I'm making this a thread of its own because this is so important. People are told that, if they practice properly, they will enjoy great good fortune, good circumstances, and "protection". Yet one of the things that caused me to lose faith in SGI-ism (it's not Buddhism) was what I saw - and so frequently.
So many troublesome episodes, but here's one that sticks in my mind. Toward the end of my ability to still be in the SGI cult, one of the Japanese old ladies (1) in my district asked me if I wanted to go pop in on this other Japanese old lady member (2) - 1 said she knew I liked Japanese things and 2 was selling a lot of nice stuff. Sure, says I.
Well, it turned out to be a disaster. Here is 2, in a raging depression because she'd gotten in with a bad doctor (who had since lost his license due to malpractice) who had removed her jaw joints. So now her lower jaw was pretty much free-floating. She couldn't eat. She had to hold her chin in place to drink. And apparently, there was nothing she could do, no settlements to win, nothing like that.
And here's 1, discretely elbowing me in the side, saying, "Make her an offer!" while 2 is weeping about how miserable she is! She DID have a lot of nice stuff, but I didn't have much money back then, and I wasn't about to insult 2 by saying, "I'll give you $25 for the 3-ft-tall geisha doll with the real human eyelashes in the big glass case."
I think that what 1 intended was that I would jump in and start taking care of her, but I had two small children I was homeschooling - there was just no way. And her situation was so dire - what could I say? She was already chanting all the time, and it wasn't doing any good at all! So a few days later I took her a 6-pack of Ensure, that liquid diet, and gave it to her so at least she'd have an idea of something that was available to nourish her. I still feel bad about that encounter, but there really was nothing I could do. And I'm still all WTF about that old Japanese lady dragging me over there in the first place!
Nobody wants to talk about all the bad stuff that happens to SGI members - they only want you to see the "victories" and the "benefits" and the braggy experiences "Look how much stuff I got from chanting!!" There's a dark side. A BIG dark side that you won't get to see unless you know where to look - and you won't have a clue until you've been in the cult for a few years and you start learning which doors to look behind.
Nichiren guarantees that we are sure to encounter the Three Obstacles and Four Devils and this is the only way to be certain that our faith and practice is correct in order to attain Buddhahood. Were SGI to have taught Nichiren's Lotus Sutra Buddhism rather than Ikedaism, were they to have told the truth about the teachings, rather than their dream within a dream pie in the sky interpretation of the teachings, I might still be SGI. Because people buy into their false teachings, when they encounter the Three Obstacles and Four Devils, more than eight out of ten of them, at least in the United States, quit the practice. Those who remain never attain Buddhahood because they never encounter the Three Obstacles and Four Devils because their faith is warped and their practice lame.
ReplyDeletesgi/nst , after some time, lose faith in the lotus sutra and what nichiren taught. they start to believe and take faith in other things. it is easy to see. NO GOOD.
ReplyDeleteI learned of a lady who appeared in the iconic Coit tower photo with Ikeda die as a result of chronic COPD. She was never able to give up smoking as if it were the accepted practice of the Gakkai. Maybe if she followed the precepts, she could have lived longer and earned respect. Of course Nichirenists don't need to follow precepts, just chant the 'correct' syllables.
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