Here's an interesting blog site concerning Mr. Williams' expulsion and shunning - imagine my surprise to recognize a few of my own posts there, under "Anonymous"! You'll recognize at least one, I'm sure *wink* I just posted another :D

Edit: Oops, forgot the link: [sgiwatch.blogspot.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2013 09:52AM by TaitenAndProud.

This is interesting, an article about how each of the three successive presidents of the SG changed the SG's history to suit themselves:

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During that ten-year period (1957-1967), there were many reversals and changes in doctrine, activities, official history, and the definition of important religious nomenclature. For the members of a religious community, the change of personal leader necessarily entails the adoption of a new ideological view of the world. The new leader impresses his own style on the organization, resulting in many profound changes. For the individual member, this can be likened to the trauma associated with moving from one country to another. New customs and protocols have to be observed, language and terminology is adopted, and what was once praiseworthy, even holy, may become forbidden.

We saw this clearly with the so-called "temple issue" O_O Tozan, once the expression of the most sincere seeking spirit, became forbidden - for no apparent reason. A line was drawn one day, and that was that.

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In order to maintain one's status as a devout member, one must adjust to these changing circumstances, or suffer ostracism. Many are no doubt left confused, perhaps even feel betrayed, by such radical changes. It is certain that Soka Gakkai changed in this dramatic fashion when each of its three presidents came to power. [www.collectionscanada.gc.ca]

The use of the word "power" in that last sentence is not in the least accidental.

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One of the ways in which the continuous reformulation of Soka Gakkai doctrine, and the rationalization of its changing religious behavior, can be most interestingly analyzed is in the definition of and importance placed on the term shakubuku. This word is made up of two characters, which individually mean to break (shaku or setsu, literally a hand with an axe), and to lie face down (fuku, literally a man lying down like a dog). It is therefore easy to see why it is often translated into English as "forced conversion". Yet, despite its literal meaning, there are almost as many definitions given for the term shakubuku as there are sources that describe it. In the following section, the many definitions of the term by scholars and by Soka Gakkai shall be examined.

Even now, several years out, the word "shakubuku" still fills me with dread and revulsion. Such a vile concept. Why shouldn't people be *free* to choose whatever believe system suits them??? If someone has to be beaten over the head to be "persuaded" to join, then it's obviously not right for him, right?

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Shakubuku has often been maligned by Soka Gakkai's detractors as a technique of forceful conversion, often equated with the so-called "brainwashing" practices of religious groups deemed dangerous. Stories abound from the time of Toda's presidency, and also from the first decades of Ikeda's leadership, of members harassing potential converts at their homes at all hours of the night, of intimidating rival religious groups, and other unsavoury practices. It is because of these accounts, spread widely by the Japanese news media and anti-Soka Gakkai groups abroud, that the term shakubuku has come to have negative associations amongst the public at large.

Most scholars writing in English on the subject of shakubuku translate it as "to break down and convert". Other translations include "to conquier evil aggressively", to "bend and cause to submit", and "to destroy and conquer." The term shakubuku is first mentioned in two texts known as the Shomangyo and the Dainichigyo that predate Nichiren.

Given that it has the connotation of "to break" and "to crush", it seems hardly surprising that outsiders would view it in a negative light O_O

Why should *violence* of any sort be required for people to recognize the truth of a philosophy? Shouldn't it be like the better mousetrap, that all you have to do is put up a sign and eager buyers will scurry on in? Why must one *abuse* people in order to "persuade" them to convert?? Why is it that these purveyors of "the trooth" have so little confidence in people's ability to understand that they recommend abusive techniques, yet then they expect to benefit from those same converts' intellects?

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Shakubuku was originally used by Nichiren (c. 1222 - 1282) to designate the intolerant, aggressive methods needed to convert the followers of other, "heretical" Buddhist denominations, while shoju was a tolerant approach whereby people were to be convinced to convert by moral suasion. The term shakubuku largely fell out of use after Nichiren's death, and was revived after World War II by Soka Gakkai. In Soka Gakkai literature of Toda's period, it is generally maintained that in the current days of mappo, the time of the degeneration of the law of the Buddha, only shakubuku would be an effective means of convincing non-believers to adopt the observance of True Buddhism.

And that, in and of itself, indicates that what they are referring to as "True Buddhism" is nothing but a variety of fascism that is being force upon people through abusive methods. Look at the violent terminology - that tells you everything you need to know.


This is a journal article, a scholarly paper on the topic. If you can handle that sort of thing, I invite you to peruse it and post your reactions and perspectives.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2013 02:52PM by TaitenAndProud.

That post ^ timed out before I could complete my edits. Here's my final addition:

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Though shakubuku was generally associated exclusively with Soka Gakkai, some scholars have noted that some Nichiren sects outside of Soka Gakkai use that term to indicate their forms of proselytizing activities. Tanaka Chigaku, a Nichiren priest of the Meiji era whose ideas were later adopted by prominent members of the Japanese military, advocated the forced conversion of people in countries outside Japan, and defined such activities as shakubuku. The whole earth was to be united around Japan, using "the Lotus Sutra and the sword." Japan, with its "unbroken line" of Emperors inherited from Jimmu, had a unique destiny to "guide and induce every country in the world" to accept the teachings of Nichiren. Tanaka was renowned as a fanatical Japanese nationalist, a monk who put the worship of the Emperor and the promotion of the Japanese state ahead of loyalty to Buddhist practice. He wrote that there was great danger in such "impure things as Chinese thoughts or foreign theories that deform the basis of the State", and that hope lay in the "refinement of Japanese purified imports" to uphold a great and "pure" Japanese power. It was members of the Japanese military in the 1920s and 1930s who sought to implement this vision across East Asia.

Let us not forget that the infamous Rape of Nanking took place in the 1930s as well O_O

While we can vilify Tanaka Chigaku for "putting worship of the Emperor and the promotion of the Japanese state ahead of loyalty to Buddhist practice," we cannot overlook that his attitudes and recommendations were *completely* consistent with Nichiren's teachings and, in fact, based upon them. We are under no obligation to sugarcoat the fascist attitude and tendencies of Nichiren out of any misplaced "political correctness". Why should we not call a spade a bloody shovel??

There was yet more done by Japanese Army.

A Buddhist Temple in China was use as a site by the Unit 731 -- which infected villages with airborne bubonic plague.

[www.google.com]

Reading the links may keep you up at night.

When indoctrinated with ideologies of superiority, and trained to operate in groups, our cognitive talents debased by the ideology, are united with pack mentality.

We become the most dangerous of creatures.

"There are many wonders /terrors but none as wonderful / terrible as
man.” Antigone by Sophocles

The Greek word ta
deina can mean either “wonderful” or “terrible.”

War = atrocities. No matter who's on what side. I read a report that the first rape by Allied troops following the D-Day invasion took place a mere 25 minutes after the Allied troops first made landfall.

It's significant to me that the moral high ground position claimed by the SG/SGI with regard to the priesthood is that first president Makiguchi and second president Toda both went to prison - Makiguchi died there, a martyr - protesting Japan's participation in WWII. Yet here in the US, the SGI-USA carefully avoided criticizing the US's invasion of sovereign Iraq, a clear act of imperialism and war no less despicable than Japan's entry into WWII.

Moral high ground?? Who needs it??

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War = atrocities. No matter who's on what side. I read a report that the first rape by Allied troops following the D-Day invasion took place a mere 25 minutes after the Allied troops first made landfall.

War is pack mentality, taken to the extremes.

This is what the Gakkai Cult Org. brainwashing does to you:

Taken from lotusflowersgi.blogspot.com/

Reprise [www.youtube.com].

Mis-fortune babies = Breast / bottle fed Gakkai Cult Kool-aid from birth = Mental child abuse and lifelong enslavement to cult org. shackles (or less, hopefully, if they are able to think for themselves someday).

****

For all the $oka Gakkai Mis-Fortune Babies out there,

“Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.” - Richard Dawkins

[www.youtube.com]

Do not blindly and unthinkingly accept what is fed to you from others, even your parents. DO NOT pass on the nonsense to your own children. Stop the vicious and malicious cycle, starting with yourself (it's your responsibility).


- Hitch

I encourage my children to express their own opinions. When they disagree with me, I listen to their argument and am often convinced to change my perspective. I thus empower my children, via their intellect. I don't think they will ever be comfortable being dominated by an authoritarian structure, but time will tell. The evangelical Christians have targeted my son, but he's 16 now, and I think they are mistaken if they think that his enjoyment of the various fun activities they promote will lead to him ceding control over his own life to their authority. But as I said, time will tell :)

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Hitch
This is what the Gakkai Cult Org. brainwashing does to you:

Taken from lotusflowersgi.blogspot.com/

This is a crime. In my country it is illegal to use the internet for pornography, it's illegal to paint on a naked baby SGI emblems or ads or whatever and post a photo in a blog. Please, someone here on this board would do me the favour and send information to Internet police office in the US.

Thank you.