The following is a rebuttal to a salaried, top american SGI senior leader who posted for a very brief while on aol (you will see why he only posted for a short while in his conclusion). I believe
"Ken" is a 30 year member and on the SGI payroll for 22 years.
Ken: Here! Here! I couldn't begin to answer the questions that some ask on here. Not because I don't know the answers (maybe, maybe not), but because it's like sticking your foot in a fire. A long time ago I did this on Prodigy and found little satisfaction on saying the same things over and over again. If you don't like the SGI then ignore it, or if you really want to destroy it, come on back and try doing it from within.
Me: Without a reasonable argument reguarding the correctness of it's practice, I, and every thinking man who has left, will never rejoin. Just like Stoney, you rely on the mantra, "close, ignore, abandon", whenever anyone criticizes the SGI or it's President for life Ikeda.
Ken: If you have a serious question then accept the answer whether you like it or not.
Me: Is this a freudian slip or how you really feel as a top senior leader of the Gakkai? "Follow no matter what" echos through my head as a memory of all that was wrong with the many YMD campaigns I participated in, in my youth. The stench of this philosophy is still polluting the minds of the top SGI leaders as is clear from your statement.
Ken: You don't have to agree.
Me: No, just follow no matter what.
Ken: This attacking of individuals for some real or imagined transgression against puritanism is pure bunk.
Me: You and the other top leaders of SGI have brought it on yourselves. Nichiren's Buddhism is ultimately pure and true. What you are attempting to do to it is a real travesty.
Ken: I have to look deep inside myself to see if there are any "transgressions" and purge those before I start slinging mud at others.
Me: I guess Ikeda must have looked deeply inside of himself before slinging mud at the Taisekaji priests. Is there a monopoly on self reflection in the SGI?
Ken: There are some posts here that I find unbelievable because they are quoting texts as the truth that have been translated by one person or another who had his or her own views that certainly must have influenced the translation.
Me: I don't know what this has to do with mud slinging or self reflection but I must reply to your assertion. Many times we have used YOUR translations in the refutation of your doctrines. The many dozens of quotes and passages (100 +) from the Gosho I posted all point to the Eternal Shakyamuni as the Original Buddha and the subject of the Daishonin's veneration but you still persist in expounding the Nichiren as True Buddha doctrine. The SGI is not an honest organization. As far as the other translations we employ, there is, in my estimation, greater than 95% concordance with the Major Works. In those rare instances where they are in variance, I assert that it was a deliberate effort by the SGI advisors, to either alter or mistranslate certain passages and to include highly questionable footnotes in order to accord with Taisekaji doctrine.
Those few discordant passages and questionably authentic Gosho are not born out by the entire body of Gosho; They do not accord with the various other translations which accord quite well (Nichiren Shu, Kempon Hokke, independent scholar translators, and others). And they are heavily footnoted. Besides, why must a translation be heavily influenced by the views of the translator?
I maintain, there are objective and honest scholars whose only desire is (was) to render an accurate translation and in whom we can place our trust. Is your negativity to these translations a projection of what the SGI had done to the MW translations? Just as Kumarajiva's translation of the Lotus Sutra was most excellent, there are those translations of the Gosho more noteworthy than others. Nevertheless, the word Hombutsu, for example, in referring to Shakyamuni, remains the same whomever is doing the translation unless the person is totally dishonest or absolutely incapable.
Ken: Why there are so many revisionist historians in the west is that no one can agree on what "really" happened or what was "really" said hundreds or housands of years ago.
Me: The Bible, Koran, and Lotus Sutra have remained unaltered for millenia.The Goshos in Nichiren's hand are no different.
Ken: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!
Me: Because, I assert, you uphold Makiguchi's doctrine which has changed Kant's philosophy from "beauty, goodness and truth" to "beauty goodness and gain". you have thrown away the truth.
Ken: I have had an indication because I tried something almost thirty years ago that it works. After seeing a causal relationship to baring and curing some of my problems I began to believe.
Me: Why is this any different from the changes and "wittnessing" (experiences) brought about by strong faith in the Christian, Muslim, or Pure Land teachings? Nichiren advocated various criteria for actual proof. Foremost among these criteria is the proof of one's life as a votary of the Lotus Sutra, reading the Lotus Sutra with one's entire being and actualizing the principles and predictions contained within.
Ken: From there I was curious and sought some answers as to why. In the study material that was provided I gained some of the answers, and have discovered on my own, through discussion, exchanges, and many dialogues with people holding other beliefs, many more answers.
Me: Understanding is not as important as living, breathing, and teaching the Lotus Sutra correctly.
Ken: I have had the opportunity of discussing a lot of the problems that exist between the NS priesthood and the leaders of the SGI with several members of the priesthood. I would like to say that there is a problem within the priesthood itself.
Me: And not with the Taisekaji doctrines adopted by the Soka Gakkai?
Ken: I have talked over some of these matters with eight or nine different priests at different times. There are only shades of agreement for the most part. Some are in confidence diametrically opposed to Nikken but stay because they don't know any other way to make a living in some cases. Myself, I don't see a need for priests anyway.
Me: Are you not an SGI "priest"?
Ken: By the end of third generation of any organization a "revolution" for lack of a better word is needed to freshen and return to the reason for the organization to exist.
Me: There are no Gosho or Lotus Sutra passages to back up this assertion. Even the very structure of the SGI is not to be found in the teachings of the Lotus Sutra or Gosho. It would be better to forego the entire organization and rebuild it along the lines of the organization envisioned in the 15th through 22nd Chapters of Lotus Sutra. Chanting Namu Myoho renge kyo with faith in the correct object of worship are the only means for revitalization. This is the plan of the Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni.
Ken: Anyway, I'm not going to continue posting as long as we're arguing about "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin."
Me: Is that what we are doing?
Ken: As to the charge that I must be getting "guidance" about what to say, I've never done that in my life. My words and beliefs are my own.
Me: Are you not a functionary of the SGI, an SGI priest so to speak? Either way I think you better distance yourself from the "official" SGI position. If this is the position, it is a weak one fraught with a lack of understanding of the Lotus Sutra and Gosho.
Ken: Good Luck!
Me: We'll need it if the SGI's "revolution" spreads.
Ken: Otherwise too many beaureaucracies get established that hide and sometime destroys the purpose.
Me: You really must think the people are stupid. The SGI and the Nichiren Shoshu are both autocracies. Even if the beaureaucracies of these organizations were done away with who is going to do away with the all powerful central figure?
Ken: That has happened in the priesthood many times over the last seven hundred years.
Me: But nothing has really changed because of the misleading doctrines they embrace.
Ken: the lay organization has an opportunity in the next fifty years to offset this with planned "revolution"l, so to speak, if there can be enough pressure to bear.
Me: Replace one autocrat with another? This is hardly the Daishonin's vision.
No comments:
Post a Comment