Evil Ivan Stavinsky excommunicated from the Soka Gakkai

Concern Over the Future of SGI

By Ivan Skavinsky

Most of us have experienced a feeling of helplessness and frustration about so many terrible things happening in this world. Wars, terrorism, thousands of children starving to death, religious conflicts, abuse of children, drug abuse etc. etc. I'm very grateful that SGI and President Ikeda have given us a remedy that all of us can follow, teaching us how by chanting and our practice of Buddhist humanism, compassion, tolerance and dialogue, we can be effective in achieving personal fulfillment and true happiness and contribute to the world's peace and happiness. When first approaching this Buddhism, I was told: "We don't expect you to have blind faith. Test it out. Try chanting for a month before you decide." My initial chanting was immediately beneficial, bringing harmony, equilibrium and a sense of direction into my life. I started to make good choices. Becoming more confident in my relationship with the Gohonzon, I chanted more and continued to make bolder more successful decisions. My life, now so much more enjoyable, was really on track. Recently, due to my seeking mind, I faced up to the discrepancies within SGI that are addressed in this article and experienced some doubts that obliged me to carefully reconsider my faith. This process served to make my faith deeper and stronger. The most concrete result was a strong conviction that it is now my duty to stand up and express my concern for SGI's future. The Temple Issue is wreaking havoc There's a classical Buddhist expression: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha." I think this means "When you are quite certain that you've found the true reality, better think again." For over ten years there has been great harm inflicted on Buddhism from within by a Nichiren Buddhist Temple Issue disagreement. Neither party seems to be willing or able to initiate meaningful dialogue. This is definitely not "walking the talk." President Ikeda has written: "To Socrates, dialogue was a process in which he entrusted his soul to the other person in order to observe it in nakedness, that is, to state his thoughts honestly and frankly in response to questions. Through such straightforward dialogue, he sought to verify the conclusive truth essential to a human being's happiness." Whilst SGI promotes dialogue for conflict resolution, there has been no effort to encourage our members to chant for President Ikeda or for High Priest Nikken to commence dialogue and create a successful peace process. Again, this is definitely not "walking the talk." Nichiren Buddhist leaders, SGI President Daisaku Ikeda and Nichiren Shoshu High Priest Nikken Abe, are respected by their followers as the great protagonists of world peace and happiness, kosen rufu. We expect them to put an end to the fear, hate, anger, dehumanizing, demonizing and slandering in order to prove the merit of their profound rhetoric, seizing this rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to demonstrate the power of dialogue as the true answer for conflict resolution and therefore, the ultimate way for world peace. Why can't they do what they tell everyone else to do or, for the sake of the image of Buddhism, at least look like they are? President Daisaku Ikeda has been great, inspiring spiritual leader. On the world stage his performance as a magnificent dedicated proponent of world peace is second to none. He has a great personality, gifted teaching ability, outstanding vision, superb organizational ability, artistic appreciation and remarkable expertise in creative public relations. Whilst his apparent growing impatience, anger and lapses of focus on Buddhist tolerance and compassion are not ideal Buddhist leader traits, it can be said that these indiscretions demonstrate that he shares the same feelings and frustrations of regular people like you and I. But this behavior certainly doesn't correspond with what we have learned to expect from President Ikeda. President Ikeda has said himself: "No matter what justifications may be offered, in my view, there is absolutely no such thing as a just and correct war"…."I also hold that an inner change in the depths of peoples' lives can transform egotism and replace it with a loving humanism that seeks peace and co-existence among all people." (From Thoughts on Peace) I wonder if President Ikeda's incoming communications are strictly filtered. I often wonder, whether he is really in touch with the true state of affairs especially the serious concerns of so many of his followers. Because of his inspired leadership, guidance and my great debt of gratitude to him, my desire is to do my best to support President Ikeda. However I fail to understand how vilifying Nikken as an evil devil can assist in the conflict resolution process. Again, this behavior doesn't correspond with what we have learned to expect from President Ikeda. If we believe Nikken to be evil, why should we denigrate ourselves by dropping down into the mire of his "evilness" joining with him exchange insults based on fear and hatred. Buddhism is compassion and reason. Is this behavior Buddhism? Let's face the reality that the longer this attrition continues the more we lose. Members have been alienated Many members have been disillusioned and alienated. Appalled that both leaders have lost their way and are not "walking their talk," many tens of thousands of members have lost respect and have become disillusioned, ceasing to follow either persuasion. Here and in some other countries, active practicing SGI membership is less than half of the reported membership. So many long-term members have left and many new members don't stay very long. There is a worldwide increase in spiritual awareness leading to an unprecedented growth of religious diversity throughout the world. Whilst SGI and Nichiren Shoshu are being pre-occupied with their un-winnable "holy war," new factions are emerging. Endeavoring to size up the members' needs and aspirations, you can be sure that they will plan to better address members' hunger for a coherent global reality out of all this chaos. What's to stop another new Nichiren Buddhist sect taking over? If we can't achieve dialogue with Nikken, why don't we cut our losses, practice the Buddhist principle of detachment, let go, disengaging ourselves from Nikken and allow him to stew in his own juice? Just think. Without SGI's constant reminders about him, who would know about Nikken? As they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Why do we give him so much exposure? Where is the joy? Nichiren has inspired me to have the conviction that it is a most urgent duty for all of us to stand up and express our concern for the future of SGI. It has been distressing to observe that SGI has lost its enthusiastic momentum. Why have members lost their vibrant, happy, hopeful, confident attitude? Why have we lost rather than gained many thousands of members over the last decade? Here's one answer: Over the last decade, when our leaders have attended training courses in Japan, they have not been given, as one might expect from the definition of "Soka." positive "value adding" leader training for the better care of their members' spiritual needs. Instead, their training has been confined to very negative indoctrination about the "Temple Issue" and the evils of Nichiren Shoshu, strongly focusing on the vilification of Nikken Abe. Gandhi proposed to his enemies a revolution based on love not hate, saying: "I want to touch your hearts, only then will you change." Why can't we have training positively focused on humanist love, compassion and tolerance rather than fear and foreboding? We were clearly warned by Nichiren Daishonin to beware of the enemy within, when he equated our Buddha nature with that of a lion, saying a lion is never destroyed by any other animal and that the only thing that destroys the lion is a parasite within the lion's bowel. To quote Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Poor communication is another problem Whilst SGI's multi-leadership-level organizational framework is such an ideal structure for passing information up or down it often suffers from communication breakdown. Leaders often fail their responsibility to take care and make sure that all leaders and members down the line are fully informed. Valuable member feedback is rarely passed up the line, many leaders appearing to have the attitude that they know what's good for the members; what would the members know? Some leaders appear to regard the levels of leadership below them as safety barriers insulating them from being troubled by members! When members persist, wanting to be heard, they are told that they are not chanting enough and they either get a good hosing down to pacify them or empty promises to take their ideas up the line. Are our senior leaders receiving and carefully listening to true member feedback, not intermediate leaders' filtered versions of it? If not, how can an organization succeed and go forward without understanding and caring for their members' needs? Blaming the leaders is not the answer. Doesn't the buck stop with us? We must stand up It is our responsibility to stand up and inform SGI as to what kind of organization we want to be happily involved in, for ourselves, our relatives, our friends, our community, our country, and the world. Nichiren Daishonin and Daisaku Ikeda have taught us that we must be courageous and confidently stand up for what we truly believe is right. When our organization appears to be going off the rails, we must stand up to inform our leaders, with the confident expectation that our leaders, will be inspired and will support our right to have our say even when they disagree with what we want to say. It is our very important responsibility to make sure that when our senior leaders make decisions they have been properly informed beforehand. Why don't we, for the sake of SGI's future, resolve to do our best to make our valuable feed-back heard? Don't jump ship! Before contemplating jumping ship, firstly evaluate what are the unintended consequences likely to be? Could be a much worse "tin of worms." Let's fix our problems the right way -- from within. Chant, stand up, hang in and support all the abundance of good things in SGI! Jumping ship might easily be going from the "frying skillet into the fire." Members needs to be always put first, leaders' selection, training and performance standards established, leaders' responsibility to members defined, all leaders to be made accountable to observe these responsibilities, leaders' tenure subject to review every two years by a panel comprising equal numbers of superiors and members, no hint of political associations or alliances, leadership image not ambiguous and clearly not that of a personality cult, a tolerant balanced global focus eliminating extremist nationalism etc. to mention just a few... Give some thought to: Appreciating SGI's achievements of encouraging so many people to achieve personal fulfillment and true happiness by sharing Nichiren's Buddhism worldwide in 180 countries, sponsoring and supporting many institutions for peace, education, and preservation of the environment, raising our Buddhism's profile through meetings with world leaders and identities. Providing comprehensive study material, and excellent guidance. Resolving to no longer be like a lemming. Chanting to the Gohonzon to become a "victor" instead of a "victim." Not blaming and being part of the problem, but being prepared to act to be part of the solution. Committing to ceasing to be reactive and to being proactive, standing up, doing positive dialogue, helping to create a fully transparent organization, helping to establish effective selection, training, communication, delegation programs and helping to create a more universally acceptable SGI image. Writing, urgently and strongly to President Ikeda to quickly put an end to this bitter struggle, either by creating a successful dialogue with Nikken or disengaging from this un-winnable war. Realizing that we are the ones that create our own environment. Understanding therefore, that the buck stops here, we have got the organization that we deserve and we have the power to change it now. Changing SGI now requires changing ourselves first, thus inspiring others to change. And all the while: "No matter what happens, please continue to chant Daimoku (Nam-myoho-renge-kyo) -- both in good times and bad, irrespective of joys or sorrows, happiness or suffering. Then you will be able to seize victory in your daily life and in society." (From For Today & Tomorrow, Daisaku Ikeda, p. 319) Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo, Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo, Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo!