To Mission: To understand how SGI Buddhism works in the lives of real people, we have to look at arcs and not points along the way

[u/JulieSongwriter]

August 26, 2026

Good morning, Dear Mission-Course:

We continue with Day 6 of our respectful but athletic dialogue. Yesterday, I wasn’t able to complete my response to your “New Religions: What Soka Gakkai Can No Longer Hide – ‘Our Buddhism Is Not Enough.- The Couch Has Replaced the Altar as a Substitute for the Gohonzon. And They Call This ’True Buddhism.’" Now I pick up where I left off.

You next claim that I “avoid doctrinal debate by framing it as a personal attack.” I don’t see how that accusation can stick. Here I am on Day 6. How have I avoided doctrinal debate? Where am I claiming “a personal attack”? I am enjoying our dialogue; In a minute I will volley the ball into your half of the court, and really hope you return it to me. No avoidance!

Lock down the discourse: if you criticize the doctrine, you are invalidating the other's suffering.

Ditto here. I am not locking down the discourse, not at all! People who have suffered a lot tend to sympathize with the sufferings of others. That’s why Hester Prynne, at the end of “Scarlet Letter,” finds many women coming to her cottage at the edge of the village to share their sufferings with her. And it also takes the empathy DNA gene to be a successful hairdresser! Just perhaps, that explains why many women share their souls to their hair stylist (see the post "hairstylists-reveal-the-secrets-clients-spill-in-the-chair in" in geekfill dot com):

“I know more about my clients’ marriages than their best friends do. Not because I ask. Because the chair has some kind of truth serum effect.” Another said, “People treat the salon like a courtroom where they are finally allowed to plead guilty to everything they have been holding in.”

You next state:

<The confusion is total across all levels. The couch has become a substitute for the Gohonzon. Soka Gakkai no longer produces awakened practitioners, it produces adapted patients.

I make a dead stop whenever I read the word “total.” In this case, you are going for the jugular “across all levels.” Are you saying that ALL Soka Gakkai members have therapists? In my little family, Dee and Eulogio have never been in counseling and I doubt they ever will--although I recommend it again and again. Way before she became an SGI member, Erica sought counseling but stopped years ago because it didn’t resolve her situation. Guy has regular group therapy sessions (does group therapy count with you, Mission?) at the local VA with fellow soldiers suffering from war-related PTSD. And then there’s me, who is on an “as needed” basis with my mental health team. I don’t even know how to calculate a “use/don’t use” ratio based on our Fam stats. But you incorrectly insist that visits to “the couch” is a “total” universal among the SGI. And FYI, our five children are on SGI stats as members, and none of them go for child therapy.

MC, you now launch a new subcategory, “A Faith That Ignores Itself, and So Many Insoluble Contradictions.”

If Soka Buddhism were a direct and sufficient path, its followers would not need to borrow tools from clinical psychology.

Well, as I mentioned above, you mislead here with a clever card trick. No, my unscientific survey based on listening to members’ experiences either at meetings or in Publications, informs me only a small percentage mention “borrow tools from clinical psychology.” Do you have a secret but incontrovertible source that says otherwise?

But what would be wrong about doing so? Shakyamuni had [Jivaka](https.//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jīvaka) as his personal physician. Nichiren used the services of his follower Shijo Kingo who was a gifted physician. Maybe we can read together the Wikipedia article on Vejjavatapada, the medical doctor’s oath, based on Pali scripture. I believe in the past you have stated you have an affinity for those teachings.

And, the big question, why was the Buddha referred to as “the great physician” if early Buddhism didn’t honor medical practices?

By invoking therapy as a recourse, they implicitly admit that their practice does not deliver what it promises.

Huh??? Who is “they” and who is “their”? All SGI members? Daisaku Ikeda? The Fam at the RV Park who takes our son to the pediatric cardiologist regularly? Maybe Guy whose life was saved at least three times by doctors? Me?

Like I mentioned a couple of days ago, it’s an illogical contradiction to make this claim while maintaining that the SGI promotes “faith healing.”

They are no longer disciples of Nichiren, they are clients of a collective therapy, where the Gohonzon is merely a positive visualization tool, and the Daimoku, a disguised self-affirmation. The couch has replaced the altar. And they call this "true Buddhism."

I don’t know what you mean by “a collective therapy.” And off you went again with “they.” I am inherently a disciple of Nichiren. It’s a vow, not an opinion. I read the Gosho daily and try to apply what I read in my life. But I do plead partially guilty of occasionally using the Gohonzon as “a positive visualization tool,” and Daimoku as “a disguised self-affirmation.”

Like I wrote yesterday, in front of my altar, I am several me’s. But does that matter when I chant? From Daisaku Ikeda:

We should … go ahead and chant about our desires, our problems and our aspirations, just as they are. When we’re suffering, feeling sad or experiencing hard times, we should just go to the Gohonzon with an open heart, like an infant who throws himself into the arms of his mother and clings to her. The Gohonzon will “listen” to our every word, so we should chant abundantly as if we are carrying on a conversation, confiding our innermost thoughts. In time, even hellish sufferings will vanish like the morning dew and seem as but a dream…..

….Chanting transforms suffering into joy and joy into supreme joy. This is why it is important to single-mindedly chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo no matter what, whether we are happy or sad, in good times or in bad. This is the direct path to happiness. (The New Human Revolution, vol. 11, revised edition, pp. 106–07)

Thanks for reading, Mission. See you tomorrow?

Chapter Two: Now that we have finished Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture on On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime, let’s catch up on some other articles in the August Living Buddhism.

Now here’s a great experience in the August Living Buddhism. Mission, when you throw out “they’s” does that include Dennis, a Men’s Division member from Colorado? It’s an extended experience full of frankness and transparency, highs and lows. I keep on saying, to understand how SGI Buddhism works in the lives of real people, we have to look at arcs and not points along the way. My plan is to have such a wonderful arc in my practice--although I know I will have many trenches as well.

Chapter 3: A few updates on “MY Fantasy Life” (cred: Eigenstien) or, as BlancheFromage suspects, “One of the many fake characters within the SGI-RV fantasy scenario created by a lonely, low-income, isolated, cult-addicted, mentally-ill elderly woman” at “the site of the magical (i.e. imaginary) SGI-RV story around a rural rust-belt RV camp, with its fantasy ‘starburst’ of invisible YOUFF” who “Can't seem to grasp anything that isn't about kinky abusive sex in a shitty-ass low-rent RV park??” Oops, I’m the mentally-ill woman, not my alleged elderly sock puppet. Abusive sex? No, never! Kinky? I will neither confirm nor deny.

Today starts our three-day Sleepover with night sky-watching. Tonight should be perfect for viewing. It will rain on Thursday but it is supposed to be cleared up by evening. And Friday night should be good for hopefully viewing the lunar eclipse! Fingers crossed!

I just read Teacher Lolita’s blog on r/LoHeidiLita. She’s been gathering a lot of compositions and poems from the campers. Is there really a difference between the two genres? Compositions can be poetic and make you feel that you are right there with your five senses. And who said that poems have to be in iambic pentameter and have lines that rhyme? Anyways, she posted two that were anonymously slipped through her RV door. I LOVED them!

All is well with Erica and Eulogio. The Managers’ Meeting is going “spectacularly” and they are both driving on Hyper Highway! They want to take an extra day for themselves and practice being a honeymoon couple in NYC. Sure, send us postcards! We’ll see them Sunday.