The cult marchers in the clown uniforms look to be toting mock rifles, to my eyes. Great choice for a supposed World Peace "Buddhist" movement.

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On the topic of meditation:

Can Meditation Be Bad For You?

" ... minds can atrophy--just like limbs do--if they aren't used for a wide range of purposes:

Many meditation practitioners have complained of difficulty doing simple arithmetic and remembering names of close friends after prolonged meditation. The effect is rather like that of Newspeak's obliteration of the English language in George Orwell's 1984."

" ... during meditation the brain releases serotonin. This may help those with mild depression but too much serotonin can cause, in some, a paradoxical relaxation-induced anxiety. Instead of relaxing during meditation, these people become distressed and may even have panic attacks. Snyder says that in some cases of schizophrenia, meditation can launch a person straight into psychosis."

" ... scanned the brains of long-term practitioners of Buddhism while they were meditating and compared them with images taken when they were not. Newberg saw that blood flow to the posterior superior parietal lobe decreased during meditation. This area of the brain determines the boundaries of one's body in relation to the environment and allows us to navigate a complex three-dimensional world without bumping into things. "We know that the posterior superior parietal lobe plays that particular role because there are patients with damage in this same region who literally cannot move around without falling," Newberg reports. "They'll miss the chair they intended to sit on, and generally have a fuzzy understanding of where their body ends and the rest of the universe begins." He says that when people have spiritual experiences and feel they become one with the universe and lose their sense of self, it may be because of what is happening in that area of the brain. "If you block that area, you lose that boundary between the self and the rest of the world." Were the Buddhist meditators merely experiencing an odd side effect of submitting their brains to unusual conditions?"

" ... meditation can bring on symptoms of complex partial epilepsy such as visual abnormalities, hearing voices, feeling vibrations, or experiencing automatic behaviors such as narcolepsy. Note that epileptic patients who suffer from seizures in the temporal lobes have auditory or visual hallucinations, which they often interpret as mystical experiences. Some are convinced that they conversed with God."

"I wish I could say wonderful things about my experience but I can't. I stayed the full ten days, many of them filled with incredible hallucinations, from being inside an egg, to being a bird-like animal with broken wings, to following tunnels through my brain, to feeling completely connected to the universe. No problem, I told myself, it's just sensation. I'm perfectly safe. On the last day of the retreat, listening to the last lecture, I let out a huge scream and fell down.

Tristan says he became psychotic and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for several weeks."

"Richard, a former meditator who gave only his first name, offers the following observations:

Those who play the "mental illness" defense card seem to have a vested interest in Eastern philosophy. Meditation appears to create mental imbalance by messing with the brain's chemistry. For all we know, the mentally ill might be better equipped to deal with such alterations since they're used to them. In other words, the mental illness defense doesn't appear to be based on fact, but as a knee-jerk excuse for why we see negative occurrences related to meditation--"he or she was crazy to begin with, it wasn't the meditation, it was their problem." "

The author concludes with:

"If one isn't after enlightenment or spiritual experiences, then I can't help thinking that exercise may be better for physical and mental well being than meditation. I just love my morning swims in the local pool.

After my Indian odyssey and my return to worldly life in 1979, I've found being back in the world not such a bad thing after all. I no longer regard the world as a place from which to escape or detach myself. My mind is no longer something to conquer or to cleanse of impurities. In fact, my life is immeasurably richer without meditation, as wasthat of India's great poet Rabindranath Tagore, exemplified in his poem "Against Meditative Knowledge":

Those who wish to sit, shut their eyes,
and meditate to know if the world's true or lies,
may do so. It's their choice. But I meanwhile
with hungry eyes that can't be satisfied
shall take a look at the world in broad daylight. (1896)"

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I once got into an argument with a gakkai cult member that the chanting was just meditation. They disagreed vehemently and got all bent out of shape. Just another example as to the kind of ignorance that exists in the gakkai cult org. membership.

At the height of my time in, I tried desperately to convince myself that things were happening, that there was actually something more to the magic chant, .... well, in the back of my mind, despite trying to convince myself to the contrary, the skeptical part of me kept chiming in, "This is BS and you are just fooling yourself." Just another small epiphany that helped to start my journey out.


- Hitch

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Hitch

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Shavoy
Kosen-rufu is not democracy.

Very much agreed. The brainwashed gakkai cult members would have you believe it's all about compassion. BS. Cousin Rufus is the manifestation of that intolerance that we've just been discussing in this thread.

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Shavoy
And as we know here, people aren't jumping onto the KR bandwagon, they are just not. Extreme emphasis on a M/D relationship, ain't the way to go and is not an attractive enticement in the least. As we also know, there are people who need and want that with their religious faith. But it's not going to go Critical Mass, oh heck no. And thank heavens for that.

I told the same thing to a salaried gakkai cult org. "leader" (the kind that hardcore members thought could walk on water). At that moment, I got branded with a scarlet letter (i.e., a thinking 'member', lacking the proper 'faith', needing 'guidance', etc.).

****

Crazy gakkai members? Oh hell yeah.

I've watched members collapse on the floor, others crying with tears flowing down their face and limbs shaking as they gave some delusional experience, bring their dysfunctional family fights to a meeting and go stark raving nuts on each other, have seen hardcore gakkai kamikaze members practically physically attack temple (danto) members, and have witnessed more than my fair share of seizure-like NMRK chanters.

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that some are out of their minds.

In fact, I think a PhD thesis could be done on the psychopathology of $oka Gakkai Cult membership; a good starting point would be with the "leadership."


- Hitch

It's funny how they always talk about the "limitless freedom" one will possess by practicing with the SGI and following the Mentor. Limitless freedom? Uh-huh..

That leader you talked to probably thinks, like all good, sincere hanchos for KR, that it WILL happen. And your comment to the contrary is just more slander and doubt that has to be squashed.

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Hitch

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sixtyseven
I think as far as I can remember, Anticult mentioned it before. The chanting/ meditation technique can switch off our higher intelligence, the reasonable mind, the critical thinking and operates directly on those deeper layers - far beyond the good and the evil.

The gakkai cult org. also has a trick to deal with members who attempt to switch back on their higher intelligence / critical thinking. It was used against me a number of times.

If you start to think for yourself and begin to question things, one of the first things they ask you, is if you are doing morning & evening gongyo everyday and how much daimoku (extra magic chant) everyday. If you're missing gongyo (which was a 30-40 min. ritual in the morning and another 20 minutes in the evening, minimum = easily an hour a day PLUS the extra magic chant), or not doing enough subjective daimoku, then they use that as a psychological weapon against you.

You were supposedly breaking your 'connection' with the gohonzon and letting 'negativity' and 'doubts' in. The beginning of bad things setting in. "Reconnecting" with the gohonzon (it's probably The Dear Leader now) mandated never missing gongyo and increasing your daimoku. And, of course, with time, you stop thinking for yourself, push the doubts out of your mind and stop trying to analyze things. Essentially, repent for being a bad person and having the arrogance to think for yourself, doubt and question things.

The cult org. definitely wants your critical faculties shut down. There was a common phrase I often heard, "don't use your head too much, just chant."

Critical thinking got me out. I agree, however, it only looks 'ridiculous' with 20/20 hindsight. It's a pretty potent manipulation tool.


- Hitch

When I practiced, it was a joke with myself, because I never did gongyo consistently as prescribed. May have chanted on a daily basis, but not a lot of two-times-a-day. I say it is a joke, especially now, because STILL I received benefits and answers to the prayers I was putting out to the universe with NMRK. Got out of some major pickles, which, yes, I attributed to at least, my SINCERITY. This carried on for the 25 years of my practice!

Other members frantically and understandably wanted ASAP answers to their dilemmas and would do the prescription, and the results seemed to be what people experience regardless: sometimes answers and relief would come; other times the situation(s) dragged on.

What is the difference, I ask?

@holly_golightly: Dare I say, it has come to Daisaku Ikeda as Justin Bieber? Whatever condition the man is in now, I'm pretty sure the female adoration is not lost on him---and he's likin' it. A lot.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2013 07:40AM by Shavoy.

On the topic of why we stayed in the SGI (I was a member for over 15 years) I think one thing that kept me attached was the fact that on a rudimentary level-- for a beginner who knew nothing about Buddhism-- some of the teachings within the SGI were incredibly helpful. I mean, they did teach me about cause and effect, about karma, and for someone who basically thought like a victim, that was a transformative teaching. I got hooked in by actual Buddhist ideas-- basic ones that changed my perspective and naturally began to have a positive effect on my life. It really wasn't the magical chant at all, but the good sense and truth of the few basic Buddhist ideas that were actually presented.
Like many others, however, I soon (not soon enough) got really stuck, because Buddhism in the SGI is pretty minimal-- one quickly hits a wall and all that remains is the constant repetition of a few ideas, the relentless push for new members, the insipid district meeitngs, and the leader worship. I agree strongly that SGI distorts most Buddhist teachings in an ironical and cynical way; but the few genuine ideas that one picks up in the beginning can be part of what hooks people who, like me, are actually looking for a spiritual path and then can't get away because of fear, or guilt or a sense of commitment. It's interesting the things that begin to show up as red flags when you are in the organization. One of the more troubling aspects of SGI and Ikeda for me was the use of language (all the win, fight, victory, victory victory, struggle, enemy, defeat, lose, win, on and on ). Even though I was hardly knowledgable about Buddhism outside of the organization, I felt instinctively that there was something terribly wrong with this language-- the emphasis on conflict, the emphasis on having to change things, the emphasis on the enemy (within and without). I really don't kow how they get away with calling themselves a Buddhist organization. Interesting fact-- in my city, they always called the meeting place the Culture Center. Now they advertise it as the Buddhist Center. That is an important label-- one that hooks thousands of people in with its automatic cache.

One of the more troubling aspects of SGI and Ikeda for me was the use of language (all the win, fight, victory, victory victory, struggle, enemy, defeat, lose, win, on and on ). Even though I was hardly knowledgable about Buddhism outside of the organization, I felt instinctively that there was something terribly wrong with this language-- the emphasis on conflict, the emphasis on having to change things, the emphasis on the enemy (within and without). - opendoor

I agree entirely. I don't know if you've read much up the thread, but one of the Four Noble Truths of (real) Buddhism is "Attachment causes suffering." All this "bend reality to your will" is really nothing more than an expression of deep-seated attachment, demonstrating the delusion that one cannot regard oneself as happy/successful unless a certain outcome is attained. And you're right - this is NOT Buddhism!

Here's what the REAL Buddha had to say on the subject: "Winning gives birth to hostility. Losing, one lies down in pain. The calmed lie down with ease, having set winning and losing aside."

I have noticed a similar change - when I was with the SGI, they always referred to the kaikans as "Community Centers" if they were small or "Culture Centers" if they were larger. And I actually heard leaders explaining that our Community Centers were truly "community centers", where anyone in the community could, you know, drop by, enjoy the artwork, whatever! Talk about deluded! Nobody ever came in. And frankly, President Ikeda's photos, that he supposedly takes by just holding out the camera and clicking away? They looked like they were taken with that technique. I never understood the fawning and exaggerated praise for his photos. They're nearly as bad as his poems!!

When I got back together with my one (1) friend from the SGI last month, she said they'd moved to a bigger community center because their lease had run out at the other place. And she told me that they *bought* this new place! It's in a business park, you know, strip-mall-style sandwiched between a golf shop and an emergency veterinarian office, among others. In fact, their name, on the *bottom* of the plaza's directory out front, is "SGI-USA BUDDHIST CENTER"! I've been trying to call the leasing agents for the plaza, Red Rock Center, to confirm that *every* space in the center is leased. I simply don't see any way that a *leased* center would allow businesses to *purchase* spaces/units - how, then, could the leasing agents assure the proper maintenance and behavior for that space/unit's neighbors, which all share walls?? So I don't know where she got the idea that this was a purchased building, because there's just no way that could be.

I agree with you, opendoor, that what little of REAL Buddhism the SGI included was very helpful to me. I *like* the idea of being responsible for myself, of making wise choices, and of living with the results (for better or for worse). I never liked those religions with their "get out of hell free" cards and all that "saved" rubbish. Behave properly, people! That's the key! So I found that the principles of Buddhism motivated me to behave well. So then I thought to myself that, since Buddhism has these great guidelines in it, it will reliably motivate EVERYONE to behave well, too! Until I learned of the man who had raped his step-daughter (lots of times) and the one guy in my district murdered his wife - shot her dead! - and that Korean couple who had had a magazine/newspaper shop converted it to cigars and a smoking room instead, and the list goes on and on and on. It only worked for me because I made the conscious decision to live my life that way.

I grew up in the cult. I believed when I didn't know better. As I grew up, both physically and mentally, I began to think for myself. Critical thinking was my shield against the manipulation and eventually, my route out.

I tolerated the cult for a long time, in order to be a good sheep. Tolerance in an abusive relationship has its limits and inevitably reached a threshold. Then, I got out. It didn't happen overnight. It was a slow drawn out process that happened gradually, with lots of little incidents piling up, one by one, until one of the straws finally broke the camel's back.

It was a chapter of my life that I filed away, kept to myself and just moved on. I discovered this forum by accident, probably several years ago. I lurked on and off for years, before deciding to join and share some of my own "experiences." Seeing that there were other (mis)fortune babies out there who escaped the cult org., was the hook that brought me onboard and the impetus to share my story and perspective.

My story is really not very different in overall picture to other indoctrinated children who grew up in other cults / religions (Mormons, etc.). Only the details are different. Really glad to see the gakkai cult org. finally getting exposed for what it is --> a destructive and manipulative CULT. It's long overdue.


- Hitch

To hear of someone who "grew up in the cult" strikes me as just as odd and foreign as someone who grew up in Scientology. I mean, they exist - we all know they do - but it's just...outside of what I think of as "normal".

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Shavoy
When I practiced, it was a joke with myself, because I never did gongyo consistently as prescribed. May have chanted on a daily basis, but not a lot of two-times-a-day. I say it is a joke, especially now, because STILL I received benefits and answers to the prayers I was putting out to the universe with NMRK. Got out of some major pickles, which, yes, I attributed to at least, my SINCERITY. This carried on for the 25 years of my practice!

Other members frantically and understandably wanted ASAP answers to their dilemmas and would do the prescription, and the results seemed to be what people experience regardless: sometimes answers and relief would come; other times the situation(s) dragged on.

What is the difference, I ask?

If you got results, you changed your karma, were sincere in your faith and diligent in your practice. If not, it was your karma again, or you didn't have the proper attitude in faith, or you didn't practice hard enough (whatever the case may be and whatever they need to say to pull your strings).

When bad things really hit the fan, the default answer always was, "it's your karma."

So, the difference is whether or not one believes in "karma." Can't say that I ever really did, so I called their BS, walked and the sky never fell - it only kept getting brighter, sunnier and clearer for me the further I got away from the gakkai cult org.'s poisonous atmosphere.


- Hitch

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TaitenAndProud
To hear of someone who "grew up in the cult" strikes me as just as odd and foreign as someone who grew up in Scientology. I mean, they exist - we all know they do - but it's just...outside of what I think of as "normal".

Oh, trust me. It was "normal" for me. As normal as all hell. People went to church on Sundays, I went to recite the kaimoku sho, chant the magic phrase and turn in my diamoku charts for cheap-o cult prizes. As I got older, it was brass band practice and marching around DMV parking lots, getting yelled at by power hungry YMD "leaders." Zadankai meetings? I've been to hundreds (maybe thousands) and I've listened to just about every conceivable confirmation bias experience that has ever been told. Street shakubuku, World Culture Center (Cult HQ in Santa Monica) was my second home, tozan, culture festivals, mass rallies, Shrine Auditorium mass cult performances, and on and on and on.

Yep, it was all my "normal", unfortunately.

None of it looks normal now, thank goodness.


- Hitch

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Hitch
The cult marchers in the clown uniforms look to be toting mock rifles, to my eyes. Great choice for a supposed World Peace "Buddhist" movement.


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I once got into an argument with a gakkai cult member that the chanting was just meditation. They disagreed vehemently and got all bent out of shape.




- Hitch

Clowns balancing white rifles followed by white cavalry with redblood sashes marching for the Dear Leader. What comes next? The shooting of white doves of peace from a very blue sky , three virgin cult brides wearing a swan-feather-crown singing "Forever Sensei" and faring around?
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Very good article about neuroscientist research about meditation.
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They were right. It is'nt simple meditation causing a higher Serotonin level for relexation and helping your spiritual growth. The cult's chanting overflows our adrenalin level and we leave the shallow waters diving to the ground of the ocean of attack, fight and aggression.