Far better than having millions of SGI members running around mimicking Ikedas thoughts, words, cadence, and maneurisms is having one or two faithful disciples who adopt Nichiren's manner. Derisively, SGI says of those who follow Nichiren's way, "Nichiren complex". This too is far better than the Ikeda complex which they exhibit. At least, the "Nichiren complex" is based on the Lotus Sutra and Gosho rather the fictionalized Human Revolution novel.
why is it that if everything in an sgi members life is going great, not much trouble, they think and are told that they are practicing correctly? when in fact, the original buddha and his emissary taught the exact opposite.
ReplyDeletesuch a piety.
That's because they are working under Mara's regime, chanting to the "wish machine" hes given them. In exchange for material goods he gets to keep them in his world of ignorance.
ReplyDeleteexcellent tower ! cheers.
ReplyDeleteThanks Greg :) Glad you raised the issue :)
DeleteGreat observations and insight!
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ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent point about following NIchiren's example rather than Ikeda's. What is the point of mimicking Ikeda when Nichiren's example is there for us to follow, however imperfectly, overdone or underdone, or veering in whichever direction our personal proclivities drive us? But does practicing as an ordinary layperson necessarily mean that we must undergo ceaseless suffering, being attacked and even arrested for the sake of the Law?
ReplyDeleteEarly on when the SGI was ramping up the "master and disciple" rhetoric in the wake of being ignominiously excommunicated by Nichiren Shoshu (although it was initially just Ikeda who was excommunicated, our leaders, especially the Japanese pioneers, told us it was all of us - and that it was personal), I remember an article from the Weird Fibune, or maybe it was in a lecture, where we were told that someone could adopt Leonardo da Vinci as his master (later changed to "teacher", finally settled as "mentor"). It didn't matter if the master was dead; with a true seeking spirit, the disciple could seek out his works, look at his diaries, visit the places he'd lived, etc. and thereby come to understand who he was as a person yadda yadda yadda.
DeleteI remember thinking, "So why should we settle for Ikeda, when we could instead seek out Nichiren, since it doesn't have to be a living person?"
"You can choose anyone you wish as mentor as long as it is Daisaku Ikeda" Hehe
DeleteNichiren teaches that there are both good and bad countries and good and bad people. Living in Yemen or Iran we would be killed. Here in the United States we will not be killed or jailed [most probably] for our faith.
ReplyDeletewhat is most scary about islam, issis etc is not what they believe but that they would gladly die for their beliefs. nichiren did not advocate killing, however, he was very willing to give his own life. had he not , we would not know about him today and his impact would have been nil. ikeda wants money, adoration and power. ......................your choice.
ReplyDelete[Nichiren did not advocate killing...] but;
Delete"All the Nembutsu and Zen temples, such as Kenchō-ji, Jufuku-ji, Gokuraku-ji, Daibutsu-den, and Chōraku-ji, should be burned to the ground, and their priests taken to Yui Beach to have their heads cut off. If this is not done, then Japan is certain to be destroyed!"
(WND I: 66 The Selection of the Time, p, 579)
According to SGI footnotes, he didn't mean it, really, he was just trying to impress Mr. Hei-no-Saemon
Delete154. Here the Daishonin purposely mentions the burning of temples and the execution of priests in order to impress Hei no Saemon with the gravity of the offense of slandering the correct teaching. In On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land, however, the Daishonin explains the meaning of the Nirvana Sutra that describes the killing of slanderous monks. He says, “According to the Buddhist teachings, prior to Shakyamuni slanderous monks would have incurred the death penalty."
Obviously, if one attempts to read what Nichiren was referring to specifically, and goes back to read the quoted passages, the word Kill and Eliminate seem to be in good use ...
DeleteQuoting: RISSHŌANKOKURON
Dialogue VII
The Warnings of the Buddha
The Master says:
“I am too ignorant to have my own opinion [about the means to avert calamities]. Therefore, I cannot do anything but try to find the means in the sutras. There are many references to the means of stopping calamities not only in Buddhist sutras but also in non-Buddhist writings. Those references are too many to quote here. As far as Buddhist sutras are concerned, it can be concluded that the peace of our country will be realized if slanderers of the Right Dharma are eliminated and keepers of the Right Dharma are respected.”
...
“The above quotations from the sutras are quite clear. They need no comment. According to the Saddharmapundarika-sutra, the slanderers of the Mahayana sutras are worse than those who commit the five grave offenses endlessly. They will fall into the great Avici Hell and never get out of it. According to the Nehangyo, you can give alms to those who commit the five [grave] offenses, but cannot give alms to slanderers of the Right Dharma. Those who kill ants will fall into one of the three evil realms, but those who kill slanderers of the Right Dharma will certainly reach the stage of non-retrogression.”
... all metaphorical of course, but it does shed some light on Mr. Tanaka's intentions during the Sino-Russian invasions and other militaristic moves within Japanese Nichirenite during the Showa period.
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DeleteNichiren took to heart the teachings of the Nirvana Sutra and were the Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Shu to conspire to have me and my comrades killed or exiled and the Law destroyed, I too would invoke the teachings of the Nirvana Sutra.
ReplyDelete[the Law destroyed,]
ReplyDeleteThe Law Mark?, Your Law?, Their Law?, Definitely 'Their Law' since it doesn't seem to apply to anyone else but 'the believer'.
I'll give you one Law:
Light travels @ 299 792 458 m / s; nothing in the universe will surpass that value - fact.
Where, between the speed of light and Newton's laws of gravity do you, Mark Rogow, fit 'your' Mystic Law?,
Let me guess?, Causation, right?, Causation is not dependent on Buddhist teachings and Sutras, and for the best part, the so called Law of Cause and Effect is mistaken with Correlation.
Bottom line: You might as well Kill or Die for 'your' Mystic Law, that doesn't imply there is room for a spare Law, realistically, outside oneself, and the known universe...
It's all in your heads guys, so don't go on criticizing IS fighters, they are as righteous as you lot.
"Question: Are the five cardinal sins and the sin of slandering the Law of similar gravity?
ReplyDeleteAnswer: The Larger Wisdom Sutra records: “Shāriputra said to the Buddha, ‘World-Honored One, are the five cardinal sins and the sin of destroying the Law similar in nature?’
“The Buddha said to Shāriputra, ‘No, they are not similar. Why is that? Because if one destroys the perfection of wisdom, then one destroys the all-inclusive wisdom and the wisdom that understands every aspect of phenomena possessed by the Buddhas of the ten directions. When one destroys the treasure of the Buddha, then one destroys the treasure of the Law, and when one destroys the treasure of the Law, one destroys the treasure of the Buddhist Order. When one destroys the three treasures, one destroys all the correct views in the world, and when one destroys all the correct views in the world, then one is committing a crime that will bring one unlimited retribution. And when one has committed a crime that will bring unlimited retribution, then one must undergo pain and suffering for an unlimited period of time.’”
And elsewhere in the same sutra it says: “Because these persons have accumulated the causes that come from destroying the Law, they will fall into the great hell for a period of immeasurable hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, millions of years. These persons who destroy the Law will move from one great hell to another. And when the great fire comes that destroys the world at the end of the kalpa of decline, they will move to the great hell in some other world. Thus they will move here and there throughout the worlds of the ten directions. And during that time, though the fire will occur at the end of the kalpa of decline and they will die in one world, because they have not yet exhausted the evil karma acquired through the act of destroying the Law, they will return to the great hell in this world.”
The Nirvana Sutra is not talking preemptive war or the killing of innocents. The Nirvana Sutra was preached in response to the wholesale killing of Buddhists, be it in the past, the present, or in the future. An example is the killing of twenty million Buddhists at the hands of the Muslims and Rajputs in the 10th through the 13th centuries, The reason they failed to protect themselves and take up arms was either ignorance of the Nirvana Sutra, failire to take faith in the Nirvana Sutra, or naivity in the face of pure evil. They "sat", not even taking up so much as a potsherd to defend themselves. As I've written before, "Never Again" is not the exclusive domain of the Jews. The difference is we will never take up arms offensively but "we will defend what the Buddhha has entrusted to us."
Can you please read your second to last paragraph (advisable to take the bulshit-proof filter off your reading glasses/be careful the filter is invisible to the naked eye) and get back to me on that ... honestly, you lot are just unbearable...
ReplyDeleteGreg Romero: Still time to jump ship!!
That's a long time Pedro. Be careful.
ReplyDeleteThat might very well be your cleverest comment on-line Mark! Well done mate :)
DeleteNo fear whatsoever of any form of retribution, that being - Karmic, Divine or Buddhisty (Your Law remember, not mine!)
Secular, Atheist (and Proud).
You had to?, ... Really? ...
DeleteA fool might deny gravity but were she to step out the window, she would fall to her death just the same.
ReplyDeleteGravity not magic (sorry Mystique) ... that's a very Pre-Newton concept (no.. sorry again -- XIII century thinking).
DeleteAlways trying to equate your Great Secret Law with the the laws of physics, unacceptable if I may say.
You be like Nichi-Boy, I'll stick to my guns ... If anything goes wrong I'll catch up in your Avicci Hell...
New laws are being discovered every day, denied by others for years, proven, and then accepted.
ReplyDeleteNew ones, Testable by trial and usually topped with a beautiful mathematical equation.
ReplyDelete> "Among the three heavenly sons of light, the god of the moon saved my life at Tatsunokuchi by appearing as a shining object, and the god of the stars descended four or five days ago to greet me. Now only the god of the sun remains, and he is certain to protect me."
(how we love a good old Shinto deity to be thrown in the mix ... Amaterasu Rocks!)
Under this sort of assumption, no one in the scientific circles will ever look into 'your' Law and give it the time of day ... not even worth a research grant.
ps: can you put a leach on your Gorillas?
One certainly is able to test, set up prospective cohort studies, even perform a double blind study. It would take will....and money.
ReplyDeleteNope, sorry mate... bogged down with architectural stuff (machine rendering as we speak/type).
ReplyDeleteThere are other studies though: The Great Prayer Experiment is one! You've heard about it, right? (God Delusion, p.61 per pdf copy) ...
Oh, would I like to see that blind study being conducted with you Nichirenite lot! Imagine all your biases smashed in bits on the floor...
Our hypotheses can only be proven or disproven when a study is performed with Namu Myoho renge kyo as the object of the study. God Delusion only addresses theistic religion. It has absolutely nothing to do with Buddhism and Namu Myoho renge kyo, the Law of karma or cause and effect..
ReplyDeleteFrom chapter III page 37/38
ReplyDeleteMr. Dawkins writes:
> And I shall not be concerned at all with other religions such as Buddhism or Confucianism.Indeed, there is something to be said for treating these not as religions at all but as ethical systems or philosophies of life.
I dispute this on the basis of everything you wrote on your comments above and on the Gosho from page 1 right to the last paragraph. And if he (the author) was to read them too, I'm pretty sure he'd agree with me.
Your form of Lotus Centric "Buddhism" has more to do with any monotheistic religion we know of, than the not so attentive mind can perceive; And trust me, if you read the whole book with Nichiren's Buddhism/Writings in mind, it's like finding water-well in the middle of the desert.
You should certainly have a go (for your own salvation!) O_o
So yeah, you get yourself a great sponsor (try Ikeda-san, he'll be interested) and conduct a similar Great Prayer Experiment ... remember to report back to me when your done (so I can have a laugh!).
http://www.reddit.com/r/sgiwhistleblowers/comments/29gq4q/dissecting_the_master_nichirens_rhetoric_a/
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reddit.com/r/sgiwhistleblowers/comments/29k1z2/dissecting_the_master_nichirens_rhetoric_part_ii/
As far as Http # 1 above. You are the foolish one. We have been utilizing seti for two decades, our most powerful radiotelescopes, and all we get is static. If that is not rare, I don't know what is. There are how many insects, bacteria, viruses, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians? It is indeed rare to be born a human being.
ReplyDeleteRegardin http # 2 above, I suggest you ask an SGI member because it is to them the post is addressed. And here, more on Nichiren's understanding of statistics to infer benefit:
ReplyDelete"One would therefore expect to find more victims of the epidemic among Nichiren’s followers than among the believers of Nembutsu, or priests of the True Word, Zen, and Precepts schools. For some reason, however, there is less affliction and death among Nichiren’s followers. It is indeed mysterious. Is this because we are few in number, or because our faith is strong?"
Of course Mark; Nichiren "wrote it down" so it must be true! Bang! Gospel!
DeleteAnd obviously there were no lepers amongst Nichiren's (300) followers... Because Nichy-Boy would not take them in his following ... Leper (Black or White) was The Epidemic of the time, and being a Lotus Faithful, Nichiren considered them the scum of the earth, the slandered of the LS under heavy punishment from the Mystic Law (Skin Boils).
Unlike Honen, Dogen and Shinram, Nichiren never supported or created the colonies to treat the disease ... That sounds very un-compassionate, un-ethical, un-alot of things.
That's Nichiren's deep understanding of medicine, a disease treatable with just proper sanitation ... or a karmic punishment.
> and all we get is static.
ReplyDeleteYou my friend?, mistaking Static for Microwave Background Radiation, one of the greatest findings from the last 50+ years! A measuring tool, probably the best one after and/or combined with light ...
"Mistaking 'static'" ...."concrete thinking, a stage in the development of the cognitive thought processes in the child..... concrete thinking in adults is abnormal and seen in those who are unable to generalise,"
ReplyDeleteSalvation Army is the 2nd biggest charity and Catholic Charities is the 5th biggest charity according to Forbes. By your reasoning, their underlying principles and directors must be the noblest of all people with the noblest of intentions.
ReplyDeletehttps://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AwrTccbVEVRUSm0AQVIPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByaDNhc2JxBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkAw--?qid=20110318095441AAOZOjw
Criticisms of charities include:
-- that they create an entitlement mentality among some people: "Why should I work, develop my skills, or otherwise try to take care of myself, when this charity will provide me what I need?"
-- that they impose a different culture: Christian charities are helping people in order to convert them to Christianity, a charity based in the West may take a Westernized approach that slowly kills a different, and perhaps better, way of doing things, etc. Such as charities that used to urge farmers to grow corn, even though that was never grown in the region and wasn't sustainable.
- that they are focused more on a handout than a "hand up", that they are more about giving fish instead of teaching to fish
- they are tools of political forces or foreign governments
- they don't listen to local people about what they want/need; they don't let local people lead efforts
- they take jobs away (they bring in people from elsewhere to build a school, when local people would have loved to have built that school themselves)
Don't let armadillo footpads get in the way of sound reasoning, discernment, and the truth about Nichiren.
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