Can anyone check somehow if that bronze erotic self-portrait is actually at the location stated?
[www.proudblackbuddhist.org]
Maybe it was up for a while, or moved?

It sure looks like him. Except the tummy is a little slimmer, and the chest-pecs are enhanced.
Its sort of a cross between a reclining Buddha, and a Julius Caesar in repose after conquering.

The guy is a wannabe despot, even a madman.
Whoever takes over SGI, is not going to have too hard of a time, Ikeda is literally trying make himself immortal, in all of these projects using his name and image.

a sculptor was hired to do an Ikeda bronze, with Mandela...
who paid for that?
;-)

[www.speroanargyros.com]
[ 2003 3' x 5' bronze portrait Bas-relief of Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa and Nobel Prize winner and Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhist Leader, Japan. Six castings. ]


Here is a reprint of those images with some commentary.

How Wierd is the SGI Cult? [www.fraughtwithperil.com]

Hi there,

do not get me wrong, but all theses sculpture and rape allegations are like beating a dead horse, they are old and sources not really reliable. The rape case never been proved … and the sculpture?Who really cares. Its yesterdays news (the day before yesterday actually).
I think for those wishing or in the process of leaving SGI other issues are more important and pressing.
Its the peer pressure, the financially dubious character of SGI, the fact that so called leaders give guidance to people that they have not been trained to do so (guidances not only on faith but questions on marriage job etc., things that should be done rather by a counsellor). The lies an rumours spread about other peoples beliefs.
So if this should be a forum where people can turn to it would be good to offer advice and actual experiences and not spread second hand rumours, as doing so would be playing into the hands of SGI.
The more sensationalist an information may sound the higher the chances something is foul. All the people sharing their experiences here is far more beneficial in order to show what SGI is really about
Greetings
Rothaus

Rothaus, Some people think some things are important, and others think that other things are important! We never know who is going to gain some insight from what others say!


I'd like to share some of my experiences with "guidance"--appointed leaders telling people what they should do or think, with no training, just because they were appointed a leader of SGI.

Several years ago there was a member of my district. She was a was a faithful and active member. She had a younger 19-year old sister, a beautiful girl, who came to some meetings and chanted some. The sister had been primarily raised in the U.S. Their father decided that it was time for the 19-year-old to get married, so he arranged a marriage for her to a youth that lived in another city. The girl was very "americanized" and did not want to participate in an arranged marriage! She had gone to U.S. public schools and had an American boyfriend. Because she was resistive, guidance was arranged for her. I heard the guidance because it took place at my house. The guidance was given by a respected Japanese leader. She told this young girl that arranged marriages were really preferable to marriages based on love, companionship, etc. She gave the example of her and her sister in Japan. The sister had a arranged marriage, which turned out to be a great, long-lasting marriage. Her own marriage was not arranged. She married an American serviceman, came to the U.S., and eventually got divorced. She encouraged the girl to do as her father wished. So the girl went through with it. I went to the wedding. It was a lavish affair! The bride wore many beautiful dresses, as was the custom. The groom was a handsome young man. Both the bride and groom looked miserable, and would hardly look at each other during the party.

The marriage lasted two days. The bride ran off with her American boyfriend!

How could the Japanese leader tell a 19-year old (too young) to marry a boy that she hardly knew and did not love, in the name of SGI guidance!


Many years ago I sought out guidance (which I rarely did). When my daughter was two, I started to try to have another baby. But I couldn't get pregnant! For 3 years I tried, frustrated and sad. But finally it happened! Then, in my eighth week, I started bleeding. I went to the doctor, but they couldn't stop what was happening. After a couple of days of profuse bleeding, I knew the pregnancy was over. I called up my women's division chapter leader. She was a great lady, who I liked a lot. I tearfully told her what was happening. She told me that it was no big deal. She told me not to be "sentimental" about it. I remember that she kept using the word "sentimental", and chided me for even caring--I just needed to chant more, do more activities, and go on with my life.

How could she have that attitude? Me and my family were mourning the loss of this pregnancy, and of the baby who was not yet born.


Another guidance that I heard was at a meeting, about 1 or 2 years ago. A big leader was there, and answering questions. A long-time member asked why her children and grandchildren did not chant. She
chanted so much for them, for years, but still they would not join!

Before the leader gave her response, I thought about how I would answer such a question. I would say, "Your children are adults. They can do whatever they want to do. You have shown them Buddhism, and now they can accept it if they want. It's their decision. They are adults." But this is not the response that the leader gave! She said that the member's children really needed to chant. The member should chant more and do more activities so that her children would pratcice, which will eventually happen if she just devotes herself even more to SGI!

hi quiet one

you may be right what you said about my post, BUT the experience you gave is to my mind so much more valubale than any old sculpture. Thank you !!!

I would agree its important to stay on serious topics, and more subtle ones.
And of course, with criminal accusations, people are innocent until proven guilty.

But also, coming out of a cultish group, for some people it can be helpful to look at some of the outrageous and poor-behavior of the "noble leader", and to do so in a blunt way. Sometimes, using vigorous blunt language, seems to help "deprogram" some of the mental patterns from the sect.
It does seem that being too "polite" sometimes doesn't shake up the mental patterns of the sect enough.

Some new-agey sects, train people to never use the word "problem" and instead to call it a "challenge". One of the most important things to do to break away, is to start calling things problems again, to break out of the Jargon.

As far as I can see, the specific manipulation tactics of SGI have never really been explained and analyzed in great detail.
But they are very sophisticated. They started out as quite crude methods, but they quickly refined them, especially in the west.

It would take quiet a bit of work for people to deprogram themselves of all the SGI systems.
Sometimes using some outrageous satire, can be helpful as part of the deprogramming process.

Hi Anticult,

I agree with you at this point. The experience that “quiet one” shared is so true and reflects what I said earlier about people giving „guidance“ that should be left to a professional.
Thing is that when still part of SGI one does now and again gets the notion “hang on this ain't right”, but one would not speak up as the SGI rhetoric keeps critics in their place branding them enemies of the Lotos Sutra and so forth.
My guess even is that quite a number of people in SGI doubt many of its aspects, but would only dare to speak about it in private if at all.

Its remarkable that lately many long-time members distance themselves from SGI. From my communication with such people I noticed they are turned away by the over emphasis given to Ikeda and the role of leaders. The interesting thing is that they can argue their discontent with the Lotos Sutra itself. To my mind this comes as no surprise since SGI shortened the religious service considerably and serious Buddhist study is not top of the agenda any more. Serious Buddhist study would quite naturally involve debate and discussion and that is something SGI has no interest in. The only discussion allowed is the one confirming SGI's position.
So SGI to my mind is becoming more and more extreme. What I totally agree with is, that it needs more neutral people to take a closer look at SGI, journalists etc. and making sure to keep their attention away from Japanese yellow press stories as they can easily be proven wrong or at least shady. In order to give SGI a mainstream appeal the so called surveys on national SGI groups have basically been commissioned by SGI.
The story about that New York principal being ousted was quite interesting.
I even heard rumours that Nichiren Shoshu adherents in the US had touble with SGI again, Even though I do not agree with Nichiren Shoshu on a doctrinal level I think they have all the rights to practice what they believe to be true. The thing is Nichiren Shoshu wants to be left alone so the incidents were not publicised or reported to police and as there is no reliable source to prove them I will refrain form giving details.

Another example of bad guidance: a Young Men's Division friend in another city began to show signs of mental illness. He heard voices coming from his electrical outlet and believed that government agents were spying on him. He kept getting the guidance to chant more and do more SGI activities. His family lived in a distant state and did not seem to be able to help him. He wouldn't listen to us when we suggested he go to a doctor. He did seem to respect and listen to leaders. They may have been the only people who might have been able to persuade him to get help -- and they wouldn't do it! All they could do is offer the same-old same-old -- chant more and do more SGI activities! Just the same advice you'd offer someone grieving a miscarriage, someone faced with an unwanted arranged marriage, domestic violence, rebellious kids, cancer...one size (doesn't) fit all.

My friend eventually quit SGI and left the area. I have no idea where he is or whatever became of him. I just hope he's not on some streetcorner begging, or in prison. Before the mental illness intensified, he was bright, friendly, witty. With proper care and medication, he could have had a great life.

In SGI's newspaper,the World Tribune, there was this huge debate in the "Letters to the Editor" section about taking anti-depressant medication. A shocking number of members thought it was a cop-out to take anti-depressants. They felt that you should cure your depression by chanting more! People, it's the 21st century! For many people, depression can be caused, or made worse, by chemical imbalances in the brain. If you and your doctor find that medication helps you -- why wouldn't you take it? It sounds like the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church used to beat people who had seizures. The priests taught that someone had seizures because he or she was possessed by demons. The difference was, there wasn't much knowledge about science or medicine back in the 1200's. Now that there is -- WHY should we live like medieval serfs?

It makes me wonder how many SGI members never got the appropriate treatment for emotional/mental problems because they thought that they should just be able to cure them by chanting alone. How many lives were ruined by bad guidance?

Regarding the Ikeda bronze: Apparently the Nichiren Shoshu priests objected so vehemently to having it displayed at Taiseki-ji, that Ikeda didn't push it. www.geocities.com -- Chris Holte's blog. Is this relevant, Rothaus? I think it could be, considering SGI's bitterness toward the Nichiren Shoshhu priests. My feeling, at the time of the split, was that there was corruption in both the SGI senior ranks and the priesthood. At least, each group was kind of a check and balance on eachother. Sort of like the principle of the United States government having three branches. Each branch can balance eachother so that one group or person does not become too powerful. Ikeda, in splitting with the priests, got rid of anyone who could say no to him....now, he can do anything he wants, which makes him dangerous. Military commanders hold considerable power over their subordinates -- but the commander still has to answer to his or her seniors. In the United States, the military also answers to the president, and follows the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice.) Ikeda follows nothing and answers to nobody.

Another aspect of SGI analysis, is to look at each different part of it separately. There does not seem to be one SGI, but a series of them.

Buddhism:
Most of the people involved in SGI, are most concerned with philosophical and Buddhist problems and conflicts. And that's great.
But that is only one small part of SGI.
Frankly, in terms of how SGI is set-up, that part that is most important to people, seems to act as a "fig-leaf".


COVERT PERSUASION:
The cultic aspects of SGI are completely different. Those are the specific mass and group persuasion techniques they use. Ikeda seems to have started using very crude almost Stalinist stuff, but then they refined that very quickly. Now in the west, they promote SGI using the "Buddhist" fig-leaf, and also mixed in with new-agey stuff like The Secret, and magical thinking, etc.
SGI was very clever to adapt themselves to different cultures...who thought that up?

And most of the people in the west in SGI, seem to have absolutely no knowledge there is such a thing as "covert persuasion". So that needs a lot of work. They are using some quite subtle and user-friendly approaches, to get people to recruit their friends, etc.


Membership:
SGI says they have 12 million members. They say about 8 million in Japan?
But how can that be verified? Probably only a senior SGI person who quits could tell the truth about that.

BUSINESS/MONEY:
The other area to be SERIOUSLY looked at is just the pure business/money of SGI.
Does SGI really have assets of 120 billion USD? That is hard to believe, but that needs to be checked into. But of they do, that makes them far worse than has been mentioned so far. They have been raking in billions, and where is that coming from?
There has to be entire other levels of "members" who get lured into donating their entire estates to SGI, and all of that stuff.
Also, the "free labor" of SGI is a great source of profits, every cult uses that. Byron Katie uses free labor.
the problem here is many sincere Buddhists, the last thing they care about is analyzing the global corporate structure of SGI, but they should care very much.

If SGI is worth 120 billion, would that not make them the richest cultish group on the planet?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2009 12:45AM by The Anticult.

The estimates of the wealth of SGI seem to vary from 5 billion to 100 Billion. So that is ridiculous, there has to be more accurate information out there.

Search google for:

"Soka Gakkai" assets


"Published reports put Soka Gakkai's assets as high as $100 billion" [www.culteducation.com]