Welcome Spartacus and Anti-cult India. Great Posts.

Nichijew

Spartacus and Anticult-India -- glad to have you aboard. I am grateful to have this forum, and thread. Back when I was still involved with SGI, I felt like I was the only one who had doubts and concerns about SGI. Most of the people I knew seemed to love it -- and wondered why I didn't. It's been great to share experiences and thoughts with other members and ex-members, and see that many of us, regardless of our external circumstances, and have had similar experiences and questions.

"Rougebuddha" has written a blog about her time in SGI. She too writes about many of the issues that we've discussed.

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Here are a few quotes; the full blog can be found here:

[rougebuddha.wordpress.com]

"Soon I began to openly question the erratic behavior of certain Culture Center Clutch members. "

"I began to openly question why the sole focus of every meeting was how many new people would attend and not on what would happen once they arrived."

"I openly questioned why the hand full of people who loyally did so much work, for the benefit of the Culture Clutch Center, were not rewarded with salaried positions"

"I began to question why the bulk of the meetings we had to attend were nothing more than videotaped viewings of the man with the glasses waiving to his fans or receiving some honorary degree from some obscure university."

"But my biggest most openly asked question was: Where was the actual BUDDHISM?"

My many questions prompted small groups of seasoned Culture Center Clutch members to venture out to my home to visit with me aka to straighten me out.  They visited on 3 or 4 occasions, as clearly my faith was weak, by Culture Center Clutch standards.  One member told me, “You think too much”, during one of their Buddha interventions.

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My many questions prompted small groups of seasoned Culture Center Clutch members to venture out to my home to visit with me aka to straighten me out.  They visited on 3 or 4 occasions, as clearly my faith was weak, by Culture Center Clutch standards.  One member told me, “You think too much”, during one of their Buddha interventions.

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Here in lies the weakness of all religions, If you think, you are a threat, If you think, you realise that it is all nonsense, If you think, you can escape.
Keep on thinking and questioning!

Nichiren Daishonin

"The second volume of the Lotus
Sutra says, "If a person fails to have
faith but instead slanders this sutra . . .
When his life comes to an end he will
enter the Avichi hell"

Ok here we go, Faith! The unprovable pointless virtue. So how does SGI try and suck you in on this one. When I first went they said you didn't have to believe in chanting for it to work. Just have faith that positive things will happen. So you chant every now and again. You go to a few meetings where love bombing friends gee you up and tell you how great you really are. Then they all share experiences, which are tenuous to say the least. 'I found my keys' Chanting and Gohonzon did it! 'I found 5 pounds/dollars', 'I met a new woman/man' etc etc etc....All the happenings are then claimed to be because of 'this' Buddhism! When in reality they are things that have happened, thats it, nothing special, no great intervention, just things happening. But SGI needs you to believe they would not have happened without Faith in Gohonzon and Chanting. But nowadays most of all, things happen because of the M/D relationship, which isn't even a relationship, it is a one way mind trick the victim plays on themselves. I believe therefore it must be true. So once you believe the more you are sucked in.

Also the fact that as the Nichiren statement above says, If you don't have faith you will got to Hell, is this a loving religion or is it exactly the same as Christianity, Islam and virtually every other so called religions. Fear tactics to keep people in line!
So you want to leave SGI, well Avichi Hell is where you are going, How do we know this! Well it says so in The Lotus Sutra and Nichiren mentions it quite a bit. Why should we believe any of this? The Lotus Sutra was written hundreds of years after the passing of the Buddha (if he actually did ever exist and was not just a creation of the virtuous man who we should all aspire to be). So it wasn't written by him anyway. But we are told that it is real and wonderful. So why do people believe the Lotus sutra is real, and not the Koran or the Bible. People believe it because they have chosen to believe it, not because it is true, there is no evidence at all for that outcome!

So Nichiren decided the LS was true, what does that mean, what is the significance of it! He had Faith and Faith is based on nothing other than believing that you have found the truth with out and proof to say it really is the truth, only your own Faith based judgement.

Is the LS an allegory, or did the people who wrote it really believe in all the fantastical ideals that they put forth. If this was written thousands of years ago, it is more than possible that the writers really believed in Heavens and Hells and all the other fantastic situations that the LS provides. I have a feeling that they thought by making things sound grander or, as in Hell, more fearful. Then it would be easier to convince the masses of its Truth and majesty. I mean some of it is really over the top but how would the descriptions of the Bodhisattvas of the Earth or the rising of the treasure tower convince people of how great it was without being described as such. Also I reckon a lot of people would have been illiterate so having priest relay this messages of Fantastical worlds would have been very enticing to those who had nothing.

So how do we differ. Not much at all.

Humans are blessed with critical thinking...they are also blessed with an instinct that tells them when things just don't add up, don't feel quite right. We are also vunerable because we naturally desire happiness and good circumstances.

As TheVoid says, "If you think, you are a threat, if you think, you realize that it is all nonsense. If you think, you can escape. Keep on thinking and questioning!"

As TheVoid pointed out, "Fear tactics to keep people in line!" Because people have deeply the happiness desire, they can be vunerable to a promise, a "certainty". Fear, to me, is probably the biggest thing that keeps people in the SGI, or other religions that work the fear factor.

And really, fear of what? In SGI terms, fear of speaking out observations, critical observations about Mr. Ikeda and the SGI Corporation? What does happen to members and ex-members who dare to speak out? As we see in this valued thread, not a heck of a lot---except the natural good times, not-so-good times, fantastic things and extremely painful things....nothing wrong with that. It's Life in all its glory.

This is what I think of the fear factor with SGI. It is all, ALL, for the worship of Daisaku Ikeda. Why promote M/D so heavily, especially in the last decade? Because he is old now, if he is dead or alive, we might not know that, but does it matter? Just as he once said in one of his speeches that I quoted in an earlier post, a statement that still blows my mind---"Mrs. Ikeda and I talk incessantly about our mentor, Josei Toda".

I think that says a whole lot about the aims of Daisaku Ikeda.

Fear factor says: Don't ever slander the Mentor.

We say: We, as humans, have the innate right to speak out the truth as we see it.

Nichijew and tsukimoto - thanks for the welcome from you two treasure towers. Both you guys loom tall in my view. My heartfelt respect :)

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Shavoy
. It is all, ALL, for the worship of Daisaku Ikeda. Why promote M/D so heavily, especially in the last decade? Because he is old now, if he is dead or alive, we might not know that, but does it matter? Just as he once said in one of his speeches that I quoted in an earlier post, a statement that still blows my mind---"Mrs. Ikeda and I talk incessantly about our mentor, Josei Toda".
.

If that's even true, it's sad. A good mentor, teacher or coach may help someone learn specific skills, and develop qualities like leadership, confidence and self-discipline. In the end, though, a true mentor should want you to live YOUR life -- not spend all your time thinking about them!


To change the subject completely, I found this article, by Jim Stephens, on his fourteen years in SGI. The website is sponsored by the Christian Research Institute, CRI, and Stephens also writes about how he became a born-again Christian after leaving SGI. I'm not saying that people should become Christians after SGI --- or that they shouldn't become Christians after SGI. The striking thing to me is how similar our experiences in SGI have been, no matter what path we take afterwards.

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[www.equip.org]-


Jim Stephens:

I was in a train station in Japan, making a pilgrimage to the head Buddhist temple Daisekiji at the foot of Mount Fuji, when a young man — in perfect English — warned: "Beware the winds of Himeiji!" Three and one-half hours later, I was leaning over to put some postcards into my travel bag and heard someone yell a warning in Japanese. The next thing I knew, a sign weighing nearly 200 pounds came crashing down on my back. I was in shock and my right arm was paralyzed.

In a wheelchair and all alone, I decided to seek help from leaders at the Soka Gakkai Buddhist headquarters in Tokyo. But my efforts were in vain. They had no compassion whatsoever for me or my unfortunate turn of events; they simply urged me to continue my pilgrimage, even though I was confined to a wheelchair.

As a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist, I had for fourteen years invested my energy, prayers, and hopes for a better life in the philosophy of Nichiren Daishonin,

As I reflect back on those years, it strikes me that my commitment to NSA could be questioned by none. As a young Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist, I became a member of the Brass Band.

I also helped build the Malibu Training Center and Santa Monica headquarters (both in California). I became a senior leader (or elder) of the young men's division at the Santa Monica headquarters, and was a graduate of the Nichiren Shoshu study department. By this time, my life had become thoroughly and unconditionally committed to Kosenrufu.

Open forums and meetings with fellow Buddhists began to shed a new (and negative) light on the Buddhist religion for me. During these sessions, like-minded Buddhists began to ask questions like, "Why must we have a picture of sect President Daisaku Ikeda on the wall? Doesn't that make it look like we're worshipping him? Why must we wear white? Why can't men wear beards? Why must men and women sit apart from one another? And where is all the money going in NSA?" We felt that we should have a little more control over what was going on.

During one period, some of the Japanese leadership attended the meetings and were later overheard behind closed doors saying, "these meetings must be stopped." And so, one by one, the meetings were stopped. This caused me a great deal of disillusionment. As a senior leader in NSA, I encountered more and more hypocrisy in the upper leadership levels and made sincere attempts to resolve organizational and philosophical deficiencies. However, these attempts were only met by deceit, jealousy, power maneuvers, and even threats against my life.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2012 04:59AM by tsukimoto.

Today I was going through my email when I came across a note from my x district leader. The note thanked everyone for fighting to victory on Sat when 19 members went to the Community center for the district meeting. The message continued to encourage them to fight on to change their meeting location karma!

Great! Nice to read this little announement especially since the meetings were in our house before we quit & now there is nowhere to go...BUT WAIT! I distinctly heard the "leadership" announce that they had a new location for meetings with more room , parking & kid room all without ever thanking us for the time &effort we put in here. They talked right over us like we weren't even there! So, NICE TO READ ABOUT no place to have meetings SENT to me which immediatley made me feel terrible, then guilty then scared that we will fall into hell for leaving them without a meeting place!

IS THIS PURPOSEFULL? HAS ANYONE ELSE EXPERIENCED ANXIETY OVER A SIMILAR ISSUE? THANK GOODNESS I HAVE SOMEWHERE TO GO WITH THIS?

TKS GUYS

Jlynneda

Oh, note seemed to be sent to everyone in the district, not just to us. Guess we r still on list

so don't know motive!

Welcome Spartacus -

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Spartacus
Lastly, I seem to be the only one here that knows about another important piece of the puzzle regarding George Williams' forced retirement. Sadanaga's family was KOREAN, not japanese. Racial prejudice was surely a factor in the downfall of NSA's first Gen. Director. Ikeda and the top brass at HQ probably hated Williams not only because of his popularity with American members, but because he was Korean (a second class citizen in the eyes of Japanese culture). That's the kind of racial secret that HQ will never be allowed to see the light of day, in order to protect SG's all important image. Any or all the other postulations may be true as well, but I can easily see his being of Korean ancestry as the primary reason to get rid of, and now to demonize and erase Williams from SGI/NSA history. How 'bout zatto? Don't you think so? AAO! AAO! AAO!

It's always been an open secret that GMW was Korean (same thing with regards to the dear leader in Japan).

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tsukimoto
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Jim Stephens:

During one period, some of the Japanese leadership attended the meetings and were later overheard behind closed doors saying, "these meetings must be stopped." And so, one by one, the meetings were stopped. This caused me a great deal of disillusionment. As a senior leader in NSA, I encountered more and more hypocrisy in the upper leadership levels and made sincere attempts to resolve organizational and philosophical deficiencies. However, these attempts were only met by deceit, jealousy, power maneuvers, and even threats against my life.

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The Japanese leadership controls everything, but don't despair, because even if you are Japanese, you are still not immune to the "jealousy, deceit and power maneuvers." The deceit and maneuvering came about because of the jealousy. There is a lot of insecurity and distrust amongst the "senior" leadership and I suspect it is even more so today.