I would suggest that anyone thinking about joining SGI approach it with extreme caution. I was a member for seven years, including two as a leader and deeply imbibed the Kool-Aid for most of that time. You can go to any anti-cult website - most of them will have a list of warning signs to be aware of, and SGI seems to meet most (if not all) of the criteria. I was defensive about being a cult-member myself and was suitably outraged at any suggestion that it might be a cult.
SGI is particularly insidious; they recruit heavily - the people who are most easily drawn in tend to be lonely and going through a particularly rough patch in their lives. The recruiter will suggest that you start doing the magical chant (they may even tell you that if it doesn't work, they'll quit their own practice) . . . your life will change. And, indeed, you'll notice good things will start to happen and you'll attribute it to your chanting; in truth, it will be just the normal cycle of good and bad things happening in anyone's life, but because you're looking for something to attribute to this good fortune to, you'll give credit to the chanting - that's called "confirmation bias," by the way. You'll share the good news with the recruiter, and you'll hear words similar to "omg, what a great benefit! Would you like to go to the next meeting and share it with the members? They would find it so encouraging!" And thus it begins. While Nichiren's teachings are purported to be the center of the practice, it's actually the president, Daisaku Ikeda's interpretations you'll be hearing. Mr. Ikeda is not a scholar - he probably has done some personal study of Nichiren's teachings, but he's probably not read any more of the Lotus Sutra than I have. This is a cult of personality . . . everything is about "sensei" and the organization and, while on the surface there's a lot of kumbaya and natter about caring for the members, it's about the numbers - members = dollars. A clear example: a member asked me about having a prayer session (toso) in her home, and I put it on the district schedule. She had recently lost her husband and was struggling to take care of two children; in her efforts to be both mom and dad for these kids, she'd missed a number of officially-sanctioned meetings. I was reprimanded by upper-level leaders for scheduling this prayer meeting, in large part because this woman had missed other meetings and needed to start attending them. I basically said "screw you," and kept the session on the schedule. This didn't go down well with the leadership and, after months of gradually noticing more and more cracks in the organization, I finally (and formally) resigned from the organization.
And your personal information? Believe me, they will hound you about coming to meetings, telling you that participating in activities will increase the benefits you already think you're getting from chanting. These meetings are vehicles to increase the level of mind control they're exercising.
You truly don't see it until you wake up and get the bad smell. The people you deal with on a district level are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, some of the kindest and sincere people you will ever meet. That's what makes it difficult to accept that this is a cult; nearly everyone you'll meet in the org truly does believe and have absolutely no personal agendas. They are all working towards the betterment of the organization, which they've been led to believe is fighting for world peace and human rights.
As far as transmitting Buddhism is concerned, a discussion of Shakyamuni Buddha came up in the last district meeting I attended. There are a number of Indian (subcontinent) members in that district and, apparently, the history of Buddhism and Shakyamuni are taught in the schools there along with some very fundamental tenets. I was absolutely stunned at the level of ignorance that long-time (40+ years) members had; after years of studying sgi-ism, they had absolutely no clue . . . after such a tight focus on Ikeda's interpretations, they were completely unaware of even the most basic historical teachings.
The finances are a blur (as a religious organization, they are not required to provide financial reports to maintain their non-profit status and they refuse to do so), but it's estimated that they bring in about 1.5 billion dollars a year. Not a penny of that goes into providing any kind of support services to its communities; when the tsunami occurred a couple of years ago (SGI is based in Japan), they didn't contribute a yen to the recovery, although a huge number of members were affected. Members were encouraged to help each other, and of course, chant. SGI does, however, contribute heavily to its own political party, the New Komeito. Ikeda himself has amassed a huge fortune and is rumored to be one of the most wealthy businessmen in Japan. Leaders at the national level receive generous salaries.
And, just to make this clear, I have no association with the temple, the priesthood or any nsa-related group. For those of you who don't know what I'm saying here, SGI has its own package of paranoia with these groups - up until the early 1990's SGI was Nichiren Shoshu of America (NSA). For reasons I won't go into here, there was a split and members who followed Ikeda were excommunicated. There's been bad blood between them ever since; NSA has been demonized because they "don't practice correctly" (which had nothing to do with the original split, so apparently everything was a-ok until then), they said nasty things about Ikeda (while SGI members were chanting feverishly for NSA to fail and accusing the priests of all kinds of unsavory things) and they tore down the Sho-Hondo (did they really? or did Ikeda have it torn down to blame the priesthood and gain more loyal members?) People who dissent with SGI on boards like this (and other places) are generally accused of being with the wicked temple and of planting anti-SGI and anti-Ikeda propaganda. I don't know how true that is, but I want to assure any staunch SGI members that I've never even met anyone who stayed with the temple.
It's not for me to tell someone to associate themselves with SGI or not, but PLEASE, do your homework and research as much as you can. Don't just talk to people who are members, but try to find people who've left and find out why. Just google "leaving soka gakkai" or "going taiten." You'll get a very different view of SGI than the path-to-true-happiness stuff you're going to hear from active members.
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