Nichiren taught the Specific Transmission as the transmission from the Original Buddha Shakyamuni to Bodhisattva Jogyo. Nichiren taught the General Transmission as the transmission from the Original Buddha Shakyamuni to the Bodhisattvas of the Earth.
The Specific Transmission does not refer to a transmission from Nichiren Daishonin to the Nichiren Shoshu priests, to Daisaku Ikeda, nor the Three Presidents. The General Transmission does not refer to the Nichiren Shoshu priests nor the three presidents transmitting the Law to their disciples and believers.
They fabricated their teachings on the transmission in order for the self serving agenda of money and power. They make the transmission appear other than what the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren taught.
Nichiren Daishonin' explanation of the transmission accords with the Lotus Sutra's. Nichiren Shoshu's and SGI's does not.
Ikeda has taken pains to identify himself as the leader of the Bodhisattvas of the Earth. I have reviewed several editions of "The Human Revolution", in which Ikeda creates a fanciful imagining of an idealized (and completely fictitious) first meeting between the 19-year-old Ikeda and the 48-year-old Toda where the youthful Ikeda foreshadows his great destiny as the future leader of the Soka Gakkai by spontaneously reciting a "poem" that ends with "I spring from the earth." That is a clear allusion to the Bodhisattvas of the Earth, but in later years, instead of "springing", the English word used to describe how they appeared from the earth was "emerging". And that's exactly the last line from the youthful Ikeda's "poem" in the later editions: "I emerge from the earth."
ReplyDeleteClearly, Ikeda is crafting his own glorified backstory to match whatever sources seem most useful. He will do whatever the Bodhisattvas of the Earth are said to have done, for maximal impact on his target audience.
In addition, I uncovered shenanigans in modifying the ages of individuals to suit Ikeda's purposes:
In the First Edition of The Human Revolution (Vol. 1), 1972, on p. 219, we find this:
'On his way home, Toda was absorbed in recollections. He had been only 20 when he first met his teacher, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi.'
And on p. 224, this is reiterated:
'The first meeting between Yamamoto and Toda took place on a night 3 years after the death of Makiguchi. Toda was 47 and Yamamoto was 19. Makiguchi had been 49 and Toda 20 when they first met.'
Now, here's a different version, from "Japan's New Buddhism: An Objective Account of the Soka Gakkai" by Kiyoaki Murata (1969), pp. 120-122:
'This first encounter with Ikeda, a 19-yr-old youth, left a deep impression on Toda - then 48 years old - because it reminded Toda of his first meeting with Makiguchi, when he had been 19 and Makiguchi 48.'
Notice how the ages suddenly, "mystically", match up now?
In a copy of "The Human Revolution", Vol. 2, No. 4, from 1986, it's framed this way:
"At that time, Josei Toda was 19 and Tsunesaburo Makiguchi was 48. Now, Toda had become 48, and Shin'ichi Yamamoto, whom he had met for the first time that night, was exactly 19. - p. 76.
oooOOOoo...*mystic*, kids!!
You know, I wonder if the SGI-maintained websites for Makiguchi, Toda, and Ikeda have adjusted the birthdates accordingly to make things "mystically" match up the way they've done in their publications...
Read more here: https://www.reddit.com/r/sgiwhistleblowers/comments/47rlt2/three_different_versions_of_how_daisaku_ikeda/
yikes and yuch!
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