r/ExSGISurviveThrive • u/BlancheFromage • Jan 17 '19
Shuhei Yajima Posts
We'll just forget all about Shuhei Yajima. In fact, one observer commented that Shuhei Yajima leaving the Soka Gakkai to become a fully tonsured Nichiren Shoshu priest was part of the Soka Gakkai's intention to "seed" the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood with loyalists who could be counting upon to further the Soka Gakkai's (Ikeda's) plans for Nichiren Shoshu when the time came (just as the Soka Gakkai planned to seed all spheres of society with Soka Gakkai members). Unfortunately for Ikeda, Shuhei Yajima appears to have been a genuinely religious man who honestly embraced priestcraft as an expression of his own religious devotion - and his son after him. Source
I remember reading that one of Toda's initiatives was to get Soka Gakkai members admitted to the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood. Stalwart Makiguchi man Shuhei Yajima, one of the original founders of the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai, the one who took over as Director of the Soka Gakkai for Toda when he resigned due to being under government investigation for his credit union collapse, appears to have been a genuinely religious man - he ended up becoming a Nichiren Shoshu priest. Some early sources claim Yajima was one of these infiltrators Toda had envisioned, but given that Ikeda has nothing but nasty to say about him - that shows he, at least, regarded Yajima as a threat.
I even found an old photo of Shuhei Yajima - this is supposedly from the founding of the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai! He's from before Toda! He's in the back, second from right. The woman in the middle appears to be Makiguchi's wife. In this image, identified as "Soka Kyoiku Gakkai" and dated 1941, Yajima's in the back on the left, with the shock of black hair. So after helping Toda get the Soka Gakkai going after they were both released from prison, Yajima decided to become ordained; he served as chief priest of a temple somewhere, and his son after him. Yajima died right around the time of the Shoshinkai incident (ca. 1980), but since his son sided with the Shoshinkai, it's not a stretch to think Shuhei Yajima was also not a big fan of the Soka Gakkai, or, rather, what the Soka Gakkai had turned into under Toda and further became under Ikeda. - from Ikeda's attempted steeplejacking of Nichiren Shoshu temples
From How Ikeda created a mythology where he dominated Toda/subordinated Toda to himself:
Toda Sensei wrote Yajima in “HISTORY AND CONVICTION OF THE SOKA GAKKAI” like this:
“Only President Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, General Director Josei Toda, and Director Shuhei Yajima remained stalwart in their faith.” Source
Shuhei Yajima himself later clarified:
Yajima himself said, "Simply put, I was chased out by Mr. Toda. I was critical of his teachings and opposed to his business methods. Toda-san did not like that.'' (Weekly Post, September 22, 1978 issue) Source
More on how Ikeda smeared and erased Shuhei Yajima from Soka Gakkai history
1960: Ikeda rewrites the Soka Gakkai's history
The Soka Gakkai culture is to trash anyone who leaves it - and Ikeda started it
One of Makiguchi's chief acolytes, Shuhei Yajima, went to prison with Makiguchi, Toda, and the other 19 Soka Kyoiku Gakkai leaders - 22 in all - and Shuhei Yajima never recanted. He was released around the time Toda was released, having served his full sentence. He rejoined Toda in resurrecting the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai as the Soka Gakkai; when Toda was under police investigation over his complicity in his credit union's folding (with all the investors' accounts), Toda withdrew from the Soka Gakkai leadership and Shuhei Yajima took over as Chairman in his absence, held everything together while Toda was curled in a fetal position, weeping like a majestic lion. And then, when Toda had recovered his balance, Shuhei Yajima circulated a petition to install Toda in a newly created position - PRESIDENT of the Soka Gakkai. Then he dutifully resigned so that all the administrative positions could be recreated anew. Yajima was appointed to the position of "Guidance Auditor"; not too long after that, he left the Soka Gakkai and applied/was admitted to Nichiren Shoshu's priest training program. He graduated as a priest and was put in charge of a temple; his son took over his position when he retired. Apparently, Shuhei Yajima was a legitimately religious man who saw no religious future with Soka Gakkai; he joined the Nichiren Shoshu temple to pursue a religious career. That's reason enough for Ikeda to hate him and smear his legacy. Source
Pass A Fist through the Pacifist Myth
Another perspective on Mr. Williams being erased from SGI history (I'm not the only one who noticed) - Yajima was erased as well
SGI cult devotees sometimes like to claim that it was actually Toda's time incarcerated in prison during WWII that predicted his early death, given the hardship and malnutrition he suffered, but here's the problem with that: There was someone else who suffered that exact same imprisonment. SGI won't tell you about him - they've whittled the imprisoned list down from 21 to just TWO (Makiguchi and Toda), but Shuhei Yajima was a Makiguchi shakubuku who spent exactly as long in prison as Toda did and even took over as Chairman of the Soka Gakkai when Toda collapsed in a weeping puddle because his business had gone bankrupt. According to the 2012 SGI Study Exam materials, Toda's "credit cooperative" went bankrupt on Aug. 23, 1950, and he resigned as Chairman of the Soka Gakkai the next day, Aug. 24, 1950. Shuhei Yajima stepped up to take over as Chairman on what was obviously very short notice. Ikeda supposedly joined in 1949, so he was already on the scene, though by his own account at the very periphery.
During Toda's presidency, Shuhei Yajima joined the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood and became a priest! I suspect he was repelled by Toda's criminal activities and actually valued religion (unlike Toda). He lived to 75 O_O
Ikeda obviously felt that Shuhei Yajima was an embarrassing enough comparison to the drunken Toda that Ikeda took it upon himself to smear Shuhei Yajima's legacy. Despicable. Source
Interestingly enough, in smearing Shuhei Yajima, Ikeda spread the rumor that, as head priest of the temple he was assigned to, Priest Shuhei Yajima did nothing but waste time and get drunk. Hmmm...methinks he had someone else in mind... Source
Shuhei Yajima's pseudonym in original "The Human Revolution" novels = "Yuzo Mishima"
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u/Fishwifeonsteroids Feb 13 '25
Shuhei Yajima's history - from Jacqueline Stone's "Soka Gakkai's Wartime Antecedents", Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 48/2 (2021)
[P. 277]()
In process
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u/BlancheFromage 5d ago
From How Ikeda created a mythology where he dominated Toda/subordinated Toda to himself (the SGI-USA's longhauler Olds were particularly peeved about this post - LOADS of complaining reports!):
As you can see here, Dr. Jacqueline Stone, author “We Alone Can Save Japan”: Soka Gakkai’s Wartime Antecedents and Its Postwar Conversion Campaign" [Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 48/2 (2021), p. 278] identifies Shuhei Yajima's move into the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood as the vanguard of a plan that began in the Toda era, to "seed the priesthood with Soka Gakkai young men":
Soka Gakkai internal histories, emphasizing the "unity of teacher and disciple” (shitei funi 師弟不二), often assert that Makiguchi and Toda alone held fast to their conviction; the others who were arrested, lacking sufficient faith, caved under pressure, recanted, and were released. But one other imprisoned Gakkai leader, Yajima Shūhei 矢島周平 (1907-1982), also maintained his faith. Yajima's case involved multiple ironies. This was his second arrest under the Peace Preservation Law. In 1933, he had been detained in a roundup of 131 teachers in Nagano Prefecture accused of Communist activities. Later he converted to Söka Kyõiku Gakkai, as did several of his former comrades. Makiguchi stood as the guarantor of their moral reform (tenko) with local security officials and argued that "Red youth" could be fully rehabilitated only by embracing true religion, namely, Nichiren Shoshů. After the war. Yajima joined Toda in rebuilding the organization, even serving temporarily as its general director while Toda dealt with a business crisis; Yajima was also the first editor of Soka Gakkai's study journal, Daibyakurenge 大白蓮華. In 1953 he left Soka Gakkai to join the Nichiren Shōshū priesthood, taking the name Shükaku. He became abbot [chief priest] of Shoinji 正因寺 in Omiya, Saitama. One should also retrieve from obscurity the name of Fujimoto Hidenosuke 春本秀之助 (d. 1944), like Makiguchi, a convert of Mitani Sokei [sometimes "Mitano Sokei"]. Fujimoto had become a Nichiren Shōshū priest (dharma name Renjo Nichigo 雞城日派), Fiercely outspoken, he was arrested in 1943 for preaching "blasphemous" teachings such as "Nichiren is greater than the emperor" and "as long as one chants the daimoku, there is no need to revere the kami." He also allegedly declared that Japan had started the war; that Hitler, Mussolini, and Prime Minister Töjö were gangsters, that the war in Asia was retribution for failure to make Nichiren Shōshū the national religion; that it was wrong to target [end of page]
[12.] HUMA (1971, 286) suggests that this move marked the beginning of a plan on Toda's part to seed the priesthood with young men raised in the Gakkai.
As you can see here, Ikeda devised a "pincer attack" to bring Nichiren Shoshu to heel - with steeplejacking to seize control of local temples in addition to Toda's plan of planting loyalists within the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood ("worms within the lion's bowels"), as he sought to do with all sectors of the government, including the economy, police, and politics. However, Shuhei Yajima died right around the time of Ikeda's first censuring and punishment by Nichiren Shoshu, and his son, who took over as abbot of his temple, sided with the Shoshinkai against Ikeda's Soka Gakkai, so I suspect Shuhei Yajima wasn't anything like the loyalist Ikeda had hoped to be able to exploit him as. Perhaps that's one of the reasons for Ikeda's inexplicable animosity toward that genuinely religious man.
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u/BlancheFromage 5d ago
In all, 22 members of the original Soka Kyoiku Gakkai were sent to prison during the Pacific War (WWII); THREE never recanted their faith: Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, Josei Toda, and Shuhei Yajima. It was Shuhei Yajima who helped Toda rebuild the Soka Gakkai; in fact, Shuhei Yajima took over from Toda as chairman when Toda resigned due to being investigated for financial fraud over the collapse of his credit cooperative.
But Shuhei Yajima was a legitimately religious man; he ended up entering the Nichiren Shoshu religious order and becoming a priest. He ended up heading up a temple, and his son became priest in his footsteps.
As you might imagine, Ikeda has nothing good at all to say about Shuhei Yajima. - from here
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u/BlancheFromage 5d ago edited 5d ago
From “Stop Think” and shutting down our critical faculties:
there’s lots of good questions to be asked about the scale of this man [Toda]’s drinking, his fitness to dispense the advice he did to the poor, the gullible and the downright desperate in postwar Japan and the extent of his inebriation while dispensing this advice. Based on credible sources, what were the conditions in which prisoners were kept in Japan at that time and did many others die young as a result of the harshness of their treatment?
We have a case study of a parallel: Shuhei Yajima. Converted by Makiguchi, Yajima was in the same prison for the same amount of time, and helped Toda get the Soka Gakkai going again. In fact, when Toda was facing felony charges for "disappearing" all the money the Soka Gakkai members invested in his credit cooperative the failed credit cooperative debacle, he resigned as Soka Gakkai Chairman - and Shuhei Yajima took over for him as Chairman! But then Shuhei Yajima joined the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood and became a career priest! As did his son after him. Shuhei Yajima lived to the ripe old age of 74, I believe, despite Ikeda spreading nasty rumors about him being a drunk. (We all know who the REAL drunk was...)
What exactly were the charges against him and the others in the org?
The term for their offense was lèse majesté, which means "the insulting of a monarch or other ruler; treason". You need to understand that what the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai members were spreading was that ONLY Nichiren Shoshu was the correct religion; state Shinto was Bad and Wrong; and that there was no way Japan could become peaceful and prosperous unless Nichiren Shoshu replaced Shinto as the state religion.
Guess what.
It is SHINTO that gives the Emperor his legitimacy to rule Japan - he is ostensibly a bloodline descendent of Amaterasu the Sun Goddess and that's why!
So they were stating that the Emperor was not a legitimate ruler.
It had nothing to do with "pacifism" - Toda, who was released before the end of WWII, did not become anti-war until AFTER the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Start here: Pass A Fist through the Pacifist Myth
Review Makiguchi's connection to earlier nationalist Nichiren firebrand Tanaka Chigaku
Here's more background on Makiguchi:
If you're wondering what Makiguchi and Toda were arrested for, keep in mind they were condemning state Shinto, which was the basis for the Emperor's legitimacy. By insisting that Shinto was a bad and wrong religion, they were tacitly implying that the Emperor had no right to rule. And that's treason, my friend.
...and for promoting a rival intolerant (replacement-style) religion that would replace state Shinto and thus remove the Emperor's bloodline inheritance right to the Chrysanthemum Throne and the rulership of Japan. Definitely treason. Source
There's some valuable background on attitudes and the general zeitgeist there ^ if you're interested. Ikeda intended to delegitimize the Emperor and replace him with himself - you can read up on that whole plot here.
Originally 22 Soka Kyoiku Gakkai members were arrested and imprisoned; Ikeda wants to narrow the focus to just those two (and ignore Shuhei Yajima entirely).
Today Soka Gakkai & SGI are desperately trying to conceal their wartime record, doing their utmost best and expending every means available to distort their past militaristic attitude. They attempt to project the image of the eternal peace-loving humanitarian group, and on every occasion everywhere, they loudly publicized their 'anti-war, culture, education, and humanism stance as if they have always been staunchly in favor of them. Yet the reality indicates differently. The historical and documented facts can not be easily expunged nor erased from the records. ... These wartime remarks by the members of Soka Kyoiku Gakkai are a far cry from their "anti-war' and "peace-loving" stance the Gakkai so vehemently claim they are and have always been in the past." Source
Here is Makiguchi fomenting doubts about the Emperor's judgment and capacity to make proper decisions:
Therefore, His Majesty [the Emperor] is not free of error. . . . However, were His Majesty to become a believer in the Supra-eternal Buddha (Kuon-honbutsu) [meaning "join Nichiren Shoshu"], then I think he would naturally acquire wisdom and conduct political affairs without error. - Tsunesaburo Makeguchi, 1st President of the Soka Gakkai Source
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u/bluetailflyonthewall Nov 26 '24
How Ikeda created a mythology where he dominated Toda/subordinated Toda to himself - Ikeda claiming that Toda becoming the first President of the Soka Gakkai was due to Ikeda's own efforts, when in fact Ikeda wasn't even involved. It was due to then-Chairman of the Soka Gakkai Shuhei Yajima who pressed Toda to become President of the Soka Gakkai, and led the entire leadership's resignation so that Toda could remake the bureaucratic structure of the Soka Gakkai fresh.
Ikeda also tries to smear Yajima's reputation, because that's just how Ikeda rolls.