SGBye, it was Nichijew who brought the video here and also reposted the Williams-Ikeda video links. I agree, much thanks!
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SGBye
Back in the 80’s and 90’s, May 3rd 2001 was the magical date that we were all gung-ho about. Looking back now, the only thing I remember about that date was being fed some nonsense about the closing of the 7 bells or something (?!)…. I can’t really properly recall much about it but I remember feeling underwhelmed by the whole thing.
As far back as I can remember, it was always something: Sho-Hondo '72 (to later be torn down), San Deigo '73 (?), Tozan every year (?), Guam '75 (?), L.A. Shrine "200 Years From Now - Where Are We Gonna Be?" '76 (?), Hawaii '76, D.C. '82, . . . . . May '01, etc., etc., etc.. The way some of these things were hyped, I thought the 1st two gakkai presidents and the daishonin were going to be resurrected and come back to join Ikeda for a gongyo ceremony and lead a gakkai song together. The dates would come, the activity would take place (sometimes success, sometimes not, sometimes ho-hum) and then they would announce another date shortly thereafter. There were a ton more of smaller ones, too. Looking at some of the Rock The Era clips on YouTube, it looks like the quality has gone down a bit. FNCC has replaced tozan as the cult retreat. It looks like they make people there put on amateur talent shows for each other (again, cringe-worthy stuff, all on YouTube).
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Tibbs
So they're calling the kids 'Future Division'. Get them while they're young. Make them feel guilty for not doing enough for kosen rufu and their 'mentor' before they're even out of elementary school. They are definitely helping 'Sensei' on his mission which is to add more 'disciples' and more billions to his bank account.
IMO, it's child abuse, pure & simple.
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Shavoy
Many times back in the day, I had to stand my ground when challenged about participating in Gakkai stuff, when very important family stuff was happening. I'll say again, the skies did not open, I was not swallowed up, and I still got benefit. Never regretted doing what the right, truly important things were.
I loved seeing the eyes of some of the leaders when they heard, "
Nope, no can do, ain't gonna happen, sorry." It would sometimes take them a few seconds of stunned silence before it would register.
Agreed. It became more frequent with me as I got older. Nothing bad ever happened (zero, zilch, nada) and, as I've mentioned before, on a few occasions I even went on to have a non-gakkai related activity of my own that turned out to be a REAL "golden memory." The only thing that I regret now, is that I didn't do it more often.