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Saturday, September 3, 2016

2001 poem by World Poet Laureate Daisaku Ikeda

With an unflagging life-force
Like the immortal phoenix,
You are fully prepared
To take on any battle
On behalf of good-hearted, honest people.

Do not forget to avenge
The insults of those past persecutions!
Strive fearlessly
Until you have dispersed
Those antagonistic forces,
Those insane slanderers,
Who in those bitter days
Besieged
A champion of truth and justice!

Daisaku Ikeda's poem
WT E-Mail Express
July 13, 2001 | No. 120

Are personal threats part and parcel of SGI doctrine and policy?

Mark R. Rogow
06/10/2010

Dear Sirs:

Should we consider any or all of the views expressed by SGI leaders and members as official SGI doctrine and policy or if not, why not? Also, at what leadership level within SGI may we consider one’s views official, Chapter, Headquarters, Territory, Zone, or National?

I ask because I would like to know how seriously my readers and I should take the views expressed on my blog site, on the internet, and in my personal correspondences with SGI members.

Also, are personal threats part and parcel of SGI doctrine and policy? I don’t mean threats of falling into hell but more along the lines of bodily harm to myself and my family,

Sincerely, 
Mark R. Rogow 
disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha and Nichiren Daishonin

All of Soka’s money can’t buy these men courage.

The 18th anniversary of SGI’s first refusal to publicly debate has come and gone. The Daishonin teaches: “Or if that is not the case and I myself am at fault, then you, the god of the sun, must show me so! Let those disciples be summoned to debate with me, and if I am bested in the argument and yet refuse to change my views, then you gods may take away my life!”

He also states: “For example, if a commanding general is fainthearted, his soldiers will become cowards.” He might as well be speaking about the “great generals” [top SGI-USA senior leaders] of Soka and their always victorious members, men like Danny Nagashima, Greg Martin, Bill Aiken, Ian McIlraith and the unpaid senior leaders and members.

Furthermore, Nichiren teaches: “In battles soldiers regard the general as their soul. If the general were to lose heart, his soldiers would become cowards.” It appears that the generals of Soka have lost heart, you too will lose heart.

In his famous quote about the Great Sword of the Lotus Sutra, Nichiren states, “Even a sword will be of no use to a coward.” He also states, “A coward cannot have any of his prayers answered.”; “...Nichiren’s disciples cannot accomplish anything if they are cowardly.”; and “You must never be cowardly, or you will become the object of ridicule.” Nichiren also states, “Greedy, cowardly, and foolish, they nonetheless pass themselves off as wise persons.” All of Soka’s money can’t buy these men courage. Is this why there are so many untimely deaths of SGI Senior leaders and their family members and so many unfulfilled dreams? Is it because SGI has replaced Shakyamuni Buddha with Daisaku Ikeda or is it because SGI leaders are cowards that the faith of so many Bodhisattvas of the Earth has been destroyed?

Let me be the first to ridicule these cowardly disciples of Daisaku Ikeda. Nichiren might well be talking about the SGI-USA seniors, in the following passages:

“Yet with the lay nun Linda Johnson, Guy Mccloskey, Ian McIlraith, Danny Nagashima , and the like, who are cowardly, unreasoning, greedy, and doubting, my words have no more effect than pouring water on lacquer ware or slicing through air.” I have fared no better than Nichiren Daishonin with these Soka men.

“I [ SUGGEST you begin the religious debate with these words:] “Although I am an ignorant layman, among the teachings I have heard, I was especially impressed by the passage in the second volume of the Lotus Sutra that reads, ‘Now this threefold world [is all my domain . . . ]’ ” This sutra passage means that this country of Japan is the domain of Shakyamuni Buddha. In addition to the fact that all the gods, such as the Sun Goddess, Great Bodhisattva Hachiman, and Emperor Jimmu, and all the people, from the ruler of the nation on down, dwell within his realm, he is the Buddha to whom we living beings are greatly indebted for three reasons. First, he is our sovereign; second, he is our teacher; and third, he is our father. Among all the Buddhas of the ten directions, only Shakyamuni Buddha is endowed with these three virtues. Therefore, even if all the people of the country of Japan were to serve Shakyamuni Buddha wholeheartedly just as they now do Daisaku Ikeda, if they were to place him side by side with another Buddha and treat him in the same manner, that would still be a grave error. For example, though someone were our own ruler and wise besides, if we were to shift our allegiance to the ruler of another country—for instance, if, while dwelling in Japan, we were to pay honor to the king of China or Koryö, and slight the sovereign of Japan— could we be called persons who honor the great sovereign of this country?”

He goes on to say [please note that I have changed "Amida Buddha" to "Daisaku Ikeda" and Amida Buddha's disciples to Daisaku Ikeda's]:

“This is all the more true in the case of the SGI leaders who without exception have shaved their beards and donned business suits as disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha. They are not the original disciples of Daisaku Ikeda. Instead however, they who have no halls in their temples where Shakyamuni is enshrined or where the Lotus meditation is practiced, and who have neither painted nor wooden images [of Shakyamuni] nor even a copy of the Lotus Sutra, have set aside Shakyamuni Buddha, who is fully endowed with the three virtues. In each district, village, and household throughout the country, they have erected more images than there are stars in the sky of Daisaku Ikeda, who possesses not a single one of these virtues, and they chant the name of Ikeda exclusively, sixty thousand or eighty thousand times a day. Although such acts appear to be most admirable, when we view the matter in the light of the Lotus Sutra, we find that these good people are guilty of offenses heavier than those of wicked men who daily commit the ten evil acts. Evil people do not rely on any Buddha whatsoever, so they cannot be accused of disloyalty. Moreover, if they should become good people, they might even devote themselves to the Lotus Sutra. Yet it is difficult to imagine that the people of Japan could ever turn their hearts with more seriousness and affection toward Shakyamuni Buddha than they do Daisaku Ikeda, or toward the Lotus Sutra than they do the Human Revolution. Thus, they are evildoers who only resemble virtuous people. And among evildoers, they are the worst of the most terrible slanderers and icchantikas, or persons of incorrigible disbelief, in all Jambudvipa. With regard to such people, Shakyamuni Buddha declared in the second volume of the Lotus Sutra, “When his life comes to an end he will enter the Avichi hell.”

According to SGI, Daisaku Ikeda is the actual True Buddha, Nichiren merely a theoretical Buddha

"Daisaku Ikeda is the Buddha of the modern age because he is a leader who knows how to fuse Buddhism into the daily lives of common mortals in terms of action. While Nichiren had to open the way in terms of theory and doctrine." -- Jodine, Phillipines YWD senior leader

Refuting Ted Morino and the Soka Gakkai

Ted: Even in the Lotus Sutra, the first half (from the 1st to 14th Chapter) is considered to be the theoretical teachings, but the second half (from 15th to 28th Chapters) is actual teachings and is regarded as more important. Depending upon the time and understanding of his disciples, the teachings have been changed (or developed). In other words, we have to study and understand the doctrines with open and flexible minds, not with Christian fundamentalist attitude..

Mark: With one fell swoop, Ted demolishes Nichiren Daishonin’s teachings that every character of the Lotus Sutra is a golden Buddha and he asserts that the teachings are developing. 

How can one develop that which is unconditioned, ageless, and deathless? The teachings are revealed, according to the time. That the teachings were perfect from the start is most difficult to believe and most difficult to understand. Nichiren has this to say in the Selection of the Time:

“Even though they did touch somewhat on this question, they did not make clear such vitally important doctrines as the ten mystic principles of the theoretical teaching and of the essential teaching, the fact that persons of the two vehicles can attain Buddhahood, the fact that the Buddha attained enlightenment countless kalpas in the past, the fact that the Lotus Sutra is the foremost of all the sutras preached in the past, present, or future, or the doctrines of the hundred worlds and thousand factors and of three thousand realms in a single moment of life.

They did no more than point a finger at the moon, as it were, or touch on some parts of the Lotus Sutra. But they said nothing at all about whether or not the process of instruction is revealed from beginning to end, whether or not the original relationship between teacher and disciple is clarified, or which teachings would lead to enlightenment and which would not.”

Ted writes, “We must study and understand with open and flexible minds”. This is nothing more than a s[l]ick rationale for altering the teachings, deprecating the Lotus Sutra and Shakyamuni Buddha, and self agrandizing the mentor and the SGI. What he is attempting to exalt is "the inferior thinking itself superior" which is one of the Fourteen Slanders.

On the other hand, Nichiren talks about pure faith as the key to understanding, not an open flexible mind. There are almost 700 references to faith and more than 400 references to mind in the writings of Nichiren Daishonin. Nowhere, not in one place, does Nichiren Daishonin associate or connect an open and flexible mind to faith. On the other hand, he teaches for example:

“The Lotus Sutra, however, contains such phrases as 'honestly discarding expedient means', 'all that you [Shakyamuni] have expounded is the truth”, 'honest and upright, gentle in intent,' and 'gentle, peaceful, honest, and upright.' Those who believe in this sutra, therefore, must have minds that are as straight and as taut as a bowstring or a carpenter’s inking line. One may call dung sandalwood, but it will not have the sandalwood’s fragrance. A liar never becomes a truthful person simply because one calls him honest. All the sutras are the Buddha’s golden teachings, his true words. When compared with the Lotus Sutra, however, they are false, flattering, abusive, or double tongued. The Lotus Sutra alone is the truth of truths. Only honest people can keep faith in this sutra, a teaching free from all falsehood. Certainly you are a woman who believes in the [Buddha’s] true words.”

The worst possible slander of the Law according to Nichiren: Proclaiming that the Human Revolution is the Lotus Sutra of the present age

“To ignore the supremacy of the Lotus Sutra and assert that other sutras stand on a par with it is to commit the worst possible slander of the Law, a major offense of the utmost gravity. No analogy could suffice to illustrate it. The Buddhas, for all their powers of magical transformation, could never finish describing its consequences, and the bodhisattvas, with all the wisdom at their command, could not fathom its immensity. Thus, the “Simile and Parable” chapter of the Lotus Sutra says, “If I were to describe the punishments [that fall on persons who slander this sutra], I could exhaust a kalpa and never come to the end.”

This passage means that not even a whole kalpa would be time enough to explain the full gravity of the offense of a person who acts even once against the Lotus Sutra.”

Proclaiming that the Human Revolution is the Lotus Sutra of the present age and teaching the Human Revolution and musings of Ikeda at the expense of teaching the Lotus Sutra is a serious slander. Those who do so will be punished according to the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren Daishonin. Have we not already seen such punishment meted out by Shakyamuni Buddha and the Ten Demon Daughters against SGI Senior leaders?

Nichiren goes on to say:

“For this reason, a person who commits this offense will never be able to hear the preaching of the Buddhas of the three existences, and will be cut off from the doctrines of the Thus Come Ones, who are as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. Such a person will move from darkness into greater darkness. How could he escape the pains and sufferings of the great citadel of the Avichi hell? Could a thoughtful person fail to dread the prospect of lengthy kalpas of misery?” (Embracing the Lotus Sutra).

Please reflect on your association with the SGI. You should chant the Daimoku with faith in the Lotus Sutra and the Eternal Buddha Shakyamuni while avoiding slanderers [except to correct their mistakes].

Prayer for the deceased

“By this merit, may the souls of the ancestors of the ………… family and of all the sixfold relations of their lineage* be free from sufferings and obtain the pleasure of peace. May they wake up from delusion and attain enlightenment. May they escape from life and death at once and attain the Great Bodhi. And also, may all sentient beings, the myriad souls of the Dharma realm, benefit equally. Namu Myoho renge kyo.”

*Father, mother, wife or husband, children, older and younger siblings.

SGI fosters the life condition of Hunger [Greed]

“For instance, some say, “You can overcome your problems if you do shakubuku, if you promote Seikyo Shimbun you can be happy. You can be happy if you try to do more zaimu.” This is a life condition of hunger. You are always expecting something in return. If you don’t overcome your problem you will resent having made the effort. This is different from the life condition of Bodhisattva. The Daishonin states: “Self and others rejoice together.” — Lisa Jones.  SGI fosters the life condition of Hunger

Don’t forget Rapture, the big pay-off for Hunger!! As most of those reading here, the lower six worlds are tightly chained together and those chains are what really enslaves people to a group like the SGI cult. If you score big in one world and you wind up being dragged through the other five. Like winning at the casino, you keep going back for the rush. Successfully shakubuku someone and you go looking for two more. Never time to raise those people who you’ve shakubukued because the “organizational tempo” was just too high.

I also think this makes a negative case for Shomon and Engaku (Learning and absorbtion) since all of the SGI/NSA literature is wrapped around the Shin-gyo-gaku mindset (faith, practice, study) in which you are strongly encouraged to buy study materials, practice excessively and “believe” in the dogma. Kind of seals you into the equation when taken in total.

In my thirty years of practice I looked long and hard for people who lived up to Bodhisattva and found none. I did meet lots of “false buddha’s” (i.e. people who were book smart but were, like myself, trapped in the lower six worlds and totally self absorbed in their SGI persona’s.) Boddhisattva is also known as “humanity” and I’m afraid the organizational practices and goals seem to be aligned in the opposite direction.

As an aside, at one leaders meeting after seeing the projections for shakubuku in a campaign one of my fellow leaders observed that if we stayed on that growth rate we would have converted every man, woman and child in the world within 20 years. Nice goal but totally unrealistic, and frankly stupid. No one was encouraged at that meeting, just annoyed. And as a commentary on the leadership, pushing out something like that to the members was unmerciful and unenlightened. Just setting everyone up for disappointment and guilt (i.e. those worlds of jigoku and chikushou) -- Former SGI member

Friday, September 2, 2016

Nichikan teaches:Nichiren teaches:

Nichikan teaches:

1. The twenty eight chapter book is the Lotus Sutra for Shoho [Former Day]
2. The Maka Shikan is the Lotus Sutra for Zoho [Middle Day]
3. The Dai Gohonzon is the Lotus Sutra for Mappo [Latter Day]

Nichiren teaches:

"To say that Great Concentration and Insight and the Lotus Sutra are identical in nature is to equate a commentary by a Buddhist teacher with the pronouncements of the Buddha himself, which is a very grave error. How much more fallacious is it, then, to assert that Great Concentration and Insight is superior to the Lotus Sutra! That such an assertion should appear at this time must be some plan of the Buddhas and gods whereby they mean the votary of the Lotus Sutra in the Latter Day of the Law to make clear to all the difference between the sutra teachings propagated by those who were taught and converted by the Buddha in his true identity and the teachings of those taught and converted by the Buddha in his transient status, between the Middle Day of the Law and the Latter Day of the Law, and between those entrusted with the theoretical teaching and those entrusted with the essential teaching. From this it is evident that among the followers of the present-day Tendai school those who put forth such a fallacious view are men who are unaware of the debt of gratitude they owe to T’ien-t’ai, the founder of their school, and that they cannot escape blame for this error."

The life of the Original Buddha

"Further, the Law of the Lotus Flower of the Sublime Dharma is the unchanging law which has existed in all its fullness from the beginningless beginning, the beginningless Most Distant Past. In other words, we may call it the Life of the Original Buddha of the Most Distant Past." -- The Tradition of Nichiren Doctrine by Rev.Tetsujo Kubota

Proof of Kempon Hokke's sect complicity in slander




                   Myomanji head temple of the Kempon Hokke sect


"To avoid complicity (yodozai), do not give religious offerings to other sects or religions or receive the religious offerings from those who do not accept the above doctrine and do not attend the   services of other sects.

PROOFS:

"If there are bhikshus, bhikshunis, upasikas, upasikas, who put forth coarse, evil words and blaspheme the True Dharma, and creating this grave karma, never repent and have no penitence in their minds.... in that True Dharma they never have the mind to guard, spare, erect or establish but disparage, attack, slight and belittle and have many errors and faults in their words.... these also one names, 'heading towards the way of the icchantikas.' Only excluding classes of icchantikas such as these, if one donates to the remaining ones, it is to be praised" (Great Parinirvana Sutra 10: T.12.425a-b).

"If they are blasphemers, one ought not to abide together with them and likewise not approach and be intimate with them; if one approaches and is intimate and abides together with them, at once one heads toward the Avici Hell" -- Jurinkyo Sutra (Sutra of Ten Wheels) "Chapter of the Multitude of Good Appearances" (T.13.704b, cited  at Nambu Rokuro dono gosho, STN, v. 1, 487; Chu Hokekyo, v. jo, 2-79).

"Although nourishing (yashinau) the monks of the various sects of the Tendai, Shingon, and others of the present age outwardly appears, indeed, to be good [karmic] roots, inwardly it is a great evil surpassing even the Ten Evils and Five Rebellious [Sins]" (Chie bokoku gosho, STN, v.2, 1130).

"Only one should exclude and put away the blasphemous offerings of those of the Shingon, Zen Sect, Nembutsu and so on. For example, they are like adhering to and reverencing the Emperor Shakra [King of the Devas or Gods] while exalting and esteeming the asuras [the enemies of the Gods]"(Jomyo shonin gohenji, STN, v. 2, 1300). -- Translations by Graham Lamont

Why SGi disguises their internal conflicts in Singapore, Italy, Spain, Ghana, and Argentina in the name of Kosen Rufu

‘For Marxists, consensus is a highly ideological concept used to perpetuate class rule by attempting to disguise the extent of conflict within society. The idea of consensus became associated with the debate about ‘the end of ideology’, and the supposed replacement of conflict about basic values and goals by harmony about the ends to be attained.” — Max Weber

The mystical Nichiren.by Matthew Presseau

“One of the remarkable things that Nichiren did, in my opinion, was to fuse esoteric theory into  actual practice in that he saw that the actions of his body in this world were capable of creating more merit than any visualization practices. That what some did in theory in visualization, Nichiren actually did in this life – he read the Lotus Sutra with his body, not just with mudras, and that living itself was a constant mudra. The persecutions he endured were the persecutions of great beings sent to test his resolve and create the circumstances where he could have the opportunity to give his life for the Lotus Sutra. This is the mystical Nichiren." -- Matthew Presseau

Regarding top SGI senior leaders

Let them earn their own way through the world like the laymen and laywomen of the Buddha founded sect.

Question for your top SGI senior leaders: "Why did SGI file a patent and trademark application for Namu Myoho renge kyo?"

Patent application SGI

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo 

In January 1972, the Soka Gakkai, at the request of its President, Mr. Daisaku Ikeda, filed several patent applications at the National Office of Industrial Property, concerning the trade mark “Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.” The publication, in the Official Journal of the Japanese filing of this mark, is dated June 20, 1974. Complaints were filed by organizations affiliated with the School Minobu and other Nichiren Shu affilliates who also recite Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, Rissho KOSEIKAI MYOCHIKAI Kyodan of Tokyo, the MYODOKAI Kyodan, DAIHEKIKAI Kyodan of Osaka.The approval was canceled on May 20, 1977. It's ‘worth noting that the Soka Gakkai filed 17 other brands “trademark” as “Shohondo”, “Dainippon Komeito,” “From Nichirenghe Zan”, the ancient name of Mount Fuji, etc..

Extracted from the French magazine “Le Bouddhisme de l’Ecole Fuji”, No. 17 December 1992 – Part following the No. 15, in turn, translated from “Nichiren Dai” – November 1992 (from a footnote on the page text of the 41 ° course held in the Great Hall of the Reading Taisekiji)

SGi members have no faith in their Sensei

Ikeda proudly boasts that he never had any formal education. He was a graduate of “Toda University”. Toda taught him everything he ever needed to know, mathematics, history, business, sociology, science, literature, and the arts.

I say to you, his disciples, that you lack faith in the mentor’s experience. If you really had faith, you would forego college and would study the writings of Ikeda exclusively. You will learn everything you need to know about business, mathematics, literature, language, philosophy, science, music, literature, and the arts. If you follow the mentor, you will be bestowed with awards and honors from ten thousand miles afar, become wealthy beyond your wildest dreams, and be revered as if you were Arhats possessing the six transcendental powers.

Now wake up. There is no power in the Soka Gakkai teachings. None.

In the Lotus Sutra Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin, the nail that stick up is adorned with garlands.

We are as disparate a groups of individuals as those disciples of Nichiren during his lifetime. SGI leaders, on the other hand, are as uniform in their politics, their religious views, their mannerisms, the cadence of their speech, the uniformity of their teachings, their lack of tolerance for members who think out of the box, and [at one time], even their dress, facial hair, and the length of their hair [the men]. In the Lotus Sutra Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin, the nail that stick up is adorned with garlands. In SGI, it is hammered down.

SGI by-laws

In 1966, the SGI by-laws [which remain in effect] were further changed so that:
  1. - The president is also the “official representative” of the Gakkai.
  2. - He is manager of all its affairs.
  3. - He has the power to convoke the Leaders Meeting (of all 21 responsible officials).
  4. - He appoints and dismisses all the other responsible officials.
  5. - He appoints and dismisses all the vice-general directors, the directors and all “other necessary officials.”
  6. - He holds office for life.
  7. - He chooses his own successor. 

Makiguchi admitted that the Soka Gakkai is engaged in the fault of "mixing"

“Soka Kyoiku-gakkai is unique in that it is a combination of the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin and my own philosophy of values. By becoming a Nichiren Shoshu priest I would be unable to teach anything except the doctrine of their faith, therefore I will not enter this sect.” (Showa Tokko Dan Atsu Shi — History of Oppression by the Secret Police in Showa Period, Part IV.)

This also proves that they can never know the great favors of Shakyamuni Buddha and Nichiren Daishonin.

"Actualize the Gohonzon? You would be better off chanting for a television set" --SGI leader

“I met a woman once who had recently quit her fairly-new Nichiren [SGI] practice. When I asked her why, she told me that when she related her expressed desire to penetrate and actualize the Gohonzon, it had been met with suggestions that she would be better off chanting for a television set or a car.”– From newbuddhist.com under search Nichiren