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SGBye
Every once in a while someone at a meeting will bring up the fact that Ikeda gets slammed on a regular basis in the Japanese press. In the 80's I remember my young naive mind thinking, "But why would they attack such a nice and good man?" The members' explanation for this was always the same: "They're just jealous of Sensei and want to tear him down!" Since the Soka Gakkai is heavily involved in politics, I'm sure some of the negative press may be due to bias and partisanship. But where there's smoke there's fire, and when it involves Ikeda, there seems to be an awful lot of smoke. If chanting's so powerful, why can't the members chant that particularly annoying problem away? It's gotta be easier than trying to chant something like cancer away, I would think.
I've asked "why?" whenever I've encountered negative reactions, it always has to do with the intolerance, fanaticism and whacked out behavior of the general membership. It has always boiled down to their fundamentalism and persistence in pushing and annoying people. They have always had either a story to tell or knew somebody else who does. Another theme I've heard is that the crazy chanting behavior also doesn't win them any positive impressions; rather, they don't come right out and say it, but the implication is clear --> it's cuckoo for cocoa puffs.
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SGBye
Whenever someone that the members are chanting for dies, they roll out the standard comforting lines: "He/she will be reborn into much better circumstances," "He/she completed their mission," "He/she surely gained enlightenment and/or changed their karma," etc. If someone with an illness lives longer than expected, they love to point out that chanting prolonged their life. However, those folks were most often extremely ill and therefore experienced a lot of pain and suffering. Why you would want to prolong that is beyond me.
Reading this mb always jars something loose from cobwebs of my memory from my time in. The above is one of them. I had forgotten these kinds of lines, but, yes, I heard the same thing all the time.
I've always wondered,
HOW exactly it is that they come to
KNOW this information? Is there a reborn or completed mission newsletter or certificate that is given out so that they can make "official" announcements?
Like I said earlier, it's all fairy tales for children and a surrogate pacifier/thumb to suck for comfort.
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Shavoy
SGI did not seem to know how to handle that. There was a memorial article in the WT, but you could sense from the tone that they just wanted to do "the right thing", put it out there, and then mention it no more.
So, where was the actual proof with Mr. Aoyama's experience? That is not what people generally want to hear, when they try to believe 100%. SGI cannot handle Bad Things, in my estimation. The sad truths of life do not generate shakabuku revenues for the SGI.
Whenever they are exposed to obvious irrefutable reverse negative confirmation bias (something that just cannot be framed as a "benefit"), they go (uncharacteristically) quiet.
On that note, I'm with Anti-Cult regarding Ikeda being on ice. Something is definitely up. The official grapevine word has it that the dear leader is strangely absent simply because he is getting older and wants to retire, leaving it all up to others. Also, lack of actual "appearances" and travels for the 3-11 disaster and the recent one-year anniversary, IMO, are very, very telling. The only thing coming out (and I hope somebody will correct me if I'm wrong) has been ghost statements and supposed cherry blossom nature photos that the dear leader snapped to "encourage" members.
Something is definitely rotten in the state of Denmark.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2012 05:27AM by Hitch.