Linda Welker former SGI Senior Leader

Linda Welker [former SGI senior leader]: "I tend to give people credit that they will do the right thing I did the same with this area's leadership. I refused to see that their actions were intentional. I am embarrassed that it took me six years of chanting, studying, and meeting with leaders to stand up and do the right thing. 

SGI leader: Linda, I wouldn't feel 'embarrassed.' It took me a long time too. Is 6 years REALLY a long time? How long have we been accumulating the karma, making the same causes over and over again, to defer to others based on superficial criteria; to fail to follow our own inner compass?

I'm challenging the situations that come my way as i practice in the SGI-USA, and things are going GREAT. Becoming the kind of person who can speak out when we know that others are deviating in some small way or other is a great thing for our own lives.

Linda Welker: If you're going to wave around a *karma stick* addressed to me personally, please sign your post with your name, not your e-mail nick. If you're embarrassed that it has taken two weeks for an SGI member to pass my post on to you for response, then e-mail me privately, but please identify yourself.

SGI leader: Hello-oooo, Linda, is that really you? You no longer sound like the same person who I started exchanging messages with a few months ago. What has happened to you? You no longer sound likea person who practices Nichiren Daishonin's buddhism. This is Soren!

I'm sorry, jeez, I forgot to sign my message. Sheesh.

The suspicion and hostility in your message speaks volumes about where your life has gone, and I'm deeply sorry to see it. Speaking out on deviations in some small way or other is easy.

Linda Welker: Not really, not in my experience.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.

SGI leader: You've got to be kidding. That's called 'jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, Linda.' [becoming a Kempon Hokke member].

Linda Welker:

Dear Soren,

Not from the pan into the fire at all. I'm sorry to see you post such an obvious attempt to manipulate what I was saying by using the, "Becoming the kind of person who can speak out when we know that others are deviating in some small way or other is a great thing for our own lives", tactic. I have never felt I was "addressing small deviations". Unfortunately, there were no *SGI friends* locally to tell me I was trying to practice with the wrong sect.

The SGI organization in place locally is taking care of itself nicely. It is closing in on itself, and will continue to do so. Just as everything recycles, so must the corporate SGI. Time for a change. The only unchanging reality is Myoho Renge Kyo.

My faith in Myoho Renge Kyo does not require corporate SGI to pat me on the head and give me a treat. Personally, Soren, I wish you the best.

My response to "jumping out of the frying pan... "More correctly, "jumping out of the garbage can" into the clear world of the Eternal Buddha. 

SGI member responds: True Buddhism teaches buddha-nature is manifest in all places, infinite and boundless. After all, did not the Lotus grow in the garbage? 

My response: Taisekeji and SGI is the garbage from which we grew.