"Since you don't understand the true meaning of the Lotus Sutra you do not have the power to attract followers" -- SGI Senior Leader Eric Toro

Etoro: The truth is, you don't know anything about organizing and running a global campaign for the sake of Kosen Rufu. You don't even understand the true meaning of the Lotus Sutra. Since you don't understand the true meaning of the Lotus Sutra you do not have the power to attract followers, much less promote a state of unity, of growth and development. You're just whistling in the wind, and talking out of your hat about things you don't even understand.

You practice a provisional teaching. The manifest effect of all provisional teachings by their very nature is a partial enlightenment, not a universal enlightenment, a gradual approach spanning numerous kalpas to achieve and one where wisdom and reality are seen as separate phenomena. Your view is hopelessly flawed.

You need to stop pointing fingers and start chanting a daimoku of oneness of self and other and the spirit of many in body yet one in mind. When you start chanting like this, you will find that the only enemy is in your own mind of deluded views."

Me: Nichiren had but a handful of followers. Does that mean that he too failed to understand the true meaning of the Lotus Sutra?

Nichiren states:

"Even those people who commit the five cardinal sins, the ten evil acts, or innumerable other wrongdoings may attain the way if only their faculties are keen. Devadatta and Angulimala represent such people. And even those of dull faculties may attain the way, provided they are free of misdeeds. Chudapanthaka is an example. The faculties of ordinary people like ourselves are even duller than those of Chudapanthaka. We are unable to discern the colors and shapes of things, as if we had a sheep’s eyes. In the vast depths of our greed, anger, and foolishness, we commit the ten evil acts every day, and though we may not commit the five cardinal sins, we also perpetrate offenses similar to these daily.

Moreover, every single person is guilty of slander of the Law, an offense exceeding even the ten evil acts or the five cardinal sins. Although few people slander the Lotus Sutra with actual words of abuse, there are none who accept it. Some appear to accept the sutra, but their faith in it is not as deep as their faith in the Nembutsu or other teachings. And even those with profound faith do not reproach the enemies of the Lotus Sutra. However great the good causes one may make, or even if one reads and copies the entirety of the Lotus Sutra a thousand or ten thousand times, or attains the way of perceiving three thousand realms in a single moment of life, if one fails to denounce the enemies of the Lotus Sutra, it will be impossible to attain the way. To illustrate, it is like the case of someone in the service of the imperial court. Even though he may have served for a decade or two, if he knows someone to be an enemy of the emperor but neither reports him to the throne nor shows personal animosity toward him, all the merit of his past services will be thereby negated, and he will instead be charged with an offense. You must understand that the people of this age are slanderers of the Law. (This is the second.)

....During this period, people neither uphold the precepts nor break them; only those without precepts fill the country. Moreover, it is called a defiled age, an age rife with disorder. In an uncorrupted age, called a pure age, wrong is discarded while right is observed, just as crooked timber is planed according to the mark left by a thread stretched straight. During the Former and Middle Days of the Law, the five impurities began to appear, and in the Latter Day, they are rampant. They give rise to the great waves of a gale, which not only beat against the shore, but strike each other. The impurity of thought has been such that, as the Former and Middle Days of the Law gradually passed, people transmitted insignificant erroneous teachings while destroying the unfathomable correct teaching. It therefore appears that more people have fallen into the evil paths because of errors with respect to Buddhism than because of secular misdeeds.

Now the two thousand years of the Former and Middle Days of the Law have passed, and it has been more than two hundred years since the Latter Day began. Now is the time when, because the impurity of thought prevails, more people fall into the evil paths with the intention of creating good causes than they do by committing evil. As for evil acts, even ignorant people, if they recognize them for what they are, may refrain from committing them. This is like extinguishing a fire with water. But people think that good deeds are all equal in their goodness; thus they adhere to lesser good and do not realize that, in doing so, they bring about major evil..."

He goes on to say,

"Consequently, since their teachings are no match for mine, they resort to sheer force of numbers in trying to fight against me."

and

"Yet, for some reason, my attackers failed to kill me; thus I have survived until now. "

This has only strengthened my faith in the Lotus Sutra. The fourth volume of the sutra says, “Since hatred and jealousy toward this sutra abound even when the Thus Come One is in the world, how much more will this be so after his passing?” The fifth volume states, “It [the Lotus Sutra] will face much hostility in the world and be difficult to believe.” In Japan there are many who read and study the Lotus Sutra. There are also many who are beaten in punishment for attempting to seduce other men’s wives or for theft or other offenses. Yet not one person has ever suffered injury on account of the Lotus Sutra. Therefore, the upholders of the sutra in Japan are not yet worthy of these sutra passages. I alone have read the sutra with my entire being. This is the meaning of the passage that says, “We care nothing for our bodies or lives but are anxious only for the unsurpassed way.” I am therefore the foremost votary of the Lotus Sutra in Japan." (Encouragement to a Sick Person)

Nichiren teaches in another writing that the True Teachings of Buddhism are ALWAYS preceded by the provisional teachings. Therefore, it is not possible that the SGI are the True Teachings while our teachings are mere provisional teachings. 

As far as the wealth or numbers of the Soka Gakkai being proof of its righteousness, the organization and monies of the Catholic Church dwarf those of the SGI. Does that make their teachings correct? Kosen Rufu means the widespread propagation of the Lotus Sutra, not the widespread propagation of Ikedaism or SGI.

The money collecting activities of the Soka Gakkai and the more than two hundred vice presidents of the SGI, many earning more than $400,000.00 a year or more to spread and teach Buddhism [which Shakyamuni Buddha and Nichiren Daishonin did for a bowl of food or rice], is proof of your depravity. You are phony Buddhists. Our teachings are true because they are Nichiren Daishonin's teachings and his alone.