Well, dishastro, in the end, you're the one who has to live with yourself, no one else. Not being facetious.
Think of the principle of cause and effect. This principle states that, whatever you do, you're going to get more of. If you are around people who treat your son badly, you will continue to be around people who treat your son badly, and, worse, your son will come to see others treating him badly as "normal." He will learn that he is not worthy of respect. He will see that his mother apparently thinks it's *fine* for other adults to be mean to him - she apparently thinks more of them than she does of her own son. Think carefully about cause and effect - I didn't do enough of this until toward the end of my tenure.
To me the brainwashing from the SGI fosters dependency and manipulation and superstitious thinking. A great many people have independently arrived at the same conclusion :)
Fundamental darkness, shmundamental darkness. Who's to say that yours is "worse" than anyone else's? And how is it "fundamental darkness" if you simply insist on reserving your right to think about things and decide for yourself? In the SGI, you will *never* see the Kalama Sutra, sometimes called the Buddha's charter of free inquiry. Here are a couple of paraphrases:
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“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
Read the source for yourself if you like: [
www.accesstoinsight.org]
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My ex rarely sees our son who is now eight and I have been raising him since 5 months. My local district does not have enough members. I have no family support so I cannot get to meetings at the best of times as the SGI is not child friendly!! I have been made to feel like my son is in the way on a few occasions by even one of the top co-ordinators.
I was in the SGI-USA for over 20 years, the last 10 of which I had children. Two children. I was *constantly* criticized, marginalized, and made to feel unwelcome because of my children - and, having been a YWD HQ-level leader and now living in San Diego, I addressed this all the way up to the national leadership! No changes O_O
For example, when we first moved out here, I was assigned to a district. The youngest person there was in her late 30s; everyone else was pushing 50 at least. The couple whose home the district meets were held in had a wall that was floor to ceiling shelves, filled with fascinating and breakable knick-knacks. My children were 2 and 4 at this time. They told me I could put on a video in this room just off the main room during the meeting at one of the meetings. The next time I came, I was told the children could not use that room again because there had been "some damage." I asked what the damage was and offered to pay for whatever it was, but they just put their noses in the air and ignored my offers. I then happened upon a district run by a family with 2 children, and immediately decided to move there. That month, I went to my first Gosho study in this new city, which was at this fat old lady's house. There was a back hallway that my children were running up and down in (quietly). The other family with small children who sat like little statues were praised on their children's good behavior; I was scolded, even though my children had not damaged anything. When I brought this up with my new HQ leaders (Fats was a Chapter WD leader) I was told how much everyone appreciates those who "open up their homes" for meetings. BTW, when I would see the couple from the first district at various meetings like kosen rufu gongyos, they would walk *right* past me without even saying "hello". If I said "Hi" to them, they ignored me. Such *NICE* people O_O
I watched; the only parents to be praised by SGI leaders on their children's behavior are the ones whose children sit motionless. Is this type of behavior healthy or even normal for a 2- or 3-year old? It appears the SGI leaders are only interested in their own convenience.
Early on, I got the back room with the sound system at the local community center reserved for parents with small children. This feature is often called the "crying room", as it can be closed off separate from the main assembly room. I noticed an old gent with big ears sitting next to a middle-aged Asian woman in the front row of chairs in that room as KRG was starting. I was new; this man had never seen me before. I was using a sutra book (I don't, typically) and I'd forgotten my juzus. So there was no way he could tell that I wasn't a brand new member/shakubuku. At one point, my son (age 4) grabbed a ball out of my daughter (age 2)'s hands - she shrieked in outrage. Big Ears turned around and yelled, "KEEP THOSE CHILDREN QUIET DURING GONGYO!" Note that he was sitting only 2 feet away from a big sign saying "THIS ROOM RESERVED FOR FAMILIES WITH SMALL CHILDREN" O_O So I immediately got one of the byakuren and told her the old fart was not happy in the "crying room". She offered to move him and the lady to a couple of locations in the main room, but he was adamant that he was going to stay there. But he didn't say anything else to me. Certainly no apology!
Why would I want to put my children into such a hostile environment?
What I am worried about is that my ex will now see our son even less now I am no longer attached to the meetings in fact I am worried sick about this have I given in to superstitious thinking that I will now mess up my karma? Are you suggesting that your ex is an SGI member? Why should you think that YOU are in any way responsible for your ex's choices/behavior? That's weird and codependent thinking - just sayin' :D Back in the 1980s, when I joined, and up into the early 1990s, there was a persistent doctrine of sorts, that, if the woman practiced sincerely and correctly, everyone in her family would naturally *WANT* to practice independently for themselves. So there was all this pressure for women to "persuade" their non-member husbands to chant (and children, too). Because, so long as the husband and children weren't practicing the way the leaders wanted them to, the woman was on the receiving end of an unremitting sort of vibe/attitude that there was obviously something wrong with her. Pernicious.
Also, why is it that there should be so much pressure on *YOU* to stay in the meetings where you aren't really welcome, for the sake of "not messing up your karma", but there is *no* karmic effect on your ex who is *IGNORING* his own son and being a crappy father?? What's fair about that? Why should YOU be the one who's being pressured - and not HIM? HE's the one who's doin it rong!
to get my 'relationship victory'. Does all this talk about "victory" and "defeat" really seem compatible with Buddhism according to what you thought of Buddhism before getting involved with the SGI? Here is a statement attributed to Shakyamuni Buddha:
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Winning gives birth to hostility. Losing, one lies down in pain. The calmed lie down with ease, having set winning and losing aside.
Buddha
Dhammapada.
There. Doesn't *THAT* sound more consistent with the Four Noble Truths ("Attachments cause suffering") and the supposed goal of ridding oneself of attachments? If you are focused on some "victory", that is evidence of being extremely *attached* to that outcome, isn't it? If you dig around in your psyche, you might find (as I did) that this idea of "victory" is deeply entangled with the fear that, if you don't get that specific outcome, you will never be happy or successful in life, and you will live and die lonely and sad. I suggest that you can enjoy your life as a single or as part of a couple, and, if you think about it, there's really no loneliness so dark as being committed to someone who does not love you and does not treat you well.
So you've been practicing for almost 4 years and still no relationship "breakthrough". I'm sure that, if you've asked leaders for "guidance", you've been told you just need to practice harder/attend more activities/support the district meetings/chant more/blah blah blah. That was my experience. How long should you expect to wait, when you've been told "Chant for what you want"? Isn't there the implication that you'll GET it if you chant for it??
I was involved with a single mom, two sons, who wasn't really able to make ends meet on her child support payments from her ex. San Diego is really expensive! So she immediately signed up with Match.com and got herself a guy to move in with. But she didn't really like him - felt unsafe when he was driving, for example, just a lot of unhealthy, dysfunctional crap. And she put her two young sons in that environment! Well, she was chanting 4 hours a day to "change her financial karma." She had arrived in her late 30s without a college degree and with no relevant job experience, so the only jobs open to her were entry-level, and she felt that was beneath her. When I told her as gently as I could that even the members of the longest practices agreed that it typically takes 10 years to change financial karma (long enough to go to college and get a degree and/or to accumulate enough job experience to get a promotion, in other words), she flipped out, called me all sorts of nasty names, told me I was a *terrible* mother, and never spoke to me again! "I don't have 10 years!" she said. "I need my financial karma to change RIGHT NOW!" As if she expected money to just fall out of the sky or something. I felt bad - I had earlier (stupidly) told her she could chant for anything and "make the impossible possible." What a load of hooey.
I've been out for 5 years now, and REALLY glad I left. Not a moment's regret. I don't chant any more, and my life has been getting better and better. What I realized was that "chanting for what you want", for me at least, served to *strengthen* my attachments rather than move me toward letting them go. The whole emphasis on "my karma" led to me becoming a doormat and not standing up for myself as I should. To be honest, a lot of that came from my destructive early childhood indoctrination into Evangelical Christianity and my physically/emotionally abusive mother, but the SGI's focuses didn't help.
And the whole cult of worshiping that fat old Japanese frogman Ikeda really grosses me out.
There is much discussion of the SGI on this forum here: Soka Gakkai International -- SGI
You might find it interesting. New contributions are always welcome! Best of luck with everything, and I do hope you will not let anyone convince you to feel guilty for making the best decisions for your own life, regardless of what those decisions are. Anyone who really cared about YOU would encourage you to carefully evaluate your various activities and whether or not you're enjoying them, so that you can better choose what's working for you and what's not, so that you can get more of the "what's working" in your life and cut out the "not working". Let's face it - if you're spending a lot of time doing things you don't enjoy, around people you don't enjoy, that leaves you a lot less time to spend on the activities you DO enjoy, right? And much less time to spend with people you DO enjoy? Or that you might spend doing something where you might meet people you have more in common with...hmmm?
Look, I realize that the pitch that "you can chant for whatever you want" is seductive. And sticky - it's hard to let go. For me, at the root of it all was the fear that I couldn't make it in life without some sort of "trick" - a magic spell, or a magical incantation, or supernatural assistance, something that would enable me to bend the rules of reality, because with reality as I thought it was, I would never ever be happy or successful. That was an irrational fear - I can see that now - but when I was in the grips of it, I couldn't see it. And I thought that, if I stopped chanting/doing gongyo, I would have *nothing*. Now I realize that I need *NOTHING*! I already have the whole package. The idea that I *NEEDED* to chant for what I wanted strengthened my fear that, unless I did something magical/invoked the supernatural, I would never have what I needed.
One final comment (sorry this is so long - I'm verbal) - since "attachment causes suffering" (a foundational Buddhist doctrine that the SGI acknowledges), and since "attachment" isn't separated into "good" or "evil" (which the SGI likewise acknowledges); and since someone who is still in thrall to attachments and delusions cannot attain enlightenment (by definition); then, at some point, you are going to have to rid yourself even of your "attachment" to Buddhism if you are going to attain enlightenment, right? If that line of thinking intrigues you, I recommend this great (longish) article about "emptiness": [
www.thezensite.com]
Excerpt:
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However, ultimately no truth...is "absolutely true." All truths are essentially pragmatic in character and eventually have to be abandoned. Whether they are true is based on whether they can make one clinging (more attached) or non-clinging (free from attachment). Their truth-values are their effectiveness as a means (upaaya) to salvation. The Twofold Truth is like a medicine;it is used to eliminate all extreme views and metaphysical speculations. In order to refute the annihilationist, the Buddha may say that existence is real. And for the sake of rejecting the eternalist, he may claim that existence is unreal. As long as the Buddha's teachings are able to help people to remove attachments, they can be accepted as "truths." After all extremes and attachments are banished from the mind, the so-called truths are no longer needed and hence are not "truths" any more. One should be "empty" of all truths and lean on nothing.
To understand the "empty" nature of all truths one should realize, according to Chi-tsang, that "the refutation of erroneous views is the illumination of right view." The so-called refutation of erroneous views, in a philosophical context, is a declaration that all metaphysical views are erroneous and ought to be rejected. To assert that all theories are erroneous views neither entails nor implies that one has to have any "view". For the Maadhyamikas the refutation of erroneous views and the illumination of right views are not two separate things or acts but the same. A right view is not a view in itself; rather, it is the absence of views. If a right view is held in place of an erroneous one, the right view itself would become one-sided and would require refutation. The point the Maadhyamikas want to accentuate, expressed in contemporary terms, is that one should refute all metaphysical views, and to do so does not require the presentation of another metaphysical view, but simply forgetting or ignoring all metaphysics.
Like "emptiness," the words such as "right" and "wrong" or "erroneous" are really empty terms without reference to any definite entities or things. The so-called right view is actually as empty as the wrong view. It is cited as right "only when there is neither affirmation nor negation." If possible, one should not use the term. But:
We are forced to use the word 'right' (chiang ming cheng) in order to put an end to wrong. Once wrong has been ended, then neither does right remain. Therefore the mind is attached to nothing.
To obtain ultimate enlightenment, one has to go beyond "right" and "wrong," or "true" and "false," and see the empty nature of all things. To realize this is praj~naa (true wisdom).
To use a mundane example, when you're sick, you might need medicine to feel better. But once your fever is gone, or your cough, or whatever, you should stop using the medicine you were using for relief, right? Once you are no longer sick, you no longer need that medicine! The Buddha's teachings were intended to help us learn how to think and perceive accurately, so that we would then be prepared to step out into the world independently. Just like any decent education. What would we think of a person who insisted that he should remain in high school for his entire life?
Best wishes for your journey - it will be exciting! Namaste.