(There's now an "official" award named after the trio.)

Curiouser & curiouser .... [www.sgi-atlanta.org] - PDF.

The great grandnephew of Alfred Nobel (founder of The Nobel Prize), Dr. Michael Nobel (Head of The Nobel Family Foundation), is awarded "The Ghandi-King-Ikeda Prize/Award."

Hmmm, I wonder why? (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.) ;-)


- Hitch

Want to read something about the human being acting as a change agent? I don't know if the side has been posted before, but the part with the swirl of controversy is purified by the Dr.Carter (from the Video Hitch posted before)here:

“Controversy” is an inevitable partner of greatness. No one who challenges the established order is free of it. Gandhi had his detractors, as did Dr. King. Dr. Ikeda is no exception. Controversy camouflages the intense resistance of entrenched authority to conceding their special status and privilege. “Insults” are the weapons of the morally weak; “slander” is the tool of the spiritually bereft. Controversy is testament to the noble work of these three individuals in their respective societies.

One person can change the world


"Controversy And All – He Changed The World"

"When you set out to do some world changing of your own, you will run into controversy about you and your work. Forge ahead anyway and keep your nose clean in the process. Detractors will always find those who try to steer the ship of humankind in a new and different direction. Thus it has always been, thus it shall always be."


sixtyseven,now a morally weak person with the slander tool of the spiritually bereft will steer the ship of her own in the direction wherever she wants but far away from SGI's sea of suffering.

Say, not to change the subject or anything - the topic of the "Gandhi-King-Ikeda" is making me lose my appetite to the point that I'm losing weight - but I just remembered something from waaaay back right after we were excommunicated by NS. I was a Chapter YWD chief, and I knew this couple - the young man was a YMD Chapter chief and his wife was a District chief. We'd all been in the same district. Anyhow, at that point, all we knew was that the priests would no longer be issuing gohonzons to anyone in the SGI, including anyone who joined. So I remember this YMD Chapter chief saying to me, "Yeah, we're going to have to really open up our homes so that people can *see* a gohonzon!"

I mentioned this to our WD District leader. The conversation went something like this:

WD: "If people can't *see* a gohonzon, they can't attain enlightenment!"

Me: "What about blind people? Blind from birth? No chance of enlightenment for them?"

WD: "Well, they just need to be physically *close* to a gohonzon."

Me: "How close? Within 5 feet? Within a mile? In the same county? So people in countries with no gohonzons can't attain enlightenment from chanting 'the one essential phrase'???"

These conversations never seemed to go anywhere O_O

IMO, gakker cult leaders have standard guide/baselines that they start from, when giving "guidance", but are free to ad-lib, wing it and make it up as they go along, too.

****

(Caveat: May be offensive to some.)

"For Daisaku Ikeda Sensei" [www.youtube.com] "Ikeda Sensei is God." (Direct translation.)

Clip just put up a few days ago. (There are much worse out there, but I will not post them, for sake of decorum.)

This is how the $oka Gakkai (International) is viewed in the motherland.

A bizarre CULT.



- Hitch

Life is not always Certain. SGI wants to provide Certainty, because humans desire it. They want to believe that by chanting NMRK, no matter what---it will save them from all disaster and they will triumph--WIN---over ALL adversity.

The sad tales of the two ladies who were slaughtered by their husbands speak volumes. The young lady who had participated in KR gongyo a couple of days before her murder probably felt that by the participation in activities and chanting, it was helping to create invincible protection against this guy.

The lady who was shot in her car while chanting NMRK more than likely felt the same way. Noone will ever know, but I'm suspecting she was expecting protection at the very least in that horrendous moment.l

David Aoyama chanted with all his heart the morning of 9/11 on American Airlines Flight 11.

Guy McCloskey---man, how do you explain that to members?

People want to believe so badly.

Guy McCloskey---man, how do you explain that to members?

What, you mean the problems with his son? Has something happened other than that that I haven't heard of yet?

There was a Japanese American leader I really liked here in LA - a study department chief who was young and really cool - but when I tried to call him when I was on the verge of leaving SGI, I learned that he had serious cancer - he was dead a month or two later. Remember Pascual Olivera? Who had cancer and then had chemo etc. and decided to stop his treatment early because he was confident that there was "not one cancer cell left in his body"? Oh, yeah, he chanted balls to the wall and came out certain that he'd vanquished every last bit of cancer from his body! He reported that his doctor told him that, but if his doctor said that, Doc simply revealed that he doesn't know diddly squat about cancer. That was the year that Pascual Olivera and his wife danced for President Ikeda on New Years. When I read his "not one cancer cell left" experience, my heart sank. That's an irresponsible and unwarranted thing to say. Sure enough, within 6 months, the cancer was back, and more aggressive, and he was dead within a coupla months.

There's no magic charm or spell, people. Life happens, and if you can accept it as it is rather than trying to bend it to your will, you'll suffer less. That was the message of the Buddha.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2013 11:02AM by TaitenAndProud.

David Aoyama chanted with all his heart the morning of 9/11 on American Airlines Flight 11.

You can count on that. I knew him a little - liked him. He was sensible and practical, low key, unlike manic Danny Nagashima.

I remember a President Ikeda-attributed article in the World Tribune years ago, on the subject of the Titanic. Supposedly there were a number of personnel errors on the night in question - people leaving their posts early, turning off the radio because they were going to bed, stuff like that. The general message was that we should always work *more* than is required of us because you never know when going that extra mile will avert a disaster.

All together now: *eye roll*

But here's where the David Aoyama reference comes in - that article lamented that there were no people who chanted NMRK aboard the Titanic. The implication being that, HAD their been, it probably wouldn't have sunk. "Oh, if ONLY there had been ONE person aboard who chanted NMRK!" <-- That was the tone.

There was ONE person who chanted on that American Airlines Flight 11. And a national-level leader, at that! And it STILL didn't make a DAMN bit of difference. Forget the magic, people. It's just a con.

I knew Aoyama and also saw him at many meetings with Williams-Sadanaga. There was an entire book in Japanese dedicated to his story, his "faith" and what it all supposedly meant in the annals of American Kosen-Rufu. The family met and / or got personal "guidance" from Ikeda over it all and that was basically the meat of the background for the whole book. The Dear Leader did all kinds of extra-special and nice things for them - blah, blah, blah. I thumbed through a copy once, but didn't buy it - literally and figuratively. There was some spiel about David's mystical (fake) karma being intimately tied to Cousin Rufus in America, "buddhism" being "strict" and him having to expiate his severe karma in this life in such a manner. The book played up his and his family's mystical ties to Kosen-Rufu in America, shakubuku'ing, being an American bodhisattva, $oka Cult Univ. U.S.A., etc.. It was framed as his deep personal significant mission and special calling for American Kosen-Rufu - his karma being tied to America's karma and stuff like that. I do remember that him dying on that plane caused a lot of hushed (shocked and fearful) whispers in the U.S.A. gakkai cult org. circles, especially amongst the longtime pioneering Japanese membership; they basically didn't know what to make of it until the Ikeda cult org. put its spin on things and told them how they should frame it in their mindset (yet another example of gakkai cult members being unable to t-h--i-n-k for themselves.).


- Hitch

In the late 80s, NSA days, I remember at least one leader telling YMD after big activities: "No accidents!". There was this idea that we might be spaced out after activities, or the cosmic forces would try to sneak in after our good causes, or maybe this was because something had happened (?) after some leader's skiing accident (?), - but there was this knowing look from some YMDs and a vague explanation from the leadership to be careful after strenuous activities for cousin rufus. The 'No accidents' guidance didn't last long, unless it had been around before my time.

There was an entire book in Japanese dedicated to his story, his "faith" and what it all supposedly meant in the annals of American Kosen-Rufu. The family met and / or got personal "guidance" from Ikeda over it all and that was basically the meat of the background for the whole book. The Dear Leader did all kinds of extra-special and nice things for them - blah, blah, blah. I thumbed through a copy once, but didn't buy it - literally and figuratively.

Yeah, seems I remember hearing something about that... Another of those books that no one will read.

There was some spiel about David's mystical (fake) karma being intimately tied to Cousin Rufus in America, "buddhism" being "strict" and him having to expiate his severe karma in this life in such a manner.

Because it was ultimately David Aoyama's fault, after all - A-A-O!!

The book played up his and his family's mystical ties to Kosen-Rufu in America, shakubuku'ing, being an American bodhisattva, $oka Cult Univ. U.S.A., etc.. It was framed as his deep personal significant mission and special calling for American Kosen-Rufu - his karma being tied to America's karma and stuff like that. I do remember that him dying on that plane caused a lot of hushed (shocked and fearful) whispers in the U.S.A. gakkai cult org. circles, especially amongst the longtime pioneering Japanese membership; they basically didn't know what to make of it until the Ikeda cult org. put its spin on things and told them how they should frame it in their mindset (yet another example of gakkai cult members being unable to t-h--i-n-k for themselves.).

Well, the news shocked me as well. I think the whole problem among the leadership is that they put all this effort and energy into spreading a belief that, if you chant and stay *close* to the organization, your efforts will stimulate the Universe to mystically generate protective forces to keep you safe - you'll have the protection of the Nine Heavenly Gods (or however many it was) and all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout the Four Directions watching out for YOU!! Anything that happens can typically be spun to come out consistent with this fiction, but not that one. No *WAY*. David Aoyama was a great guy by all accounts - and he was doin it rite as we'd all been told it needed to be done - and he *STILL* was not "protected"!

rattyboy - I remember that from my YWD years in Minneapolis in the late 1980s-mid1992. "No accidents!" was said both before AND AFTER activities! As if the sansho shima would attempt to ruin stuff for us brave soldiers for kosen rufu by either *attacking* us so that we couldn't make it to the activity, or making something bad happen to us *after* the activity - I guess the idea is that the forces of darkness would be so mad about our wonderful chanting/giving experiences/protecting the precious members/singing/dancing about for kosen rufu that they'd want to give us a big whack afterward for our trouble.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2013 01:17PM by TaitenAndProud.