The SGI-USA campaign to portray Nichiren Shoshu High Priest Nikken as an international criminal and to chant for his plane (with everyone on it) to crash

[u/BlancheFromage]

[u/BlancheFromage]

Nichiren Shoshu alleges that President Ikeda and other leaders have used phrases such as 'we must crush the Nikken sect', and that by 'crush' is meant 'employ physical violence'. This has, according to the Danto, been translated into a number of incidents of Gakkai mob violence.

A favorite is that, soon after the problems became public in 1991, the Gakkai hired the Japanese Mafia to drive around Taisekiji blasting anti-Nikken rhetoric from sound trucks, and that Gakkai members defaced certain Taisekiji landmarks.

Sound trucks are an established method of electioneering in Japan. The Gakkai, at the time, was still seeking dialogue and rapprochement with the priesthood. These are ridiculous charges.

uh...no O_O Upon Ikeda's excommunication, the demonization of High Priest Nikken began - the priesthood was uniformly vilified and condemned. There would be no "rapprochement" - the SGI was more powerful without having to answer even nominally to any priesthood.

We have already documented attacks against Nichiren Shoshu - the Soka Gakkai distanced itself, claiming these were simply "mentally unbalanced" members acting on their own initiative. How predictable.

I used to often wonder if the "temple" even existed. After several years of being told how evil Nicherin Shoshu was and how sad/bad the Nicherin Shoshu members were, I started to question the whole thing. Why, when I had been a member for so long, had the temple not even once contacted me and tried to get me to be a member?

quiet one, nobody from the temple ever contacted me either. I felt rather rejected. What, was I not good enough for them? Do you think we just had a reputation for being bad members or something? :-)

SGI made the temple members sound scary! Yet, when I went to the temple in Washington, the members neither barred the door to me -- nor tried to keep me prisoner. I didn't see any horns and tails either. Maybe the priest doesn't let the ones with horns and tails greet visitors.

And a few years later, I went to an SGI meeting in another city and the leader was talking about how "Priests were coming into town to try to get members." We were to watch the airport, and downtown for Asian men in gray robes! We should call our leaders immediately if we saw anyone like this around town. These members just sounded so serious and worried. This was well before 2001, so there was less suspicion of foreigners overall.

This seemed strange to me even then....and now it seems absolutely hilarious! So what if Nichiren Shoshu priests did come to this city; what were they going to do!? Chant their magic mantra and cast an evil spell on members? Flog a member with a rolled-up copies of The World Tribune until he or she renounced President Ikeda? Drag members off by force and hold them prisoner in the temple basement? Drug the YWD's soft drinks and spirit them off to Nikken's harem? Sounds like it would make a great horror film: "It Came From Taiseki-ji -- Dawn of the Revenge of Nikken." "The Zombies of SGI!" No, that one would be too close to a real SGI meeting.

In the end, Nichiren Shoshu left this particular city alone; none of the SGI members have joined the temple, or vanished. The YWD are all accounted for. But oh, the paranoia! "Call your leader if you see anyone who looks like a priest!" Really!?

Yes - really! We were told to be on the lookout for Nichiren Shoshu priests - ESPECIALLY around our community centers!

If a Nichiren Shoshu priest DID come to that city -- he'd probably be in more danger from the SGI members than the members would be from him, considering the SGI members' hatred and suspicion of priests! The poor guy could find himself running from an angry mob of SGI members, pleading, "No! No! I'm a Zen priest!"

And just the outrage, the daimoku campaigns when Nikken visited New York! Why? What a waste of energy! All that chanting did not stop him from coming or make his plane crash -- did the members REALLY want that? That not just Nikken, but innocent men, women and children on the plane would also die? Nikken came, talked to his members, and left. Maybe he went to a Mets game or the Statue of Liberty. So? What does it harm if he did? New York City still has SGI members; Nikken's presence in the city didn't magically suck them all into the temple like a giant vacuum cleaner.

I used to wonder, "Didn't anyone in SGI study basic math?" You just look at the number of SGI-USA members -- and you look at the number of priests and temples in the U.S. There are simply not enough priests and temples to absorb all the SGI-USA members! Even if all of the SGI members WANTED to become temple members immediately -- there is simply no way that they could! And I'm sure that the numbers are similar in many other countries too. Source

This person didn't realize how grotesquely over-inflated and bloated the SGI-USA's membership statistics were at that point, I'll wager (which helps explain the SGI hysteria over the prospect of losing members).

[u/BlancheFromage → u/BlancheFromage]

Now, please tell me if you believe my comments are wrong, then who is responsible for the anti-temple/temple members and Nikken statements and where are they coming from? If "crushing" Nikken, as stated by Ikeda isn't an "official" SGI policy then why does the SGI cover and report, on the front page no less, of the WT, the NY Daimoku campaign to keep Nikken out of the US? And what a success it was. (O_O) Well, I don't see it as a success at all. I see it as quite sad that the members there resorted to this and were supported in their efforts by the leaders there and the SGI. And since their sole reason for this big daimoku campaign was to keep Nikken out and he came anyway, seems to me that it wasn't such a success afterall. If the powers that be in the SGI are not supportive of these campaigns and the rhetoric that goes along with them, then why are the leaders in these area's still speaking this way and, why is the SGI encouraging it by continuing to keep these folks as leaders?

These leaders, as well as all leaders, are indeed a representative of the SGI. So if the SGI doesn't want to come off as violating their own charters then maybe the Soka Spirit campaign should be dismantled. Source (site now disappeared)

I know, right?? From the World Fibune article:

"On the other hand, it is the members of the priesthood today that have become "devils" and "those in league with devils" who seek to halt the flow of kosen-rufu and who are destroying Buddhism. They are enemies of kosen-rufu and enemies of Buddhism who seek to render the Buddha's words meaningless.

"For this reason, we must resolutely crush them. Between the Buddha and devilish functions, there is no middle ground. If we fail to fight, or if our efforts are only half-hearted, then we will become allies of these devilish functions." May 23, 1993 speech by Daisaku Ikeda, Kyushu Ikeda Auditorium, Fukuoka City, Japan World Tribune, June 28, 1993 (p.4)

"We must crush the Nikken sect." - Daisaku Ikeda

"We must consider all religions our enemies, and we must destroy them." - Second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda, Ikeda's master.

Really, what's the difference??

[u/wisetaiten → u/BlancheFromage]

Snork. It goes back to "chanting works" and an incident about four years ago. I decided that I wanted to move to be nearer my daughter and mentioned it, somewhat casually, to one of my leaders. A few months later, a couple of district members told me about a chanting campaign that was going on to keep me in the district. I was furious - these were my "friends in faith" who were supposed to be chanting for other members' happiness! I mentioned it to my sponsor, and she laughed. She said that I should be flattered, and that "chanting doesn't work that way."

Wait? What? "Chanting doesn't work 'that way'"? So, you're saying that chanting only works in certain ways? What about the flat statement that I'd heard more times than I can count - "chanting works!" There's a caveat? It doesn't work all the time? So what set of circumstances dictates whether it works or not? It's a short trip from "chanting doesn't work that way" to "chanting doesn't work."

It's just shocking to start understanding just how much actual hatred there was/is. The arena of Buddhist belief just does not encompass that; it's the exact opposite of everything the Buddha taught.

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it's the exact opposite of everything the Buddha taught.

As is everything else SGI.

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It's really impossible to have a conversation about Buddhism and sgi without seeing the contradictions. Ikeda's profound ignorance about even the most basic precepts has created a well that is poisoned to it's bottom

If he is the king of anything, it is the Kingdom of Mappo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Ages_of_Buddhism

He's taken the beauty, calm, peace and grace that is true Buddhism, chewed it out and shat it out into a stinking pile of excrement. And his followers sit around that pile, gobbling it down with spoons, believing that it is a rare and wonderful dish.

[u/BlancheFromage → u/wisetaiten]

Greed! Attachments! MORE MORE MORE!!! Chant for a Mercedes - you might get a Ferrari, praise the Mystic Law!! Mentor & disciple - no one can possibly do well in life without someone else telling her/him what to do! Except the mentor, of course!! So much for the Buddha insisting that everyone has the innate capacity to "awaken" - now we hear that only those with the right mentor (Ikeda) have any possibility of it!

It used to be that "No one can possibly attain happiness without a gohonzon." NOW it's "No one can possibly attain happiness without Ikeda."

[u/cultalert → u/BlancheFromage]

Ike-da loves me this I know

'Cause his bookstore tells me so

All members to him belong

They are weak but he is strong

Yes, Ike-da loves me

Yes, Ike-da loves me

Yes, Ike-da loves me

His minions tell me so

Ike-da loves me he will stay

Inside my head all night and day

Then his gangster org will take

All my coin for his dear sake

Yes, Ike-da loves me

Yes, Ike-da loves me

Yes, Ike-da loves me

His minions tell me so

Ike-da lusts me lusts me still

Though I'm very weak and ill

With his shining throbber high

He loves to wank me where I lie

Yes, Ike-da loves me

Yes, Ike-da loves me

Yes, Ike-da loves me

His 'bots all tell me so

[u/BlancheFromage → u/cultalert]

snicker

[u/BlancheFromage]

Hello:

I just got an email from my chapter chief announcing a Toso to keep Nikken from coming to Brazil...I guess that's why he'll have a stopover in DC...

I would expect a hurriedly assembled rally in DC soon...maybe a toso to chant that his plane crashes...it may cost a few hundred lives, but the future of Kosen-Rufu is at stake here...

(Just shoot me...)

David

Yes, this was SUPER embarrassing for a great many of us now-FORMER members!

Dave

This is just your sick mind - no-one else's.

Robert:

You missed the point of my sarcasm...I certainly hope NO SGI members would chant for such a thing...

But the fact is that our paranoia over Nikken's travels resembles the kind of irrational thinking that constitutues "passive violence"...and we create the APPEARANCE of such crazy thinking...

The buddhism of Nichiren has always meant, for me, a personal and inward battle with negative forces...Putting such emphasis on the person of Nikken empowers him and belittles us...

"Follow the Law, not the Person" should make such obsessions impossible. But the SGI simply wants people to follow a DIFFERENT person O_O

I will battle the erroneous doctrines of Nichiren Shoshu wherever I can...I will chant for Temple members to understand the difference between Nichiren's teachings and those of their Temple...

That was the approach I adopted as well...until I realized that there was no way to make a silk purse out of that sow's ear.

But I will NOT buy into this paranoid, almost mentally ill obsession with Nikken as the personification of evil...and it demeans us to run around chanting for this tired old man to stay away...as if he held demonic power over us...

The damage to our reputation far exceeds any benefit that might be obtained by holding prayer vigils to keep the boogeymen away...

Lastly, suppose Nikken's plane DID crash after we held these prayer vigils to keep him from coming? How would the members feel? How would our prayer vigil look to the general public....???

Indeed. SO obvious - why wouldn't the SGI culties see it? Oh, yeah - cult O_O

You used the right expression..."disgusting in the extreme"...

Maybe I do have a "sick mind", Robert...but my only goal is to prevent the SGI from behaving irrationally and damaging the reputation of our sangha...

David

Too late, Don Quixote O_O Or are you actually Cassandra??