After Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment in India around 2,500 years ago, he began teaching others what he had realized, and the first Buddhist Order was founded. Among the many disciples who followed the Buddha was his cousin Devadatta. Eventually, Devadatta succumbed to his own weakness, and he turned against Shakyamuni. These are the highlights of his tale. Devadatta was a man of supreme evil, who conspired to take Shakyamuni’s…
The following is a translation of a thesis by Masahiro Kobayashi, research fellow at The Institute of Oriental Philosophy in Hachioji, Tokyo. It was published in the July 1993 issue of The Daibyakurenge, the monthly study journal of the Soka Gakkai in Japan. It was first published in English in the September 1993 issue of the Seikyo Times. Nichiren Daishonin submitted “On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace…
By the Association for the Reformation of Nichiren Shoshu and the Association of Youthful Priests Dedicated to the Reformation of Nichiren Shoshu The following article is based on a treatise presented in 1993 to the Soka Gakkai Headquarters from the Association for the Reformation of Nichiren Shoshu and the Association of Youthful Priests Dedicated to the Reformation of Nichiren Shoshu. The authors of…
The priesthood’s emphasis on the direct worship of the Dai-Gohonzon over worship of one’s personal Gohonzon completely contradicts its own tradition. Throughout the history of Taiseki-ji, the successive high priests transcribed Gohonzon so that believers could practice the Daishonin’s Buddhism without directly praying to the Dai-Gohonzon. Hori Nichiko, the fifty-ninth high priest and renowned scholar of the history of Nichiren Buddhism, explained that the Dai-Gohonzon was intended to “be kept in…
SGI President Ikeda has been submitting peace proposals to the United Nations since 1983. They cover a broad range of topics and offer solutions to the challenges facing humankind. In some of them, he has addressed the nature of the conflict between the SGI and the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood and religion in general. The following excerpts are from those proposals. 1996 Peace Proposal— Increasingly, people around the world are…
On Nov. 28, 1991, an event of unprecedented magnitude in the history of Buddhism occurred. The Nichiren Shoshu priesthood, led by High Priest Nikken, excommunicated 10 million lay believers of the Soka Gakkai International. For the priesthood, they ceased to be one of the largest, global Buddhist schools. For the SGI, it was the birth of spiritual independence. Conditioned by centuries of government-sanctioned power over the lives of Japanese…
On Nov. 28, 1991, Nichiren Shoshu High Priest Nikken Abe excommunicated the ten million members of the Soka Gakkai International, which comprised about ninety-nine percent of all Nichiren Shoshu believers. Introduction For some 700 years, the priesthood has been charged with the responsibility to protect the Dai-Gohonzon and perpetuate the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin. The mission of the SGI—since its inception in 1930 (as the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai)—has been…
OUT OF CONTEXT: MANIPULATING THE TEACHINGS In a sense, religious scripture is not absolute. That is, different people may derive different inspiration or act differently in response to the same text or passage. Upon reading a religious teaching, some may respond with selfless love and compassion, others may behave arrogantly, and still others lash out destructively. This is perhaps why Nichiren Daishonin states that actual proof—the reality of how…
—SGI President Ikeda (Sept. 28, 2001 World Tribune) “Justice only shines when we challenge and triumph over evil. I cannot emphasize enough, however, that bloody, hate-filled revenge is utterly foreign to Buddhism. As a famous passage from an early Buddhist text says, ‘Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by not hating; this is an eternal truth’ (The Dhammapada, p. 8). Nichiren Daishonin, though the…
“Please allow me to introduce myself,” says The Devil in the Rolling Stones’ classic tune “Sympathy for the Devil.” Unfortunately, devils are not usually so obvious. By nature, they are devious and hard to identify. In addition, our powers to discern good and evil are diminished by two things: our own ignorance or delusion and the cunning of “the devil himself.” In Nichiren Buddhism “devils” symbolize a function of…