Quote
Freeheartandmind

Just wondering...is ikea dead or alive?

Nobody really knows right now. Reality is always murky when it comes to cults. Something is definitely not kosher in the motherland, though. The cult HQ is definitely manipulating appearances and attempting to write their own version of gakkai history. The most anyone can accurately say, at the moment, for sure, is that the dear leader is on ice. The "official" line is that he wants the "YOUTH!" to take over and be responsible now (i.e., "it's their turn"). Yeah, right. Nothing is ever as it appears, in a cult.

**************

Nichijew's site directed me to this [www.buddhajones.com]. I personally have an inherent aversion to the usage of the phrase "paradigm shift", in that it usually presages an avalanche of BS that is about to fall upon you. I particularly love this part in the comments:

"I'm lying here getting over pneumonia and thinking about my role in the organization.

This Big Shift is shifting things in me."

Made by a burned out ywd "leader." I've literally walked in those same shoes. I once went straight to the hospital and was admitted for pneumonia, right after completing one of the relentless campaigns back when I was in the "YOUTH!", as well. Once I was discharged from the hospital, I was told it was a benefit because I completed the campaign victoriously, the pneumonia was caught early, I recovered fairly quickly, given a quick "opportunity" to change my karma and didn't die from it. I kid you not. The cult org. will eat you up as a "YOUTH!" member, if you let them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2012 07:58AM by Hitch.

From www.fraughtwithperil.com, "Diary of a Chapter Leader" blog by Nancy Thomsen, "Presto Chango" essay

Thomsen is writing about recent organizational changes in SGI:

----------------------------Beginning of quote-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For about a year, the top leaders in SGI-USA have been trying to figure out how to grow the organization. They talked to each successive leadership position down to chapter. Funny how they stopped short of talking to the front line leaders at the district level. But in the end, I think they have come up with a good short term solution. They are going to combine the two levels above district, chapter and area, which will free up over a thousand leaders to become district leaders again. I just can’t wait for this. I’m all for change and no one believes this will fix everything, but it is a start. It puts the emphasis on the districts, it will put more leaders into the districts and it will let more districts have men and young leaders in them. Also, each area has been tasked to figure out how they want to incorporate the changes. I have to hand it to SGI — good for us. Thank you, SGI-USA leadership for working to make this a more American organization. Now, if we could just get our members to want to understand Buddhism…

----------------------------End of quote------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SGI is doing the equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. You can combine and rearrange various levels all you like. The real problem is that members and prospective members are tired of the Ikeda worship, the incessant, and unreasonable demands on their time, having no voice in the organization, clueless, egotistical leaders, and the lack of Buddhism within SGI. "If we could just get our members to want to understand Buddhism..." Really? A lot of members joined SGI because they wanted to learn about Buddhism....and left when they realized that SGI had nothing to do with Buddhism. It was only ever about money and power for Toda and Ikeda. Those SGI members who understand Buddhism -- realize how little Buddhism there actually is in SGI -- and they leave.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2012 10:16AM by tsukimoto.

Quote
tsukimoto
From www.fraughtwithperil.com, "Diary of a Chapter Leader" blog by Nancy Thomsen, "Presto Chango" essay

Thomsen is writing about recent organizational changes in SGI:

----------------------------Beginning of quote-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For about a year, the top leaders in SGI-USA have been trying to figure out how to grow the organization. They talked to each successive leadership position down to chapter. Funny how they stopped short of talking to the front line leaders at the district level. But in the end, I think they have come up with a good short term solution. They are going to combine the two levels above district, chapter and area, which will free up over a thousand leaders to become district leaders again. I just can’t wait for this. I’m all for change and no one believes this will fix everything, but it is a start. It puts the emphasis on the districts, it will put more leaders into the districts and it will let more districts have men and young leaders in them. Also, each area has been tasked to figure out how they want to incorporate the changes. I have to hand it to SGI — good for us. Thank you, SGI-USA leadership for working to make this a more American organization. Now, if we could just get our members to want to understand Buddhism…

----------------------------End of quote------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SGI is doing the equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. You can combine and rearrange various levels all you like. The real problem is that members and prospective members are tired of the Ikeda worship, the incessant, and unreasonable demands on their time, having no voice in the organization, clueless, egotistical leaders, and the lack of Buddhism within SGI. "If we could just get our members to want to understand Buddhism..." Really? A lot of members joined SGI because they wanted to learn about Buddhism....and left when they realized that SGI had nothing to do with Buddhism. It was only ever about money and power for Toda and Ikeda. Those SGI members who understand Buddhism -- realize how little Buddhism there actually is in SGI -- and they leave.

This portion is interesting. I see some things never change. Not only are the "leaders" not very bright to begin with, but they also cannot even be pushed, pulled or even towed, up the learning curve either. On that note (things never changing), many of those "thousands of leaders" are in store for a whole new round of renewed pressure, grief, manipulation and mind games. Announce the changes, hype it up, everybody cheer loudly (especially the "YOUTH!", have to cheer with the most decibels), everyone smile and pretend everything is great, and in the end, nothing substantive ever really changes in the Japanese centric, personality worshiping, pseudo-buddhist cult organization. All members - ENJOY!

Hi, thought I wld check in. Its August, people r coming at me. I can feel the intrusive diamoku. messages, phone calls, fb posts...I started to waver! Thn,came back to my senses! Any news on what happened to Prs. Ikeda?? R they still pretending hes alive?? Has anyone asked for the truth!

I have loved the wisdom of Buddhism for as long as I can remember so when a friend asked me to accompany her to an SGI meeting in Taplow London, I thought I'd give it a try. After chanting for about an hour, I must confess, I felt fantastic, calm and relaxed. I was advised to contact my District leader and they would show me the ropes. I was taken to a few meeting in very affluent areas, and in beautiful houses. It was all very nice, but something just didn't add up.

But the first alarm bell started ringing when a sweet lady gave me her number and offered me the opertunity to go chant with her, I was just getting my pen out my bag, when the woman who had invited me to the meeting came storming over and shouted at me and the woman I was talking to. 'No' she yelled, 'you are not allowed to go to other districts, you have to chant with me!' I was seriously shock, but carried on writing the number down. The whole room went still and I felt very very uncomfortable, very.

But you carry on and I kept chanting on my own, but she kept calling me and turning up at my house telling me she must chant with me. That to was very uncomfortable, but I thought I'd make the best of it. I started asking about which books she recommended, but all she really talked about was the monthly magazine and she gave me a copy. I read through it and thought what a lot of drivel! Where is the Buddhist stuff?

I went to a few meetings with friends and bought a few SGI books, but again it all seemed to be by their President Ikeda. I was a bit confused, but decided if I read them all the Buddhism must be in there somewhere and besides I really enjoyed the chanting. But after a while I started to get a bit confussed and rather a few bells of alarm were ringing in my head and slowly getting louder. I started asking questions. But was actually told to shhhhhhh!

Now to me everything they had used to sell me this rubbish was slowly starting to eroding as one day someone said at a meeting that this was the 'only way to have a happy life' and 'everyone out there including the Buddhist monks were just ignorant and stupid.' I could not believe it, I actually felt cold water run through my veins.

I wanted to stand up and say that is the most 'IGNORANT' thing I have ever heard, but the 30 or so members in Kew were repeating the words 'stupid' and 'ignorant'. I seriously could not believe that anyone in their right mind would advocate this kind of attitude and it certainly wasn't what they preached in the beginning.

So much more happened but to cut a long story short, I started studying actual Buddist books, with real philosophy and not the rehashed nonsense the SGI was selling. I cancelled getting my Gohonzon because of all the inhouse district fighting, you should have seen the Egos fly, everyone dispare to be proved right and the other wrong.

Honestly, I have never come across less evolved people in my life, dispite them telling me what a underdeveloped person I was, but ignoring their own elephants in the room. No matter how badly they behaved it was all passed off as all part of evolving. They could act as badly as they like, get as drunk as they like, say nasty thing to each other but it was all part of the evolution. (behaving like spoilt children more like)

On a couple of occasions I got shouted at for not doing what they wanted, not reading the right books (according to the SGI), not going to their meeting and just generally not doing what they wanted. I slowly distanced myself, even ignoring calls and texts. I tried on a few occasions to meet up with my friend to explain that I was grateful for being introduced to chanting, but I don't buy into any of the other stuff and thank you, and ask if we can just go back to having our 20year friendship. Every meeting was cancelled or she just didn't turn up, once even lying about being in a car accident, which was clearly not true. But the Texts kept coming in about when am I coming to the next meeting.

Eventually it became care she was not going to meet up with me and I text to say I will not be chanting again and to please stop asking me. Then, it all got very very nasty and personal. During all the texts and believe me they came in thick and fast, I never said a bad or cross word back. It was awful! And these were my friends!

Shocking stuff! Not one of them wanted to talk to me and have anything to do with me, and to tell the truth, I'm relieved! I still chanting because I love it and it starts off the day nicely and ends it beautifully. I downloaded my own Gohonzon and did the eye opening ceremony myself, with help from an ex SGI memeber. And I'm exstaticly happy. My world has not fallen apart, infant it's better without those SGI vultures at my door.

To clarify! SGI has nothing to do with Buddhism. IT IS A CULT and becoming a NASTY CULT!

Please don't be fooled with all the rubbish the spurt!

Quote
Hitch

Quote
tsukimoto
From www.fraughtwithperil.com, "Diary of a Chapter Leader" blog by Nancy Thomsen, "Presto Chango" essay

Thomsen is writing about recent organizational changes in SGI:

----------------------------Beginning of quote-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For about a year, the top leaders in SGI-USA have been trying to figure out how to grow the organization. They talked to each successive leadership position down to chapter. Funny how they stopped short of talking to the front line leaders at the district level. But in the end, I think they have come up with a good short term solution. They are going to combine the two levels above district, chapter and area, which will free up over a thousand leaders to become district leaders again. I just can’t wait for this. I’m all for change and no one believes this will fix everything, but it is a start. It puts the emphasis on the districts, it will put more leaders into the districts and it will let more districts have men and young leaders in them. Also, each area has been tasked to figure out how they want to incorporate the changes. I have to hand it to SGI — good for us. Thank you, SGI-USA leadership for working to make this a more American organization. Now, if we could just get our members to want to understand Buddhism…

----------------------------End of quote------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SGI is doing the equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. You can combine and rearrange various levels all you like. The real problem is that members and prospective members are tired of the Ikeda worship, the incessant, and unreasonable demands on their time, having no voice in the organization, clueless, egotistical leaders, and the lack of Buddhism within SGI. "If we could just get our members to want to understand Buddhism..." Really? A lot of members joined SGI because they wanted to learn about Buddhism....and left when they realized that SGI had nothing to do with Buddhism. It was only ever about money and power for Toda and Ikeda. Those SGI members who understand Buddhism -- realize how little Buddhism there actually is in SGI -- and they leave.

This portion is interesting. I see some things never change. Not only are the "leaders" not very bright to begin with, but they also cannot even be pushed, pulled or even towed, up the learning curve either. On that note (things never changing), many of those "thousands of leaders" are in store for a whole new round of renewed pressure, grief, manipulation and mind games. Announce the changes, hype it up, everybody cheer loudly (especially the "YOUTH!", have to cheer with the most decibels), everyone smile and pretend everything is great, and in the end, nothing substantive ever really changes in the Japanese centric, personality worshiping, pseudo-buddhist cult organization. All members - ENJOY!

This is so funny. How do they ever think that chapter leaders will tolerate becoming district leaders again? It seems to me that the real reason this is being done because SGI is shrinking, that they no longer have the members to need so many "leaders".

@President Ikeda possibly not being with us anymore: I have thought for quite a while, even during the last bit of my involvement with SGI, that President Ikeda had died. Several years ago, the pictures of Ikeda in the world tribune did not look good. He did not look healthy and it looked like he may have had a stroke. And then no current pictures were shown of him. All that were shown is OLD ones. Pictures of him when he was a young man doing something or other, not current ones. This went on for a while. And then suddenly he reappeared. Looking healthy and young again. I thought that they had found someone, and prepared him, to impersonate Pres Ikeda.

@SaffyFoo: Congratulations on getting out before they had you hooked!

jlynn - Not sure what to say, other than, "stay strong, stay smart and STAY OUT" of the gakkai cult org..

Welcome aboard SaffyFoo. Looks like you saw through the cult fog rather quickly. Your first post has a ton of content that I'd like to comment on:

Quote
SaffyFoo
But the first alarm bell started ringing when a sweet lady gave me her number and offered me the opertunity to go chant with her, I was just getting my pen out my bag, when the woman who had invited me to the meeting came storming over and shouted at me and the woman I was talking to. 'No' she yelled, 'you are not allowed to go to other districts, you have to chant with me!' I was seriously shock, but carried on writing the number down. The whole room went still and I felt very very uncomfortable, very.

Her attitude and yelling is because she viewed you as "hers." You were her shakubuku, her property and *her* benefit (the "magic" key to changing *her* mystical "karma"). Nobody was going to wiggle in between her and what was rightfully all hers. Pretty typical warped cultie mindset, I saw it all the time, too.

Quote
SaffyFoo
I went to a few meetings with friends and bought a few SGI books, but again it all seemed to be by their President Ikeda. I was a bit confused, but decided if I read them all the Buddhism must be in there somewhere and besides I really enjoyed the chanting. But after a while I started to get a bit confussed and rather a few bells of alarm were ringing in my head and slowly getting louder. I started asking questions. But was actually told to shhhhhhh!

This is just the first unofficial "shushing", that comes from fellow members. If you persist in your questioning, you'll get visits from various "leaders." And don't ever dare try to question an official salaried leader (as I did on occasion), as it will quickly get you a "reputation" and ostracized (which I actually welcomed as I was fighting my way out).

Quote
SaffyFoo
Now to me everything they had used to sell me this rubbish was slowly starting to eroding as one day someone said at a meeting that this was the 'only way to have a happy life' and 'everyone out there including the Buddhist monks were just ignorant and stupid.' I could not believe it, I actually felt cold water run through my veins.

I wanted to stand up and say that is the most 'IGNORANT' thing I have ever heard, but the 30 or so members in Kew were repeating the words 'stupid' and 'ignorant'. I seriously could not believe that anyone in their right mind would advocate this kind of attitude and it certainly wasn't what they preached in the beginning.

Many, if not most, of the gakkai cult membership have a Jekyll-Hyde aspect to their brainwashed outlook and "philosophy" on life. It's a product of both what has been fed to them and their habitual inability to think for themselves, only holding pre-packaged positions that have been handed down from the dear phantom leader (who himself is an abject lesson in pathological psychology) over time.

Quote
SaffyFoo
So much more happened but to cut a long story short, I started studying actual Buddist books, with real philosophy and not the rehashed nonsense the SGI was selling. I cancelled getting my Gohonzon because of all the inhouse district fighting, you should have seen the Egos fly, everyone dispare to be proved right and the other wrong.

Speaking from experience, the cult absolutely does not approve of any "outside", independent reading activities or furthering yourself and truly growing with a genuine education. They say they do, but in reality, on the inside, they don't.

Had to laugh at the "ego" remark! HAHA! IMO, you have to have a healthy good sized ignorant ego in order to even be categorized as a good "leader" in the first place. It never ceased to amaze me as to how dogmatic, deludedly confident and lacking in humility ALL the senior leadership was. Again, they say they are (humble, compassionate, caring), but they aren't. (This also goes back to that bizarre Jekyll-Hyde trait mentioned earlier.)

Quote
SaffyFoo
Honestly, I have never come across less evolved people in my life, dispite them telling me what a underdeveloped person I was, but ignoring their own elephants in the room. No matter how badly they behaved it was all passed off as all part of evolving. They could act as badly as they like, get as drunk as they like, say nasty thing to each other but it was all part of the evolution. (behaving like spoilt children more like)

Must agree completely here. As has also been mentioned elsewhere on this thread, gakkai cult members are unknowingly stuck in a box and cease to grow after they've been in for a while. The people that I still know who are "in", have not changed one tiny bit, in decades.

Quote
SaffyFoo
On a couple of occasions I got shouted at for not doing what they wanted, not reading the right books (according to the SGI), not going to their meeting and just generally not doing what they wanted. I slowly distanced myself, even ignoring calls and texts. I tried on a few occasions to meet up with my friend to explain that I was grateful for being introduced to chanting, but I don't buy into any of the other stuff and thank you, and ask if we can just go back to having our 20year friendship. Every meeting was cancelled or she just didn't turn up, once even lying about being in a car accident, which was clearly not true. But the Texts kept coming in about when am I coming to the next meeting.

Eventually it became care she was not going to meet up with me and I text to say I will not be chanting again and to please stop asking me. Then, it all got very very nasty and personal. During all the texts and believe me they came in thick and fast, I never said a bad or cross word back. It was awful! And these were my friends!

While I was in the process of becoming a critical thinker, I often heard "it's not good to think like that, you should just chant more, really listen to your "leaders", don't question, do only as you're told and model your life and practice after 'sensei'." Oh, and the infamous "you're creating bad karma, erasing your accumulated fortune and making a bad cause, otherwise" (i.e., be afraid, be very afraid). This kind of behavior (manipulation) from fellow members and the leadership all had the opposite effect on me, in that it made the crap that they were spouting all the more obvious.

Gakkai members are never truly your friends. I grew up on the cult and cannot think of a single individual whom I would call a "friend."

Quote
SaffyFoo
Shocking stuff! Not one of them wanted to talk to me and have anything to do with me, and to tell the truth, I'm relieved! I still chanting because I love it and it starts off the day nicely and ends it beautifully. I downloaded my own Gohonzon and did the eye opening ceremony myself, with help from an ex SGI memeber. And I'm exstaticly happy. My world has not fallen apart, infant it's better without those SGI vultures at my door.

Love the "sgi vultures" remark. It's a perfect analogy - opportunistic scavengers.

Quote
SaffyFoo
To clarify! SGI has nothing to do with Buddhism. IT IS A CULT and becoming a NASTY CULT!

Please don't be fooled with all the rubbish the spurt!

A nasty cult, indeed.

Quote
quiet one
Several years ago, the pictures of Ikeda in the world tribune did not look good. He did not look healthy and it looked like he may have had a stroke. And then no current pictures were shown of him. All that were shown is OLD ones.

I know exactly what you mean, I thought the same thing. He looked very odd right before he became the invisible phantom leader.

***************

Btw, I forgot to add (and this is an important point) -

Quote
SaffyFoo
On a couple of occasions I got shouted at for not doing what they wanted, not reading the right books (according to the SGI), not going to their meeting and just generally not doing what they wanted.

Getting yelled and shouted at were common occurrences at almost every "YOUTH!" practice/activity, especially when you did behind-the-scenes support (soka-han, gajokai, brass band, venue prep. stage crew, whatever it happened to be). I only ever really saw it happen to non-youth members when they were persistently not towing the group line, bending to chronic repeated pressure, or causing perceived "disunity" by being a "negative" influence. It was usually pulled out and used on adults only when all of the other tactics didn't seem to be working and a point of frustration was reached. Otherwise, it was the default mode of authority towards "YOUTH!" members. - simply because they could (do it and get away with it).

Incidentally, current vice-general director Ethan Gelbaum was (in)famous for this kind of manipulative low IQ troglodyte behavior - so much so that ymd members even created a song about it and him as a defense and coping mechanism. It eventually spread around to all the ymd, secretly. Yelling and blind, stupid obedience, coupled with the ability to manipulate people (intimidate those younger than him and kiss the a** of those above him) is how he eventually climbed the cult ladder. He personifies the typical psycho, too dumb to have a conscience, cult "leader."

The "modern" version of soka-han, now called The "Soka Group" [www.youtube.com] (aka: the fearless A-Team for Cousin Rufus!). "YOUTH!" training, for your benefit and protection of the precious members. Notice how the "official" uniform wearers still include the occasional ymd whose clothes don't fit and pants keep falling down (like I said, some things never really change much). It's kind of easy to forget, that once you clear the air of all the humorous fog in the video, you're still dealing with a manipulative pseudo-buddhist cult org..

(The clip is 7 minutes of your time, but you are guaranteed a good laugh, especially for those of us who have been through it all.)