Hi all,

As a new poster to this board I want to say that I am interested in knowing if they are other message boards where SGI, or NST members are looking for answers and wanting to meet other believers. I'm not interested in polemics, but will participate in honest debates - if that's wanted. But I'd really like to find boards where I can meet with other people concerned with the future of Nichiren Buddhism in the USA and in Canada.

If anyone has any information I will be pleased to hear from you.

bribri

Hi- Would like to know if you have found any sites or boards such as you describe. I am also interested in polite dialog or study of Nichiren's writings. Thanks.

Hi back to you,

Well I'm still working on it. Seems that people are still a little gun-shy about getting engaged in anything.

If you're interested in study, that's something I've been keen on for decades. I don't know if you read any of my other posts, but I have stated here before that we have all been denied a good basic understanding of Nichiren's teachings. Especially in North America, where we've acquired some ideas about Buddhism, which are actually not what Nichiren taught. This in fact is one of the fundamental reasons for the impasse in the SGI today and in the general development of Nichiren Buddhism outside of japan. All religious groups have similar problems, but some are better in dealing with it than others. Nichirenism is no longer "The" essential core teaching of the SGI. People should let go of their apprehensions and recognize this reality now rather than later when it will just be more and more difficult to do.


B

Thanks for your reply.

I think that a lot of the apprehension comes from the fear of being targeted and harassed by over-zealous SGI members who may happen to read this and other public forum posts.

There are quite a few accounts on this site of personal attacks being made on people who were honestly trying to follow Nichiren's teachings and resisting the "message" of the SGI (Oneness of Mentor-Disciple being a prerequisite for attaining enlightenment, which is not a Buddhist concept, and in fact is the antithesis of Nichiren's teachings).

I do not blame people for being fearful of this. I am a District leader and a member of over 30 years, and currently have a "team" of Chapter, Area, and Region leaders breathing down my neck at every turn and doing their best to disrupt the activities of my District and intimidate me. I have no doubt that I will soon be removed from this position, but I am not one to give up without a fight - in this case teaching the members to study the Gosho deeply and reach into it for direction in their lives - not just wait for a "leader" to interpret it for them (usually to suit whatever the current "campaign" is).

I know what this pressure is like, and it is not fun. There were 6 of these so-called "leaders" at my last District meeting.

There is reason to be careful about sharing too much information about oneself in a situation like this.

This being said, I would still like to find a forum online where we can study and share our own viewpoints on life and Nichiren's writings - what the ideal and initial intent of the SGI's discussion meetings was supposed to be, but which has become unrecognizably perverted.

I was a district leader in Eastern France when I decided to cut all connections with SGI. It had taken me nearly 6 months of investigation of all the available evidence concerning the split to come to a point where my doubts were answered - and they definitely answered. Senior leaders asked to intervene at a meeting of ours, which I agreed to. They came ill prepared to counter the evidence. The material used to support our decision came from my own library, some of which dated from the mid sixties. At the meeting, we all read in turn (Gakkai style!) from a compilation of the major points concerning each divisive issue, isue which were referenced to Gakkai publications. or other related but none-the-less SGI sanctioned material (eg." Japan's New Buddhism"Murata). It was almost comical when the regional director would exclaim at some particular point that what we were reading was nonsense. However, at each protest I passed to him the SGI source material, but he would only wind up looking at it as though I must have got it from the priests, so it had to be some sort of trick.

Three weeks later he brought a young priest who had recently been defrocked. I met with them (the regional director, the priest and a youth director for all of France who acted as a translator. At one point, the priests began stabbing his pointed index finger towards my head threatening to sue me! They were all over the place. I should explain here that I never just give my opinion, certainly not since one of the most frequent counter attacks the Gakkai has made against criticism in its own ranks is by crying that it's just an opinion and nothing else. But no, I had them with their own words, so what could they do? Well, they shift to other arguments, like you're disrupting the unity of the members and that's a serious karmic crime. Or they might say that you were never really connected to Ikeda and not benefiting for the master mentor relationship. They would argue anything but the facts, and there are lots of nasty facts all over the place, some we even just ignore.

If we are against injustice, should we then participate in it? If we have faith in what Nichiren teaches us about enlightenment and how to practice, should we let anything else come between us and this truth? How can we go on till the end of our lives with a clear conscious that we are doing the right thing - a decision each of us has to make ON OUR OWN?

I took mine 20 years ago and haven't regretted it for a moment.

I denounced SGI about 3 weeks ago and joined the Nichiren Buddhist Association of America. NO MORE DRAMA! I am definetely in the right place. I am so happy and care free, and I feel I have broken the emotional attachment to SGI so now those people have no affect on me. I just don't care anymore(aside from wishing I could free them all). I encourage you because that is tough in the middle of it, but if you want to leave just start chanting for it and as you already know when the right set of circumstances happen, leaving will be effortless. They are fair weather friends anyway so at some point they will leave you alone. To hell with them. Now I can actually refute erroneous teachings and rebuke slander of the Law which is what I read in the Gosho to be my responsibility. Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo.

To whom it may concern:

The purpose of this message board is to discuss destructive cults, controversial groups and movements.

The rules of this message board prohibit religious discussion and/or preaching/proselytizing.

There is a thread pertaining to SGI, which has been called a "cult" by its critics and some former members.

See [forum.culteducation.com]

This thread is closed.

Those interested in discussing SGI and its behavior may go to that discussion thread.