forming a number of taya houses, both large and small. Nowadays over one hundred people, young as well as old, are living together inside the temple like one great big family.
