Symbol of Misunderstanding : Religion: The Hwa Yen Buddhist community has been vandalized, largely for its reverse-swastika emblem, and some of its customs have led to friction with neighbors.

A Vietnamese Buddhist temple that was hit by vandalism early this year because of confusion over swastika-like symbols on its entrance gate--emblems that signify goodness in that faith--also had its mailbox blown apart by a bomb, it was learned this week.

Although the Buddhist group covered with plywood six reverse-swastika emblems in its gate--apparently mistaken for Nazi symbols--the group says its problems have continued.

Epitomizing the cultural clashes that occur as the San Fernando Valley grows more diverse, some neighbors complained last week that the temple’s saffron-colored gates are garish and a bell used in prayers is too loud.

The troubles began over the swastikas that decorated the gate to the Hwa Yen Buddhist Studies Assn. on De Soto Avenue.

The swastika is an ancient symbol of auspiciousness and good fortune in Hindu culture, in use for centuries before it became associated with Hitler’s Germany. It has similar meanings for Far Eastern Buddhist groups, who use a version with arms drawn in the reverse direction of the one made infamous by the Nazis.

Vandals sawed off two of the six symbols in the wrought-iron gate sometime last spring and complaints that they resembled Nazi swastikas were made to the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League.

Later, apparently in May, an explosive device blew up the temple’s roadside mailbox, the monks and neighbors say. The monks said Thursday they could no longer remember the date. Although they said they had reported it to law-enforcement authorities, they could not identify the agency.

Detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire station nearby had no record of a complaint this year.

But a neighbor of the temple, who declined to be identified, said she remembers that the explosion occurred sometime before June 4.

“I thought it was someone’s water heater that had blown up,” she said. “Then the next morning, I saw pieces of the mailbox all over the street.”

The temple’s 87-year-old head monk, who left two temples in Vietnam as he evacuated Saigon with American troops in 1975, said through an interpreter that he has forgiven the unknown bomber.

“I’ve forgotten already about the explosion,” said the Venerable Sik Tai Fong in a brief interview before leaving on an extended visit to the Buddhist sect’s New York headquarters.

“We are not scared or mad. People don’t understand Buddhists,” said a female monk who is second in leadership, the Venerable Wai Fong Tran. The two monks’ remarks were translated by a volunteer, realtor Mona Trouing.

Wai Fong Tran also said that one night last week, two women and a man in the neighborhood came by to complain that the large entrance gate and buildings painted bright yellow detract from the area’s housing values and that a bell the monks ring occasionally is too loud.

Another neighbor--the one who heard the mailbox explode--said she has no objections to the Buddhists’ presence. “The bell was quite loud before, but I think they’re toning it down now,” she said.

“I’ve heard it as early as 6 a.m. and in the evening about 6:30 p.m.,” she said.

The monks said that the group moved into the property in October of last year and has applied for city permits to hold religious events. A garage containing four Buddha figures is being renovated to serve as a small temple, they said. Meanwhile, a handful of followers use rooms in the two-story house for meditation and study.

The language problem and their leaders’ frequent absence has left the group lacking potential supporters, although in the spring, a Valley rabbi circulated a letter to synagogues explaining the Buddhist meaning of the swastika in an effort to defuse tension over the symbol.

The Chatsworth-based San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council, which includes members of Eastern and Western religious groups, has not been contacted by the Vietnamese Buddhist group, said Executive Director Barry Smedberg.

Nor has a call for help gone to the ethnically diverse Buddhist Sangha Council of Southern California, based in Los Angeles. The Venerable Havanpola Ratanasara, executive director of the council, said he hadn’t heard of the Chatsworth group or its leaders.

The initial troubles at the Hwa Yen property stemmed from a sad irony, Ratanasara said.

“The swastika symbol means a blessing, expecting something good to happen--not the way the Nazis used it.”

Neither swastika form is used by Buddhists in his native Sri Lanka or other Theravadan Buddhist countries of south Asia, Ratanasara said. “It is used in Mahayana Buddhism in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam,” he said.

However, because a reverse swastika is often mistaken for the Nazi version, Japanese-heritage Jodo Shinshu temples in this country “have purposely avoided the use of this emblem,” said the Rev. Kakuyei Tada of the San Fernando Valley Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in Pacoima.

“This doesn’t mean that we simply ignore and refuse to get involved in this controversy,” Tada said. “Buddhists are neither anti-Semites nor Nazis. We, as Buddhists, cannot tolerate the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis.”