Quote
Nichijew
I disagree. Many SGI members and every single leader above Chapter Chief is pernicious. Initially, they may be absolutely sincere with the most noble of intentions but they are sincerely wrong and do irreparable damage. The road to hell is paved with the best intentions: For years ecologists and conservationists have been adopting wildland fire prevention strategies that have led to the biggest proliferation of forest fires in history; doctors overprescribing antibiotics in their desire to alleviate suffering has led to antibiotic resistant bacteria that threatens not only the most seriously ill hospitalized patients but the general public; the addition of MTBE [now outlawed] to gasoline to diminish air pollution has led to widespread water pollution; the addition of aggressive non-native species to fix some ecological imbalance leading to an ecological disaster; the overuse of pesticides and ever more powerful fertilizers to increase crop yields leading to ever increasing oceanic dead zones...the list goes on and on. We might be able to overlook the behaviors of SGI members were they unaware of their grievous principles and practices. However, most leaders and many members, thanks to the internet, are aware of their "sins". By demonstrating their unwillingless to change, they have become downright malevolent.

Nichijew

In fairness, most people are too scared to look around since they have members afraid to search online. Anything I found at the time I easily re-framed in their way of seeing things. All they have to say is that those people online are just negative and you really shouldn't be looking at anything outside SGI's materials because they are a heavily targeted organization who only have the best intentions. Add in that the people who say anything against it are harmful and should be probably avoided. They seem to do it subtly now, just enough to cause enough doubt to make members or prospective members pause before looking around. When I saw what was online, just trying to find anything on YouTube was pointless because the videos are mostly in Asian languages and are alarmist. Anything that was any good has already been removed, and the open articles like on Wikipedia are edited on a regular basis by defenders/fanatics, so those are dead ends. If you add the priesthood issue and the other competing factions or other religions, the rape and murder allegations and everything else that can be found, you get a confusing picture and probably just block it out like I did. Which is keep your head up and mind open and carry on. I did not read what was given, so I am not under the influence as others might be or might have been. I was not in long though so I can't speak for people who have been in for a lot longer. When you come to a site like this it's hard because when you are in you do not want to believe the organization you joined for whatever reason you did, is a cult.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2013 10:25AM by sleepy skunk.

Couldn't agree more, sleepy skunk.

The negative information about the SGI or its leaders was always framed in terms of persecution and jealousy, even as "the workings of the King Devil of the Sixth Heaven" for those of a more superstitious mindset. It was framed as a challenge to our faith, to see if we were truly sincere in our practice or if we could be blown about by "the eight winds" - there's even a gosho about it, you know! *eye roll*

It's no different in Christianity - the Christian scriptures say that those who have the right faith etc. will be persecuted; the Nichiren scriptures say the exact same thing. So the idea that you're being avoided or even attacked because you are behaving in a socially unacceptable manner is not permitted to be entertained ("street shakubuku", I'm looking at YOU). And what does any of us know about the situation in Japan? When I was in, we heard all about how wonderful the SG was, and how so many families eagerly joined and how their discussion meetings were always standing room only. We heard about how jealous the other religious bodies were of the Soka Gakkai's success and virtue, and how our wonderful Sensei was constantly attacked simply because he was fighting so hard for kosen rufu. Just as the gosho described! Isn't that *convenient*?? To say that, if you're doin it rite, outsiders will attack you? That means that, no matter what you do, no matter how richly you deserve the attacks you've earned, you can point to that premise - "This proves I'm right!!"

So the fact that we see these parallels tells me that this is a recognized way to both get followers and to insulate oneself from criticism and attack. "They're only doing it to fulfill the Daishonin's/Christ's predictions! And as such, it is a *sign* that I'm doin it rite!"

People who are in are sincerely good-hearted and mean well - they don't understand, or they can't accept the possibility of cultishness. They belong because they *need* to belong, and need is notoriously irrational. I know - I was in for over 20 years.

Quote

The road to hell is paved with the best intentions:

Indeed. But people can't realize they're going in the wrong direction until they see the evidence, and even in the areas you mentioned, there are *plenty* of people who can be presented with the studies and scientific evidence and *still* insist that everything is fine - just look at the climate change denialists! Now, what tends to happen is that you've got some badniks who oppose climate change legislation because it would cut into their profits, so they (evilly) undertake misinformation campaigns that unfortunately sucker in well-meaning but uneducated folks, who then insist that there's no such thing as climate change! The "witting" participants are a miniscule fraction of the total compared with the unwitting participants who are being intentionally misled but do not realize it. Same thing's going on here.

It's not like there's been a massive public campaign to identify the SGI-USA as a dangerous cult and warning people of its pernicious effects, as there has been for Aum Shinrikyo, especially after the Japanese subway poison gas attacks. How are the members supposed to find out? You can say "It's their responsibility to figure it out" but the reality is that they want to believe the image they've been sold. The fact that they don't go aggressively looking for reasons to *not* want to remain members doesn't make them bad people. The fact that they believe the people they already trust, whom they have a personal relationship with, over some anonymous website is understandable. Doesn't make it right, but don't YOU trust someone you know over some stranger posting on the Internet??

Gakkai cult members are paranoid about anybody (i.e., members and non-members alike) reading any of the "negativity" on the internet. Visiting such websites is almost like holding a cross up to a vampire to them - I kid you not. They react quickly, strongly and angrily whenever "information" from the web is brought to their attention, even as a basic inquiry. They frame all the negative and critical stuff out there as a conspiracy by the priesthood on some level, too. Sleepyskunk is correct, in many cases, they are afraid to even look (bad causes, evil influences, etc.).

****

My view of the $oka Cult is that the majority of higher level leaders are of a malignant nature, while perhaps many of the common ordinary membership and some lower level leaders (district / han / etc.) are in a more benign category (but not always). In this age of information, however, willful ignorance is a personal choice and not an excuse; that said, some members are also in denial (for a variety of reasons, as the one mentioned above). For others, I'm reminded of T. Paine's words, "To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."

****

Btw, the $oka Bunka (Culture) Kaikan (HQ) in Shinjuku, Japan was completed a couple of months ago. The Dear Leader & Kaneko-chan (Mrs. Dear Leader) were photographed taking a tour of the new cult building. Looks like The Dear Leader Museum glorification concept is a new thing of the future for the cult org., seeing as how he is on his way out. Ikeda is pictured sitting a lot, even admiring a well-worn Cousin Rufus travel suitcase that Kane-chan gifted to him during his "tireless" travels for "world peace." Hardcore members are also going ga-ga over sitting (and touching) the same places where The Dear Leader graced a viewing seat with his royal cult rump. I kid you not. Ikeda-sama is a genuine cult celebrity and soon to be worshiped relic when he's gone (Nichiren Shoshu has their Daishonin relics and the gakkai cult org. will have thier Ikeda relics, too). The bizarreness has really gone over a cliff and is past the point of no return now.


CULT!



- Hitch

Quote

Gakkai cult members are paranoid about anybody (i.e., members and non-members alike) reading any of the "negativity" on the internet. Visiting such websites is almost like holding a cross up to a vampire to them - I kid you not. They react quickly, strongly and angrily whenever "information" from the web is brought to their attention, even as a basic inquiry. They frame all the negative and critical stuff out there as a conspiracy by the priesthood on some level, too. Sleepyskunk is correct, in many cases, they are afraid to even look (bad causes, evil influences, etc.).

I remember being at a Soka Spirit conference up in LA, and they had open microphone, where anyone could get up and stand in the line for the microphone, and the national leaders sitting up on the dias would answer. I remember someone, an older gent, asking about something he'd read on-line, and the leaders dismissed it with "We don't recommend that people pay too much attention to what other people are writing on-line - there are a lot of crazy people out there" or some such. He was then gently hustled away from the microphone - it appeared he wanted to continue his line of inquiry... I didn't really understand; this was about 2002, and I wasn't really very Internet savvy yet. I definitely got the impression that there were online dangers, though...*le shudder*...and that there was something fundamentally "wrong" with that guy, powerful "fundamental darkness" or some such - you know, those people who just can't seem to accept anything but have to question-question-question everything and challenge every little last thing, to the point that they can't get any benefit because their unbelief proves to be such an obstacle for them.

That was how the malcontents were described.

Quote

soon to be worshiped relic when he's gone (Nichiren Shoshu has their Daishonin relics and the gakkai cult org. will have thier Ikeda relics, too)

Pleasepleaseplease mummify the Great Man!! Preserve his pudgy corpse for all eternity in a glass-topped coffin in a public shrine!!!

Quote
TaitenAndProud

Quote

Gakkai cult members are paranoid about anybody (i.e., members and non-members alike) reading any of the "negativity" on the internet. Visiting such websites is almost like holding a cross up to a vampire to them - I kid you not. They react quickly, strongly and angrily whenever "information" from the web is brought to their attention, even as a basic inquiry. They frame all the negative and critical stuff out there as a conspiracy by the priesthood on some level, too. Sleepyskunk is correct, in many cases, they are afraid to even look (bad causes, evil influences, etc.).

I remember being at a Soka Spirit conference up in LA, and they had open microphone, where anyone could get up and stand in the line for the microphone, and the national leaders sitting up on the dias would answer. I remember someone, an older gent, asking about something he'd read on-line, and the leaders dismissed it with "We don't recommend that people pay too much attention to what other people are writing on-line - there are a lot of crazy people out there" or some such. He was then gently hustled away from the microphone - it appeared he wanted to continue his line of inquiry... I didn't really understand; this was about 2002, and I wasn't really very Internet savvy yet. I definitely got the impression that there were online dangers, though...*le shudder*...and that there was something fundamentally "wrong" with that guy, powerful "fundamental darkness" or some such - you know, those people who just can't seem to accept anything but have to question-question-question everything and challenge every little last thing, to the point that they can't get any benefit because their unbelief proves to be such an obstacle for them.

That was how the malcontents were described.

Quote

soon to be worshiped relic when he's gone (Nichiren Shoshu has their Daishonin relics and the gakkai cult org. will have thier Ikeda relics, too)

Pleasepleaseplease mummify the Great Man!! Preserve his pudgy corpse for all eternity in a glass-topped coffin in a public shrine!!!

Good observation. From 1995 until today there is an un-moderated Google newsgroup called ARBN, Alternate Religion Buddhism of Nichiren. From 1995 until about 1998 there were nearly 500 posts a day and from 1998 until 2000 ~ 200-300 or more posts a day, mostly from SGI and Nichiren Shoshu members but also from believers of all the established Nichiren schools and some independents. Abruptly, around 2002, all the many dozens of SGI members stopped posting there [except for a rare sporadic post]. It was probably due to guidance from the SGI Internet Committee to cease and desist, either because they were losing debates [no doubt] and/or losing members or because they got tired of the fight. Also, I'm sure, there was general guidance [as reported above] about the insane devilish people on the internet that might weaken SGI members' faith. For the last several years there has been no SGI activity, save for one lone SGI member troll that has been inundating the newsgroup with the same twenty part diatribes about Zen Buddhism and the Nichiren Shoshu again and again. Fortunately, since he is an annoying troll, I doubt that he has converted [shakubukued] even one person to the SGI.

Nichijew

Quote

From 1995 until today there is an un-moderated Google newsgroup called ARBN, Alternate Religion Buddhism of Nichiren. From 1995 until about 1998 there were nearly 500 posts a day and from 1998 until 2000 ~ 200-300 or more posts a day, mostly from SGI and Nichiren Shoshu members but also from believers of all the established Nichiren schools and some independents. Abruptly, around 2002, all the many dozens of SGI members stopped posting there [except for a rare sporadic post].

REALLY??? Wow o_O That's some powerful circling-the-wagons!

You can only demand that people refrain from *looking* at information if those people are willing to refrain, of course. While there are always going to be members who are so in thrall to the SGI leadership that they'll stifle themselves when told to, you can *bet* that there will be more and more who are not so willing. Such is the danger of the information age. This is why you see so many conservative factions across such diverse ideologies all calling for the internet to be heavily regulated.

I think that the only reason we're not seeing a hemorrhage of SGI members is that SGI does not make its membership statistics public. We are seeing a Mormon hemorrhage of especially young male members (the most coveted and important demographic), for example, and I'll bet you $100 that, if the SGI had any transparency at all, we'd see a similar pattern among its YMD. The reason young males are especially sought is because children tend to follow their fathers' example, not their mothers', in matters of spirituality and faith. If you're losing young men, you're looking your own epitaph in the face.

The strong encouragement to members to stay away from any negative musings on SGI is part of the Fear Factor----if one dares to venture into "slanderous" territory, then, rest assured, heads will be broken into seven pieces and your life will be doomed and dire. This encouragement to stay away adds to the insularity of the SGI.

I agree totally with tsukimoto: I've had the same experiences with my Christian friends in regards to their "shakabuking" with me. They felt I was on the wrong path and SGI practiced a false faith. I also felt when I was shakabuking them that they, too, were misguided and would not find complete happiness. Only NMRK could do that.

I would end up bombing miserably with shakabuku. Why? Because I gotta give it to all the Christians I've met---regardless of the conditions of their lives, their confidence and sincerity was/is rock-solid. I was no match.

Spartacus, great to see you back here! We are looking forward to the next installment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2013 02:27AM by Shavoy.

quote sixtyseven]@ shavoy:ikedas doctor titles are for the glossy magazins only and to make the SGI folks bow. An academic title is as we all know a long time of study/ scientific works. Ikeda quit school and had his further education by Toda I've heard. The doctor is a Dr.h.c. as far as I remember you are not allowed by law to use it for official papers, like a passport or a birth certificate but you can make the people at the grocery store bow , maybe, or was this in the last century?
Longgggggggg time = good thinggggggg.[/quote]

Thanks, sixtyseven. I noticed too that "Dr." Ikeda is not always used. It's whipped out when the need arises, I guess. Sometimes, President; sometimes, Dr. Good grief.

It is a good thing, and one that amuses me and makes me scratch my head. Member Care? And if you rock the boat, forget the Member Care.

The New Improved Soka Gakkai comprised of "good eggs" or the stealth Soka Gakkai composed of malevolent wolves in sheep's clothing? Please compare with the old Soka Gakkai [warning these are reports from the EEVIIIIL mass media.]

The following incidents have been reported in the news in
the 1960s:

Feb.10, 1962, Asahi Shinbun: Sixty-eight Soka Gakkal youth
with saws and pliers entered a Buddhist cemetery at midnight
on February 10, broke down barricades set up by the Buddhist
Association of the village, and routed the policemen in
order to conduct a burial for the father of one Wakameda
Kushiro (age 45) in Karasuyama, Tochigi Prefecture. Priest
Iso of the Jchijum Temple of the Shingon Denomination told
the police that Kushiro had been refused burial rights at
the oemetery since his lease on the family plot had expired
and since seven years before he had joined Soka Gakkai and
withdrawn from the denomination which owned the burial
ground.

April 23, 1962, Asahi Shinbun: Mrs. Sui Tamura (age 56) was
beaten over the head and bruised about the face by her son
in the latter's fanatic effort to destroy the family
Buddhist altar 'and convert his mother to faith in Soka
Gakkai. Fleeing her son and daughter-in-law the mother
sought asylum at the local police station at 11:00 pm., on
April 21. The incident took place in a village called Seiro
in Nligata Prefecture.

October 27, 1964, Asahi Shinbun: Tadashi Fujiwara (age 33)
was arrested on a murder charge after being apprehended at
an inn in Okayama where he had been staying for several
days. Himself a Soka Gakkai member, it is reported that he
became angry at the incessant noise created by two Soka
Gakkai men in an adjoining room and attacked them with a
butcher knife. Another Soka Gakkai man entered the fight,
and Fujiwara injured all three of them seriously, one of
them dying later in the hospital.

December 11, 1964, Nagasaki Shinbun: Momosuke Maeda, of
Sasebo, registered a complaint against Soka Gakkai members
of the 99th District for their excessive intimidation of his
daugter (age 19) who had just got o'it of the sickbed. It
appears that first she had been persuaded by two school
friends to attend a meeting where she was the target of
browbeating by eleven members at once and told that if she
did not convert she would never find happiness, but if she
converted she was certain to pass the examination at the
beautician school for a national license. When she refused,
her signature stamp was aifixed to an application for
membership against her will.

March 19, 1965, Osaka Shin Yukan: In Tottori an injunction
was issued against a nurse in the local hospital on the
charge that in her fanatical attempt to convert a patient
she had neglected to report his physical condition to the
doctor in time to save him from dying.

March 30, 1965, Hokkaido Shinbun: A youth, Teruo Suzuki (age
23), who was employed in a factory for the manufacture of
automobile interiors, in Obihiro, was arrested by the police
on the charge of arson. Upon his own confession it appears
that he had set fire to the house of a party whom he had
tried to convert to Soka Gakkai but had failed. In his
effort to convert the proslcct he is said to have
threatened, "If you don't convert your house will catch
fire."

It is interesting to see that effort is being made to
mitigate the effect of such publicity on would-be converts.
For foreign readers of Soka Gakkai English publications, the
term shakubuku itself is redefined to help the image:
Shakubuku means to introrluce the teachings of Nichiren
Daishonin to non-believers by relating the divine benefits
of faith. It aims at achieving people's happiness, a
prosperous society and world peace. . . . Disregarding its
different shades of meaning, people have interpreted
Shakubuku as something like "break and subdue." Thus, they
have misjudged the Sokagakkai's propagation activities as
coercive or even violent. Such a misunderstanding is quite
ridiculous.

However, conversion through these high-pressure methods
oftentimes is extremely superficial. Though an individual
sometimes joins to put a stop to the nagging of a friend, he
may try to withdraw the commitment when the pressure is off.
But superstition and fear of divine punishment are employed
to keep a new member from falling away.

Hobobarai means, literally, "sweeping out all the slanderers
of the Dharma." To "slander the Dharma" is to commit the
unpardonable sin of Buddhism. Specffically hobobarai means
to remove, forcibly or otherwise, the talisman and amulets
connected with the worship of Shinto kami and to destroy
statues and icons of any alien faith.

In Fukushima Prefecture, Ishikami Mura, a group of seven
Soka Gakkai men tore down a Kannon temple building and
burned the image. Several men entered a Christian church in
Aomori Prefecture, and, when the minister would not convert,
took his Bible and beat it on the floor. A man came home one
day to his house on the island of Mukaishirna to discover
that his wife had thrown into the ocean a Buddhist altar
which had been in his family for several generations. He
left her immediately and instituted divorce proeedings. In
November, 1964, three young men approached a housewife in
her home when her husband was away on a business trip. The
woman responded that she might perhaps be interested but
that she wanted to talk it over with her husband. This
encouraged the young men to press their advantage, and they
made their way into the interior of the home, seized the
Shinto and Buddhist worship objects which they found in the
altar, and burned them.

In Nemuro, Hokkaido, on Christmas day, 1964, a man and his
wife and two other adults, all members of Soka Gakkai,
called on a friend whose husband was in the hospital.
According to the report the wife, after four hours of
browbeating, finally signed her name to the roll. No sooner
had she registered than the four callers began to rip out
all the paraphernalia from the altar and god shelf,
and bumed it in the stove. The wife protested, saying that
these things belonged to her mother, but her visitors
insisted that the burning of the icons of false religions
was her flrst act in her new faith.

The author whose name escapes me, goes on to write:

"Such is the fervor of Soka Gakkai's iconoclasm.
The truth of the matter is that Soka Gakkai leaders have
never been happy about the public image that fanatical
members especially young member have created, and they have
consciously sought to change this image and gain as much
respectability as possible for their organization. One way
to achieve this, of oourse, is to persuade the press not to
publish unfavorable reports, and it is understood that this
has been done. The general director of a leading literary
joumal told this author in an interview that Soka Gakkai was
"quite noisy" about unsolicited news coverage in the secular
press. It is easy to understand how a newspaper with a
national circulation would be wary of offending a potential
reading public of several million! Perhaps this may aocount
for the "silent press . . . created during the last eight
years," about which Kiyoaki Murata wrote in the Japan Times
(June 11, 1964).

However, in spite of recent indications of a more
conciliatory attitude, Soka Gakkai continues to be
intolerant of all other religions. On this point there is no
evidence of any change of heart.

The Shakubuku Kyoten (Manual on Forced Conversions) is
Soka Gakkai's indispensable guide for conversion activity. In
this one volume the member is given all that is considered
necessary concerning the teachings of his own faith, as well
as the essential characteristics of all other religions (in
the area of interest of the Japanese). The points most
vulnerable to attack in other religions are listed, and the
faithful member has them all on the tip of his tongue. It is
interesting for members of other faiths to talk to a number
of members in entirely different situations and listen to
them voicing the same criticisms. If the conversation
advances one step beyond what they have been taught from
the manual they are lost. It is a most sobering experience,
to discover that apparently the sum total of all that these
people know about other religions, even other Buddhism
is what is presented in their Shakubuku Kyoten edited by
Daisaku Ikeda."

Yes, Nichijew, those are all terrible things (from a distant foreign country some 50 years ago). However, I certainly never saw or experienced or even *heard* of anything even remotely similar happening in this country, which was the only country in which I practiced. In my over two decades of membership:

- I never took saws and sledgehammers and went out under cover of darkness to deface Christian headstones in the graveyard. I would have been appalled at the mere suggestion.

- I never joined in a beat-down of the Danto members or their priests. I would have called the police instead.

- I never participated in any home-invasion to vandalize/destroy anyone else's personal property. I could never be so disrespectful. Besides, over here, I'd be arrested!

SGI is intolerant of other religions, the same way Christianity and Islam are intolerant of other religions. There's no difference. Except that we expect a bit more out of Buddhism, of course, but the SGI isn't really that, either.

We all agree the SGI is not for us and that it's not a good thing - that's why we're here. But if you're suggesting that membership in the SGI necessarily results in evil minds and criminal activity and that ALL the members are evil criminals, well, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I was a member for over 20 years and not once did I do anything illegal or harmful or destructive to anyone of a different belief system. Not once. And no one that I knew ever did, either. I was never a criminal; I never did anything with evil intent or even harbored malevolent thoughts; I never knew anyone who did - and as a YWD HQ leader, I knew a *lot* of people, from the membership on up to national leaders. The only thing I ever saw that I recognized as deliberate manipulation to try and make the organization sound better was when that MD HQ leader changed my experience to make it sound like the estranged member in question had asked us to please do gongyo with her, when the reality was that she simply accommodated our request to do gongyo at her apartment before hitting the road for home, and while that was icky, it wasn't really damaging. I mean, if he's willing to have that estranged member hear his lie and decide to never, ever come back, well, I guess he's done her a favor, right? ;)

Shall we talk about the Inquisition now? That's WAY worse than anything the SG has ever done! But how is that relevant to what's going on right now? How are reports of bad stuff that happened before many of those reading the reports were even born going to help people get out right now? Two young women locally just received an award for rushing in to stop a Christian man from killing his two children - he was yelling that they were all "going to Jesus" and had already stabbed the boy. And so what if SG members are "coached" on how to do "shakubuku"? It's no different from how Evangelical Christians are coached on how to introduce their friends to jesus, you know. "Lead off with 'Friend, are you saved?' Follow up with 'Have you heard the Good News?'" That's what organized religions do. Except for Buddhism - Buddhism isn't known for that. But we aren't talking Buddhism here, are we?

WHY is there so much problem in acknowledging that there are decent, nice people who happen to be in thrall to the SGI's manipulative con? How does being a victim make them guilty? I don't understand.