Since Don Belt moved to San Benito County in 1980, he turned a landscape that is known for row crops and cattle grazing into a forest of pine trees. He has planted 9,000 trees, including emerald pines, cherry trees and several other varieties.
Through the years he has transformed his rural property on Riverside Road into the Hollister Japanese Temple Garden complete with a koi fish pond, a picnic area and stone statues. The only thing missing from the site is the temple, on which he has recently broken ground, with plans for it to be completed by the end of the summer.
Belt first got interested in Japanese culture in 1957 when he was stationed there with the U.S. military.
“I worked four days a week on a job in electronics and I was near Hiroshima,” he said. “I traveled a lot in Japan in my time off. I was really taken aback by the old culture. It was a very nice experience.”
Belt shares his home with his wife Emiko. The two have items around the house that reflect Japanese culture. He has calligraphy pieces that “were made before this country was founded.”
One room in his home is designed as a meditation room for the public meditation he offers at his home for members of the public. For a while, he had a monk staying with him who provided the meditation sessions and he’s also had guest speakers talk about Buddhism or Japanese culture.
In recent months, he’s started offering meditation each Sunday at 2 p.m. and he’s been leading the sessions.
“It’s important to have resources,” Belt said. “More and more people are interested in it because we live in a pretty stressful world.”
Guests to the meditation room are asked to remove their shoes before they enter. The walls are decorated with Japanese tapestries and a Chinese harp instrument is displayed at the front of the room. A Buddha statue sits on a side table, but Belt said it has not been blessed yet because once it is blessed someone has to leave an offering of food each day.
Belt has a separate room in which he prefers to meditate. The walls are painted purple and he keeps the shades drawn. He has a candle he lights before he begins his relaxation and he pulls a comforter over himself to keep warm. He keeps his home at a brisk temperature.
“It’s very helpful,” he said, of setting aside an hour a day for meditation. “If I don’t, I feel like the days don’t go very well. If you are peaceful, you are more accepting. If you are kind of rattled, nervous or uptight, every little thing becomes a big thing.”
Though Belt is nearly 80, he still works a day and a half per week as an audiologist. When he is not working, he is often actively involved in the projects on his property.
Belt worked with a Japanese architect to design the temple that is under construction on his property. To build the concrete walls for the basement, the construction crew had to build a wooden frame into which they poured the concrete. Now that it has set, the crew has to remove all the wood from it.
“It was like building two houses,” Belt said.
The wood from the frame will be reused in the upper levels of the temple. The rocks that have been pulled out of the ground will be used to create a waterfall on another part of the property.
Though the Hollister Japanese Temple Garden is a nonprofit, Belt said he is covering 99 percent of the cost to build the temple. He said he is using his life savings to achieve something that has been a dream for decades.
While the temple is being built from the ground up, Belt is also transforming other buildings on the property that used to be barns or separate living quarters into other uses. One building will become a reception center. Another will be used a monks’ quarters, with a full kitchen and bath. Part of that building will also include soaking tubs and a library.
Belt has been working with the county planning department and he noted that it was at the suggestion of one planner that he joined two buildings into one to keep the number of structures on his property to the zoning ordinance. He said Roger Grimsley, the San Juan city manager and a retired engineer, has also offered advice on his project.
“We are hoping to have the roof on by summer,” Belt said.
ONLINE
Watch a video of Don Belt talking about how he got involved with meditation here. For more on the Hollister Japanese Temple Garden, visit hollisterjapanesetemplegarden.org. Meditation is offered every Sunday at 2 p.m.
