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Sunday, June 4, 2017

Two personal experiences of SGI

  • 1.0 star rating
    11/28/2014
    EDIT: Since I wrote this review, a number of SGI members, who are not Yelpers and have no reviews, have reached out to me by messaging me here. Please know that I will block SGI members who reach out to me "just to talk" based on this Yelp review. This is a platform for user experience reviews. The below is one such review. Thanks.

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    SGI practitioners chant for material things. They also chant for non-material things. I believe there are issues with SGI.

    My personal experience lasted three years and went as follows:

    1. I visited the home of SGI practitioners.
    2. We chanted daimoku.
    3. There would be a talk session.
    4. Someone in the group talked about how evil Jews are.
    5. The Japanese people in the group (who had been with SGI for a long, long time) would enable the "evil Jews" and "Israel is evil" talk by stating, "Why are *they* like that?"
    6. I would counter the "evil Jews" moderator and tell him he didn't know what he was talking about, and let's switch the topic. Usually, he would then extol the virtues of Hamas. I wish I were making this up.
    7. Another time, we had a meeting on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and no one bothered to mention Martin Luther King Jr. At all. Daisaku Ikeda ALWAYS talks about MLKJr as if Ikeda wants to emulate him. It was bizarre that MLKJr. was overlooked. Or maybe this was part of the plan? When I spoke up and said, "I think we should remember that we are having this meeting on MLKJr. day and the right thing to do would be to mention him," a Japanese SGI member stood up almost school-marmy to ask me to be quiet. Again, bizarre.
    8. I had to complain about the meeting "topics" to higher ups at SGI. Nothing discussed on this issue or resolved.
    9. I then advised the higher ups that I was sending my SGI stuff to Japan, to Mr. Ikeda, with an explanation why.
    10. When I decided to leave SGI, I was followed on the train by SGI folks for several days. This had never happened before. I posted something on my social media channel about it, and it stopped.

    The person who recruited me, I found her posting tons of anti-Israel stuff on Facebook. I mean, really hateful, biased stuff. She is from Nigeria (doesn't the whole world have a bone to pick with THAT country?). I thought SGI was a loving, accepting, Buddha-like group. (Also -- I could be wrong, but I believe SGI's position is officially anti-Israel).

    Once, during a home visit, a Japanese SGI practitioner commented on my gas fireplace as being a "nice Jewish fireplace." I had never heard that expression before, but I was more shocked that the Japanese SGI lady would think that was a perfectly normal thing to say to another person.

    There are wonderful things about Nichiren Buddhism.SGI...I am not 100% sure about.

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