Yet another glaring difference between Gandhi, King and the Wiz . . . of the three, the latter is the only one who is willing to whore himself out to avoid pissing people off. Say what you will about Gandhi and King, they stood by their principles and did the right things, despite the costs. Ooops! Silly moi! I forgot - fat-boy has no principles.

Once again, I have to praise these mb's for the information provided. This particular topic has so many pages that it's almost impossible to read every posting, but stumbling across random conversations always offers much food for thought.

Waaaay back, around page 305, are some comments about a website called The Victims of Soka Gakkai Organization (toride.org). Doing a google search took me to the site, and I found information that provided additional clarity on the destruction of the Shohondo. Having only started to practice in 07, of course that story was buried in the resentful history of the relationship between sgi and ns (nichiren shoshu); I had only heard the party line about how the horrible beasts of the priesthood had vindictively destroyed what was a building designed to stand for 10,000 years. I had mental images of tiny little Japanese priests whacking away with sledge-hammers, gleefully tearing down a beautiful building, with no motivation other than spite. While I never bought into the soka-spirit thing, it was a troubling image to me and I admit that I thought it was a pretty nasty and vengeful thing to do. Senseless destruction of a thing of beauty seemed like such an ugly act.

While digging around on VSGO, I came across the following article:

[www.toride.org]

This seems to be pretty factual (although, of course, I have doubts about the veracity of a lot of things at this point); first and foremost that the temple actually belonged to nichiren shoshu. One of the big issues was the expense of operating the facility - because of how the windows were installed, it was necessary to keep the a/c running at all times to reduce mold growth; this was incredibly expensive. A larger issue was that location and construction style and materials were poorly selected. The building was essentially destroying itself - because of the level of salt indigenous to the location and in the structural materials were causing rapid deterioration and rusting of the structural steel in the building, causing it to actually rust through the decorative marble façade-work. The building couldn't be repaired, but only torn down to be reconstructed using more suitable materials.

Okay, I can see that the decision to destroy it was probably accompanied by a certain amount of smugness by the priesthood, but they really didn't have much of a choice. The building, along with being prohibitively expense just to keep operating, was falling into a type of disrepair that couldn't be corrected and would eventually become dangerous. Since it was their building and those costs fell on them, it was certainly up to them to decide how to deal with the situation - they made what seemed to be a pretty pragmatic decision.

So here is yet another example of how sgi spins history to suit its own purposes in order to connive its members into loyalty. Nothing like having a vicious wolf lurking around to keep the sheep together.

Oh, and this article also discusses the funding for the building. Members were told that all funds raised during the specific shohondo campaign would go into building it. Turn your dollars into a column in this architectural wonder! Or a window, or a tile in the floor! This article states that the org acknowledged that 35.5 billion yen were raised but never mentioned that a further 12 billion were raised. The shohondo was built using interest from those donations, and a number of other facilities were built using the actual donation money, despite what was being broadly presented to members.

Once again, this information is based on this article; it has some credibility with me, because it doesn't seem to slant in favor of either sgi or ns.

My take on the priesthood rift, is that it had been a marriage of convenience from the beginning, for both sides. They made it last for as long as each side could stand and tolerate the other. They've always had their fights and spats (kept secret / private / hidden from the international membership), then made up and carried on. That is, until each side no longer really needed the other anymore (i.e., they got what they wanted out of it). "Irreconcilable differences", so to speak.

The sho-hondo was Ikeda's closest (mystical) legitimacy claim to being officially written into a part of the long fairy tale. His narcissism and arrogance, however, just became too much for the priesthood to accept. As a result, in order to protect the dogma, in the only way that they knew how and had the real power to enforce, they simply erased The Dear Leader from the fairy tale books. In their dogmatic minds, I think that they felt that Ikeda had deviated away too far, to a point beyond possible redemption. So they got rid of the ultimate and last vestige of The Dear Leader's attempted legitimacy claims.

At least that's the most charitable way to look at it.

Another way to look at it, equally true but without all of the sugar coating, is that it was a fight for ultimate independent power and finances. The priesthood held the mystical power and the gakkai the purse strings. I'm assuming the priesthood has enough $$ to get by and didn't want to relinquish complete power over to the gakkai. Ikeda, in keeping with his insatiable narcissism, wanted all the power, kept pushing, but just took one push and one last step too many. I think Ikeda was also surprised when the priesthood hit back. One need not look any further than his psychopathological ranting "poem" about "traitors" / "mentor-disciple relationship", etc. (discussed earlier in the thread). It's excellent evidence of his insecurity, anger and delusional attempt to rationalize and justify all that happened. (The gakkai cult org. also now tries to suppress that same "poem.")

Each side will have their own version to tell, but the truth (or at least as close as we can all possibly ever get to it) most likely lies somewhere in the middle.

I've said it before, IMO the Gakkai Cult Org. just beat Nichiren Shoshu at its own game. Both sides will just keep marching on, though.



- Hitch

It's one of those things that no one but the original perpetrators of whatever will ever know, and they're probably recreated it so much in their heads that they don't even remember how the whole thing happened. It could be that practicality sort of forced ns's hand, but they spun it as they did and, of course senseless spun it his way. So convenient for both of them.

I think this is the major part of the problem going on here.

[www.youtube.com]

And perhaps this one, [www.youtube.com], too.

Great youtube videos!

When my kids were little, I would try to explain to them why something they had done was wrong . . . this was often a lengthy process, and my son would occasionally ask me to just beat him instead of going through these interminable monologues. I'm not saying that how I disciplined them was right or wrong, but I hoped I would eventually explain in a way that they would relate to and understand. A magical combination of words that would turn the light-bulb on. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. After years of therapy, they're fine.

The point I'm trying to make is that when we hear an idea that resonates with us, that sounds plausible (no matter how outrageous it may seem at a different time in our lives), we're going to embrace it. How firmly we do so is going to depend upon where we are in our lives. If someone offers us a flotation device when we're struggling in a stormy sea, we aren't going to ask too many questions and, speaking for myself, that's where I was in my life when I was introduced to sgi. I go back to an earlier comment about Stockholm syndrome - you love whoever appears to make the pain stop, even if that person is your tormentor. The pain seemed to go away when I started chanting so I went into confirmation bias mode. My perceived needs were being met, and all that took was chanting a couple of times a day, going to a few meetings every month, reading some crap and spending time with people that I thought were pretty wonderful.

Moving forward, my BS detector is a lot more sensitive than it was - that's a good thing. And I actually learned a lot of really useful things as a result of being a member - not every idea that I was exposed to was strictly to thicken the linings of sgi's pockets. They accidentally taught me to be more compassionate, less judgmental and to be much more discerning of people whose ideas are worthy of head-space.

As bad as the experience was, in so many ways, I'm trying to take the positive away with me. There were some good discussions that I gained a lot from and became a little more confident about speaking in front of people (not a small accomplishment).

I despise the organization itself, and would be happy to see it sink into the deepest part of the darkest hell. I was talking to a friend the other day who's a recovering scientologist; striking and frightening similarities.

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meh
This seems to be pretty factual (although, of course, I have doubts about the veracity of a lot of things at this point); first and foremost that the temple actually belonged to nichiren shoshu. One of the big issues was the expense of operating the facility - because of how the windows were installed, it was necessary to keep the a/c running at all times to reduce mold growth; this was incredibly expensive. A larger issue was that location and construction style and materials were poorly selected. The building was essentially destroying itself - because of the level of salt indigenous to the location and in the structural materials were causing rapid deterioration and rusting of the structural steel in the building, causing it to actually rust through the decorative marble façade-work. The building couldn't be repaired, but only torn down to be reconstructed using more suitable materials.

Oh, and this article also discusses the funding for the building. Members were told that all funds raised during the specific shohondo campaign would go into building it. Turn your dollars into a column in this architectural wonder! Or a window, or a tile in the floor! This article states that the org acknowledged that 35.5 billion yen were raised but never mentioned that a further 12 billion were raised. The shohondo was built using interest from those donations, and a number of other facilities were built using the actual donation money, despite what was being broadly presented to members.
.

I think that the Soka Gakkai/Nichiren Shoshu split of the 1990's was planned decades earlier, maybe even as far back as the 1950's. Even in the 1950's, Ikeda and Toda did not hide their disdain for the Nichiren Shoshu priests (or their notion that SGI was about 'benefit' and business.) In the 50's, there was a major incident at a temple where Young Men's Division members, under the leadership of none other than Daisaku Ikeda, taunted and assaulted an elderly priest, the Reverend Ogasawara. Neither Toda nor Ikeda showed any remorse for this -- arguing that the old priest had supported the Japanese military government during World War II. The incident was widely publicized throughout Japan, and when the public outcry became too great, Toda finally offered a weak apology for his YMD's actions.

I doubt that the Nichiren Shoshu priests and the SGI leadership ever liked eachother. As Hitch said, it was a marriage of convenience. The priests made SGI appear to be a legitimate Buddhist group with a long, respectable tradition so that SGI could attract new members; SGI provided the priests with income. Problems between the two groups continued for years. In the 1970's, SGI wanted to change the silent prayers to offer prayers for Toda and Makiguchi, and the priests objected. At one point, the High Priest had Ikeda resign as head of the Soka Gakkai, and a man named Hiroshi Hojo briefly was the fourth SGI president, a little detail that SGI will never tell you.

By the 1990's, Ikeda decided that SGI was wealthy, big and powerful enough to go it alone -- and the SGI/NS divorce was on. I do think that the Shohondo was part of Ikeda's plot. I've been to Taiseki-ji. I was very struck by the unique design, the massive size, the rust stains on the walls, and the stickiness and humidity in the sanctuary (A/c was off that day). I'm not an engineer or architect, but it certainly seemed like an impractical design for such a humid and earthquake-prone region. There needed to be iron bars embedded in the concrete to keep the building stable....and yet they used sand with a high salt content to make this concrete? You don't need a degree in engineering to know that salt rusts and corrodes metal...or to realize that the design is going to break down at some point.

Ikeda could afford the best engineers and architects, and topnotch building supplies. So why build the Shohondo this way? How could it have been anything BUT deliberate? Let's saddle the priests with this spectacular building --- that is going to self destruct pretty fast. This left the priests with three choices. One, they can tie up a fortune trying to shore up, repair and maintain this building. Or -- they don't maintain it. They could just let it fall down, or they could do what they did, and tear it down. The first choice leaves them broke, the last two allow SGI to vilify the priests for their "lack of care and appreciation for the members' sacrifices." And given the superstitious thinking that SGI encourages -- it would be a huge propaganda victory for SGI if the temple did just fall apart during an earthquake. We'd have heard all about the bad karma that those evil priests had created! Win-win for SGI. All part of their long-term plan.

I agree, tsukimoto - I think that very little in that whole farce wasn't highly choreographed at some level. According to the article on toride.org, a total of 47.5 billion yen (only 35.5 of which sgi will admit to) was collected from members, yet the shohondo cost about 17 billion yen to build. I haven't heard anything about members getting any refunds. Hah!

Well, the first serious repercussion from my departure arrived in the mail today - a very harsh letter from someone I was hopeful of salvaging a friendship with. I was expecting this from almost anyone else but her. Despite being able to easily (and at length) talk about boyfriends, aliens, politics, hair color, human rights, pollution, nail polish and just about everything else in the known universe, being unable to discuss sgi is a deal-breaker. Let's see . . . her friendship is conditional upon me re-joining sgi? Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer my freedom and having relative control over my own thoughts.

I am composing a response to her - if she's going to rip me a new one, I can tell her a few home truths. I have absolutely no illusion that she'll hear a single word, but as I mentioned before, I'm genetically predisposed to having the last word.

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I'm genetically predisposed to having the last word

Advice:

Dont run the risk of saying anything that can be used/held against you later.

And maybe after she gets dumped on and treated badly in SGI she might take a chance and contact you to find out if life is possible outside of SGI.

Thats the best way to have a last word. To be able to tell her there is life outside of SGI.