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Hitch

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sixtyseven
Found that one in my collection of Cult pics, is this the movie you are talking about? I have to go back through some facebook posts to find out more....

Yes, that's it! Thanks!

It was hyped up big time in the N$A Cult Org. the first time they showed it in the U.S. at a big L.A. screening. Like "TaitenAndProud" also said, I believe there was a second showing at some point in the 80's. I didn't go, though, because I was becoming increasingly fed up with the cult org. around that time.

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TaitenAndProud
So I was relieved when I finally stopped attending activities - I'd never liked them, I'd never wanted to go - it always felt like a chore - and I never got anything out of them. Certainly not enough to make up for the pain in my ass of going and spending my time there!

Ditto x10.

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TaitenAndProud
Then, once you say "The hell with this!", you experience a real sense of freedom. Sure, you probably feel more than a little silly for wasting so much time on that, but hopefully you learned something from the experience. If only NOT to be suckered into something whose activities you don't actively enjoy!!

Ditto x20.

To this day, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever saying "No" to things that I don't want to be bothered with. I know all too well the miserable consequences of going along with something just for the sake of going along with it. My tolerance for this kind of stuff was all used up by the cult org. and I have no more, unfortunately.

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holly_golightly
..... I remember having the same reaction as you after I read the account of Toda's enlightenment in the book. After reading it avidly to find out what the answer was I was really disappointed by the answer being 'life'. At the time I thought there must be something I was missing and that I hadn't studied it deep enough.

I'm completely with you on this. As with everything "Ikeda" (his photography, his so-called poems) he thinks he's being deep, but in reality, he's pedestrian and shallow.

That said, it's apparently "deep" enough for some. More power to them, it was certainly never that way with me. (Fwiw, I noticed an inverse proportion relationship within the gakkai cult org., the more some member or leader was genuinely "into" The Dear Leader's words, the less, IMO, intelligent I thought they were. At least that was my anecdotal experience growing up in the gakkai cult org.. and I believe it holds true for both the U.S. and Japan.)

I will grant him (Ikeda) one thing, though, he *is* good at what he does - being a professional con-man.



- Hitch

The best who ever lived. He, unlike Madoff, never went to jail.

N

Free, most of what was in my post that you apparently found offensive were excerpts from Dr. Alice Miller - each started with a quote and ended with a link. HER words, not mine. And it appears that she was right again:

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The issue is forbidden because most of us were spanked in childhood and we don't want to be reminded of that. We learned as children that spanking is harmless. We had to learn this lie in order to survive. Now, as adults, we don't want to know the truth, that in fact spanking is harmful. It is interesting that when you say 'don't spank your child' people become aggressive with you. They become even more aggressive if you say 'you were spanked yourself and suffered as a child, you were forced to deny your pain in order to survive'. They would rather kill you than admit the truth and feel the pain of having been humiliated and unloved when they were spanked by someone five times bigger than themselves. These aggressive reactions are understandable. Imagine how you would feel if you went out on the street and suddenly somebody five times bigger than you beat you in a rage and you didn't even understand why. A child cannot bear this truth, it must repress it. But an adult can face up to it. As adults we are not so alone, we can look for witnesses and we have a consciousness we didn't have when we were children." [www.alice-miller.com]

I think it is monstrous that an adult is free to inflict upon a helpless child what would be an arrest-worthy offense, assault at the very least, if he were to try it on a fellow adult.

I must say that I am surprised at the vitriol in your responses. Stay - or go! But do it because it is what you WISH to do! [www.youtube.com]

^ That's a joke, in case it wasn't clear O_O

Have been away for a while and am not properly caught up so apologies if I have missed the obvious, but could someone tell me who Alice Miller is? There are a lot of quotes from her. Is she a leader in SGI? Thanks Sfy

Rattyboy, you posted this a few days ago:

Toward the end of my captivity in 2008 or early 2009 I read this summation from the Ikeda lecture series. (study material..or maybe I was out of rhythm again).

Did you mean to include a link? Cause I'm all kinda WTF over here :/

simplify
Date Added: 05/16/2011
Posts: 75
Re: Soka Gakkai International -- SGI
Have been away for a while and am not properly caught up so apologies if I have missed the obvious, but could someone tell me who Alice Miller is? There are a lot of quotes from her. Is she a leader in SGI? Thanks Sfy

Hi, simplify! I'm a noob here. Someone said something derogatory about children and, as child development and children's rights are a particular interest of mine, I took the opportunity to respond with some relevant Alice Miller excerpts. Dr. Miller is a pioneering child psychologist - she just died a couple-three years ago. She's really done some phenomenal work.

So it's not SGI, and only relevant tangentially - for all its talk of human rights, you still don't find firm acknowledgment of children's rights within the SGI. Their anti-bullying initiative is a worthy effort, so I'll give them that much. Still, so much more is needed - on all fronts.

OMG - I never saw this - the Ikeda Adonis!! Look at MEEEE!!

Who here went on tozan? Did you see this at Taiseki-ji? WTF???

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TaitenAndProud
OMG - I never saw this - the Ikeda Adonis!! Look at MEEEE!!

Who here went on tozan? Did you see this at Taiseki-ji? WTF???

I went on Tozan, and I did NOT see this. The Nichiren Shoshu priests would not allow Ikeda to put this up at Taiseki-ji. No wonder Ikeda hated them and wanted SGI to break with Nichiren Shoshu as soon as SGI had the numbers and money to do so.

I know very little about the Nichiren Shoshu priests. Where I live, we saw a priest once a year, if that. Still, during that whole priesthood/SGI split in the 1990's, I felt that the priests were being unfairly villified. Even then, I was thinking that SGI really was engineering the split because the high priest, Nikken, was pretty much the only one who say no to Ikeda.

It's just hard to imagine that ANYONE would think it's appropriate to put something like that at a temple. Ikeda is most likely a textbook case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. For those of us who don't have it -- it's difficult to imagine the thinking of those who have it.

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TaitenAndProud
Rattyboy, you posted this a few days ago:

Toward the end of my captivity in 2008 or early 2009 I read this summation from the Ikeda lecture series. (study material..or maybe I was out of rhythm again).

Did you mean to include a link? Cause I'm all kinda WTF over here :/

Sorry about that Taiten and Proud, I meant to have that message right after my other one further up the page, but this board has been so active. I was refering to study material that I don't have anymore because I was more than happy to throw it out.

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tsukimoto

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TaitenAndProud
OMG - I never saw this - the Ikeda Adonis!! Look at MEEEE!!

Who here went on tozan? Did you see this at Taiseki-ji? WTF???

I went on Tozan, and I did NOT see this. The Nichiren Shoshu priests would not allow Ikeda to put this up at Taiseki-ji. No wonder Ikeda hated them and wanted SGI to break with Nichiren Shoshu as soon as SGI had the numbers and money to do so.

I know very little about the Nichiren Shoshu priests. Where I live, we saw a priest once a year, if that. Still, during that whole priesthood/SGI split in the 1990's, I felt that the priests were being unfairly villified. Even then, I was thinking that SGI really was engineering the split because the high priest, Nikken, was pretty much the only one who say no to Ikeda.

It's just hard to imagine that ANYONE would think it's appropriate to put something like that at a temple. Ikeda is most likely a textbook case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. For those of us who don't have it -- it's difficult to imagine the thinking of those who have it.

I went through the study material from 2009 and there Ikeda compared his exclusion to a witch- hunt in nazi style. He named it discrimination of Culture and Art - he said that was the starting point of the split, in Dec.'90- because he wanted Beethovens 9.th Symphonia "Ode der Freude" made for the new Soka Hymn and Nikken disagreed because the lyrics (by Schiller) are glorification of christianity, which is absolutely correct. Another disagreement could be, IMO, that the Joy/ Happiness in the song is a daughter comming from the land of Elysium and Elysium is an equivalent to "pure land" in buddhism. The hymn would have fitted perfectly to ikedas cult concept of embracing the millions ($$$ not people) and all men become myoho brothers and myoho sisters of course by pimping up the lyrics. Hmm, the man is good in stealing art, have you noticed that the emblem of SGI is a copy of Michelangelos star in Rome?

e named it discrimination of Culture and Art - he said that was the starting point of the split, in Dec.'90- because he wanted Beethovens 9.th Symphonia "Ode der Freude" made for the new Soka Hymn and Nikken disagreed because the lyrics (by Schiller) are glorification of christianity, which is absolutely correct.

If memory serves, the reason "Ode to Joy" was supposed to be acceptable was that the original Beethoven lyrics, which are the ones the SGI choirs would sing, were NOT Christian! The Schiller lyrics were made up later - there is a long tradition in Christianity of putting their own words to existing classical pieces. Here are Beethoven's original lyrics - it's long, I'm just going to post a few stanzas. He sounds quite deist in his perspective, and many historians think that he had little real personal connection to Christianity:

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter fire imbibed,
Heavenly, thy sanctuary.

Thy magic reunites those
Whom stern custom has parted;
All men will become brothers
Under thy gentle wing.

May he who has had the fortune
To gain a true friend
And he who has won a noble wife
Join in our jubilation!

Joyously, as his suns speed
Through Heaven's glorious order,
Hasten, Brothers, on your way,
Exulting as a knight in victory.

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter fire imbibed,
Heavenly, thy sanctuary.

Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss for all the world!
Brothers!, above the starry canopy
A loving father must dwell.

In my experience, everyone was supposed to sing it in the original German and "study" the meaning of the lyrics. *eye roll* The words fit the tempo better in the original German - all I can remember of it is "Tochter aus Elysium" :P

As you can see, these lyrics fit the SGI focus quite well - themes of militaristic conflict overcome and uniting together under a common banner, with a place for Ikeda Sensei ("loving father"), the most important detail. But it was used more as an "IN YO FACE!!" to the priests, truth be told, so it always felt kind of ugly. Since we only heard the priests' objections to the piece through the SGI's filters, it's hardly surprising that this trivial choice of music has become an overblown conflict. I just took a look around, did a few different searches, and I could not find any explanation of this issue from the NS perspective - does anyone else have any information on that?