Doubtful, you raise some good points.
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When I think back I cannot believe I did SGI for over 20 years. I too enjoyed some things about the organization and the practice but I eventually disliked the idea that the practice can help you control outcomes. If that were true the members would be much more successful professionally, romantically, and financially. The majority are not which is fine--they are human--but the publications and leaders constantly peddle SGI as a "get rich" or "get successful" method--particularly if goals are set with Ikeda in mind: if he's your mentor. This is bullshit. He was never my mentor and I did well in all respects. Even when I had extreme difficulties, I overcame them and he was not my declared mentor. I hope that the members, especially the young people, don't genuinely believe they need to follow him in order to succeed. I suspect most members filter out the stuff they really don't accept and remain with the organization for other reasons. To this day I am not sure how I feel about my long time participation. I don't think it brought anything bad into my life.
I could have written that exact same paragraph, except for the last sentence. In my case, it WAS bad for me, because it strenghtened my attachments and caused me to be MORE delusional. I honestly felt I could change reality by repeating magic words! As I've written earlier, I did not give money to the needy - I just *chanted* for them! Or perhaps I mentioned "Nam myoho renge kyo" to them. Wasn't that kind and virtuous of me???
The SGI both hooked me in via the magical thinking left behind in my subconscious from my early childhood indoctrination into Evangelical Christianity, and even though I'm an atheist, that was the last bit to go. Once it went, I realized there was no further purpose to chanting or any of the rest. (Feel free to continue if it pleases you, of course.)
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There are so many beautiful ways to be spiritual and to transform your life-- if you read about other traditions and learn from other spiritual teachers for just a few months-- the superficiality of SGI will begin to be obvious.
Ain't that the truth?? For me, it started with 9/11 - I read Thich Nhat Hahn's letter and was very impressed. On a different message board, I was exposed to ideas from the Pali Canon...ideas that conflicted entirely with Nichiren Buddhism. And that were obviously superior to Nichiren Buddhism.
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I had always felt that we members were discouraged from reading other Buddhist sects or teachers.
Yes, there was most definitely a sense of an "approved reading list." And it consisted almost exclusively of Daisaku Ikeda's publications. I'll bet no one else in the world buys them. We were told to ignore ALL the sutras except for the Lotus Sutra (even though Nichiren quotes copiously from the Nirvana Sutra, a particularly nasty piece of work) - and for good reason: Every time I read something from the other sutras, I found them hugely impressive.
Another detail that made it easier for me to leave was that there was really no social connecting within the SGI. It was all and only for the organization's benefit. If they announced some sort of local festival, like the Temecula Avocado Festival, it was never in the context of "This sounds like something you and your families can enjoy - please go and have a good time!" It was always "We'll have a booth there, so sign up to work the booth and do lots of shakubuku for the SGI!!" Gross. When I stopped going to meetings, I got 2 phone calls - both to invite me to activities. I just got together last month with the only member I'd had any sort of long-term personal relationship with (she's a Japanese ex-pat, still in SGI), and she told me that our District WD leader had *DIED*!! She was younger than me! I'm just 52! And nobody even bothered to call me and tell me. It's truly "out of sight, out of mind" with the SGI - if you aren't making their activities a success, you can just drop dead! Oops! I guess there was no pretense that she'd ever considered me a friend - wouldn't you invite a person's friends to their funeral?? So much for the "family-like environment" of the all-important districts, eh?
You point out that you reached the inevitable conclusion that almost no one in the US is interested in the SGI. I agree. However, this is quite peculiar - I'll refer back to your "get rich" comments. Christianity is in decline - free fall, actually - but the fastest growing sect is Pentecostalism, and they promote what they call "Prosperity Theology" or "the Prosperity Gospel." In a nutshell, the more money you give to the church, the more "God" will magically make money appear for you to use! Sound familiar?? SO if there was *any* way the SGI could be successful, it would be by promising a similar "get rich quick" scheme! But even with THAT, it can't sell itself! That must be hugely frustrating for the leadership. BTW, if you take a look at this chart, you'll see that, despite their teachings of how Jesus died so that they could all be rich (no, I'm not making that up), they remain the poorest and least educated of all the Christian denominations:
Nice chart comparing sectsQuote
Imagine that there was a brand of theology in which people were taught that God has promised to give followers an additional arm, right from the center of their chest. Let’s say it taught that scripture had everywhere indicated that this was the case, and that by believing this “fuller” version of the gospel, you were opening up the as-of-yet closed off area of blessings that Christians have forgotten about (i.e. growing another appendage to better do God’s work).
Let’s imagine that after about 50 years the movement has spread worldwide, with followers numbering in the millions, and you look to see how many of these folks have in fact grown that “arm of the Lord.” Upon inspection you find that the vast majority of them have lost an arm, leaving them worse off and less able to serve than even those old two-armed folk. The irony would be overwhelming.
Despite the statistics, and the continued empirical evidence of devastated human lives (Pentecostals also have the most divorces), few if any Christians have plainly spoken against the Prosperity Gospel, or raised awareness that measures any merit. While high-level corruption and financial disarray are the soup du jour of recent weeks’ media cycles, this prominent and aberrant theology has been allowed to wreak destruction on a mass of people who are grasping at economic straws.
Prosperity Gospel theology is bankrupt. The debate raged for years about how much sense coveting money made in the context of biblical principles, but now the fruit has been borne and the numbers don’t lie: those who attend Prosperity Gospel churches are in fact worse off for it.
"Poor, Dumb, and Pentecostal" says it all
Since leaving the SGI, my family's wealth has more than quadrupled, my kids are doing really well, extended family is good, and, most importantly, I'm so much happier. And that has made my marriage happier. Now that I'm not wasting so much of my time on that practice and activities, I have more creativity, I'm accomplishing more, and I'm limiting my time to the friends whose company I enjoy. It's a far more healthy and sensible way to live.
I remember one young woman, a single mom - I've mentioned her before, I'm sure - who had arrived in her mid-30s with no college degree and no significant work experience, so the only jobs she was qualified for were entry level, and she felt that was "beneath her". So she was chanting 4 hours a day, "to change her financial karma"! When I told her, as gently as I could, that even the most experienced Japanese members say it typically takes 10 years to change financial karma (long enough to get that college degree and accumulate relevant work experience, in other words), she blew a gasket - raged at me "I DON'T
HAVE TEN YEARS! I NEED MY FINANCIAL KARMA TO CHANGE
NOW!!!" and called me nasty names, told me I was a horrible mother to my children, and that's the last I ever heard of her. I hope she's okay - I still feel pangs of guilt because I was one of the people feeding her delusion that she could get something for nothing :/
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2013 03:46AM by TaitenAndProud.