When the Rev. Kenjitsu Nakagaki was honoring the Buddha's birthday with a sacred flower ceremony at a Seattle shrine in 1986, the Buddhist monk was met with sharp criticism for the chrysanthemums he arranged in the shape of a counterclockwise swastika.
Nakagaki, then 25 and who had moved to Seattle from Osaka the previous year, was unaware neo-Nazis and white supremacists continued to use the Nazi swastika to promote hate. He knew the symbol as manji, a Chinese character meaning "good fortune" in Japanese.
"You can't do that in this country," Nakagaki remembered a devoted temple member telling him, as the symbol has hateful connotations in the United States and Europe.