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tsukimoto
Someone else commented that Ikeda took off his own suit jacket at this meeting -- so all the men in the audience did too. The men's division and women's division sat separately in the auditorium, and the men's division was a sea of white shirts. The conformity is so striking.
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Shavoy
No matter how the Gakkai tries to figure out how to adapt to each country's culture, etc.--They are Japanese first. That's never and will never leave.
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tsukimoto
Anticult, your chanting-addict friend reminds me of a former friend of mine who's heavily involved in SGI. I went on vacation once with her, and another friend of ours who isn't an SGI member. My SGI friend just became extremely anxious, perhaps from being away from home and in a strange place. We were at this beautiful beach -- and all she wanted to do was sit in the motel room, very withdrawn and irritable, curtains drawn, and chant for hours. Our non-SGI friend and I tried to get her to come out and do things with us, and she refused. All she wanted to do was sit in that motel room and chant. She'd come out for meals and that was about it. So, the other girl and I just went out without her and had fun...what were we going to do?
This is really sad. I talked to a lot of people suffering from anxiety in the course of my healing, I noticed that isolation was a common theme, and I was no stranger to that. I can see why chanting would feed into this. I'm very grateful that I had people that were pushing me to get back out into life. There seemed to be a lot of anxious people in SGI and my SGI "mentor" would tell me stories about these various members of the group that I was in and their various conditions -- this one has depression, that one has anxiety -- and they had been in SGI for years. I said, wow, that's amazing. If they've been chanting all this time why haven't they gotten better? Her answer: They're doing it wrong. They don't attend enough meetings and they're not chanting with determination to overcome their fundamental darkness.
(I'm coming into this a bit late)
That was a common thing to tell members who had any kind of illness--"they needed to attend all the meetings, give more money to the organization instead of buying necessary medication such as oxygen,...." I know someone who died because she did exactly that....
Nichiren Daishonin took medicine given to him by Shijo Kingo when he needed it.
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tennpeach
Her name was Kimi L., I remember meething her for the 1st time when I was 15 years old, I think she was a similar to my mother--so she might have been about 35~40 years old at that time. I returned from out-of-country in '86. Then the split happened--she contacted my mother around 1991 to let her know that SGI leaders were trying to dig up any kind of dirt to discredit me as being a "disgruntled member", etc.. In the end, since they couldn't get the kind of information they wanted, they made up stories-- real doozies, I tell you. Returning to Ms. Kimi's story--she moved to Austin in Texas around 1995. She was working a minimum wage job, had severe emphysema and needed to carry oxygen. Her leader told her that she must attend some big meeting in Houston, she explained to the leader that if she went, she wouldn't be able to afford her oxygen....that ldr told her she must show conviction of her practice, use her money to attend that "big" meeting and "overcome" her illness by showing she didn't need the oxygen. My mother begged her to use common sense, her oxygen and life was more important that going to that meeting....she didn't listen...she went, returned home. A few days, her landlord found her dead...she had basically suffocated from lack of oxygen....
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jlynneda63
I wonder why I put up with so much for so long! In the past week we have gotten texts fm four people. One said "i
iss ur smile" had a phone number but no name. It took me three days to figure out it was my wd district leader! funny how loved i am suddenly...oh yeah, time for MONEY COLLECTIO! Sooo disengenuous! I guess i am bitter
I heard a great quote by Depak Chopra
Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not here. I am free of both
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Hitch
Please come back and fight for Cousin Rufus once more (although now it appears to be follow the dear phantom leader).