Quote
Freeheartandmind
If we could post those clapping smiley face thingies, I would post three or four. Your comment about the beads is right-on. I read recently that the "proper" thing to do is hold them quietly while chanting, but that's not how it was done while I was in. The louder the better! I personally used them to stay awake.

Rubbing the beads very loud and making the sound of quickly indrawn breath through your teeth means you are on the verge of gaining enlightenment! In the 70's, people would brag about breaking their juzu because they were so earnest they broke them. I went through a couple sets in my NSA career but they never broke from chanting, they broke from going through the washing machine or getting hooked on something. I guess I just wasn't sincere enough.

Wakatta1

Quote
wakatta1
The point is that Cult.org is still pushing members to do shakubuku. After I quit I thought about how I'd deal with someone trying to shakubuku me, but surprisingly I just felt sorry for her in the end.

Wakatta1

Gakkai cult members (and leaders for that matter) are so easy to deal with, because they are soooo predictable and incapable of thinking for themselves or outside the box of their memorized algorithm. Wind them up, and they just walk straight into a wall.

I feel sorry for them, too.

The "shakubuku" software is programmed into all members and rebooted as necessary. Some actual examples (taken from a sgi-usa) "Determination" & "Victory" board (all us ex-members are well familiar with these mandatory talking and listening bullet points).

******

General Guidelines -

"All 2100 YD members to attend, along with 900 guests.
50% of all districts and chapters to have YD leaders as representatives.
Home Visit each member and have one to one dialogue.
Each district welcomes at least one new member.
Everyday daimoku target - 1 hour."

Specific individual (cult) member determinations -

"100 dialogue with friends and members
1 Shakubuku"

"Connect and introduce 5 friends to SGI by March 16
Reach every YWD in my district
Create a wave of shakubuku movement in Northern California led by student division"

"For my shakabuku to receive a Gohozon by end of 2008, and introduce the practice to two other people."

"I will reach out to all the YMD in my Area.
Introduce my 3 friends from school to Buddhism and to the March 16th meeting."

"Support my cousin to receive Gohonzon in March."

"5 new members through college campus club activities."

"To have 1 more YMD in my district."

"Bring at least 1 friend to March 16. To overcome my fundamental darkness and continually challenge my weaknesses."

"have dialogs with students at my school" (sic)

"To have 30 one-to-one shyakabuku dialogue." (sic)

"1 shakubuku
Home Visit 6 inactive YWDs and encourage to attend March 16
Have 15 dialogues with friends & non members"

"2 shakubuku"

*******

Or put simply in another way, "Bring in the new meat, convert all your friends / relatives and get those other "YOUTH!" members who don't drink enough of the kool-aid to increase their consumption via the magic chant, peer pressure and the dear leader's guidance."

Shakubuku is the key to an elevated position in the cult org., guaranteed instant celebrity (buddha) status, praise, leadership track promotion, power, authority, and otherwise the way to spread temporary happiness all around the inside of the cult org., at least until it wears off or the next campaign. Repeat and keep changing that "karma."

Shakubuku = making other humans cult members, like yourself.

Quote
Freeheartandmind
Interesting article, especially for those of you who were in NSA.


[mrbellersneighborhood.com]

HAHA! I loved it!

Back in the nsa days, the Japanese members could perform miraculous feats, like walking on water and summoning the buddhist gods forth by mere gesture.

Everybody always worried about how long the daimoku would be after evening gongyo. Would it be the merciful 5-10 minutes, the challenging 15-20 minutes, or the excruciating 30-40 minutes. Anything longer was reserved for tosos. Everybody hated it, but would never admit it. If you were the MC or one of the first that had to stand up, you had to anticipate the ending time so as to adjust your position to get the circulation back in your legs so you could jump up quickly without falling back over and looking like a fool. Again, everybody's legs would be killing them and you could see people periodically rubbing and massaging their legs throughout the meeting, pointing them in one direction, then another for a while, just to try to stay comfortable. Back in the nsa days, sitting on the floor was a demonstration that you could tough it out as well as the buddha-like Japanese members could. Anything they could do, we could also do.

Ritualistic gongyo followed by the varying length magic chant, MC, song, introductions (if guests were present, then dial up the energy level), amateur talent night, confirmation bias experiences, selected gosho or the dear leader guidance, SPECIAL VIP SENIOR LEADER LONG BORING NON-SUBSTANTIVE TALK (obligatory laughing and smiling by all the attending members sprinkled throughout), special announcements, the daimoku sansho (reciting the magic words 3 times), guttural cheering and everybody rush to guest(s) for love bombing or to your members for subscription / zaimu extractions, future schedule and meeting commitments. Anybody with special needs (obstacles in their practice, weak faith, not towing to group think, etc.) would then be shuffled off to a little table set up either in front of the bustudan or in a corner for "private" one-on-one "guidance" with the VIP SENIOR LEADER (aka: salaried cult leader) to have your brain roto-rootered and filled up with extra-strength kool-aid. (Note: there were usually other Japanese WD sitting silently around within earshot, taking mental notes to later gossip about you and / or use any confidential information that you spilled against you, if need be.)

That's the pretty typical cult org. regular monthly (sometimes bi-monthly or even weekly) meeting that I remember. Another week, another month, another campaign, and repeat, endlessly.

Welcome to the cult org.. "Iffu you do this you be soooo happeeee", indeed.

@ wakatta1

I loved your plane episode – well done and to my mind not impolite to the elder lady. Another useful thing is to now and again use the Google search on news on SGI. I tend to contact newspapers or rather their online edition when they issue articles that could have stemmed from the SGI-marketing division. I simply tell them politely that SGI has some severe issues and ask if any of their editors may in fact be a SGIist and add some links including this one. One time I even got a TV-broadcasters internet site to delete an article on Ikeda and SGI.

Quote
Hitch
The "shakubuku" software is programmed into all members and rebooted as necessary. Some actual examples (taken from a sgi-usa) "Determination" & "Victory" board (all us ex-members are well familiar with these mandatory talking and listening bullet points).

******

General Guidelines -

"All 2100 YD members to attend, along with 900 guests.
50% of all districts and chapters to have YD leaders as representatives.
Home Visit each member and have one to one dialogue.
Each district welcomes at least one new member.
Everyday daimoku target - 1 hour."

Specific individual (cult) member determinations -

"100 dialogue with friends and members
1 Shakubuku"

"Connect and introduce 5 friends to SGI by March 16
Reach every YWD in my district
Create a wave of shakubuku movement in Northern California led by student division"

"For my shakabuku to receive a Gohozon by end of 2008, and introduce the practice to two other people."

"I will reach out to all the YMD in my Area.
Introduce my 3 friends from school to Buddhism and to the March 16th meeting."

"Support my cousin to receive Gohonzon in March."

"5 new members through college campus club activities."

"To have 1 more YMD in my district."

"Bring at least 1 friend to March 16. To overcome my fundamental darkness and continually challenge my weaknesses."

"have dialogs with students at my school" (sic)

"To have 30 one-to-one shyakabuku dialogue." (sic)

"1 shakubuku
Home Visit 6 inactive YWDs and encourage to attend March 16
Have 15 dialogues with friends & non members"

"2 shakubuku"

*******

Or put simply in another way, "Bring in the new meat, convert all your friends / relatives and get those other "YOUTH!" members who don't drink enough of the kool-aid to increase their consumption via the magic chant, peer pressure and the dear leader's guidance."

Shakubuku is the key to an elevated position in the cult org., guaranteed instant celebrity (buddha) status, praise, leadership track promotion, power, authority, and otherwise the way to spread temporary happiness all around the inside of the cult org., at least until it wears off or the next campaign. Repeat and keep changing that "karma."

Shakubuku = making other humans cult members, like yourself.

This just reinforces for me when I was going gung-ho (which was more like half-a-heart gung-ho) with shakabuku and "dialogue", that all it was for, really, was to change my karma and create tons of good fortune. The more you do, the more fortune and good circumstances you will reap. Wakatta1's experience with the Chinese lady on the plane also pushes this home. That is what you are promised, after all. So, as Hitch says, "Repeat and keep changing that "karma".

I mean, when you are told that this is the True Formula to achieve unshakable happiness and enlightenment, even though you may not feel happy or know if you are enlightened or not, you'll still keep doing it. Yeah, yeah, I know I digress---but it really is the Fundamental Dangling Carrot to Happiness, which human beings naturally have a vested interest in.

To my knowledge, Sensei Ikeda has never acknowledged publically that he has himself achieved Enlightenment.

Quote
shavoy
To my knowledge, Sensei Ikeda has never acknowledged publically that he has himself achieved Enlightenment.

Just wait until what be said after "dear leaders" passing - if it has not taken place already. HE will will be pronounced a buddha or an SGI equivalent.

Quote
Freeheartandmind
Interesting article, especially for those of you who were in NSA.


[mrbellersneighborhood.com]

And another to add to Freeheartandmind's post above (not sure if this has ever been posted before, did a quick search but couldn't find it here):

******

""THIS IS VULGAR," A. pronounced loudly into my ear. "This is vulgarity itself." We were standing under an arch in the gymnasium of a public school in Manhattan in June 1971. Fifteen clean-cut, energetic young men were waving their arms about vigorously, leading the audience in a song called "Have a Gohonzon,"* set to the Jewish song "Havah Nagila":

Have a Gohonzon,
Have a Gohonzon
Have a Gohonzon,
Chant jar awhile.
You'll find your life will be
Full oj vitality,
Watching your benefits
Grow in a pile ...

*Gohonzon: In Japanese, honzon indicates an object of worship. Go is an honorific prefix. Nichiren Daishonin embodied "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo," as a mandala (Sanskrit for an object or altar on which buddhas and bodhisattvas are represented). The Gohonzon may be either a paper scroll or wood block with Chinese characters.

The audience, a black-and-white cross section of New York City's diverse ethnic and economic population packed the room; they sang and clapped with ferocious enthusiasm.

"Look at them," said A. "Look at their glazed eyes, will you? They're fanatics."

"The lecture was okay," A. continued in a slightly more conciliatory tone. "That Japanese woman started to make some sense. But those testimonials—'I chanted for a new car and I got it!' 'I chanted for a boyfriend,' 'I chanted for money ...' And this stupid song! All of it's crap! This isn't what Buddhism's about."

The audience sang on:

Your surroundings may be loony,
Just remember:
Esho Funi!

"Now, that part's true," said A.

"This place is filled with very dangerous loonies. What's Esho Funi?"

"It's the doctrine of inseparability of person and environment," I answered loudly, hoping he could hear above the noise. "Your environment reflects your inner life."


"Well, not mine," said A., putting on his coat. "This isn't my reflection. I'm off." And he stomped out.

I stayed on, frustrated that he had seen nothing beyond the egregious testimonials, beyond the silly song with its ungainly lyrics. I thought I had seen something, and, although I was also uncomfortable in those unfamiliar surroundings, I thought it worth exploring.

A friend from college had introduced me to Buddhism six months before. The tradition she practiced was Nichiren Shoshu, a Japanese sect of Mahayana Buddhism best known for its organization of laity, Soka Gakkai. She had joined Soka Gakkai (then called NSA, or Nichiren Shoshu of America) a year earlier. She had shown me her altar and prayer beads, and explained that if I chanted ''Nam Myoho Renge Kyo," I could get anything I wanted.

"Anything?" I asked her, baffled. "Fame?"

"Um-hmm." "Sex?"

"Well," she answered, "the founder of this Buddhism, Nichiren Daishonin, said that even one time chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo might be enough."

"Okay. Nam Myoho Renge Kyo! How about going to bed with me?"

"On the other hand," she continued, "Nichiren Daishonin also said one million might not be enough. It all depends ... "

Nevertheless, I decided to try the practice. I knew a little about Buddhism from D. T. Suzuki's essays. I had read Hesse's Siddhartha and Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery. I was twenty-two years old, a college graduate with a book of published poems but with no immediate plans. I needed focus. I tried yoga briefly, but could not manage the vegetarianism that I understood was mandatory. I looked at Zen, but the practice seemed stark and unfriendly. This Buddhism, strange on the outside, might offer a place to begin. Besides, my friend had acquired a pristine, buoyant spirit.

I began to chant on my own. My first contact with other Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists took place on a New Year's Eve. We chanted Nam Myoho Renge Kyo together in their New York City Community Center on West 57th Street. At midnight we applauded and cheered and wished each other Happy New Year. I was elated. I could not fly or see through walls, but I had accomplished something of great difficulty, chanting for four hours without pause. I felt a quiet, reassuring rightness of purpose.

A. and I had known each other for several years. We taught together in the Poets-in-the-Schools program. We spent our summers in the Hamptons, part of the community of writers centered around East Hampton's Guild Hall, the museum and cultural center. We lived nearby in the Springs, the famous artists-and-writers colony where Willem de Kooning lives and Jackson Pollack died. When I first told him about Nichiren Shoshu, A. was intrigued. He too had been interested in Buddhism. I lent him my set of borrowed books and pamphlets.

A. was disappointed in the literature. "The language is rough," he told me. "And the philosophy is pretty thin."

I became defensive. I suggested that the sect had been in this country only a short time. Its translation skills would certainly improve. Besides, the book was written for a mass audience who could not be counted on to understand subtleties without schooling. In any event, I had planned to go to an NSA discussion meeting in Manhattan. Would he come along? Reluctantly, he agreed.

After A. left the meeting I did not hear from him again for several months. When I met him by chance at a party in East Hampton, he asked if I was still practicing with NSA. He shook his head sadly. I would be sorry if I stayed with them any longer, he predicted. "No reasonable, intelligent person is going to fall for that garbage," he warned. "Anyhow, they're not your kind. You're a poet. You've got something to offer. Why waste your time with inferior people?"

Page 2 of 4


He himself had found real Buddhism, he told me. He was going to study with Trungpa Rinpoche. Had I heard of him? No, I told him, I hadn't. "He's a poet," A. said. "He's not shallow."

A. stayed with Trungpa until Trungpa's death in 1987, and then he proceeded to study with other Tibetan teachers. Despite my friend's counsel, I've continued with the practice of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism for more than twenty years.

Others who knew about my involvement with the movement have been harsher than A. The most telling criticisms came from those who practiced other varieties of Buddhism. They wondered where, in Soka Gakkai's visible and frenetic public display—its conventions and parades staged in major cities, its proselytizing groups gathered on street corners or swarming over college campuses—where was Buddhist dharma? Where was the contemplation, the dedication, the struggle for enlightenment, the evidence of responsibility to Buddhist practice that has characterized Buddhism for thousands of years? Where was anything of substance in what I was doing and advocating that others do?

People in the United States and Japan who join Soka Gakkai are not often the same kinds of people attracted to other forms of Buddhism. In the U.S., Soka Gakkai appeals to a spectrum of the population in diverse economic, racial, and cultural groups. Solid demographic and psychographic information is not available, but judging by articles in Soka Gakkai's American weekly newspaper, The World Tribune, today's American membership includes many people living in lower-income, inner-city areas such as Detroit and Watts, as well as middle-class people living in major cities and suburbs. (African-Americans make up an estimated twenty percent of the membership, a significantly larger proportion than can be found in other American Buddhist groups.) Few avant-garde artists, writers, or scholars of contemplative bent (those who seem drawn to other Buddhist groups) appear in news coverage. Meanwhile, the testimonials of famous Soka Gakkai members—including those of Patrick Swayze, Roseanne Arnold, Tina Turner, and Herbie Hancock and assorted sports figures—have made the practitioners known as Buddhists who chant for fame and fortune.

Most people assume that Nichiren Shoshu and Soka Gakkai are the same. They are not. Nichiren Shoshu is a religion, a sect of Buddhism. Soka Gakkai is a social, political, and cultural organization. Most Soka Gakkai members practice a version of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism regularly. Yet, although the religion owes its eight to ten million worldwide members and (apparently) uncountable wealth to the lay organization, the complex historical alliance between these affiliations has never been harmonious.

Nichiren Daishonin (Nichiren means "Sun Lotus," and Daishonin means "great sage"), the founder of the sect, was born in Japan in 1222. He began his career as a monk of the T'ien-t'ai sect of Mahayana Buddhism. The teachings of T'ient'ai are distinguished by their reverence for the Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarika-sutra in Sanskrit). T'ien-t'ai places this teaching text a bove all others because of its emphasis on the universality of Buddha-nature and the promise that everyone—men and women alike—may attain enlightenment in this life, "as one is."

AT ABOUT THE AGE of sixteen, Nichiren left his home province for Kamakura, Mount Hiei, and other centers of Buddhist learning. He spent several years studying the sutras and their commentaries as well as the teachings of different sects. In the end, he became convinced that Shakyamuni's teachings in the Lotus Sutra pointed to the Great Pure Law that could lead people directly to enlightenment. At the same time, he surmised that he had been entrusted with the task of propagating the essence of the sutra in the Latter Day of the Law, the time identified by the Daishutsu (Sutra of the Great Assembly) as beginning about two thousand years after the historical Buddha. In 1279, Nichiren inscribed the Dai-Gohonzon, a mandala that he declared to be the ultimate purpose of his advent in this world.

Until his death in 1282, Nichiren Daishonin wrote voluminous dissertations on the Lotus Sutra and correct practice. He debated, proselytized, remonstrated with the government, and underwent a series of government-ordered persecutions, including an attempted beheading that was thwarted only by the auspicious appearance of a comet. His prophecies of natural disaster and foreign invasion that Japan would undergo came true. "No matter what you might think of his convictions," I recall my Japanese history professor at Columbia telling our class, "his predictions were completely accurate."

After Nichiren's death, several sects of Nichiren Buddhism were founded by his disciples. By the second decade of this century, Nichiren Shoshu's membership had declined, leaving it one of the smallest of the five surviving Nichiren sects. It took the tremendous propagation efforts of Soka Gakkai to popularize it.

The original name for Soka Kyoiku-gakkai means "Value-Creation Education Society." The organization was founded in 1930 by a teacher and educational theorist named Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, whose circle was educational, not religious, in nature, and the membership consisted mostly of schoolteachers.

Makiguchi became friends with a Nichiren Shoshu lay member and school principal. The evangelical Buddhist set out to convert Makiguchi, basing his appeal on those philosophical similarities which both men perceived in Nichiren Shoshu and in Value Creation Theory. According to community lore, their discussions ended in a somewhat formal debate, which Makiguchi lost. As a consequence, he converted to Nichiren Shoshu, along with Makiguchi's followers, including his principle disciple, Josei Toda."

******

Photo [www.tricycle.com] "Nichiren Shoshu America Youth Division Leaders Meeting, January, 1991"

Continued below ...

Continued ...

"In 1943, at a time when Soka Kyoiku-gakkai had a membership of about three thousand, the Japanese military ordered all religions to align themselves with Shinto, the native Japanese religion. Makiguchi, together with a group of Nichiren Shoshu priests, challenged the decree. He was arrested and imprisoned, as was Toda. Makiguchi died in prison in 1944 at the age of seventy-three. His disciple, Toda, then forty-four, was released a year later.

The impact of his master's death, and of his own mystical vision of Buddhism while in prison, led Toda to assume leadership with a mission to expand the organization's membership. By the end of the war, the membership of Soka Gakkai had all but disappeared. Five years later, under Toda's stewardship, the membership had regained fifteen hundred families. At a meeting held at a Nichiren Shoshu temple, Toda made the following pledge to his pupils: "I intend to convert 750,000 families before I die. If this is not achieved by the time of my death, do not hold a funeral service for me but throw my ashes into the sea off Shinagawa." He met his goal by 1957 and died the following year.

SOKA GAKKAI today claims between eight and ten million members, living in more than one hundred countries. It sponsors an influential Japanese political party, Komeito, several high schools and a university, two art museums, several publishing companies, various newspapers, and many Japanese national and international cultural associations. It has acquired massive amounts of money and property.

Soka Gakkai's American branch was founded in 1960 by a Japanese law student named Masayasu Sadanaga (now known as George M. Williams), who had been a Soka Gakkai member in Japan. In the eighties, at its high point, the American organization boasted a total of 500,000 members, a number that—if anywhere near accurate—would make the Soka Gakkai the largest Buddhist organization in the United States.

But in Japan, Soka Gakkai's success has come with a price. Extravagant financial growth over the past fifty years has been accompanied by a reputation for corruption. This spring, the New York Times reported that several years ago the organization was fined millions of dollars for interest payments on undeclared income. In 1990, the police discovered a Soka Gakkai vault containing $1.2 million in yen notes hidden in a garbage dump in Yokohama. More recently, according to the article, $11 million connected with the proposed purchase by Soka Gakkai of two Renoir paintings disappeared. This, in turn, raised questions about whether the lay group was stashing money away for political payoffs. In November 1991, the head temple of Nichiren Shoshu excommunicated the membership of Soka Gakkai en masse. This action is now forcing members throughout the world to choose between joining a Nichiren Shoshu temple or remaining with an unchurched and religiously compromised Soka Gakkai.

Nevertheless, the organization prospers. Soka Gakkai of America now (more realistically) puts its active membership at about 140,000—significantly lower than earlier estimates but still an impressive figure. Its members hold monthly meetings that seek to initiate new members as well as provide information and fellowship to established practitioners. Although members no longer sing "Have a Gohonzon" during meetings, and street-corner proselytizing has been discouraged, the organization continues to emphasize acquisition of material and spiritual benefits as a path to salvation.

Page 3 of 4


Is Soka Gakkai/Nichiren Shoshu the true American Buddhism? To an observer, the practices of Soka Gakkai seem tailor-made for the American fast-food, instant-wish-fulfillment culture. You can chant for money, for a better job, for love, for any of the 108 human desires symbolized by the 108 prayer beads that Nichiren Shoshu members hold while they chant. An observer would note that Soka Gakkai practitioners spend far more time in discussion meetings and other group activities than they do in disciplined contemplation or consultation with Buddhist teachers. Because its emphasis falls on action rather than view, Soka Gakkai appeals to a broad range of Americans with varying educational backgrounds, even as it may alienate those who enjoy meditative Buddhist traditions. Without looking further, an observer might reasonably conclude that Soka Gakkai represents only a simplified version—or even a cynical perversion—of Buddhism created for American consumption. But if Soka Gakkai appeals to the American Dream, it has appealed to the Japanese Dream as well.

In the early fifties, during Soka Gakkai's reconstruction, the then president, Josei Toda, succeeded in attracting a vast number of potential converts by describing the mechanism of Buddhist practice as a money-making machine:

Suppose a machine which never fails to make everyone happy were built by the power of science or by medicine .... Such a machine, I think, could be sold at a very high price. Don't you agree? If you used it wisely, you could be sure to become happy and build up a terrific company. You could make a lot of money. You could sell such machines for about 100,000 Yen apiece.

But Western science has not yet produced such a machine. It cannot be made. Still, such a machine has been in existence in this country, Japan, since seven hundred years ago. This is the Dai-Gohonzon. [Nichiren] Daishonin made this machine for us and gave it to us common people. He told us: "Use [the machine] freely. It won't cost you any money ... And yet, people of today don't want to use it because they don't understand the explanation that the Dai-Gohonzon is such a splendid machine.

TODA'S WORDS caught the attention of those Japanese impoverished by the Second World War and desperate for survival. In like manner, the appeal attracts many Americans living in the inner cities who are desperate for a way to improve their lives. For these people who know little material prosperity, the more conventional Buddhist view—that enlightenment is encouraged by abandoning all attachment to material things—is virtually senseless. After all, you must first have an adequate supply of food or own a car or a washing machine before you can give up an attachment to them.

The white middle-class practitioners who follow Zen, Tibetan, or Theravadan Buddhism are wary if not downright disdainful of Nichiren Shoshu but—whether they acknowledge it or not—they are involved in a dilemma with striking parallels. The issue for them is not money but ego. In a culture where low self-esteem and depression are endemic, the question arises: "Does one have to have a healthily developed ego to give it up?" Yet many of the same middle-class, materialistically secure white practitioners of other traditions have remained hostile to Nichiren Shoshu without investigating its different economic and cultural contexts.

To traditional Buddhists the idea of a Buddhism that encourages its practitioners to chant for BMWs appears blatantly heretical, and the description of the group's object of worship as a machine for granting wishes sounds ridiculous. Even so, the practice of Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is not trivial, nor is its effect upon members' lives shallow. Gongyo, the daily practice of the Nichiren Shoshu membership, consists of morning and evening recitations of the Lotus Sutra as well as chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo repeatedly. Gongyo,** which literally means "assiduous practice," is performed while practitioners sit before the Gohonzon, a replica of Nichiren's original mandala. During gongyo, two chapters of the Lotus Sutra are recited from Chinese characters (using Japanese pronunciation) and are repeated five times in the morning and three times at night. After each reading, practitioners silently recite prayers that offer thanks for protection by the Buddhist gods, praise the virtues of the Dai-Gohonzon, acknowledge the succession of the chief priests, present a petition for world peace and attainment of enlightenment, and pray for the well-being of ancestors—all of which have parallels in the daily services of Buddhist parishes in many different Asian cultures, as well as in Japan's Soto Zen tradition. After the final reading, members chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, usually for five or ten minutes, but occasionally for several hours. The liturgy of gongyo encourages one to clear the mind of wishes, anxieties, and other distracting thoughts so that when it is time to chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo (the most important part of the practice) the mind will be sufficiently stilled to concentrate on the Gohonzon. The goal of this "assiduous practice" is the fusion of one's mind with the reality of the Gohonzon—it means reading the Chinese characters not simply with one's eyes but "with one's life"—through chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

**Gongyo: In general, gongyo means the recitation of Buddhist sutras in fornt of an object of worship. In Nichiren Shoshu and Soka Gakkai, gongyo means to recite part of the second chapter and the whole of the sixteenth chapter of the Lotus Sutra in front of the gohonzon, followed by chanting.

The literal translation of the chant is "Devotion to the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma." But Nichiren Shoshu provides specific interpretations: Nam—"devotion of both mind and body"—to Myoho, a word indicating that all life and death phenomena are united in a "mystic" or mysterious manner. Myoho indicates "the Mystic Law" of Renge, the lotus that reveals its seeds (its cause) as it blossoms (its effect) simultaneousl—therefore, "simultaneous cause and effect." This is invoked in our lives through Kyo, the word for dharma, sutra, or the sound of its teachings.

What Nichiren Shoshu members unite with when they chant to the Gohonzon is a depiction, in Chinese characters, of the "Ceremony in the Air," described in the Lotus Sutra as an assembly of Shakyamuni's disciples floating in space above the saha (impure) world. When the Bodhisattvas of the Earth appear, Shakyamuni reveals his original enlightenment in the remote past. He then transfers the essence of the sutra specifically to the Bodhisattvas of the Earth led by Bodhisattva Jogyo (Vishishtacharitra in Sanskrit), entrusting them with its propagation two thousand years in the future (our own time). Chanting to the Gohonzon then both invites and affirms attendance at this assembly of bodhisattvas.

The philosophical lineage of Nichiren Shoshu purports that although the material and the spiritual are two separate classes of phenomena, they are in essence inseparable, a "oneness of body and mind."

T'ien-t'ai sought to clarify the mutually inclusive relationship of the ultimate truth and the phenomenal world asserting with this principle that all phenomena—body and mind, self and environment, sentient and insentient, cause and effect—are integrated in a life-moment of a common mortal. Pre-Lotus Sutra teachings generally hold that all phenomena arise from the mind, but in T'ien-t'ai teachings the mind and all phenomena are "two but not two." That is, neither can be independent of the other.

In pre-Lotus Sutra teachings, earthly desires and illusions are cited as causes of spiritual and physical suffering that impede the quest for enlightenment, obscuring Buddha nature and hindering Buddhist practice. According to T'ien-t'ai's intepretation of the Lotus Sutra, however, earthly desires and enlightenment are not fundamentally different: enlightenment is not the eradication of desire, but a state of mind that can be experienced by transforming innate desires.

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Beginning Nichiren Shoshu members establish their practice by chanting for whatever they want. I had friends who started off chanting for cheaper drugs and free money. Like them, I treated the Gohonzon as a pimp. I wanted to see if chanting would work. I set about praying for things (a summer job, a girlfriend, even a good parking spot) that would fill immediate needs or give instant pleasure. Some things I got; others I didn't. The things I really needed-such as better relationships with people and with myself-eluded me. Nevertheless, I continued to chant. Gradually, my interest in shortterm material benefits was displaced by a hunger for longerterm spiritual ones. I found that chanting incessantly about difficult personal problems, like polishing a mirror, brought clarity to my situation. The more difficult or painful the motivation for my chanting, the clearer the mirror of my faith reflected my ownership of whatever troubled me. I could no longer deny the responsibility for my predicaments. In my experience, the activity of chanting for material or spiritual things becomes a process of cleansing one's spirit, not corrupting it; and Buddhists who began by chanting for hotter cars ended up driven to awaken themselves and help others, at times with great energy and joy.

"WILL YOU PLEASE tell me what playing the trombone has to do with Buddhism?" my friend A. demanded. It was during my first year as a Buddhist. I had told A. that I'd planned to join Soka Gakkai's brass band."You want to be in a marching band? Didn't you do enough parading in military school?"

Indeed I had. I was sent to military school when I was twelve and remained there until I was eighteen. I promised myself I would never march again. Yet, here I was in the Soka Gakkai Brass Band.

I had no satisfactory explanation of the relationship between marching in a brass band, attending Soka Gakkai conventions, donating money to the organization, and Buddhism. I had only Soka Gakkai's official answer: these movement activities would yield personal benefits and further the cause of world peace. In any event, they certainly benefited Soka Gakkai.

In the ten years during which I practiced as a Soka Gakkai member, I attended their conventions all over the U.S. and Japan. These were always spectacular public exhibitions, such as the show performed on a massive floating island stage built off the Waikiki shore. I got to see little of them, however. As a Young Men's Division member, I was often put in charge of luggage and remained at the hotel, or was appointed caretaker of one or another member who had suddenly become unhinged, such as the young man who insisted on walking—naked—backward up and down the hotel corridors and dressing only to take a shower.

I cannot say that I entirely relished membership in Soka Gakkai. I confess that playing in the Brass Band was always an embarrassing chore. Discipline was strict and not always administered by wise leaders. Yet, the core of my Buddhist practice remained chanting.

In 1980, American Soka Gakkai members were not aware that the Nichiren Shoshu clergy and the Soka Gakkai administration had become entangled in a dispute. The clergy alleged that Soka Gakkai was secretly planning to establish itself as an independent sect of Nichiren Buddhism. The scandals and controversies that resulted were documented in the Japanese press but not in the American press. Possibly as part of Soka Gakkai's plot to secede, American members were given new versions of the prayers of gongyo that included homage to Soka Gakkai founders. George M. Williams announced that a new Head Temple might be constructed on a tract of land purchased in the Rocky mountains. Otherwise, Soka Gakkai of America asserted that nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

My friends and I eventually learned about these things from a young Japanese who had been appointed chief priest of the Nichiren Shoshu temple in New York. He was amazed that Soka Gakkai in this country continued to deny the problems in Japan, especially because he believed that knowing about them was essential to an American member's understanding of the practice.

With the information provided by the young priest, and from copies of an English-language Japanese newspaper, I began to discuss this situation with the thirty or so active members in the group I headed, and with my senior leaders. Rather than answering my questions, my seniors admonished me, declaring that I was slandering Buddhism.

When efforts to force the American Soka Gakkai to openly discuss the implications of the political situation failed, the young priest decided to publish the details on his own. Eventually, he printed a heavily documented pamphlet and mailed it to as many members as he could locate. Soka Gakkai successfully pressured Nichiren Shoshu to fire him.

My friends and I were similarly dismissed. Our dismissal was carried out in a particularly Japanese manner. Instead of being thrown out publicly, our group was simply not included in the next reorganization of groups that define the Soka Gakkai membership. We became, so to speak, nonpersons.

During these last twelve years of solitary practice, I have had to answer questions I might not otherwise have had to confront had I remained in Soka Gakkai. How deep have the dynamics of mass-movement culture affected my understanding of Buddhist experience? How much of my knowledge of this religion, for example, is knowledge of Buddhism, and how much is Japanese cultural bias? There are no easy answers, although my ignorance makes me a comrade in arms with the many other American students of Zen, Tibetan, and Theravadan Buddhism who wrestle with these same questions.

But in front of the Gohonzon those questions don't feel very important; nor do my friends' descriptions of vulgarity or materialism. I am left where I began: by myself, at my altar, conscious of a larger truth—that the Great Assembly of bodhisattvas described in the Lotus Sutra is a reality taking place now, at every moment of our lives."

END ARTICLE.

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Photo [www.tricycle.com] "Nichiren Shoshu America General Meeting in Philadelphia, July, 1987" (The [in]famous human pyramid.)

"As American as Apple Pie - An Insider's view of Nichiren Shoshu."

From "Tricycle", an old article but recently placed online (?).

Sandy McIntosh, poet and journalist teaches at Hofstra University. He is host of the Viacom Cablevision program Ideas and Images, and Managing Editor of Confrontation.

Link to article [www.tricycle.com] (1 comment from an sgi-brasil cult member mis-fortune baby, in the discussion portion.)

It's interesting to note that this particular article from "Tricycle" is not officially sponsored by sgi-usa, like this one [www.sgi-usa.org]. So, the above is the other side of the coin, which all "members" should also be exposed to, consider, and think for themselves.

By the way, I don't fall into the camp of those who have jumped from one cult right into another frying pan (to borrow an Anti-Cult phrase, that I agree with), but I'm just putting this out there for people who are questioning their membership in the $oka Gakkai Dear Leader Ikeda Cult.

If any of this has been posted before, my apologies, but here it is again, nevertheless. (It's my first time seeing it.)

Quote
Shavoy
This just reinforces for me when I was going gung-ho (which was more like half-a-heart gung-ho) with shakabuku and "dialogue", that all it was for, really, was to change my karma and create tons of good fortune. The more you do, the more fortune and good circumstances you will reap. Wakatta1's experience with the Chinese lady on the plane also pushes this home. That is what you are promised, after all. So, as Hitch says, "Repeat and keep changing that "karma".

I mean, when you are told that this is the True Formula to achieve unshakable happiness and enlightenment, even though you may not feel happy or know if you are enlightened or not, you'll still keep doing it. Yeah, yeah, I know I digress---but it really is the Fundamental Dangling Carrot to Happiness, which human beings naturally have a vested interest in.

I never subscribed to the fanatical dogma of forcibly converting others, because it went against my nature. Anybody who knew me, knew I was some sort of (weird to them) buddhist by family tradition. For friends that were curious, sure, I had detailed discussions, as did they with me about their "faiths." That's how it should be, IMO. No pushing, no mind games, no "you're going to hell in a hand basket" stuff, no "I'm right and you're wrong", etc.. If you're interested, come along. If not, that's fine by me, too. They reciprocated by inviting me to church, too. I checked it out a couple times (without telling any fellow gakkai cult members, because I knew that would go over like a lead balloon with any fellow culties), it was "ok." Didn't really feel comfortable or click with me, and it all sounded loonier than what I was being fed in nsa, so I stuck with the less loony one (to me). I never saw anything wrong with listening to what other faiths had to say, but that sentiment was completely foreign to the gakkai cult members (to do so was equivalent to making a bad cause - whatever the hell that's supposed to mean - and evil slander. IMO, such thinking was horse sh**.).

I always felt that the random street shakubuku was completely wrong, regardless of what I was told by so-called "leaders" or (mis)interpretations of doctrine, etc.. The carrot never appealed to me, because I just thought for myself. I could see the effects with my own eyes, what it was doing to both the members and the poor victims that were targeted. Everything about it was wrong and anybody trying to say otherwise, I knew, wasn't thinking for themselves or seeing the reality right in front of them.

I talked to people who I knew, when the subject came up naturally about my "religion" at the time, and that was it. The cult org. was obsessed with shakubuku. When the manipulation became stronger, I just told them straight out to "shove it", because I didn't agree with it and wasn't going to do it. I walked out and just left many a meeting and activity that turned into forced guilt shakubuku focus groups. At the height of it all, I didn't want to have anything to do with it. I just watched all the chaos unfold and shook my head. It eventually passed and when the dogma dust settled, there was more damage done than good, and many could see it for themselves (finally).

Quote
Shavoy
To my knowledge, Sensei Ikeda has never acknowledged publically that he has himself achieved Enlightenment.

This is my take on it:

He's done everything, but.

He doesn't really have to (doing so officially would just have the result of getting a whole load of baggage dumped on him), but in the eyes of the gakkai cult membership, he already is enlightened and the buddha, by default. That's all he needs while walking this earth. Once he's gone, Gakkai's Land of Oz just undergoes the final change, into a necrocracy (if the dear leader is indeed out of commission, then it is already operating as one, de facto).