Soka Gakkai replaces President Akiya with Harada

It's time this creepy cult was shown up for what it is...

 

The same old recycled half-truths and flat-out lies about baby eating and the like?

Meanwhile, as much of the gaijin population foams at the mouth every time the Gakkai are mentioned, stories like this:

http://www.mutantfrog.com/2006/11/01/pm-shinzo-abe-a-cult-member/

go almost unnoticed.

 

This page contains information The Rick A. Ross Institute has gathered about Soka Gakkai:
http://www.rickross.com/groups/gakkai.html

What is "Jiyuno Toride" ?

The Victims of Soka Gakkai Association was formed in order to inform the world about the reality of Soka Gakkai, its anti-social activities and infringements on human rights, and to provide assistance to those who have suffered or are currently suffering from the distress associated with membership in Soka Gakkai:
http://www.toride.org/eindex.html

 

For so quickly illustrating my point.

 

It's those thoroughly evil Thetans at America's Public Broadcasting System again spreading those vicious lies (lies I tell you!) about Soka Gakkai!!:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week635/feature.html#

BTW, what's this about "baby eating"?!

 

You have a connection to Soka Gakkai?

 

Let me step in... I don't have one, nor want one.
Yes, they can be pushy, often too interested in money and numbers
but there are some great people amongst them.

Let's not speak in cliches on this issue. We either discuss it
without reference to inflammatory sites, none of which seem
entirely trustworthy, nor unfounded broadsides.
They do a lot of good for the world's poor and while I'm no fan
of Ikeda, Kanzaki was a very responsible and trustworthy politician.
Pity he's stepped down.

 

"it's anti-social activities"

That's a new one.

 

...that article had spelt "shakubuku" correctly. Still, at least it's from a reputable source, and there's definitely been issues at Soka Uni in the USA. The funny thing is, there's lots of valid criticisms I can think of that people could and in fact should make, but instead we just get the same old stories.

Oh, the baby-eating - I've heard just about everything else, including that the president has bodyguards packing heat when he's out and about in Tokyo.

And I'm a member, as you probably have guessed.

 

Similar to my experience. I find them
to be very decent, caring people.
As I'd mentioned, too interested
in numbers. So show me an organized religion
which isn't?

 

I myself have a few "decent, caring" friends that are caught up in Reverend Moon's Unification Church/Federation for World Peace- I get along with them on a personal basis, but that doesn't blind me to the danger that Moon's group poses.

The same holds true for my "decent, caring" Scientology friend who I successfully deprogrammed some years ago.



Do you mean like that centuries-old blood libel against the Jews? Perhaps you're following the German Scientologists' lead and comparing the Japanese public's apprehension about SGI with 1930s Nazi oppression...

 

 

I myself have had plenty of "very decent, caring" friends that have been caught up in the Reverend Moon's Family Federation for World Peace and Unification:
http://www.rickross.com/groups/moonie.html
as well as (the ultimate destructive cult) Scientology:
http://www.rickross.com/groups/scientology.html
I "got along" with those individuals fine, but I wasn't blinded to the real danger that these groups pose.
..Which is why I strongly suggest that you all begin with Rick Ross' site. I find it immensely helpful in my side hobby of monitoring such groups:

http://www.rickross.com/groups/gakkai.html

A database of information about cults, destructive cults, controversial groups and movements. The Rick A. Ross Institute of New Jersey (RRI) is a nonprofit public resource with a vast archive that contains thousands of individual documents. RRI on-line files include news stories, research papers, reports, court documents, book excerpts, personal testimonies and hundreds of links to additional relevant resources. This database is well-organized for easy access and reference.

 

Well that's good for you...A man of wide experience. Perhaps you'd like
to widen it even further and leave the prejudice out?
For that's the undertone... If you can't quickly sort the religiosity
from the person's character, then it speaks volumes about your own.
Dangerous? Not my experience at all. A cult? Only If you read the sites you've
recommended. Sorry, I couldn't take them very seriously.

Just what credentials do you have in this 'deprogramming' area?
Given that on these sites, we can be absolutely anybody we want
to be, I'll have to take your word for it.
Gotta tell you I'm none too impressed with your arguments so far...

 

Okey-dokey. You rely solely on your personal "experience", and I'll continue to pore through the:

news stories, research papers, reports, court documents, book excerpts, personal testimonies and hundreds of links to additional relevant resources


I simply collected a lot of newspaper/magazine clippings from the local public library, showed them to my friend and had a long chat about why he should leave Scientology. I'm quite proud of it, though I've never been able to convince my Moonie friends to leave the Unification Church.


That's quite alright. The point is to provide the information to people before they're taken in by one of these groups. I don't pretend that I can deprogram an SGI member through the JapanToday discussion boards...

 

OK you're probably Rick Ross, himself trying to promote his silly site, but we just don't buy it!

Nelson Mandela's still listed as a terrorist along with the African National Congress as a terrorist organization on the US State department's terrorist list, but does any conscious person really think that nelson mondela is a terrorist?

If you do, you need to stay off the weed, it seriously illigal in Japan, if you are even in Japan, which you probably aren't.

Over 200 institutions of higher learning don't give honorary doctorates (which Daisaku Ikeda has recieved) to people, if any of these insane lies that you try to guote are true.

Yes we've all heard the lies:

He's raped people...

He's..... friends with Kim Il Jung

He was friends with OM (who tried to kill him with sarin gas)....

Ask just one of the over 200 universities that have given him a honorary doctorate degree if they didn't do a thourough backgroud check on him, before they gave him the degree.

You will learn if you do a thourough backround check that all of these lies are completely baseless.

But of course you would rather waist all of our time with misinformation we already know isn't true.

 

couldn't these people take up stamp collecting or pachinko?

 

http://www.daisanbunmei.co.jp/deai/e_files/list_01.html

Call one of those university and ask to speak with who every is in charge of honorary doctorate degrees and ask them what criteria do they use to screen candidates to see if they are people the should really be honoring.

You will find they do a lot more research that Mr. Rick Ross, and are much more credible sources if you want to know the truth.

 

Oh my goodness gracious, how did you ever find out?
tangential StrawMan Alert!
Now, you're scaring me, "bethechange"- not only do you know that I'm really Rick Ross, but that I'm a retired career foreign service officer in the American State Department! I'd better cancel my credit cards...

Yep, thanks for the official Ikeda-worshiping site.


Well, if George W. Bush can get an honorary degree then I guess we'll let Daisaku Ikeda have one.


You mean American university professors don't(or can't?) pore through news stories, research papers, reports, court documents, book excerpts, personal testimonies and hundreds of links to additional relevant resources??!

That's American "education" for you...

 

But too bad all the court documents all say case dropped or not guilty

 

Yes, thank you for correcting me. Master Ikeda has indeed racked up plenty of "honourary" degrees from various countries.

oh, really??
Still a lot of research left for me to do, but I'd imagine that it would be rather difficult to prosecute an entity that now is currently in the ruling coalition in Japan...(it's nearly impossible to even publish anything critical of Scientology)

As for court cases, well, the American congress seems to have taken a rather dim view of your group:

Felonies and Favors: A Friend of the Attorney General Gathers Information from the Justice Department

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/chearings/106hcat4.html
http://www.rickross.com/reference/gakkai/gakkai14.html
Executive Summary

 

Well, I've heard of SGI's "Sho Kosugi Pray for Death" (1985)rantings against this or that Buddhist priest/monk, but here we get to see the bashing on display on the JapanToday discussion board.

I'm telling you, "bethechange", you had better leave Kobo-Daishi's Shingon-shu out of this! I won't stand for it!

 

It's funny how people can claim the SGI members can't take critisizm about Daisaku Ikeda, but we see one mention of another Buddhist group, and they "won't stand for it"

Well I didn't mention Kobo Daishi, but since you did, I be happy to quote many things that Nichiren Daishonin wrote about him later.

But for now let's get back to the issue. Actually Poston was hired by a lady in Washington DC who was doing a counter suit against Mr. (Nikken) Abe, who was sueing her for a libel suit, when she helped him get out of being arrested for having a dispute over payments with a prostitute. SGI had nothing to do with either suit. But yes the defendent, who won both cases against Mr. Abe was an SGI member, but what a private attorney for a private client, who won both the case Mr. Abe brought against her and her counter suit is old news that is not even worth bringing up. Yes the paranoid US state department is curious about any organization that impowers the common people, The SGI has been labeled Communist, because Daisaku Ikeda had many dailouges with Russian Leaders since the 70s.

 

It was known as the Seatle incident (when Abe hired the prostitutes while on a trip to open a temple in Seatle) so it wasn't washington DC, it was washington state.

We'll get back to Kobo Daishi later after breakfast.

 

who, uh, imported Shingon/Zhen-yen Buddhism from China...
Oh no, please don't! *Sigh*...I suppose the next esoteric Buddhist you'll bash will be the Dalai Lama...how do you feel about him?

(and how's breakfast?)

 

I can't wait until him and Daisaku Ikeda do a dailogue.

If any of you go out a read one of the many published daialogues of Daisaku Ikeda, you will find only a quack could consider him a "cult" leader.

Moderator: It is not necessary to list all these books. Readers, please get the discussion back on topic.

 

You would think this was the "Rick Ross" not the "Criss Cross" discussion board. Any mention of anything about the SGI and all you get is kooky comments about some kook in the US named Rick Ross, and his paranoid friends in the US state department.

The only topic here should be the article that there is a new head of the SGI named Harada, which is great news, even though the former head of the SGI, Akiya was a great guy too. Everything else is just rubbish.

Moderator: Readers should focus their comments on what the change of leadership will mean for Soka Gakkai.

 

Out of interest, have you given them any money?

And, what does this change of leadership mean your you?

 

...but, just like members of other religious organisations, I do of course contribute a modest amount (around 1% of my salary).

As to what the change means to me, probably rather little in the day-to-day scheme of things. I don't really know much about the new guy to pass any sort of judgement.

 

Anyway back to the point about law suits, if you do your research you will find that one after another the lawsuits and legal attacks against the Soka Gakkai have been proven as frivolous and lacking of evidence and in most cases brought by people which political aims.

From the Osaka incident (July 1957), when young Daisaku Ikeda turned himself in, to head off attacks against his Sensei, the 2nd SGI President Jose Toda, he was later released and all charges against him and the SGI were dropped, on to the more ludicrous cases of today of rape, where only yellow journalist report care to mention, though they fail to mention any case numbers, and show no evidence, all have been proven false.

Just as Nichiren was pardoned after enduring 2 exhiles and exhonorated, SGI is following in the same footsteps.

 

shibumi (Nov 10 2006 - 15:41)

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week635/feature.html#

It was good to see many of my old friends and fellow graduates on the video link. Many of them are in their masters dregree programs around the world and other are working for NGOs and involved in other great endevors.

 

"...but, just like members of other religious organisations, I do of course contribute a modest amount (around 1% of my salary)."

Sorry for the person question. However you should know that only *some* organisations expect money, and even fewer of them expect some sort of tithe from your salary.

Unfortunately I remain *extremely* suspicious of religious organisations that expect regular money from their members.

 

"...but, just like members of other religious organisations, I do of course contribute a modest amount (around 1% of my salary)."

Sorry for the person question. However you should know that only *some* organisations expect money, and even fewer of them expect some sort of tithe from your salary.

Unfortunately I remain *extremely* suspicious of religious organisations that expect regular money from their members.

 

...anomolies where they are none! There's nothing "expected" about it, and I donate money freely and privately, and it's a lot less pressured than, say, when I was a kid and we used to get an envelope pushed through the door for money to a local Xian church when we weren't even regular church-goers.

I only used the 1% of salary to give a scale, not as a representation of some pledge I'd taken.

Oh, and all churches I've been to have had a prominant collection plate at the front door - are you extremely suspicious of them?

 

I've only been there for a few frunerals though. What a trip. The Catholic one freaked me out.

 

OK, point taken.

As an athiest, I don't see the point of joining organisations such as SG. If it's their charity work I was interested in I'd help those in need directly. People do like to be part of something bigger than themselves however, be it any number of religous groups, cults, the military, whatever. I am happy being part of my family.

Peace. Anom*A*ly.

 

Well, I don't have the faintest idea what Soka Gakkai's replacing Mr. Akiya with Mr. Harada will mean, just as I'm not privy to the power politics of Scientology or the Moonies.

Interesting that you bring up Catholicism. It's a good case study in how one can criticize the Legionaries of Christ ( http://www.rickross.com/groups/loc.html ) group without criticizing the Church as a whole, just as one can criticize Soka Gakkai w/o having to drag Nichiren Buddhism into it.


Well, one can't even joinSGI without purchasing the quasi-Amway startup-kit- the "Gohonzon". And from what I've read, once you stop donating "freely" (and subscribing to the obligatory newsletter) your phone will be ringing off the hook.
. . . . . . .

Not if they don't harass me if I don't give an offering. That's one of the key differences between a religion and a cult.

 

Funny I stopped donating (which was never asked of me either and I did it on a very sporatic pariodic basis) and I stopped my subscriptions to the monthly magazine of SGI-USA, "Living Buddhism" and the bi-weekly newspaper of SGI-USA "The World Tribune", when I attended Soka University of American for four years and I never got any calls. I stopped my subscription, not because I didn't want to read their great magazine and newpaper (I read them almost everyday) but I stopped them because there was a free copy in the Soka University Library's magazine floor, along with Hundreds of other magazines and newspaper, like the Christian Science Monitor, which I could read any time I wanted to, except I never had the time, because I was too busy studying the Bible, the Koran, the Dao, Confusism (and every other -ism), along with Plato, Aristatle, Kant, and a whole bunch of other boring writers (some not so boring). But my favorite writer, whom I went to Soka University for, Daisaku Ikeda, I never read any of his writing. Yet when I tried to bring his writings into a few of my classes, the mostly non-SGI faculty steared me away from it.

So much for all the bull about SGI founded institutes trying to promote their religion, if any thing they try to keep it out of thier institutions.

It's funny that Daisaku Ikeda often says "Education will be the religion of the 21st Century" not Buddhism.

Think about that one......

 

foreigners like myself despise sg because the group (a supposed religion) is directly joined at the hip with politics - positively scary. My wife used to get calls from an aquaintance at election times telling her to vote for the sg candidates in our area ... wanted to reach through the phone and throw a bucket of cold water on her simple-minded head. But of course, this is Japan so we have to be polite even to cultists.

By the way, honorary degrees signify absolutely nothing.

And someone, please tell me clearly : what good works does sg do for anyone in the world?
Everything they do outside of Japan reaks of a giant PR campaign .. ..Ikeda must have a million frequent flyer miles ... I am sick of those gross, glossy, self-produced magazine cover ads on the train. What a buffoon. All this group cares about is money, power ... and more members.

Aside from their members/potential members, they could do a lot for the poor/sick/homeless here in Japan ... I see them doing absolutely nothing for anyone here who's not handing over cash to them. Not a very Buddhist lifestyle. The holy man cared absolutely nothing for cash.
Think about it.

 

Soka gakkai was bashed as being home of the sick and poor in the early days of it's growth. Yes many tens of thousand of sick and poor people in Japan were flocking to the SGI in those days after hearing of all the thousands of people who had joined, only to see their health and financial Karma drastically improved from Chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

Now those tens of thousands who joined in the beginning are some of the richest most successful people in Japan, no wander they decided to get into politics isn't that what all rich and successful people do in every country.

If you would just ask any SGI member who has been a member for longer than 30 years, like my one extremely poor parents, you will hear their lives' stories of extreme poverty to now decent living.

The fact is the SGI has done more than any other organization to change the Karma of the sick and poor in Japan than any other organization. We believe you can give a person a fish and feed them for one day, you can show them how to change their Karma and they can feed themselves for the rest of their lives.

I'll get back to the other questions, which all can be easily answered tomorrow, as I have a very important SGI band practice to go to now.

Peace

 

I only have a minute so I'll be brief until later.

Any one who is in Japan can go to any prefectural library and go to their pariodical section and search thier microfilm from the 50s and 60s and see all the news papers and magazine that the only thing they could find to write negative about the soka gakkai was that it was full of the most desitude people in Japan "the sick and the poor" that went on for a decade or so then as the income level and health of the majority of SGI members drastically improved the were left in limbo to find some other critizism to make. Then after all the "poor and sick" SGI members started getting involved in trying to change their societies which is a big part of Buddhist practice (Practice for others) the new critisism started to be the SGI is the new "rich and powerful" that is "trying to take over Japan".

It is almost commical. Luckily the newspapers, like in other countries expect the public readers to be suffering from historical amnesia, so they just buy what ever the corporate spin doctors want to tell them.

OK for those that are not interested in going that far back as I begin to anwser the other question (which is going to be extremely long, and the moderator is going to delete most of it as he or she always does, when I have to give a full explication for those who don't want to do thier own researech and instead just throw out hear say and fantacy).

You can go back in the microfirm to News Articles of the Kobe earthquake, and you will find that the Japanese government was a feckless in dealing with a major disaster as the Bush administration was neglagent and incompitent when it came to Katrina.

If it wasn't for the intense grass roots mobilization of SGI members and the use of their many community centers which were somehow saved from most of the damage thousands of more people would have died.

Got to get ready for work now, there will be much much more to cover about the SGI contribution to society, but will start from Japan and fan out to the rest of the globe. I hope you all are prepared for a book.

 

Chocolate wrote:



I quess the moderator doesn't want me to tell you about all the institutes that Daisaku Ikeda and the SGI helped found around the world, as he or she keep deleting my post about them.

So you are going to have to do your own research on:

The Min-on Concert Association, International
The Victor Hugo House of Literature, in France
The Amazon Ecological Research Center for the 21st Century, in Brazil
The Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, on Harvard Univerity Campus, USA
The Florida Nature and Culture Center
Soka University of America (2 campuses in California)
Soka University, Japan
Soka Women's College
Soka High Schools (Tokyo and Osaka)
Soka Kindergardens (Milasia, Hong Kong and a few others..)

Moderator: Readers, please do not go off on tangents. Please focus your comments on the change of leadership at Soka Gakkai and what it means for the organization.

 

Ok if we have to keep our comments only to the 2 paragraph article, I will address one part of the article:



While many members of the Soka Gakkai do vote for the New Komeito Party, along with many non-Soka Gakkai members, it should not to be confused with the original "Komeito Party" that was founded by Daisaku Ikeda on very progressive ideals, to clean up corruption in government (Komeito translates as "Clean-government") and to twart off intense political attacts against the Soka Gakkai at the time, which led to the Osaka Incident (the false imprisonment of Daisaku Ikeda, later exhanorated).

If the government wasn't so corrupt in Japan, the Soka Gakkai wouldn't have had to create a party to protect itself from that corrupt government and to protect the people of Japan against that corrupt govermnent.

People confuse the "seperation of church and state" claus in the constitution, written by the US, which forbits the Government from getting involved in regilion, or indorsing one religion over the other, not the other way around.

That is why Pat Robinson and the Christian Coalition is able to get involved in, US politics. The US Constitution, like Japan's only forbids the government from endorsing or mandating one form of religion. It does not forbid religion people from influencing or getting involved in politics, which is their legal right like every other group or citizen.

It must clearly be noted that the "New Komeito Party, as apposed to the original "Komeito Party" has no direct ties to the Soka Gakkai, even though it is supported by many of it's members.

What this means is that the New Komeito Party, is allowed to go against all Buddhist ideals in endorsing the corrupt Koizumi's support of Bush's illigal war on Iraq, and even though millions of SGI members were vocally against this move, the New Komeito Party, was able to thum it's nose at us.

But we are still activily petitioning the New Komeito Party to cut off support for Bush's illigal war, as a new petition is being cerculated out of Sendai Japan amoungst SGI members, that they won't support any New Komeito Politition who doesn't openly oppose Japan's support of Bush's illegal war.

 

i am an american, jewish but not religious (the typical "cultural jew," i would say). my wife is japanese and a member of sgi. i have no problem with that. if participation in sgi activities is positive for her, then that's great. however, i have been to 2 meetings—one a town hall sort of affair with many local sgi members present, one a smaller gathering at a neighbor's house—and i was COMPLETELY turned off by what i experienced. i simply don't pray that way. at the "town meeting," everyone gathered around a large tv screen to watch a high-level sgi meeting, at which sgi music groups performed and daisaku ikeda spoke. most of the discussion was devoted to how many new members had joined various local chapters, and all i saw was a bunch of cheerleaders reacting with wild praise for anything ikeda-san said. it was an exercise in uncritical thinking. i hate to say it, but it brought to mind the rallies of hitler youth more than anything else i could think of. i'm not a fan of any cult of personality, and it doesn't matter how wonderful the person in question is. i would say the same thing about people uncritically cheering jesus, or martin luther king, or gandhi. it's dangerous, and it's NOT a force for enlightenment or positive change. the neighborhood meeting was simijlar, focussed almost entirely on "success stories" of recruiting new members. i despise prosletyzing. let all people inspire through their actions alone! honestly, it left me with a horrible taste in my mouth, and i have no intention of ever going to another meeting or other sgi function.

Moderator: Keep the discussion civil please.

 

That Soka Yakkai is hated and feared by a large proportion of the Japanese who are non-members. Ikeda-san's name, when mentioned at all, is voiced in a harsh whisper for fear of being overheard. The organization has done a pretty good job of intimidating a large number of people. During Koizumi's LDP-Komeito coalation government, no law got passed in this country without SG's prior approval. Follow the trail -- religion converted to money converted to political power. The US and Japan really have a lot in common, don't they?

 

All I can say is Thank You ... my sentiments exactly.

This group is a perversion of anything religious or spiritual - and thus a cult.

Weird, creepy, potentially dangerous ... and, in the end, quite sad that so many bright, earnest people would waste their energies with their mutual fawning over Ikeda ... when they could be out really helping others less fortunate than themselves. This is the only spiritual activity of any real value. This is the teaching of any real religious leader. This is so transparently not what sg is all about. My utter disgust with the fat bald one in Shinanomachi has no limits.

 

Any big orginization in the world is going to hated and feared by a lot, regarless of what type of organization it is, or if it's good or bad.

Take a bad orginization like Walmart, the large retail chain in the US, most people that don't shop their like me hate it.

Take another big organization that is a great organization like the United Nations, and you will find just as many people hate it, because they are lied to in the corporate media about it constantly.

It's a fact, the bigger an organization is the more, those who are not involved in it will hate it. It doesn't say anything about the organization, except that it's well known and it's big.

Name any big orginazation, whether a good or bad organization and you will find the exact same fact.

If it were a smaller organization and very few people knew about it, like the quakers there would be very few people who cared one way or another about.

If I wasn't an SGI member and 1 in 10 around me was, I would hate it too.

Unfortunately, it is only growing more and more around the world, which means you better start hating it more.

 

The more popular it gets, the more I have to hear it and the more I hate it.

If it wasn't popular and I didn't have to hear it all around me, I wouldn't care one way or the other.

Anything that is insignificate, no one is going to care about one way or another.

Take eye lice, you don't know they are all over everyones eyes, so you don't care one way or another.

But if eye lice were real big, you would be just as freaked out as you are about Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai.

This is how a person who thinks critically, would judge the merits of the individual biases.

what one person hates another likes, thats the way of the world.

 

The very funny thing is the more you critisize the Soka Gakkai as do the yellow journalist, the more the Soka Gakkai grows.

Funny, I've been in the Soka Gakkai for over 30 years and a leader for over 15 years and I've never heard of a "pray for death-Sho Kosugi" but please enlighten us.

Whether someone agrees with the Soka Gakkai or not or whether someone likes the soka gakkai or not, is completely irrelevant to the discussion which should be about the article, which says absolution nothing about whether people like, dislike, agree, or disagree with the Soka Gakkai or the Komeito.

If you guys don't like the Soka Gakkai, why do you keep promoting it on this website. You realize, many people who read this website all over the world, have never heard of the Soka Gakkai, but your critisizms will make them extremely currious and they will go out to find for themselves that the Soka Gakkai, whether you like them or not, is an extremely great organization, that is doing extremely great things in over 190 countries where it has extensive organization.

Moderator: Since you have been a member of Soka Gakkai for 30 years and a leader for 15, it should be easy for you to stay on topic, namely the new leadership and what it means for the organization.

 

SGI and the dogma it espouses is inherently oversimplistic and lowbrow. It has little or nothing to do with real Buddhism, which is why SGI was excommunicated from the Nichiren Shoshu sect. Since it is a lay organization, it has no right to claim tax exemption as a religious group, but no one has the guts to go after it.

 

I've been a member of the Soka Gakkai for over 30 years in Southern California and now almost 2 years in Japan and so far I haven't witness anything "cultish" about the Soka Gakkai, but hopefully you can enlighten us all about what you mean by "Cult" and "Cultish", because we just don't get your point.

Moderator: Readers, this line of discussion is not relevant. Your comments should focus on the new leadership.

 

Though SGI is a completely lay organization (which means we have no preists [clergy]) we are as ligitamate as any other religion, and of course entitled to the same rights of all religions.

The historical necessity in religion to have a preists (clergy) was only a historical nessecity, and is in no way a modern need for any relgion.

Moderator: Stay on topic please.

 

Now there are lots of cool Haradas in the Soka Gakkai!

We got Harada, Minoru, president of SGI
We got Harada, Koji, vice president of SGI, no relationship to the first Harada.
And we got Harada, Timothy, singer-song writer, 1st class graduate of Soka University of America, taking Tohoku by storm with his new band, no relation again to either of the other Haradas.

I think there is a sybolism in the Kanji, No?!?!?!?

This is for those who claim there is meaning in everything, even the most mondane things, like which way the wind blows, or which direction the water circulates as it's being flushed down the toilet:

"Hara" 原 means: Original or fundamental

and of course da ç”° (not the same as daugh as in "no daugh".): means: rice field

So if there is any meaning in the new emergence of the Haradas, maybe it's that the normal, common people (Harada in Japan is about as common or plain as Smith, or Wilson is in Enlish speaking countries) are now emerging from the earth!

 

I've only been studying the works of Nichiren Daishonin and Daisaku Ikeda for about the last 25 years. So far I've only been spell bound by how in sink it is was the most modern thinkers in all fields. But what have you ever read by the SGI that was "oversimplistic and lowbrow" except of cours the tabloid that love to bash anything that isn't garbage.

 

But your posts - the fruit of 25 years (?) of SGI study - pretty much confirm what Beelzebub wrote -

 

give us all one example!

 

What "dogma" are you refering to?
And what about it is "oversimplistic and lowbrow."

The question is, have any of you critics actually read any of it? If so, why can you never give a page number, a title, or a quote?

Are you refering to the 10-12 page peace proposal Daisaku Ikeda has written every year for the past 30 or so years to the UN, which is read to the General Assembly of the United Nations, which many of the top diplomat around the world, who read it and comment on it have said it usually takes them a few years of studying them to understand their timely importance. (much of which has been implimented by the UN to date.) It may be these that gained him the UN peace award, amoung other things.

Or are you refering to "Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei" (The Theory of Value-Creating Pedagogy) written by the founder of Soka Gakkai, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi?

Or are you refering to one of the hundreds of books that Daisaku Ikeda has authored or co-authored, with some of most preeminent world scholars, like historian Arnold Toynbee, Two time nobel prize winner, Linus Pauline, founder of peace studies Johan Galtung, etc.?

Or are you refering to the Burton Watson english translations of the works of Nichiren Daishonin?

Or are you refering to the Buddhist phylosophical ideas the Soka Gakkai teaches, such as: The Ten Worlds, The 3000 Realms in a single thought, the nine levels of counsciousness, the three existences, the idea of Jiyu (boddhisatva of the earth), the 3 stages of Buddhism (later, middle and former days of the law), Transmigration, or the ethos of symbiosis (we can go on and on)?

We would all be interested to know what you have read that you claim is "oversimplistic and lowbrow"? or is it what you read other say about what they too didn't read?

 

referring to the fact that $G fills the same gap in some unfortunate's lives as $cientology or Jehovah$ Witne$$e$?

 

about organized religions: never met one yet that pays its followers for all the time, work, sacrifice, loyalty etc. Rather, thay all seem to charge for the priviledge of slaving for them

 

I've been a member of SGI all my life. I've never been charged or paid. So what are you smoking Takuan. You know it's illegal here right!?

 

That gap in your head or your heart?

 

your limited time on this planet is worthless

mine is not

 

As you are touching your keyboard to type and I am touching mine we are touching. We are all connected!

Thank you for touching me Takuan, but now let's touch some people's lives and stop wasting your time with meaningless post, about something that is way beyond your comprehesion, as your posts suggest.

 

this section of Kyodo's extended version of this article is telling:

Soka Gakkai's third president, Daisaku Ikeda, 78, who is currently president of Soka Gakkai International, is widely regarded as the group's supreme leader.

The leadership reshuffle in Soka Gakkai follows a change in leadership of the New Komeito party in September. Akihiro Ota succeeded Takenori Kanzaki as party leader and Kazuo Kitagawa replaced Tetsuzo Fuyushiba as secretary general.

The change in leadership of the New Komeito party coincided with the replacement of Junichiro Koizumi as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and prime minister by Shinzo Abe.

Akiya has decided to rejuvenate Soka Gakkai's leadership ahead of elections for the House of Councillors and local elections next year, sources close to the organization said.

So there you have it. As with Soka Gakkai, there won't be a "change in leadership" in any other cult unless their Messiah/Living Buddha/Savior/Returning Lord and True Parent kicks the bucket. . .

 

also expect some blood-letting while the succession is sorted out

as for "touched", yes, some here are indeed touched

 

Although the directions say "post your opinion", you never fail to post mostly other people's opinions.

Well here's the opinion of life long member from the former Yugoslavia, myself, no quotes from tabloids here:

In the SGI, the only leader is your consciousness. Your ninth level of consciousness is called "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo". The historical Buddha Shayamuni said on his death bed, don't rely on a person, rely on the law.

The "law" as he explained in his final teaching of Buddhism is the Wonderful Law of the Lotus Blossom (Nam Myoho Renge Kyo).

Buddhism also teaching the importance of a mentor in your Buddhist practice.

Although I have considered Daisaku Ikeda (my own choose) my mentor in life, that won't change much after he dies, because I won't be able to finish reading all that he has written in this life time, and if I do, I can continue reading his many books over and over for encouragement, if I ever can finish reading all of them, which I doubt I will have time (I'll let my grandchildren read the rest).

A mentor in Buddhism, like daisaku ikeda's goal is to make his discipals greater than himself. His is constantly telling us SGI members that his hundreds of awards are meaningless to him, and his achievements in this life are only a fraction of what he expects us to achieve.

He is like the boxing couch in the movie "Rockie", he wants us to be greater boxers that he could ever be, so his job is to constantly encourage us.

The only "supreme leader" is that guy in Iran that the US government won't talk of, and instead they keep mentioning the threats from the President in Iran, who has no real power, he is just an administrative secretary of the government.

But this only goes to show how little people outside know about the leadership models of other organizations.

Peace to you, Shibumi. Go back to quoteing meaningless writers from the Corporate Press in the US.

 

Here it is: Usually you give us links. Shame on you for forgetting this time.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061109/kyodo/d8l9cd8o0.html

More trival things the article failed to mention, is that the grand father of Prime Minister Abe was the Japanese prime minister, Abe after World War II and grand father Abe was good friends with the late 2nd President of the Soka Gakkai, Josei Toda, which everyone said after he dies, the SGI is going to fall apart (of course we only experienced unpresident growth) and Toda is still our sensei as much as Ikeda is.

And also, which mentioning Koizumi the article should have talked about his long statement of praise for Daisaku Ikeda's 200th honorary doctorate degree after he left office.

He, like Abe both have great respect for the Soka Gakkai, as anyone who knows how much we are doing to change the world do.

 

Makiguchi, the first president, is still our sensei.
Toda, the second president, is still our sensei
the third president, Ikeda, will still always be our sensei.

If you study Buddhism, you will learn that life and death are just two phase, we go through in our endless cycle of life, and we chose with whom to be born and we choose where out of compassion to help suffering people.

They are always with us in all our actions and they always will, death won't change anything.

As Nichiren Daishonin wrote, Kosen Rufu will spread of 10 thousand year and more.

"You either active with the activist or sleeping with the sleepers" - from waiting for the great leap forward, by Billy Bragg.

Take notes from a girl, this is who you should use quotes, if you want us to take you seriously Shibumi.