"SGI talks about "cause and effect through chanting". The idea that "all you have to do is chant" in order to gain benefit, is neither borne out by experience nor the writings of Nichiren. Correct doctrine and behavior is equally important. If an object of devotion is based on deception and incorrect doctrine, all the sincerity in the world will not lead to benefit.
Daisaku Ikeda's second son died suddenly of a perforated ulcer while a student at a prestigious Japanese college. Ikeda's oldest son has been in an out of mental hospitals with severe mental disorders. He must take high doses of psychoactive drugs to control his condition. Makaguchi, the first President of the Soka Gakkai died of starvation in a Japanese prison during the last days of the war. All nine of Makaguchi's children died during his seventeen years of faith in Taisekeji.
When I joined the SGI in the late ‘60's, I couldn't convince my friend, Gloria, to join. Her husband, Gary, had been a member for years. One day he didn't show up for Men's Division Bagpipe practice. Another member went over to his house to find out why he missed practice. He found Gary, eyes gouged out, ears cut off, head almost decapitated and mutilated that. He was murdered by the Manson family, whom he taught to chant the Daimoku. Obviously, Gloria did not think that Gary had been "protected" by the SGI/NST Gohonzon.
Three friends of mine were killed in a horrible car accident (their fault) rushing to "Kotekitai" practice, in preparation for some big parade in San Francisco. My old chapter chief lost two of his children (one was decapitated in a freak accident) and a third child was institutionalized. Over the years, many sincere friends died of diseases that they could not overcome by chanting in the SGI/NST. I could fill pages with "actual proof" horror stories that I personally witnessed. It seems that the wrong honzon cannot give "protection" or "benefit" any more than the claims of all other religions.
Hence, the correct doctrine is pivotal. Yet, SGI/NST people keep saying, "I don't want to get theoretical. I just chant and have actual proof in my life." Nichiren's position was quite different. To him, the correct doctrine was most important. Buddhist practice was of no avail if it didn't accord with the Lotus Sutra, the correct Gohonzon, and the refutation of provisional teachings. Taisekiji's theology is a provisional teaching, based upon a fake honzon, and it contradicts the words of Nichiren.
The honzon and practice of SGI/NST need to be examined very carefully. For every "benefit" there are ten instances of punishment. IF SGI practice afforded universal benefit as they claim, why have 95% of all members quit? If even Ikeda could not be assured of the protection of the Buddhas, then the statements of universal SGI "actual proof" is untrue. If "actual proof" were the only criteria, then the events of the last four years between the SGI and the Nichiren Shoshu speak volumes about "punishment". -- Bruce Maltz
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ReplyDelete"Okay, Boomer." There's no Gloria or Gary who was murdered, only Sharon Tate during the NSA days. I used to read your stuff when you identified as "Nancy' and that's funny because Negative Nancy is a perjoritive that seems to fit you to a T. Twenty plus years of endless negativity?
ReplyDeleteThere is only one battle, that between violence and non-violence, and your constant castigation is a form of violence. Some people look in the mirror and try to change others, a shallow practice, indeed. Punishment is a state of life in which one is never satisfied and always full of complaint. Anyway, criticizing is easy; that's why weak people love to blame others.
If I might refer to the DSM-5, I believe such behavior would be identified as a passive–aggressive personality disorder, a "pervasive pattern of negativistic attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate social performance. Sometimes we need a check-up from the neck up!
All you have to contribute is cult "bull baiting; You can't discuss the teachings because you are ignorant of them. The truth trumps both complaint or praise:
ReplyDelete"Connect strongly with your leaders. Don't complain to anyone but them, if you must complain. (Keep in mind that complaining burns benefits,) but if you have negative feelings it is ok to express them to one of your leaders. They can encourage you and help you find your way out of what ever obstacle you're encountering." --SGI leader
Except of course when it comes to complaining about the Nichiren Shoshu and other Nichiren sects and members.
SGI cult speak: "Life condition":
"Life condition", expression used by the SGI cult. It is nowhere to be found in the Lotus Sutra or Gosho. "Life condition" may be either "high" or "low". When referring to critics of SGI, it is always "low". When talking to other members, it may be either high or low. Low is always a pejorative. Anyone who complains is said to have a "low" life condition. Nichiren Daishonin sometimes complained about the cold, lack of food, lack of clothing, and loneliness. Were he an SGI member, they would be whispering behind his back that "he has a low life condition." One day, after having chanted several hours of Daimoku, "wide awake" [in the Buddhist sense] and very joyful, I came upon several former SGI friends and leaders. After a tepid greeting from them, the first thing they said to me was, "since leaving the SGI you have a low life condition." I broke out in a hearty laugh and went on my way.
More importantly, regarding Nichiren...
"In addition, this year has been different from any other. If it goes by the name of winter, is it ever anything but cold? If it goes by the name of summer, is it ever anything but hot? Still, though I don’t know how it has been in other provinces, the cold here in Hakiri has been exceptional. When we ask the longtime older residents, the ones who are eighty, ninety, and a hundred all say there has never been a winter as cold as this.
No one visits from ten chō or twenty chō away beyond the mountains surrounding my hut in all four directions. Thus I don’t know how things are there, but about one chō away from here, the snow is piled up to a height of ten feet, twenty feet, or five feet even in shallow places.
On the thirtieth day of the intercalary tenth month, it snowed a bit, but it melted right away. This month there was a heavy snowfall that started at the hour of the dragon [7:00–9:00 a.m.] on the eleventh day and continued right up to the fourteenth day. Two or three days later, a light rain fell, the snow froze as hard as diamonds, and it still has not melted. It is unusual for it to be bone-chilling cold both day and night. The sake has frozen over as hard as stone, frozen oil gleams like gold, and when just a bit of water remains in the cooking vessels, it freeze and they shatter. And as it keeps getting colder and colder, and our clothing is thin and food scarce, no one ventures out. Our living quarters are as yet only half finished so there is no keeping out the snow or wind, and we have nothing to lay down as floor covering. There is no one to go out in search of wood so we are unable to build a fire. The skin of those wearing a single old soiled quilted robe is like the skin of those in the hell of the crimson lotus or the hell of the great crimson lotus. Their voices resemble those that emit from the Hahava hell and Ababa hell. Hands and feet freeze, crack, and break open, and there is no end to people dying. The beards on the laymen look as if they had ornaments dangling from them, while the noses of the priests seem to be strung with bells.
Continued...
Continued...
ReplyDeleteSuch an extraordinary event has never occurred before. And not only that, but I have had a bout of diarrhea since the thirtieth day of the twelfth month last year, which failed to improve even in the spring or summer of this year. Fall passed and around the tenth month it actually worsened. After that there was a slight improvement, but it is apt to start up again at any moment.
It was just at such a time that the two quilted robes arrived from you two brothers. Even with forty ryō of cotton padding they are as light as an unlined summer robe. The contrast is all the more apparent because until now I have been wearing a robe so thinly padded it seemed to be no more than a single layer of cloth. Try to imagine how this must have been. Without these two robes, I would surely have frozen to death this year.
Moreover, whether from you two brothers, or from Ukon-no-jō, food also keeps arriving. Even when there is hardly anyone here, there are forty people, and when it is a crowd, there are as many as sixty. No matter how much I refuse, they still come to visit. Saying they are the older brother or the younger brother of someone here, they settle down, but out of regard for their feelings in the end I say nothing. Speaking strictly of my own wishes, I had prayed to be tranquil, alone with my acolyte reciting the sutra in my hut. Thus nothing could be as irksome as this state of affairs. And so I have been planning that, once the New Year has arrived, I would escape somewhere. Nothing could be as irksome as this. I will certainly write you again.
But above all, as for you and your brother Uemon no Tayū Sakan, whether it be about your better relations with your father or your winning the trust of your lord, without actually meeting you it is hard to say all that I wish."
Nichiren would be thrown out and is marginalized in the Soka Gakkai for complaining. The Soka Gakkai replaced Nichiren's teachings, praise and gratitude for Nichiren for Daisaku Ikeda's teachings. All praise and gratitude is heaped on The slanderer Daisaku Ikeda.