Two poems by the kind and gentle Daisaku Ikeda

Two poems by the kind and gentle SGi mentor

Our Brilliant May 3!

Those others [traitors of the SGI]
Boast the rampant bad taste of the vulgar;
They brag of their wealth and prosperity,
Blind to the fact
That they are the laughingstock of all.
They do not know
That they emit a stench
More foul
Than stinkweed.
And so,
They lack that most important eye
For discerning the essence
Of a life of supreme good,
Of the most noble deeds,
Of excellence of character,
Of real truth and justice.
Those others!
Oblivious to the new age,
They constantly repeat old sins,
Over and over!
For us, however,
An age of peace and tranquillity
Is always waiting.
We always wear
Our jeweled crown
Of happiness.
Here,
Absolute, eternal happiness,
True, unsurpassed happiness,
Awaits us.
No matter how fierce
The storms of sorrow that may beset us,
We will never succumb.
No matter how others may inflict
Savage wounds on our hearts,
Their efforts will only backfire
And rage as storms of mental torment
In their own minds.
And, eventually,
These individuals,
Who are obsessed with title and status,
Power and fortune,
Will be tortured
By endless agony.
There is no force
That can alter our truth and justice.
Those who have tormented us
Will only suffer retribution
Inflicted by their own hand.
A cursed blood flows through the veins
Of such odious individuals
And they will end their days
Suffering for the offenses
Of their utterly corrupt beings
And cursing their own evil lives.
As for us,
We need no crown of authority;
We possess no dark ambitions;
We commit no offenses
That will give us cause for regret.
We will never become
The kind of people who pretend to goodness
But suffer the torments of hell inside.
No matter how many fabrications
People broadcast throughout society,
We fear nothing.
Such pitiful schemes
And the cold winds of malice
Are no more than the shadows of phantoms
To those who possess a state of life
As indomitable as a majestic palace,
To those who are strong and true.
We merely laugh
At the black-hearted,
Quivering,
Pitiful wretches
Who resemble petty thieves.
Our citadel of truth and justice
Remains completely unshaken
By the harsh blast of arctic winds,
By the storms of cruelty,
By the wild cacophony.
Oh May 3!
A day
When ambassadors of peace,
Emissaries of happiness,
Who have appeared all over the world,
Set forth with fresh energy and joy!
Oh world citadel of kosen-rufu!
Standing firm and unmoving
Against every underhanded
And vile attack --
At times, the persecution of authority,
At times, the treachery of priests,
At times, the violence of words!
We have laid the foundation
For global kosen-rufu --
Our organization is solid,
Our bases, sound,
Our network, strong.
There is no doubt
That the next thousand, ten thousand years
Will be our age.
My fellow members,
Comrades of shared mission,
Never be defeated!
We must win without fail.
To do so,
Advance, run --
Forward, ever forward!
The wise
Are always learning.
Let us,
You and I,
Striving each day
As people of outstanding wisdom,
Calmly meet the challenges
Of every new age
And win.
As we achieve
Victories that create value
And bring spiritual fulfillment --
The greatest desire of all human beings --
We will adorn our lives
As victors who have won honestly in society.
All of us
Must eventually experience death,
Which evokes feelings of darkness and sadness.
A great philosopher
Once described life as but a reprieve
Before that inevitable destination.

There have been foolish people
Who took lightly
The goodwill
And the pure, profound realm of faith
Of the SGI --
A realm of pure-hearted members
Dedicated to truth and justice --
And who caused trouble for others,
Acting in such a way
As to disrupt the harmony of believers.
We absolutely refuse
To compromise with evil.
We sever our ties with --
And, moreover, fight rigorously against --
Those who share the life-state
Of the treacherous and destructive Devadatta.
No matter what they may have achieved in the past,
Buddhism is concerned with the present and the future.
We cannot forgive those who,
While holding the highest leadership positions --
Just like the five senior priests
Who betrayed the Daishonin --
Behaved like degenerate madmen.
How immense must be
The Daishonin's anger,
And that of his successor,
Second high priest Nikko Shonin!
The anger of the SGI,
Which has inherited the Buddha's intent and decree,
Is no less.
We cannot forgive evil
If we are to protect the good!
We must drive out the corrupt
If we are to protect the SGI!
If we are to protect truth and justice!
How pitiful
Are these
Prisoners of delusion,
Without principle,
Without faith,
With vindictive eyes,
Their basest animal instincts exposed,
Howling wildly at the good and just!
Cringing before truth and justice,
The arrogant authorities
Try to flee, to escape its hands.
They, with their many celebrated titles,
Combining their personal interest and pleasure,
Unknowingly tread on a path that leads
Into a scorching, inhospitable desert.
Oh how futile
Are all their fine-sounding words!
We, in contrast, are living
Lives of integrity.
We have chosen the path leading to truth.
And
Without allowing a single person to fall victim
To the insidious schemes of the jealous and deceitful,
We will continue to advance
With invincible passion and energy.
May the lofty song
Of our chorus of peace
Take us from the discord
Of a world of dark envy,
To a world that rejects conflict and war!
Above all,
How joyous it is to forge
A world of unity that extols
The duet of justice and conviction!
Following the path of the wise,
We gaze down,
From our lofty palace,
On the crazed
World of barbaric strife.
The foolish remain eternally
Ignorant of virtue,
Choosing intentionally the path of evil
And stupidly pursuing it
Until they arrive
At a place that is human hell. 

The Victorious Future of Mentor and Disciple"

I can see
Those who are like demons
Milling around what,
Unbeknownst to them,
Is only an execution block.
They trample
The noble spirit
Of the Daishonin
And have become
Pitiful robbers of the Law.
Like a rapacious swarm of locusts,
Nikken and his cronies
Have exploited and persecuted
And even plotted to destroy
The Soka Gakkai,
An organization of the highest good
That has made unprecedented contributions
To spreading the Law
And worked so hard
To support and protect the priesthood.
Their evil deeds
Will go down forever in history
And they will be severely judged
According to the law of cause and effect.
This I believe
To be the unwavering position
Of the Daishonin.
It will be just as he states
In the writing "On Persecutions Befalling the Sage":
They "seem to be free from punishment at first,
But eventually they are all doomed to fall"
(The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 997).
The plots and schemes of High Priest Nikken Abe and his cohorts,
Spinning a web of the most base lies
And vicious slander,
Were designed to bring us down.
Yet
We shone on brightly
Like the morning sun!
We rose boldly to the challenge,
And began our battle!
The Daishonin, too,
Was slandered as an immoral priest,
And his struggles amid persecution
Were beyond description.
Our first president Tsunesaburo Makiguchi
Used to strictly remind us
That in comparison
The persecution we encounter
Is truly small and trivial.
With silent forbearance,
The firm resolve demonstrated by the Buddha
Engraved in our hearts,
We waged an arduous struggle
To overcome
Every imaginable
Haughty and arrogant utterance.
We will not be defeated.
We are fed up
With the clamoring and abusive foolishness
Of these spiritual paupers.
In fact, our mighty, passionate spirit
Only burns all the brighter.
They who are
At times frenzied,
At times coldly silent,
At times filled with excuses,
Will eventually depart this world,
Gasping and trembling in fear.
Backsliders in faith!
Are you satisfied
To lead a life
Trapped in a maze
Of hellish depths?
Slanderers of the Law!
Having corrupted the Daishonin's teachings
And veered from the eternal truth,
Are you prepared
To drift along forever in a state of life
Of agonized defeat?
Traitors!
Having turned your backs
On the Daishonin's golden words,
Are you ready
To be burned in the fires
Of the hell of incessant suffering?
To be imprisoned in a cavern
In the hell of extreme cold?
To be shut off in the darkness
Of misery and strife,
Forever deprived of the sun's light?