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gingermarie
Wakatta,
You had said

"My point is that when the structure that binds the whole story together is found to be false or rickety, then were do you go to find ground truth? Do you continue to soldier on, knowing that things have been seriously distorted or changed or abandon the thread as having become damaged beyond rescue?"

So well said. That is my quandry. I am in that no chanting stage right now while I figure this out. I am on a search for as much "truth" as I can find. Although, it seems that few Nicheren schools agree! It's enough to make my head spin. I might have to come to terms with the fact that there are no "facts", just interpretations upon interpretations. I would like to practice Buddhism, but what Buddhism? Who's Buddhism? When I do open the butsudan, I just stare at my Nichikan Gohonzon and think, "what am I doing?" "Am I making a good cause, or not?" "If I chant to this Gohonzon, will it just be wasted time?" Strange as it may seem, I feel better questioning that than being fed lies, and being told to perpetuate the lies. Ahh, ignorance was bliss!
.

Gingermarie and Wakatta, I can relate to what both of you say. Ignorance WAS bliss! Sometimes I miss the days when I accepted most of what the leaders said, and really believed that I could make anything happen if I chanted enough. Since leaving, I have also wondered if chanting to my Gohonzon is the right thing to do. Should I be practicing another kind of Buddhism? Should I go back to the Christianity that I was raised in?

I've read about other religions, and talked to friends of various religious backgrounds. No other religion speaks to me, at this point. Maybe that's a good thing. If I joined another religion, it would be a rebound thing, like taking up with a new lover immediately after a break-up. It's not that you're so in love with the new person, it's more about just wanting someone.

Buddha and Christ never wrote their teachings down -- supposedly their followers did after their deaths, and followers copied other followers' manuscripts. Eventually followers got together and put different scripts together to form the Sutras and the Bible. It reminds me of a game we played when I was in kindergarten. The class stood in a line, and the teacher whispered a sentence into the first child's ear. He or she would whisper the sentence into the next person's ear and on and on down the line. Of course, the sentence that the kids in the middle of the line, or at the end of the line, heard was completely different than what the teacher told the first kid.

I've studied languages and I also know that messages can be completely changed in translation...sometimes there's a word or phrase in a language that cannot be exactly translated into another language. And of course, there have been sects and leaders that are pushing a particular message and will "spin" the text to promote their message.

Nichiren Shu teaches that Nichiren was the Bodhisattva Jogyo rather than the Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law. Nichiren Shoshu and SGI also accept certain Gosho that Nichiren Shu says have not been authenticated. Who do you believe?

I wish I had an answer, but I just don't know either. Right now, doing gongyo and chanting daimoku just feels right to me. I read about a study that some neurophysicians did, doing brain scans on Buddhists as they meditated, and Catholic nuns as they prayed silently or said the rosary. Prayer, meditation and chanting do seem to have observable effects on the brain, calming certain areas, increasing activity in other areas. This must be why I feel calmer and more focused when I chant. Possibly, I could get the same effect from saying the rosary or doing Zen meditation. Or even from reading the phone book out loud. But, gongyo and daimoku is what I know. Perhaps there's a certain amount of conditioned-response, the Pavlov's dogs effect, where I expect chanting to make me feel calmer, so it does. Who knows? It's free and doesn't harm anyone.

When I read the Lotus Sutra, I find value in the message that all humans have the Buddha nature and all life is valuable. There are things I dislike in Nichiren's gosho, such as his intolerance to other Buddhist sects. Yet he also says good things, about persisting in the face of difficulties, being true to what you believe in, and having gratitude for people who help you. (And yes, I'm sure you can find similar messages in the teachings of other religions.) Can a person just take what they like from a religion or philosophy and refuse to buy into the things that are not so good?

Dear RRModerator,

Please read my comments to your questions below:

Do you think there is anything wrong with SGI? No, not with the organisation.

Is there anything you have read here that raises concerns about SGI and its behavior? No

What would you change and/or improve? Many things starting with myself but this is not the time or place to discuss that.

Do you think that Daisaku Ikeda makes mistakes?
What mistakes do you think he has made?

Not to my knowledge though for the last two years i have been trying to use the Net extensively to find out.All I get are opinions,insinuations and accusations not backed by facts.Daisaku Ikeda has done a lot of good for many people including myself.

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It seems like you are attempting to shift blame for SGI's bad behavior onto those that have been somehow hurt by the organization.

don't think SGI has demonstrated bad behaviour.That is an opinion expressed by you and a few Forum members.

BTW why is this Forum moderated? What are you apprehensive about?

Anyway, I would first like to answer to the questions raised by tsukimoto.

you may not want my 2 cents on this, but here it is...

first, let me clarify that only SOME of the SGI people appear to be superficial in their understandings. There are obviously many others who go deeply into various philosophies and ideas, and have a much more sophisticated understanding of it, as can be seen in this thread.
and also, the people I knew who were into the superficial SGI chanting, were generally very "nice" people, who just believed what they were told by the SGI people. They just trusted them. They were being played by the SGI system.

tsukimoto, that game is called "Chinese whispers", where the whisper gets distorted. Its a very good model of all religious texts, especially Christianity which were all written later. Years ago, I read all of the Gnostic "gospels" that were suppressed, and they were quite good. Good mythological literature.

Here is an outsiders view, as far as "authenticating" who is the real deal. It clearly is impossible to do so. Perhaps these writings could be taken more like poetry, and not like non-fiction?

Mindfulness Meditation is being proven now by science, to benefit people. But what is being shown, is its not the specific "brand" of mindfulness, its more about the calming mental cognitions, and physical relaxation, deep breathing, etc. So mindfulness meditation can help people, but it can be done even just observing aspects of Nature, a tree or bird, etc. It could be the religious baggage of some of them just messes it up?

But its very true, to not follow a specific path is very difficult for many people.
But following any of these gigantic global cultish groups like SGI, that can't be good. They are just too big, all the money goes to the top, and power corrupts. Every organization pretty much goes sour when it gets too big, people just become pawns.

As far as which path to take, I like the radical advice of learning to trust one's own thinking and intuition. Maybe a person has a gut-feeling, to explore some mythology, or perhaps some philosophy, or maybe even rejects all religion in the literal sense, and has a non-theist worldview based on science, etc.
Or maybe they put their own package together for themself.

For example, even a non-Buddhist, can enjoy a chubby Laughing Buddha statue very much, it has nice symbolic meanings, about enjoying life in the moment, prosperity, good luck when you rub his tummy, etc.

maybe a person could sit-down, and think about what attracted them to SGI in the first place, and make a list of those things, and even put them in rough order. there is probably only about 10 things or so.
And then figure out other ways to meet those same criteria?
that would be a good exercise actually...ideas like...
- achieving goals, a cosmology, social network, daily practice, mental focus, etc.
all those things can be had without the baggage and the cultish practices.

To whom it may concern:

beststarsign has been banned from this message board.

Only here to attempt to subvert the thread as an apologist for SGI.

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tsukimoto
Wakatta and Dragon, you guys are taking me down Memory Lane. Dragon, were you at that big convention near Boston in the summer of 1988? We were staying in a college dormitory, some college outside of Boston. (Worcester?) I was there. Running around in the heat in white shirt and pants, and wearing white shorts with red and blue sequins when I marched with the YWD marching band. And the YMD doing the roller-skating pyramid? Wasn't George Williams there too?

Yeah, I was at Worcester when I had no business being there. And at the New York festival that bragged 25000 Buddhists in Madison Square Garden. I was in Brass Band during that time.

Dear Tsukimoto,

Thanks for your message on the 29th.

You summed up most chriticism in quite a balanced way. Its difficult to sum up all theses issues to an outsider I believe it is true for all of SGI though not just SGI-USA. I find similar aspects here in Europe.

I also believe there is a generation shift - people who leave these days have been with SGI for a very long time. Seems younger people are much less able to question things, that would need active participation though and a form of inner democracy within SGI.
One thing the split showed me , even as I agreed at the time, is that knowledge left SGI too. Knowledge about buddhism on an academic level. Study meetings shifted from the gosho to the mentor/disciple stuff, watching videos etc.
It may be that there were doctrinal reasons for the split (although I do have severe doubts now), but the thing is SGI did not have a doctrine of its own to fill the gap. It lacks depth.

I learnded that Nichiren schools outside of the NST/SGI realm have a far more academic approach, that includes to have disputes on certain issues - normal actualy when human beings come together.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2009 07:15PM by rrmoderator.

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tsukimoto

I wasn't the only one trapped in YWD or YMD -- a lot of the members in our area were gay, and so were not going to marry or have children. The guidance at the time was, of course, to chant more daimoku and do more shakabuku so that they'd become straight! That was before SGI realized that many gay members were very dedicated, willing to contribute lots of time and money to SGI -- so now, of course, SGI is all for diversity and tolerance.

What??? That's utterly ridiculous. I'm going to have to ask my parents about that. I am staunchly anti-homophobia.

Thinking of the diversity groups it just came to my mind, that it is actually quite an
antagonism to speak of any kind of diversity within SGI.
The only diversity that those GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender) groups within SGI demonstrate is to openly show their sexual orientation – big deal.
There is nothing wrong with that (I am gay too), but in my opinion the GLBT movement or gay rights movement stands for a general diversity, accepting people as who and what they are – regardless of sexual orientation but it goes even further as this diversity also includes ethnic or religious backgrounds. At this point SGI’s utter religious intolerance kicks in again. It most be noted that the GLBT groups in most national SGI organisations are merely tolerated not acknowledged though.
So a GLBT–group within Soka Gakkai is a bit like having a rambling club within a prison.

Those are thoughts though that I am just now able to formulate. Being a member in a cult is just like being in a mental prison. One only looks at the world form an SGI/NST perspective and believing that the solution to the worlds problems lies within SGI and ONLY within SGI … when writing that it gives me the creeps a bit, because that’s what SGI is all about or not?
It beats me how people who basically have a rather liberal outlook on the world can so willingly give up their ability to accept criticism and even more criticise themselves.
The only critical issues that were raised within SGI was when SGI was able to prove its critics wrong – which is easily done when it concerns Japanese rainbow press articles.

It worries me that such an organisation can quite successfully seek official support and seal of approval. At the same time I do admit that one has to take a very close look to discover that SGI actually stands in contradiction to some cherished democratic values like freedom of speech, religious tolerance and the separation of church and state. Some SGI folks would now assiduously quote Nichiren when he attacked other sects of his time – if one reads the sources careful though (one should also consult none SGI/NST sources/translations) he in my opinion basically criticised the proximity of church and state and the corruption resulting form such an entanglement.
Certainly as a monk of his time he argued from a religious perspective but he focused on the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra to me is a prime example to accept people as what they are and treasure them – we call it human rights now. I do not want to get to deep in the matter but to many readers of this board bodhisattva Fukyo will ring a bell.
And for god’s sake, yes - this man lived in 13th century Japan and it shows some degree of ignorance to take each and every word literally, as it would be much more laborious to see what it might mean for us today.

As a born German the comparison I now make may seem over the top, but is it not also common for cults (just like fascism) to afterwards say - when everything went wrong –: 'we did not know …'. Sorry it will be a foul excuse – heard it to often.
If you allow someone to restrain your ability to judge then you have yourself to blame for that.

Guess what came in my mail today? I received a Mothers' Day card from SGI, with a picture of President Ikeda and his wife Kaneko; they're smiling sweetly and wearing cute, matching blue outfits. The poem says:

Mothers, never forget your smiles,

They are even stronger

Than the ruler's power

Your smiles are the force

that creates peace and happiness

Let's praise mothers!

Let's treasure mothers!

---Daisaku


Also enclosed in the envelope was a letter from Danny Nagashima, the SGI-USA Director. It begins "To the brilliant mothers of American kosen-rufu!"

It goes on to say, "A mother of kosen-rufu is a mother even if she has no children of her own. She is a mother even if she has no partner...yes,it's important to treasure mothers! That is the formula -- as sure as the brilliance of the sun -- for all peace and happiness and progress...Let us construct the happiest SGI family in the world through the unprecedented victory of SGI-USA and with each person shining with supreme happiness."

Please. So now, I'm a mother of Kosen-rufu? Well Kosen-rufu will not come to visit me in the old-age home in forty years, but on the other hand, at least I don't have to pay its college tuition.

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jojaroyd

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tsukimoto

I wasn't the only one trapped in YWD or YMD -- a lot of the members in our area were gay, and so were not going to marry or have children. The guidance at the time was, of course, to chant more daimoku and do more shakabuku so that they'd become straight! That was before SGI realized that many gay members were very dedicated, willing to contribute lots of time and money to SGI -- so now, of course, SGI is all for diversity and tolerance.

What??? That's utterly ridiculous. I'm going to have to ask my parents about that. I am staunchly anti-homophobia.

Well, SGI-USA does reflect both Japanese and American culture -- how could it not? In my city last year (USA), a transgendered person (born male, dressed and identified as a woman) was shot as she sat in a parked car. The attacker had had no personal contact with her; she had not threatened him,or come on to him or anything of that nature. He was just offended by her sexuality. My friends who teach high school say that students who are perceived as gay often face terrible harassment from other students.

The Japanese seem to disapprove of homosexuality as much as westerners, but for different reasons. Many westerners base their prejudices on statements in the Bible; the Japanese just don't seem to like people who don't conform and act like everyone else. Young people are just expected to marry a suitable person of the opposite sex in their mid to late twenties because that's what everyone does, whether they're in love or not. (Couples often live rather separate lives anyway. The husband spends much of his time working, or with co-workers and male friends, and the wife spends most of hers with her children and female friends. A Japanese woman told me once, "We don't have the divorce rate that Americans do because it's easier for us to live with a man we don't love. We don't have to see as much of our husbands as American wives do." Maybe that's how Ikeda's wife has tolerated him all these years...he's just gone on SGI business all the time.

In the mid-nineties, some members of my SGI group wanted to have some meetings for the gay members to get together. Our senior leadership told us that we could not put these meetings on the schedule -- people would get a bad impression of SGI if we did, they said! They'd think SGI was just a bunch of deviants and not want to join. This ruling was eventually overturned, after much dissension and bitterness. Much of our district was in favor of putting the meetings on this schedule that was mailed out to all members and prospective members -- a couple of senior leaders in our area just said no.

It would be nice if religious organizations were better -- kinder, more open-minded -- than the mainstream culture, but, being composed of people from the mainstream culture, how can they be?

Rothaus, I am anti-homophobia. SGI's stance irritates me because I feel that it is all about self-interest rather than principle or genuine compassion and respect for people. The leadership realized some years back that many of its gay members were very useful. Some of the gay SGI members I've known have said that they felt very excluded by mainstream society, especially churches. They say that they long for a place where they can be accepted, and spiritual, and have been grateful for SGI for providing this -- grateful enough that they will contribute a great deal of time and money. Still -- if the SGI leadership believed that acceptance of gay members was costing them heterosexual members -- I think they'd abandon their loyal gay members again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2009 05:10AM by tsukimoto.