Quote
The Anticult
Its certainlly true that SGI programs and indoctrinates their members to "shakubuku family and friends over the holidays".
Those of us who have been REPEATEDLY shakubuku-ed by the same SGI people, over and over again know all about that.
Even worse can be Shakubuku harrassment in the workplace.

Very interesting about the "street shakubuku".

For the SGI member, they are conditioned and programmed to see it as cooking up some good Karma.
But in fact, the SGI street shakubuku is literally the same type cultic recruiting technique used by Scientology, the Moonies, and anyone other sect and cult you can think of.
The leaders of the cult train young people, often young women, to go out into the world and street and try to lure people into the sect, into a meeting, and then run the recruiting process of the sect on them.

If anyone can describe in detail the SGI "training" for street shakubuku, that would be very helpful.
What would be good to look at is what SGI "trains" the SGI member to do on the street.

Also, more importantly, any former SGI local leaders, how were they trained to train the SGI members in street shakubuku? That would be very enlightening, to carefully analyze the INTERNAL SGI training techniques. That is the real SGI.

Dear Anbticult;

From a religious perspective, Nichiren Daishonin did street shakabuku. He was the master and the model for this practice. That is the real danger of the Soka Gakkai. They borrow practices from Nichiren Daishonin which in their minds and the minds of the unenlightened legitimizes their distortion of the religion. Here I will post my refutations of the Soka Gakkai from a purely religious perspective. The SGI doing street shakabuku would fall into the category of mixing the clean with the unclean. Also, Nichiren Daishonin never forced his lay practitioners to do street shakabuku. Lastly, Nichiren Daishonin utilized principally the forceful methods rather than the gentle approach and was honest and upfront about the faith and practice:

The Four Dangers of the Soka Gakkai

The first danger of the SGI teachings is mixing of the clean with the unclean. No dog would ever eat ground glass. No infant would ever ingest a toxic substance nor would any mother give their baby a toxic substance. However, a dog will eagerly eat a steak inundated with ground glass and an infant will readily drink tainted breast milk. A mother not knowing that the noxious drug is excreted into her breast milk inadvertently gives it to her baby. This is what the SGI members serve to the children of the Buddha. They serve the poison of the heretical doctrines of Nichiren as True Buddha, The DaiGohonzon, and the Oneness of Living Mentor and Disciple to their children in the milk of Namu Myoho renge kyo. Or they, like a mean and deranged farmer, serve their loyal dog the ground glass of the slander of the orthodox sects in the steak of the Jiga-ge.

The second danger is as noxious as mixing the clean with the unclean: Taking a piece of the teachings from the middle, a piece from the end, and a piece from the beginning and re-attaching them in reverse order or mixing them up. The former practice is like a surgeon who reverses a vein when creating an arterial bypass. The flow of blood ceases and the patient dies. The latter practice (that of mixing up the teachings) can be likened to a physician who is ignorant of adverse drug-drug interactions. He mixes two or three safe and efficacious drugs together which turns them into a powerful poison. The former practice of rearranging the teachings is commonplace in the SGI. For example, those teachings that Nichiren Daishonin taught before he had fully developed his faith are given precedent over the later complete teachings or they promote the theoretical teachings of expedients over the essential teachings of abandoning expedients and the exclusive faith and practice of the Lotus Sutra. An example of the danger of mixing several efficacious practices which when mixed have a deleterious effect, are the practices of shoju and shakabuku in the Soka Gakkai which are practiced without understanding the times or the circumstances in which we live. They practice shoju towards the slanderers of the Dharma such as the Zen men, Nembutsu adherents, and believers in Islam and practice shakabuku towards the members of the Kempon Hokke and the Nichiren Shu. These sundry practices the SGI perpetrates on the children of the Buddha. Neither Greg Martin nor Dave Baldshun nor any of the salaried SGI leaders are good persons and neither is their master, Daisaku Ikeda. Both have the mission of destroying the teachings and harming the children of the Buddha, Daisaku Ikeda from above and the salaried SGI leaders from below.

The third danger of the SGI is that they arbitrarily add doctrines and concepts to the Great Pure Teachings where none exist and claim them as "the original and authentic teachings of Nichiren Daishonin". This is worse than forging Gosho because it is more insidious. By altering a word here or a word there, to already extant and authentic Gosho (literally putting words in Nichiren's mouth), they become adept at fooling the people. This cunning and treachery they inherited from the perverse seven hundred year tradition of the Taisekaji priests and their Gosho Zenshu, Oral Teachings, and faked transfer documents. Fortunately, we have the unadulterated Showa Tehon Collection of Original Gosho (as well as expert linguists), to keep them honest. We also have the disciples and believers of the Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha and Nichiren Daishonin whose correct faith and understanding renders them capable of clarifying such matters.

The last danger is, many innocent people fall prey to the SGI's "Nichiren said this but meant that" arguments which are the teachings of the delusion of fundamental darkness. Since this is a visceral and emotional argument and the people are steeped in the Three Poisons, no amount of logic or scholarship will suffice to overturn it. Most people can no more see their own eyebrows than heaven in the distance [Nichiren]. It will require the wisdom of the Buddha born of faith in Nichiren Daishonin's Gohonzon and the Lotus Sutra to destroy these arguments and devils.

Dear Anticult:

Here is an example:

Leader: Now go out and find some shakabukus. You can do it. Don't come back here without bringing back someone.

SGI member doing street shakabuku: Hi have you heard about Nam Myoho renge kyo:

Street person: No what's that?

SGI member: [goes on to tell the person what he thinks is the meaning of Nam Myoho renge kyo]

Street Person: Can I still believe in Allah and chant that?

SGI member: Sure. You can believe in anything as long as you chant.

This is not Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. They will literally say anything to get someone to come to a meeting. They are neither honest nor upright [if an experienced practitioner] or misguided [from misguided guidance] if a new practitioner. The SGI and conversion takes precedence over the faith. This is one reason, out of the 500,000 or more Gohonzons received by people in the United States, less than 70,000 remain.

Well that is interesting, some sects give very specific instruction on how to do street pick-ups.
It would take an Ex-SGI Leader to come forward and tell about how they were trained to manage the SGI streeters, as SGI has a system of how to deal with new people who get brought in.

But again, SGI is very smart. They keep it simple.
The SGI Leader orders people to go out and pick-up some people off the street.
One would assume the SGI leader praises those who bring back the bacon, and shames those who don't.

So then SGI members start to lie to people, to get them to come back with them.
There are posts in this thread, of how a group of SGI people would DECEIVE someone, by telling them they are going somewhere else, and then take that person to an SGI recruitment meeting.

Its very interesting how dishonesty becomes commonplace in these sects like SGI. Many of the average members would think lying is wrong, yet they lie lie lie to get people to attend a meeting. Or they distort, misrepresent, manipulate.

What is very interesting, is some SGI people who have tried to recruit others, when asked about this, don't even say they are doing for the other person's good. They have openly said they are doing it for THEIR OWN KARMA. The first time I heard that, I was floored by the selfishness of that statement. They literally said they recruit people to SGI for their OWN Karma, that is, so they can have more of what they want in their lives.
SGI just panders to that level of human self-centeredness.

But again, SGI is very diabolically smart. They know its a numbers game, its a meat market. Bring in the numbers, and a certain % of those people will join.
That is how SGI makes the millions and billions. Pump and dump, they just churn people through.

There have to be former SGI Leaders who have quit, who can go into the great detail of the advanced training they take on how to recruit new people brought in.
The SGI-USA website is full of techniques and strategies.
It looks like SGI uses "modeling" (which is an NLP term) to show others how to do things. That is, you copy those who are higher up the food chain than you are.
That way, you only know what SGI wants you to know at each level.

SGI is very very smart how they run their operation.

My wife is very proud of her street shakabukus, many of them are still long time members. It's been years, though, since she's gone up to a total stranger on the street to ask them if they've heard of Nam myoho renge kyo. She's much more subtle now, if she thinks anyone would "benefit" from the practice - she's on it. Some of my own friends have expressed their discomfort to me in their discussions with her regarding SGI, some have come right out to me though calling it a cult but never to her.

Awake - we've always celebrated Christmas albeit secularly - Christmas tree, presents etc. My kids know all about Christmas as a Christian holiday and respect that but that isn't the focus in a house with a Buddhist mom and agnostic dad. They do get a lot of it from school, though - the carols etc. Funny thing though about the SGI and the Christmas holiday season - the activities seem to ratchet up this time of the year. Instead of few meetings - there seem to be at least one per day and day long tosos (sp?), too. I swear this happens to cause a rift in "mixed families".

THANK YOU EVERGREEN, SUSHIGRL AND SCOOBYDOOBY FOR YOUR ANSWERS!!!

I was actually more worried about this girl getting on trouble with SGI or with her mom, because when I used to talk with her mom and members from SGI, they seemed to believe that everything about the Christian religion was wrong.
I go to a church that teaches Positive Christianity, and takes from many religions (Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Tao, etc.) for each of us to find the best path to connect to our Higher Power, so I’m really open to UNITING all religions in love, peace and understanding.
I’m so glad that this girl has joined her Christian friends in the Christmas Choir, I was just wondering if this was okay with SGI, but like Evergreen has told me: “SGI as I remember it does not have a policy about joining choirs that sing about baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”
Even Christians might not consider me to be an authentic Christian, because I don’t understand the concept of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I can apply and follow Jesus teachings to try to live a better life, which makes a lot more sense to me. I don’t believe that Jesus was ‘God’ like most Christians do, because he never said he was God. He said “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works." John 14:10. So I take Christmas as a rebirth in our lives and try to live a better life by following the teachings of Jesus (and all the enlighten beings who had walked on this planet, but then is not Christmas anymore, ha!).
I also don’t believe in going to hell. I was raised in the Catholic Church and I saw a manipulation there when they used to tell me that if I didn’t do this or that I was going to hell. The same manipulation from SGI, except their fear is that we’ll get bad karma. I believe that we make hell or heaven on earth with our thoughts.
I think is wonderful to expose young kids to all kinds of religions and not try to limit them and tell them that our truth is the only truth. I have taught my kids what I believe about a Higher Power, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, etc., but I want to make sure that it makes sense to them, and they can choose whatever works best for them. Like a said I grew up in the Catholic Church and many things didn’t make sense to me. And then I found out that my daughter had chosen as a subject for a project on her school ‘Hinduism’ because she wanted to know about more religions, then she told me what she liked and didn’t like about it.
At the end I think the only TRUTH is what each of us believes to be TRUTH!!!!
I embrace people from all religions. I would never outcast anybody. I just think is wrong to use ‘manipulation’ like SGI uses, but their chanting might work for many people and I would try it, if I didn’t have anything else that I’ve found more effective. I’m actually so excited because my relationship with my dear husband has healed, and I’m seeing many, many positive changes in my life, nice friends, somehow I was even guided to yoga classes and I feel great, I feel so, so healthy, everything is working out, and it wasn’t through chanting. But I found a way to impress my subconscious mind where all the POWER resides, INSIDE OF US!
So at the end it doesn’t even have to do with Jesus, Buddha, or with any religion. But I do try to learn from everything and everybody I can! Everybody is my teacher, including YOU!!!!
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

To Anticult: I was a street shakubuku back in the day, and participated in street shakubuku right after I joined!! It was a mandatory thing back in the 70s when we had "campaigns" with numeric "targets" of how many converts we had to accomplish. Sort of like a sales quota. During campaigns leader focus would shift to those hot spots where members with a high tally of guests would get extra attention and help. The top leaders would visit areas where the members were cultivating high intensity conversions and scoop up the converts for special gojukai or Gohonzon receiving events. It was felt that if you waited too long, the convert may change his or her mind. The aftercare of the converts was often left to recently initiated new members, and all sorts of misinterpretations of the practice were espoused. "Chant and you will get money! Chant and you will find a girlfriend! Come to meetings and you will find a girlfriend!! I even heard "Chant and you will find the money to buy alcohol!!" Anything to get them to continue. The "experiences" of the new converts were highlighted at the short shakubuku meetings and anything from "I found a parking spot" to "I found ten dollars!" went rewarded with cheers.

In the eighties, this practice of intense street shakubuku campaigns was changed and a waiting period had to occur where the convert could at least learn how to say NMRK and have a proper butsudan or shrine set up before receiving Gohonzon. I remember the 80s to be more focused on "study" with tests to see how much fragmented information we could memorize. Mostly from Pres Ikeda's teachings about the Gosho. I'm sure that the techniques of the 70s are still active in other countries. But when you tell a person "shakubuku will change your life", people will overcome shyness to tell their network of friends and family asap. To me, this kind of shakubuku is the worst because it puts added pressure on the convert to produce "actual proof" and perhaps start the vicious cycle of self deprecation if they can't find what they are looking for.

It would be fascinating to hear from ex members who more recently left the org than the 90s to see if "introducing" new people to SGI has changed in method to increase membership again. Do members in Japan still do street shakubuku?

Another interesting thing happened to me during the study campaigns of the 80s and 90s, was that in studying the guidance of Ikeda, we were told to "read between the lines" and not take things too literally or we could suffer psychological damage, because his language was so harsh and critical of those who would "backslide" in faith, and the effects of leaving the faith. Reading between the lines meant that the guidance was really for future generations, for all posterity, and we weren't to take it so much to heart because it was so scary. Really, this happened. Many members were taking the literal translation of his guidance to heart and becoming very militant or self destructive.

This just reinforces everything that people say about SGI and Mr. Ikeda. Why would he need warn future generations about the traitors and backsliders and worms eating at the lion's (SGIs bowels) if there weren't something inherently wrong with the organization to make people so angry. This is really making me think. And why do I feel a sense of peace realizing that I haven't been struck down, and have actually outlived some of my SGI contemporaries....I feel happy to express my memories and realizations.

Many times SGI especially in Japan let members know the terrible misfortunes of ex members; that they would kill themselves or die a lonely and painful death, while members would die glorious deaths worrying about shakubuku for cousin rufus in their dying breath. They would say that the body of SGI members would remain natural and peaceful while ex members decayed right away and turned black, surely suffering the hell of incessant suffering. If a philosophy is true and pure and beautiful, I don't think you would have to employ such scare tactics to encourage people to stay. Maybe this is part of the Japanese culture, but much of it got showered down to us.

I still have my Gohonzon enshrined mostly out of fear that if I take it down, my life will fall. It's in a lavish butsudan that I was "encouraged" to buy, costing thousands of dollars. Thousands of dollars that I could have used for education or saving for other things. Such is life, such is the SGI.

A really cool teaching was that if a person went against the SGI, his head would split into seven pieces and his back would split open and flames would come out...meaning that the person would go mentally insane and experience horrible illnesses. I have known ardent members who have died of painful illnesses and have mental illness, but of course, they are "changing their karma" and will reach "eagle peak" through the divine intervention of "shoten zenjin" or the powerful positive forces in the universe. Wow. God and his angels. One leader even told us that if the world blew up, we could choose any planet we wanted to live on and do shakubuku there...that it was stated in the Gosho. Wow.

Well, since I am a recent ex-member, I want to give my two peso about the street shakubuku thing. I did receive my gohonzon in Ohio, and I am now living in CT. In both places we never were told to do street shakubuku. I was told about it from an older member when we were in the car together at one point, but now no one tells us to do it. That being said, we were more encouraged to shakubuku friends, family, coworkers, partners/fiance/spouses, and so on. Almost like an MLM technique.

That being said, some people still do it on their own. I used to hang around with a guy from the Men's Division a lot, and whenever we were at a restaurant, store, what have you he would hand out a card and tell people about SGI after having a conversation with them.

And here is another 2 pesos . .. .


Isn't it funny that out of all the topics in the former members/affect families page, this forum has the most pages and always the newest posts?


What does your mentor say about this, sensei?