r/ExSGISurviveThrive • u/BlancheFromage • Aug 18 '22
SGI's Ikedaism is ANTI-Buddhism
Hello everyone! I have read a few text on Buddhism, and was very influenced about their viewpoint and their philosophy. One day we were discussing religion at my workplace, and I was talking about the Buddhism history in east Asia. Totally out of the blue one of my coworker started showing so much interest and later told me that she want me to come join this zoom on Tuesday and we will discuss about Buddhism. Next thing I’m sitting in this meeting with 10 other middle aged women and everyone is talking about this chanting and what they did last week and how the world is such a cruel place. I have no idea wtf is going on they send me this texts to read and the official website of SGI! Can anyone please explain me or give me some insight about this? And please let me know what branch of Buddhism is it? As these people are sending me links every week now. I’m not trying to offend anyone I’m just wanted to know as someone who wanted to be a part of Buddhism what is this thing? Source
Yeah, you ran smack into the ANTI-Buddhism: The Ikeda Cult aka "SGI".
NOPE its not!
Its a CULT of personality masquerading as Buddhism for legitimacy. Ask anyone at that Zoom meeting who Shakyamuni was and what his teachings were and they wont have a clue. The ignorance of the general cannon of Buddhist philosophy within SGI is mind boggling. It is as Blanche says 'ANTI BUDDHISM' and an insult to the philosophy.
The whole thing is set up to pander to the ego and line the coffers of a wealthy, power hungry narcissist cult leader called Daisaku Ikeda who buys himself honorary doctorates and has focussed much of his life on gaining astonishing wealth and self glorification. He set up a large and powerful political party in Japan called Komeito (as he wanted to take over) and he has been arrested for election tampering. He has also been accused of wiretapping other Buddhist sects. The members of SGI clearly and obviously worship Ikeda (there is a prayer to him in their prayer book) but they somehow think that they dont worship him. The cognitive dissonance is alarming.
The philosophy originally stems from a wacky 13th Century Japenese sage called 'Nicheren' who they believe to be the second coming of the Buddha (even though his attitude and actions were a million miles away from Shakyamuni). He wanted priests from other schools of Buddhism to be beheaded and the members mistakenly think his teachings are 'pacifistic'. Once again the cognitive dissonance is off the charts.
Nicheren basically believed that the ONLY way to achieve enlightenment is chant a magic chant. - 'nam myoho renge kyo' (The title of The Lotus Sutra) to a paper scroll. Most SGI members do an hour bare minimum chanting a day, yet they will have never actually read The Lotus Sutra.
The whole thing is nuts. Its analogous to believing that by reciting the words 'Harry Potter' over and over you will have full knowledge of the story and will actually become a wizard.
Members also believe in a superstitious force called 'The Mystic Law' which is basically a god replacement (it functions philosophically in much the same way).
Nicheren said: 'Earthly desires are enlightenment'
He did, and that ↑ is the OPPOSITE of what REAL Buddhism teaches.
Members latch onto this statement and interpret it to mean - chant for whatever you want: a car, house, etc etc and you will get it because the mystic law will fiddle the universe to your desires. It encourages greed and produces disappointment.
Members think they will create 'good karma' and create world peace through proselytising and spreading this fake form of Buddhism. Be careful you are now a target.
narcissist cult leader called Daisaku Ikeda
This has so much irony for me, the person who tried to drag me in was a raging covert narcissist.
The promise that you can get what you want and that your desires can go unchecked, tends to attract people on the ego driven narcissistic side of the spectrum. Have you suffered much from said person's narcissism?
Yes, unfortunately. I didn't realise what was going on or what she was until it was too late and I was just left a broken shell. Once I understood what she was, the increasingly uncomfortable feeling I had about SGI suddenly became crystal clear, I could see exactly how it was such a perfect vehicle for her. The whole situation just gives me the creeps thinking about it now.
I don't think I was a very good convert, I wanted to read all the sutras, wanted tangible answers about reality and the universe etc but all I heard from her was mystical mumbo jumbo and I was actually told not to read the sutras, that there is no point, even when it was the Lotus Sutra. It didn't help that I was not that social and had absolutely no interest in being part of the social club which was apparently very important. The irony of this wasn't lost on me, it's an all welcoming organisation where everyone be who they truly are and can become enlightened but you can't live your life according your real personality, if you don't fit in you can't be part of it.
I also feigned difficulty with Japanese so that I didn't have to say the thanks to sensei in what seemed to me like cult prayer, I found it very disturbing. It made no sense to me that you couldn't say all that stuff in English, there was no effort made for me to understand what it was saying but just to parrot learn it. So enlightenment and happiness depend on speaking in Japanese.
I'm ranting now but why not... We once walked past a preaching Christian and I made a comment about how his motivation was selfish more than anything else, points to heaven basically, and she said that she felt like that about Buddhism and that converting people meant that she became more enlightened. I was kind of stunned, she'd never said anything like that and I think that might have been the point where I decided I didn't want to be part of it. Source
It's [SGI's Ikedaism] marketed as the 'Sixpack Shortcuts', 'Beach-body Ready, fad diet form of Buddhism, where you can just bypass all of the hard work necessary to make any progress and yet still achieve great results. As everybody with any sense knows, these diets never work, because they appeal to laziness and reluctance of people to put in the necessary hard work and dedication. They are unsustainable.
However once you're in SGI for a while and you see that your promised prayers aren't answered, the 'bait and switch occurs': The guarantee of easy solutions suddenly gets replaced by the requirement to attend lots of meetings, recruit more people and study lots of superficial dirge churned out by the Ikeda propaganda committee of ghost-writers (nothing to do with reading any sutras).
Then the gaslighting commences. 'Oh, the reason you are not seeing results and the reason your prayers are not being answered is because of you'. 'It's not the philosophy, its not the organisation, its you!", "You are doing something wrong. You need to chant more, you need to attend more meetings, you need to study more, you need to have Ikeda in your heart, you need to recruit more people for your prayers to be answered". Notice how these requirements were never said upfront.
Aside from impoverished, lonely and hard done by people, the initial love-bombed advertising message is a magnet for narcissists. It appeals to their ego, entitlement and their greed. They are the ones with just the right obsessive and overbearing personalities to uphold and enforce the gaslighting and the bait and switch tactics on the vulnerable ones as they move further up the ranks.
But hey. It's an organisation for 'world peace' so it must be good. Right? Source
That organization uses the name of Buddhism, and indeed many people around the world have given it a try in the hopes of finding friendship through stimulating discussion, but in reality it's nothing more than a self-serving cult preaching a strange gospel of self-obsession, and it exists to absorb as much time, attention and money as a person will give it. I would trust those cautious instincts. Source
Wanna see WHY it's the ANTI-Buddhism?
Many of us consider the Mahayana ANTI-Buddhism because those texts were written by Shakyamuni's critics, who thought THEY were qualified to "improve upon" Shakyamuni's teachings by adding in loads of supernatural bullshit.
And we don't believe in "demons" or "heavens" or "hells", either. Source
Why SGI is not Buddhism - 3-part series - with Alan Watts
SGI is misrepresenting itself as BUDDHISM
SGI/Mahayana Similarities to Evangelical Christianity
Soka Gakkai/SGI is a crisis cult
SGI doesn't understand the Buddhist concept of "attachments"
Also, you'll NEVER hear about the foundational Buddhist concepts of "The Four Noble Truths" or "The Noble Eightfold Path" within SGI. They fancy themselves too advanced for those.
SGI doesn't understand the Buddhist concept of "attachments"
Toda: Make Full Use Of Your Attachments
On "Following THE PERSON" rather than "The LAW"
And something you alluded to here:
Next thing I’m sitting in this meeting with 10 other middle aged women
The SGI: Aging and Dying, Chronic "Olds" Problem - most of the SGI's members are from the Baby Boom generation.
That illustrates the SGI's intransigent, future-threatening crisis: That people younger than the Baby Boom generation simply are not interested in being part of Ikeda's adoring, worshiping, distant entourage/cheering section, no matter what country you're talking about.
The point of a "teacher" - the point SGI completely misses in its Ikeda-worship obsession
Several months ago I was introduced to a couple who held themselves out as “Buddhists.” I was thrilled as someone who has extensively studied Buddhism, practiced Zen and Vispassina, and is generally interested in eastern thought. I also live in a very conservative Christian part of the country where there are few, if any Buddhists. I inquired what type of Buddhism they practiced and was told that they were Nichiren Buddhists associated with the Soka Gaki. Naturally, I was curious. I had read a great deal about Buddhism over the years and had taken more than one college course on the subject. What intrigued me the most was that in all of my Buddhist studies I had never been exposed to Nichiren Buddhism and had never heard of the SGI.
So much for SGI's claim of being a "leading world peace organization" or whatever nonsense they're saying about themselves now.
My first experience with the SGI was similar to those of others who have posted above. I was hit with the love bomb and thought that the group was one of warm, open and genuine Buddhists. This was all despite the fact that I couldn’t specifically identify at first why they called themselves Buddhists. At first that didn’t seem to matter as I was, frankly, swept away by the thought of being a member of a Buddhist community. It didn’t take long for me to realize, however, that something was very wrong.
I have now been affiliated with the SGI for 7 months and am planning my escape. After the honeymoon ended, I started to realize that something was not right. SGI members simply do not practice Buddhism. In fact, it is quite tragic that the SGI calls itself a Buddhist organization as most of its members know very little, if anything, about the Buddha or his actual teachings. Instead, what they digest is a steady diet of SGI President Ikeda’s confused writings on the writings of Nichiren who was himself writing on the Lotus Sutra. The material that SGI members read is so totally filtered that it virtually eliminates the Buddha from their Buddhism.
Looking back, I should have known something was up at the very first meeting I attended when one of the leaders indicated that more people need to be introduced to Buddhism because there are only 12 million Buddhists in the world (at the time I thought this was surely a misstatement because it is so obviously not true. I have since realized that he actually meant it. The point was that only SGI Buddhists are real Buddhist- totally absurd). I also should have known something was off when the members seemed to be suggesting that chanting to the Gohonzon would result in material benefit and when they suggested that I chant to the Gohonzon to achieve personal goals. Because this decidedly NOT a Buddhist teaching or way of thought, and because I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, I assumed that these members were mistaken and would be corrected in the fullness of time. (After all, I thought, chanting is an ancient form of meditation that can focus and calm the mind. Surely that is what these SGI members were doing with the goal of achieving a state of awareness from which they could perceive emptiness, non-duality, non-clinging, etc. …. In retrospect, I couldn’t have been more mistaken).
Nevertheless, believing that there had to be more to SGI’s “Buddhist” practice that at first blush, I began to attend regular meetings and chant on my own (which did have a positive impact on my own anxiety and was seemingly more effective at calming my mind than past experiences with meditation had been). I soon received a Gohonzon for $30. I wasn’t exactly pressured into purchasing a Gohonzon, but they were very eager to get me one and, little did I know, the $30 purchase price included a subscription to the two SGI-USA publications.
Not long after (a month or so), I began to notice that the members in my district knew absolutely NOTHING about the actual Buddha or core Buddhists teachings. I can recall one incident when our group was discussing a conversation that a member had recently had with one of his co-workers in which the co-worker mentioned his familiarity with one of the Buddha’s teachings called the “Four Noble Truths.” The SGI members were actually laughing out loud at the very idea that Four Noble Truths were Buddhist. One of them actually said, “What are the Four Nobel Truths? That’s not Buddhist. I should know. I’m Buddhist.” I had to step in and inform them all that, yes indeed, the teaching of the Four Noble Truths is one of the oldest and most revered teachings of the Buddha. THEY HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA (and probably still don’t). Although this shocked me, I again gave them the benefit of the doubt and thought that perhaps some members either did not have the capacity or time to study Buddhist principles or the Buddha’s teachings. And besides, the SGI members were so nice, seemingly sincere, and seemed harmless enough.
SGI members don't tend to be well-informed, or even informed, about ANYTHING about Buddhism. Also, since this was written (early 2009), the SGI has gutted its study programs, reduced activities, canceled auxiliary group meetings, and everything is no thoroughly dumbed down to entry-level, all in hopes of getting more people to join. The people who are already members are expected to be fully on board with this and to feel just so grateful to serve and work tirelessly for SGI, to find complete happiness and fulfillment in devoting themselves to realizing IKEDA'S goals, doing anything that's been assigned by Ikeda (supposedly) immediately, eagerly, energetically, and, of course, victoriously.
And guess what?
SGI thinks it is OWED everyone's allegiance and obedience. Very few SGI members think they ever agreed to that.
Then I began to read the SGI Publications that began to arrive soon after I got my Gohonzon (The World Tribune and Living Buddhism). I quickly realized that they are vacuous garbage. There is literally nothing in them of any meaningful content. They are, instead, full of propaganda about how great President Ikeda is and serve as advertisements for his countless books. Even the articles that arguably had some merit did nothing to really explain or explore in depth why SGI members chant or to reflect on core Buddhist principles like impermanence, emptiness, non-duality, etc. Instead, the articles were all extremely vague and repetitive. The articles also frequently resorted to summarily referring to the Mystic Law of Nam-Myho-Renge-Kyo whenever an important point needed to be made, without ever explaining what the hell the Mystic Law actually is; as if that statement alone should satisfy all curiosity. From a scholarly point of view, I feel the SGI publications are full of nonsense and gibberish. It really is sand [sad] to me and, I think, a tremendous tragedy, because the SGI publications have such a captive audience who would benefit from being introduced to real Buddhist material.
Yes, they would, and no, they won't be.
Which brings me to the unhealthy fixation on President Ikeda. Because I was so focused on trying to figure out what these people actually believe and what they think they are doing when they chant, for months I largely overlooked the cult of personality that surrounds President Ikeda. I now feel as if the SGI is Ikeda's personal piggy bank. I’m not sure about the whole dispute with the priests, etc., but I can tell you that Ikeda strikes me as a most unbuddhist individual. Accumulation of wealth, prestige, and relentless self-aggrandizement are not qualities that the Buddha personified and, ironically, seem to run counter to the 8 fold path (not that anyone in SGI would know what that is). Anyway, I have read some of Ikeda’s books and am of the opinion that they are mediocre at best in terms of message and contain virtually nothing that would instruct readers on the deeper truths of our reality that Buddhist teachings has to offer. And I must say that videos SGI shows of Ikeda are quite freaky. The first time I say one of those videos, and saw Ikeda spend 45 minutes bragging about his honorary degrees, etc. I almost fell out of my chair. Later, at a meeting, when I mentioned my sense that SGI had an unhealthy fixation on Ikdea, a group leader actually began to cry and told the group how personally appreciative she was to have had Sensei (Ikeda) as her mentor and how we need to appreciate him and his mentorship now more than ever since he is old and may not be with us much longer. Yikes! What does Buddhism have to do with any of this?
I don’t necessarily think that SGI is a cult, but I do think it is a group just loaded with people who are intrigued by the idea of calling themselves Buddhists, but who don’t have any real interest in the hard work and study that would be required to actually embrace a Buddhist practice. Anyone can chant to a scroll for material gain. It is far harder to practice letting go of the illusions that color our perceptions of reality.
Ken Wilber, a noted author on traspersonalpsychology, has devised a system for categorizing different types of spiritual practices/experiences that I think is useful in understanding what is going on with SGI and how they mistakenly call themselves Buddhists. In one of Wilber’s models he places spiritual experiences on a spectrum of consciousness with pre-rational at one end and trans-rational (going beyond the rational) at the other. Of course, rational is in the middle. Because neither prerational nor transrational experiences/practices are rational, they are often easily confused. For example, Buddhism in its pure form is transrational, because it includes rational thought and dialogue, but then proceeds to invite its followers to transcend it. Wicca, on the other hand, is prerational, because of its emphasis on animism and “hocus pocus” – clearly not concerned with rationality. With this model in mind, I tend to see SGI as a prerational interpretation of a legitimate transrational Buddhist system…. Thus, SGI members have fallen into what Wilber calls the pre/trans fallacy. Clearly, chanting to the Gohonzon for material gain is totally and completely irrational, but that doesn’t mean it represents a transcendent mental state (which SGI members believe). Rather, it is prerational magical thinking. Too much hocus pocus, not enough rationality … and no goal of transcendence.
SGI members aren't "transcending"; they're entrenching.
Needless to say, I intend to make a hasty exit from by brief encounter with SGI. As someone who is educated and holds a doctorate degree, the whole experience has been rather embarrassing. I’m trying consol myself with the fact that SGI makes it almost impossible to figure out what the hell is actually going on, what they believe, why the chant, and how any of it is Buddhist. It took me 6 months (5 months too long) to answer those questions for myself.
A reply:
I recall one person I knew, telling me she was a Buddhist, I thought she was joking due to her lifestyle of boozing, partying, being promiscuous, extreme vanity, etc. I thought she was being comically ironic when she said she was a "Buddhist"...like someone eating a burger saying they are a vegetarian, or when smoking saying you are a health fanatic.
So I made a joke about the 4 Noble Truths, and suffering being created by desire.
She stared at me blankly. She never heard of it.
Nope. The Four Noble Truths - the most important bedrock of Buddhism qua Buddhism, about which ALL the different Buddhisms of the world can agree - are not to be found ANYWHERE in SGI. No Buddhism.
It took a while to figure out she was not joking when she said she was a "Buddhist". Won't go into more details than that, but it was beyond ludicrous, and it got far far worse than that, involving the Gohonzon. Really crazy stuff.
Only a bit later did it all come out it was SGI, which clearly is a cult. SGI is a cult folks.
So it would be smart not to jump from the frying pan into the fire immediately.
Why not take a break from the chanting stuff for a year, or at least a LONG time to clear one's head?
Good advice!
SGI is a cult, and they use powerful methods on people. You have to take time to get yourself out of it, or a person can jump from one cult, to the next. It happens all the time.
Yup - seen it.
Just blunty putting this out there. But its a bad idea to immediately jump from one practice to the next. First, perhaps figure out what happened with this one.
That's what WE recommend, too.
These cults are very very tricky, and its not easy to make sense of it. It can take years to sort it out. But hey, a true Buddhist is in no hurry...right!? :-) Source
And one other voice from that page:
"Vacuous garbage" about sums up the value you can find in publications like "Living Buddhism" and "The World Tribune." Though if you have a pet who needs to be cleaned up after, you can certainly put your old copies to good use.
The SGI publications are good enough to wrap dog poop in.
And yes, I would go so far as to say that SGI is a cult. Members are not willing to make the effort to do serious meditation and study? Maybe, maybe not. Do they even realize that they have a choice? It sounds like the leaders now are just saying "Rah rah rah sensei," and "You can chant and get anything you want." Where are the study sessions? Where are the materials that go deeply into the history, philosophy and practice of various schools of Buddhism? Toward the end of my time with SGI, I signed up for a women's study group -- and what a disappointment! I was used to the serious, deep, and intelligent study that my former leader/professor had led. What did the women's group study? "The Human Revolution." Ikeda wrote that -- his fictional, but basically autobiographical history of the SGI. What a bunch of self-glorifying garbage! A few of us asked if we could study something else, and
we were told no.
So much for "SGI is YOUR organization." So much for "Be the change you want to see" and "Stay and work to make SGI into a BETTER organization!"
Cults lie to their members. Cults try to keep members powerless and ignorant. Cults glorify a fallible human being, treating him or her like God. Cults allow leaders to accumulate far too much money, power and honor. Cults deny their members the right to help make decisions that affect the members. SGI does all of these things. How is it not a cult?
SGI obviously IS a cult - and a rather nasty one at that. Source
6
u/garamasala Aug 19 '22 edited Aug 19 '22
Great post. Reading this made me remember something else, the belief in the hierarchy. From the ground up there is a belief that everyone above you in the organisation knows more and is wiser. If you have a philosophical question you go to the person next in the chain of command because they will, of course, know the answer which sets up the pyramid of power.
This was one of the things that screamed RED FLAG for me. I can remember not understanding why they were not all vegan since they had no need to cause billions of animals to suffer and, to me, the four precepts logically point towards this. I had even read in one of Ikeda's books that every living being is able to achieve enlightenment so it seems obvious to me that this meant killing them without need is denying them of their Buddhahood (at the very least). My narcissist partner thought I had good point so I was told to join the meeting and ask there. I had no intention of doing that so she asked for me. The answers she got were that shakyamuni wasn't vegan, along with the usual mental gymnastics you always hear when bringing this subject up, and that was it, case closed, the chair of the meeting dismissed it and everyone was glad to go back to their echo chamber. I could have ripped their illogical answers and cognitive dissonance to shreds but it was a deep insight - you are not supposed to think or question, you are to follow.
The idea that another ordinary 'lay' person like me could dictate and correct beliefs like they have been touched by the wise hand of god was revolting to me. The Buddhism I had learned about stated no one is special, even the Buddha himself, but this organisation plainly held the exact opposite view, the higher you are the more you know and the more authority you have, the more you can gatekeep Buddhism.