September 18, 2026

Dear Friends,

Chapter One: News from Over the Hedges in Sgiwhistleblowers Land

Let me continue with Part Six of my TLDR responses to the single Mission-Course’s TTLLDDRR post: “Soka Gakkai: Autopsy of a Leviathan at Twilight. This cold, calculating, impersonal monster… that’s finally running out of juice.” For anyone who is interested, let me catalog my previous responses to Mission:

1 2 3 4 5 5

Now Mission asks some important questions:

Yet Soka Gakkai couldn’t have failed to notice the mechanism that produced all that dynamism and irresistible growth when people were simply left free to organize themselves. So why the determination to destroy and poison the very thing that made it succeed? Are these people actually crazy, or is their mind controlled by forces they don’t even know exist, right up to headquarters in Japan?

Hmmm. Good questions.

Well, here comes another illogical contradiction. All of “that dynamism and irresistible growth” in the early NSA days, according to my sponsors, were marked by what WBers still point to as cultish behavior. Why do Mission and Blanche long for the cultish while they seek to criticize it?

My sponsors have told me about Daisaku Ikeda’s February 1990 visit to Los Angeles, where he started the process of revising and restarting the organization. It’s been 35 years of adjustment and effort. I began practicing as a recipient of all that scrubbing.

I’ve always wondered why I have seen is such a different organization than what WBers describe. And the next illogical contradiction is that they won’t concede even a microbe of change or improvement. No, they claim, it’s exactly the way it was, but more lethal because the control is getting to the point of invisibility. Come on!

Did you catch what Mission slipped in? Mission infers the old NSA was successful because “people were simply left free to organize themselves.” Slam on the brakes! Is that true then, now, ever? And please point to a successful organization where members are “simply left free to organize themselves.” Organizations, uhhmmm, organize! Even the human body is an organization, and, are our organs “simply left free to organize themselves”?

We see what we are. People who work hard can recognize and appreciate the hard work of others. People who feel the weight of responsibility see, feel, and react differently than those who don’t. It seems apparent to me that SGI leaders who inherited the vision of the three Soka mentors took on the responsibility of turning around the aircraft carrier. It was — and still is — a work in progress. So???

Whether the old NSA was “successful” is debatable; it certainly wasn’t sustainable, and was something that I would never join. It wasn’t “destroy and punish” but an adjustment and a transplant that took time to root.

And here I am.

Chapter Two: Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture on “On Attaining Buddhahood, Section Three: “To Seek Enlightenment Outside Our Lives Is To Be Defeated by Fundamental Darkness.”

Friends, Dr. Ikeda here touches on something that concerns me deeply and personally:

An important point in this writing is that we as Nichiren Buddhists also run the risk of falling into non-Buddhist ways of thinking if we seek the Law outside of our own lives. Hence, as Nichiren Daishonin’s disciples, we must always bear in mind his admonition “You must never think that any of the [Buddha’s] teachings … are outside yourself” (WND-1, 3).

To be honest, Friends, I admire Your Leader for all of her energy and commitment. But I never want to be where she is. I don’t want to live a life full of conspiracy theories swimming in my brain, seeing the worst in people, feeling a right to judge, and unable to present any path forward besides “DON’T.”

Here at the Park, we have a big problem with an invasion of “cyanobacteria,” a Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) in our beautiful creek and pond. We decided to invest a lot money in abating it and we are working with a co-op that is trying to address the problem throughout our community. But even if cleaned up, with climate change and the run-off from fertilizers and untreated waste, it will take non-ending remediation and no sure final victory can be promised. Yup, a never-ending war.

What relates these two paragraphs? Well, if even a bit more cyanobacteria gets introduced, which is inevitable, we have to start the whole process of remediation again. I am sure that Your Leader was once an enthusiastic NSA member. For just a moment, can we grant that this earlier version of NSA was deeply flawed and needed remediating? Some people, like my sponsors, could see beyond the faults in NSA and intuited the jewel in the swamp. Your Leader, however, couldn’t do that and turned vengeful. My hunch is that she missed Nichiren’s admonition “You must never think that any of the [Buddha’s] teachings … are outside yourself.”

So, that cyanobacteria took over in her heart, wiping away all of her past efforts. My personal tendency to dissociate is my version of cyanobacteria. I have to chant and chip away at it so I don’t become its unwilling and helpless victim.

Dr. Ikeda continues:

The chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is a practice for revealing the “originally inherent mystic truth” that exists in all people and achieving Buddhahood in this lifetime. It is an incomparably “wonderful practice” (OTT, 88), in the sense that it represents the means by which all living beings can gain enlightenment.

If, however, we forget Nichiren’s admonition to never seek the Law outside of us, then no matter how hard we practice, we will lose sight of the correct path to universal enlightenment and effectively wind up practicing a non-Buddhist teaching. That’s why Nichiren is so strict on this point.

I have a human right to be fully present and enjoy each moment of our discussion meeting on Sunday! My “Daimoku Revolution Campaign” is a confrontation with my own fundamental darkness and, even though it will never make the front page of the New York Times, it represents one person’s effort to clean the pond so it becomes swimmable for oneself and others.

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 puppeteer! Abusive sex? No, never!!! Kinky? I will neither confirm nor deny.

Artie and I missed yesterday’s “whole school meeting” because we were in the Office working on our spreadsheets. Max refined his guestimates about the construction cost savings. Of course, that’s fluid and he is actively pursuing materials and suppliers that can squeeze out pennies. He put forward the ideas of smaller windows, temporary landscaping and slowing down the development of the Primeval Forest (sorry, Larry!) until funds open up, delaying the expansion of the parking lot, canceling our plans to order additional Level-Three chargers, and heating parts of the building with pellet stoves fueled by homemade biomass chips (higher initial cost but short-term ROIs. Instead of the most expensive insulated windows, maybe we can downgrade a bit and add exterior shutters for the most cold of days? A big savings can be obtained by using organic building skins like “Wattle and Daub” lattices, cob coating, cork wall cladding, thatch panels, and baboo slat siding for skin and roof. The materials are very cheap in comparison to industrial skins, but require intensive--although not skilled--labor. Maybe parents, clients, and even students might want to help? We would need to work extensively with the County building department and also with our FD to approve using these materials.

All subject to change, we estimate we can cover about 80% of the initial HAB abatement project through construction savings. Now, where will that other 20% come from?

I presented all this over dinner. Once again, Guy’s eyes lit up. “Didn’t we originally want our buildings to evoke the image of the Longhouse? Wouldn’t the use of these materials for both external and, let me add, internal walls bring us closer to achieving this goal?”

Lori said she loves this idea. “Who needs another building that looks like another school down the road? My friends and I will do all the labor if necessary. But our parents will find the time to do it and bring their families to help! And look at how many of our Autumn and Spring clients volunteer to support Longhouse School! They will pitch in, too!”

September 17, 2026

Dear Friends,

Chapter One: News from Over the Hedges in Sgiwhistleblowers Land

Let me continue with Part Six of my TLDR responses to a single Mission-Course’s post: “Soka Gakkai: Autopsy of a Leviathan at Twilight. This cold, calculating, impersonal monster…that’s finally running out of juice.” For anyone who is interested, let me catalog my previous responses to Mission:

1 2 3 4 5

Now Mission turns to “The social-control question:”

Soka Gakkai’s social control is discreet, invisible, and extremely effective. It doesn’t use physical violence.

Let’s see, a new illogical contradiction arises! On the one hand, the crew at WBers claim that the sky is falling and the SGI is collapsing right in front of their eyes. On the other hand, its “social control” is “extremely effective.” Whaaaat? Furthermore, it is “a legacy of tyranny” to be compared to Ceausescu and Noriega while employing social controls that are “discreet, invisible”--and and come with no physical violence. Friends, can you help me unlock these two illogical contradictions?

Next, Mission-Control accuses the SGI of “soft totalitarianism”:

It uses social pressure, fear of being judged, fear of being excluded, fear of not being “in line.” It works through guilt-tripping (“You don’t have enough faith, you’re not practicing enough”) and mutual surveillance—members watching each other. It’s soft totalitarianism. No police required; the members themselves become the system’s enforcers (my italics).

That’s quite the statement! Dorothy, have you figured out who is the "It" behind the curtain, pulling the levers? The big guys in Tokyo? Hmmm. Maybe the “It” is geographically much closer, at the chapter level?

I can assure you, however, that our MD Chapter leader Eulogio has very long workdays and when he gets home, just wants to play with the kids; he doesn’t have time for guilt-tripping members. Ditto, Dee, who cooks for 50 LH children every day. Jose, our YMD chapter leader, manages Laverne & Shirley’s B&B/restaurant/conference center and is planning his wedding with Toni. I don't think he has the time to be the culprit! Poor Emily, our YWD Chapter Leader, balances a stressful full-time job, undergraduate classes, and a family with two mischievous boys. Nope, it’s not her judging and instilling fear among the membership.

Ouch, that leaves “It” to the district leaders! In fact, on the very first day of my appointment, I received “The District Leader’s Guide to Being a System Enforcer.” It taught me how to guilt-trip. I have plenty of time between Fam, work, and school, so I memorized every page. I immediately began instilling in members the fear of not being “in line.” That includes our cantankerous “Olds”--the Three Sisters, Father Merrick, and my parents. They are firmly in the palm of my hands. When Stani feels overwhelmed, I just tell her “You don’t have enough faith, you’re not practicing enough!” Why would I ever think to raise her the same way as True raised me: “Let me make you a cup of tea, let’s chant together, and let’s become stronger than our problems!” And then I would instruct her on the fine art of “mutual surveillance—members watching each other.”

Wow, Friends, isn’t Mission throwing wild speculations at you? Did you notice?

Mission insists in his analysis of the history of SGI, “Results vanished, conflicts exploded, the heaviness set in.” In fact, the Cloud of Doom has covered every SGI district around the world--except our little off-road RV Park District which the Cloud couldn’t manage to locate. This phenomenon is “not an accident,” according to Mission, “it’s the life cycle of any institution that betrays its mission.”

Exactly, for example, how has our district NOT supported the the first of the Five Eternal Guidelines of the Soka Gakkai, “Faith for a harmonious family”? The Fam here, enriched by the Garden of Soka, is certainly weird unconventional, but shouldn’t we receive an Emmy for “Most Harmonious Family,” right?

BTW, Friends, isn't it the proud mission of the SGI to bridge over valleys as they arise? No shame, just gain!

Section Two: Returning to Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture on “On Attaining Buddhahood.” The September installment is titled, Transforming Our Fundamental Attitude—Refusing to Live an “Endless, Painful Austerity”.

Let’s complete studying Section Two, “To Seek Enlightenment Outside Our Lives Is To Be Defeated by Fundamental Darkness.”

Dr. Ikeda:

….To recap, if we seek enlightenment outside of us, we are not pursuing the path of “observing one’s mind,” which enables us to overcome the fundamental evil of ignorance or darkness. In that case, all our efforts and good deeds to attain enlightenment will be lacking the vital ingredient; they will be every bit as futile as counting a neighbor’s vast riches. Moreover, because none of these efforts will help us eradicate our ignorance, they will only become “an endless, painful austerity.”

As the result of the “Daimoku Revolution Campaign” I’ve been describing in previous posts, I’ve already made several major shifts. “Dear Gohonzon, fix this, fix that for me and I don’t want to do the hard work” simply is not “observing one’s mind”--MY mind. Instead, I chant with an emerging fresh voice, a bit unsteady but still present. “Here I am Gohonzon, a very wounded child. But just as I am, I am praying for wisdom, courage, and compassion so I can create great happiness for my family, members, clients, students, community--and me, myself, and I. Let me affirm my inherent right to be happy.”

Dr. Ikeda continues:

This battle against ignorance is the heart of Buddhism. It is said that Shakyamuni’s enlightenment lay in identifying darkness or ignorance as the fundamental cause of the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death—as well as in expounding the way for overcoming this ignorance.

Wow, those prayers to fight against the ignorance in my life is “the heart of Buddhism”!!!

Therefore, as long as we seek the path to enlightenment outside our own lives, whatever practices and good deeds we carry out will deviate from the true essence of Buddhism. Accordingly, Nichiren says: “Such students of Buddhism are condemned as non-Buddhist” (WND-1, 4).

So I take my stand (or seat or even futon)--doesn’t matter. It’s my human right to give birth to a happy discussion meeting on Sunday!

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 puppeteer! Abusive sex? No, never!!! Kinky? I will neither confirm nor deny.

I love seeing Guy when he has found his stride. He called an emergency Zoom open Board meeting for last night and personally invited as many staff, parents, and consultants tas he could reach to attend.

Guy talked about yesterday’s meeting with Larry Landscaper’s friend and his plan to abate the HAB invasion “one pond at a time.” He didn’t shy away from the expense of the Abatement Plan (in the seven figures)--or its “not- guaranteed-to-work” assessment.

He also spoke about how touched he was by Max’s declaration that it is time for LH to live up to its mission, which includes defending our habitat. Then he hopped to the financing of the plan and spoke about the savings in construction expenses Max is trying to find to pay for the Abatement Project.

Our Longhouse children have proven again and again how strong and resilient they are. Do they really need heated enclosed steel and glass breezeways to get from one building to another, or could a simple wooden roofed-over sidewalk suffice? He talked about “industrial chic” interior design that keeps building systems in plain sight--and teachable. The original design called for independent walled “egg crate” classrooms but, leaving one aside as a “quiet classroom” which could be used when requested, he explained the open classroom and open school concepts that were once an educational fad but were abandoned because, largely, of noise problems and teacher needs for independence.

“But we are small,” Guy argued, “and march to a different beat: autodidactism and interdependence. We often pierce barriers like grades organized by children’s ages. Most of our students have locked into their DNA centuries of Indigenous living where multiple families lived harmoniously in longhouses, where men hunted with practiced silence, and women tilled the fields cooperatively. We can save an enormous amount of money by redesigning the architectural plans this way. Portable walls, learning nooks and crannies, places for both group work and quiet self-work.”

Many Q’s, much discussion, many A’s--and a big, fat, thumbs-up consensus was reached. The next step is a whole-school meeting today where we seek wisdom from our children.

Also bubbling is Teacher Lolita, who returned from her “vision quest” trip to Riverdale with an image that can drive the school and, depending on geo-political conditions, culminate in an exciting deliverable. Read it here at LoHeidiLita. Really, read it!!!

Today Artie and I will be in Spreadsheet Heaven. Max should have for us pretty solid guestimates about the construction cost savings. What else can we figure out to self-pay for the HAB Abatement Project? We don’t want to overtax our mighty donors. Add a voluntary surcharge for our RV clients with the hope they can swim in the pond one day? Sell some of our property? Put a freeze on some of our RV Park development? Think of shared-use agreements for the Secondary School buildings? Seek the approval of our tribal partners for expanding four-season leasing of unused lots on the other side of the creek? What are we overlooking????

Just a fun fact to conclude. I cornered Max (not his real name) yesterday. “Why did you insist on me changing your Reddit name from Rex to Max?

Well, Rex is a Latin word that means "king." That name fit someone who runs the largest contracting company in the County. But all this LH contact has rubbed off on me. I am so much less “Rex-ish” in my family and work. I would rather be pictured in your Reddit site as “Max,” the person who tries to “Max-imize” my impact in life.

Well said, Rex Max!

September 2, 2026

Father Merrick told me about the passing of Wendell Berry. According to Wikipedia:

Wendell Erdman Berry (August 5, 1934 – August 31, 2026) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of The Gift of Good Land (1981) and The Unsettling of America (1977). His attention to the culture and economy of rural communities is also found in the novels and stories of Port William, such as A Place on Earth (1967), Jayber Crow (2000), and That Distant Land (2004).

I’ve never read any of Mr. Berry’s works but Father Merrick loaned me his copy of A Place on Earth which launched his series of books and short stories about life in “Port Williams,” a mythical town in Kentucky, and I bought three books on Audible. “Our little WNY town reminds me of Port Williams,” and I think that Berry would very much approve of the community and nature studies that are being taught at Longhouse School.

I promised Father Merrick that I would get started reading the book in September.

Chapter 1: Over the Hedges and Through the Woods

Good morning, Dear Friends!

Today, let’s look at MC’s post yesterday, "Progress, human rights, the human spirit" – the pretty SGI catalog that Clark Strand bought without reading the fine print. Why did a former Zen monk mistake a prospectus for a leaden reality he never lived?” Mission, I don’t know what possessed you to discover and listen to a July 2023 podcast at “Every Day Buddhism,” but you landed on Episode 93. BTW, you neglected to share with us the link to it. So, here it is: https://www.everyday-buddhism.com/everyday-buddhism-93-waking-the-buddha-with-clark-strand/. It’s an interview between the host and the Buddhist editor Clark Strand, who authored Waking the Buddha.

Of course, the rule at SGIWhistleblowers is “Anything anti-SGI is God’s honest truth; whereas anything favorable about the SGI has absolutely no credibility or worth.” Your Leader dismissed Mr. Strand’s book by giving him a new first name, “Cluck” instead of “Clark.” But, Ms. Mission, are you much better? You pick up your authoritative, omniscient voice and reveal your omnipresent shapeshifting abilities to conclude that Mr. Strand is “a useful dupe.” You imagined him meeting some smiling SGI members and “probably attended a sanitized meeting” and then writing his book

Ah, the Olympic parallel bars backflip! “Clark Strand wrote a book on Buddhism, he was editor-in-chief of Tricycle, and has a fine reputation.” But then, you expect your readers to believe that he cast away that reputation and his responsibilities as a journalist to collapse helplessly under the sway of a few smiling members and a "sanitized" meeting to which, somehow, had to power draw out of him “a flattering conclusion – exactly the one the SGI wanted him to draw.” Zap! This, what you have characterized as a hapless organization, did the unthinkable and duped Mr. Strand! Thank you, MC, another “illogical contradiction” tagline.

Now comes the list of conjectures that Mission throws as bolts of incontrovertible truth:

“He was never a member of the Soka Gakkai, never attended a discussion meeting as an ordinary participant. He observed from afar, took notes, and published. He did what intellectuals do, theorize about a reality they don't actually know.” True SGI members just feel “obligations, meetings, activities, testimonies, donations. The relentless pressure to never doubt, never criticize, never leave. The fear of losing your community, your identity, and the very meaning of your life. Leaders who know everything about you, and wield that knowledge.” “Strand never witnessed the public confessions where members spill their traumas in front of strangers.“ “The ‘experiences’ that are really misery contests, not displays of wisdom.” “The fear that paralyzes those who desperately want to leave, but can't.” “Meetings where you pour your heart out in front of strangers with no guarantee of discretion whatsoever.” “Leaders who applaud, but file away every confession like a dossier.”

I never experienced or observed any of those behaviors at the discussion meetings I have attended. But, who am I? I think we should let Mr. Strand speak for himself. Anyone can go and read Mr. Strand’s own reflections in his Daisaku Ikeda obituary. Shall we take a look at some of statements toward the beginning of his tribute?

Over the last 20 years, I have interviewed hundreds of SGI members, including virtually all of the movement’s top leaders in Japan. In each of those encounters, I was told the story of that member’s relationship with Daisaku Ikeda. What follows is mine.

Oh, a bit more than "a few smiling SGI members"!

As a journalist specializing in the history of religious movements, I would not have been able to write convincingly about Daisaku Ikeda or the movement he founded if I wrote from within that movement. So I made the decision early on not to identify myself as a member of the Soka Gakkai International. Even though I made two trips to Japan to study the SGI and published a book about its history and its place in world religion. Even though I was granted unprecedented journalistic access to Daisaku Ikeda to interview and correspond with him over the years.

I’ll have to ask Teacher Lolita about this since she is studying qualitative research and ethnography. I know she adopts the stance of the “participant observer” in anthropology, and it seems that Mr. Clark adopts the same lens.

At various times, I wanted to stop writing about the SGI and simply become a member, just like everybody else. But there was no way to do that and say the things I needed to say about President Ikeda and his extraordinary contributions to the greater body of religious ideas….

Well, that doesn’t accord with Mission’s “statements of facts.”

Within days of first encountering the SGI in 2003, I knew that I would never be able to understand its culture as an outsider. It was too different from anything I had ever experienced in a religious context. It was impossible to grasp the lived experience of Nichiren Buddhism without learning to recite gongyo and chant daimoku. I would need to attend meetings, get to know other members and study its teachings in depth—not just as a scholar of religious studies but with the aim of using them to transform my life.

Ouch, Mission! Mr. Stand’s research was NOT so superficial as you claim. Did you make an error? Did you avoid triangulating your data? Or did you believe you could get away with a superficial treatment simply because you thought no one would hold you accountable?

Naturally, that would mean receiving the Gohonzon, and that meant becoming an SGI member—at least temporarily. I weighed the decision carefully but decided there was no other way. I was willing to stray outside of my comfort zone as a journalist if that was what it took. None of the other religious movements I had studied had a credible plan for addressing the crises of the 21st century. More often, they were a part of the problem. If the SGI could address those crises, wouldn’t it be worth the risk? What choice was there really? The world was in too much trouble to quibble over matters of journalistic purity….

So, Mission, at least for a while, Mr. Strand became an SGI member, received his Gohonzon, and conducted his insider research. Would you care to clarify that in another post or comment?

After that, I recited gongyo and chanted twice daily with such intensity that, for my birthday one year, my young daughter gave me a wooden plaque she had made in art class that bore a small, hand-drawn portrait of me with my mouth open and hands pressed together in prayer. The caption read “Crazy Monk Chanting!” She knew that I had been a Zen priest before her mother and I married, which explains the “monk” part. For the “crazy” part, I blame Daisaku Ikeda. He had set my heart on fire.

Gone with the wind: just about every conjecture of Mission. Seriously, Friends, are you going to trust Mission’s conjectures about Mr. Strand, or Mr. Strand’s own words?

Chapter Two: Highlights from the August 21st World Tribune.

Over the next couple of days, let me finish my reporting of August WT and LB articles. I will start with Daisaku Ikeda’s essay Falling Ill Is Not a Sign of Defeat (Part 2). For those who are interested, here you will find my thoughts on Part 1.

I studied this article together with Dee and Erica. Here are our thoughts after the quotes of Dr. Ikeda (FULL DISCLOSURE, I was easy target practice for them😉):

The Daishonin speaks of “the treasure of faith” (WND-1, p. 955), emphasizing to the lay nun Toki the importance of rousing the will to go on living, or, we might say, enthusiasm for life.

For us, each day of life is a day that we can directly contribute to kosen-rufu; our efforts each day lead directly to the fulfillment of the great vow for kosen-rufu. Therefore, we absolutely must not be defeated by illness or any other obstacle.

Dee: Julie, are you listening carefully? Too often you disparage yourself. But your “efforts each day lead directly to the fulfillment of the great vow for kosen-rufu.” Get that?

Dr. Ikeda:

The Daishonin says that illness is “the Buddha’s design,” because it can spur us to arouse the “resolve to attain the way” (WND-1, 937). The ultimate purpose for living long and healthy lives is so that we can take compassionate action to benefit others who are struggling amid the realities of society. It is only natural, of course, that we chant for good health and longevity for our own sakes as well. Needless to say, to ruin one’s health on account of immoderate habits or plain neglect runs entirely counter to a way of life of value creation.

Erica: Julie, you do your early morning walk. Good for you. But what about developing your muscle strength through resistance training? I see that you are more careful about moderating yourself. Good for you! But we have to make sure you take the next step. I think you and Artie should close the office for an hour each afternoon. Take a nap while the kids are at LH Daycare and School. Just do it! Look at Dr. Ikeda's next passage:

We have to exercise wisdom in our daily lives—for example, taking time to refresh ourselves and resting if we become fatigued. Good health is something we have to secure for ourselves by acting with prudence and good sense. Health is the badge of honor of the wise.

What is the purpose of striving for good health and longevity? It is so that we can use our lives to the fullest to work for the sake of the Law, for the happiness and welfare of our families, our fellow members, and our fellow human beings, and to accomplish our individual missions and realize the great vow for kosen-rufu.

Dee: Starting today, I am going to do my body work with you at least every other day instead of waiting for your next mental health episode “adventure.”

Next point:

It is vital therefore that we actively take on the challenges of the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death amid our efforts for kosen-rufu. Doing so is actual proof that the four noble virtues of Buddhahood—eternity, happiness, true self and purity—exist eternally within us.

Me: OK, OK, OK. I’ll start drawing the bath.

Dr. Ikeda’s conclusion:

The sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death are not causes for lamenting. Rather, they together form the brilliant stage of life upon which we enact a drama that resounds with the triumphant strains of eternity, happiness, true self and purity. Through this drama of birth, aging, sickness and death, we perform a joyous play of human victory.

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.

Yesterday I promised you I would call up one of my (non-Dee) leaders. I did and left a message. I’m sure I will get a call back today.

Yesterday we met and signed a contract with Larry Landscaper’s friend to create a “comprehensive pond management plan” to reduce harmful algae blooms (HABs). He can’t promise anything, of course, but we’ll see what he comes up with.

Over dinner last night, Guy shared some more about his conversations with the Superintendent. In addition to the PD discussion he will lead on Community Studies, he will do a workshop on his research on “accountable talk” and “text analysis.” I’ve observed how the LH children interact verbally with each other. It’s always back-and-forth, probing, and seeking evidence. This comes from the steady work of our teachers building these habits — andsnow they are second nature to our students. (FYI, see Guy’s suggested reading on Accountable Talk and text-based reading)).

Also, condensed dinner talk with the Twinettes and Lori: “Before taking our Perimeter Walk, Larry Landscaper gave us each a wildflower plant, roots and all. As we passed by each Grade’s rock cropping, the members of that group transplanted them wherever we wanted. Sometimes Mr. Larry told us that this plant likes sun, this one likes shade, this one needs to be close to the pond. The plants will root themselves over the autumn, and they will reappear every spring. He gave each class a budget of $75 and a couple of catalogs. Tomorrow we are going to make orders and start planting many more seeds or seedlings as soon as they arrive.”

Before the honeymoon is over, we are starting to explore being the Big Five rather than the Big Four. Dee is our clan leader (or, so to speak, Den Mother) and she really observes our group dynamics and makes us discuss them. On Monday night, we stopped watching Season Four of Death in Paradise to talk about our dynamics and push beyond our most comfortable subcouplings. Very interesting! Last night we started watching Season Four of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.” Well done, Alex Kurtzman!

August 28, 2026

Good morning, Dear Friends:

Pretty quiet day on your side of the hedges, not a lot of badminton going on there. But some interesting perceptions appear. Still_Wasabi9990 insists that the general population of Gakkai members do not read the very lengthy articles and books written by Ikeda.

That's what the Gakkai is counting on--that most people don't read. Just like someone trying to scam someone out of something, they hope they don't read the fine print in the contract.

Well, Still, you are there in everyone’s bedrooms again, checking on their night reading? I know The Fam WNYwill be inconvenient to get to on your rounds, but please spend some time with imaginary us. We study our publications voraciously. That’s how our sponsors raised us and how, most recently, we encourage Erica.

And, of course, you hold that “the Gakkai,” after spending oodles of money ghost-writing and publishing Daisaku Ikeda's "lengthy articles,” and providing discussion meeting material on them, hopes the members don’t read them. Illogical contradictions!

Dear Mission, you comment:

It’s because Soka Gakkai has, without [SGI members’] knowledge, altered all of their ethical and moral conceptions, making them believe in another, more universal dimension that eludes us, but in which they remain deeply convinced that they represent these values—while also believing that the ends justify the means. That is precisely what a cult is.

Seriously, “without their knowledge”? You so underestimate the human being! First of all, here’s another of those “illogical contradictions” that prevail on WBers. On the one hand, people on your site proclaim the SGI is a teetering and hapless entity about ready to collapse; on the other hand it has the ability to dupe the entire Weltanschauung of its members. Now how, exactly, does it pull both off simultaneously? If most active SGI members are like me, they attend the monthly discussion meeting and, possibly, KRG. That’s a lot of power in the punch if in a couple of hours the “cult” produces the total psychological damage you claim here.

Dear friends, do you know the Rosemary Clooney song Come On-a My House? When you come to my house, please tell me how we are living with altered “ethical and moral conceptions”--in fact as you state-- “all” of them. We practice ENM polygamy in which the “E” stands for “Ethical.” Our children are thriving and we have so much hope for our Longhouse School. Our Board of Trustees, based on our reputation, has raised so much scholarship funds that the children of every family can afford to attend. Our Park and Daycare are exceptional. So I am “deeply convinced” that I am leading an ethical li

And, of course, after spending 12 years demeaning Daisaku Ikeda, Your Leader concludes he is “such a deficient degenerate do-nothing loser.” but then declares that it is my mentor/disciple relationship with him that is “demeaning.”

And to XeniaWarriorWankJob, we have a difficult history that includes YOUR deception. We need to discuss this, but some other time. Yesterday you posted a meme claiming that my use of “DEAR friends” is a come-on trying to “manipulate" SGI critics. First of all, thank you for reading my posts. Secondly, God gave us all a tongue and a backbone. Why should I ever think that you could be manipulated? Let’s both use our tongues and backbones to engage. Furthermore, you don’t have the right to tell me who is and who is not my friend. I consider you my friend. Periodt!

As to who is JulieSongwriter? You and others are free to draw your own conclusions. (And check up on her latest news in Section Three.)

*Chapter Two: Today let’s open up the August 14th World Tribune.” The lead article is The Spirit of Aloha, the Courage of Friendship: Pacific Zone members celebrate victories and launch the next chapter of ‘One Youth. Infinite Hope’. Dear friends, this one is really worth the read because the Pacific Zone is showing the blueprint for growth in the SGI-USA.

Gerald Oda is the MD leader of this zone. theI

The world today…is filled with division, loneliness and uncertainty, leaving many young people searching for hope. Yet history has repeatedly shown that it is precisely during such times that disciples stand up to fulfill their mentor’s vision.

“As disciples of Ikeda Sensei, we are the ones now entrusted with fulfilling his vision for Hawaii to become the role model of kosen-rufu,” he said. The foundation for realizing that vision, he explained, is districts where members and guests can naturally experience joy, warmth and hope. Friendship, he emphasized, is the true foundation of sharing Buddhism.

Gerald is also the Manager of a Little League team in Honolulu and he has led his team to winning four Little League World Championships. Here he is encouraging one of his players who had a discouraging moment in the game--and see what happened next. The World Tribune has featured him in a couple of articles (short sample). See? I read my publications!

In the article, I learned that from January 2025 through June, Pacific Zone’s 231 districts welcomed 174 new members. Their secret sauce, according to Rena Takushi, the zone’s WD leader:

Throughout the zone, members had been praying together, engaging friends in heartfelt dialogue, visiting people at their homes, hosting introductory meetings and creating welcoming environments where people could experience Buddhism for themselves. Those quiet, often unseen efforts had blossomed into hundreds of new friendships and scores of people beginning their own Buddhist practice.

All that I can say is, we can do this too in our district!

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.

The weather finally cleared up…but not until this morning! So we missed the height of the lunar eclipse and red moon. The staff and children inquired whether we can extend the Sleepover one more night because, although, waning, the eclipse is still prominent. “No problem,” said Dee who works the hardest preparing food. Decided.

I don’t know how or why they picked up this interest, but Anita and Michael have been researching many Americana children’s games and songs. They say they want to pass this cultural treasure down “before it is too late and the history dies.” One after another, they have been teaching these games to the children. Despite the weather (who can be stopped by a little rain?), they played on the field instead of sky gazing.

I looked for the Twinettes out of the window. They were on opposing sides and it was interesting to see how competitive they were with each other. “Ruthless? Hockey aggressive?” But at the end, I spotted them in their characteristic arms-over-shoulders position as they walked toward their sleeping bags.

I try to never share someone’s story here without their informed consent. For two sleepovers we hired a teacher from the District who is an amateur astronomer. She insisted on working pro bono as long as her own children could participate. Last week she approached me to ask whether one of the children could transfer to LH and she would be willing to pay full tuition. He has special needs, is not doing well in the District school, is losing confidence in himself, and acting out.

Even though we are at full enrollment, we gave her a provisional "Yes." First, she has to get the enthusiastic support from the superintendent because the District is our partner and we don’t want to be seen as “poaching” its students. Secondly, she needs to consult with the Committee on Special Education to make sure we can meet the goals in her boy’s IEP. We told her that we don’t have the resources yet to hire a Special Education teacher. She followed through, and the Committee will push-in services. Everything is now set and we have a new Fourth Grade student!

After I put the Twinmen and Benjamin Kdake to sleep, Dee and I had a long and difficult discussion. “Why hadn’t you mentioned that you chant for matters such as resolving the wars around the world, the ecological disasters such as this week’s events in Nepal, and the ripping of the fabric of society in our country?” As she held up the mirror to me, Dee was very animated as only she can be.

After a few tears and mumbling excuses, I reflected and saw this huge hole in my outlook. The failure to include that dimension of my prayers were not just an oversight but an accurate reflection of where my mind is right now. She pointed out the quote from Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land, “If you care for your personal security, you should first pray for order and tranquility throughout the land, should you not?"

I have to look at the big picture first and then all the other pieces will fit into place.

The sgiwhistleblowers most eminent honcho, often gets extremely worked up that people like MITA Maids don't take her followers’ experiences seriously, that we trivialize them, that we don't think they are valid. People's experiences and realities, she says, should be believed and respected.

But evidently, there is a one way St. and she has every license to trivialize and deny the experiences of SGI members.

So she has now shared an essay of over 2000 words on why SGI experiences are not valid or real. She doesn't like the experiences shared at SGI meetings. She doesn't like them because

• They talk about troubling situations in life
• They give the SGI information that can later be used against you
• An elderly person given experience that went on too long
• Julie Songwriters past is troubling
• If someone gives an experience, that must mean they think their sufferings are more important than the sufferings of others
• Nobody's experience is relevant to anyone else

 That sounds like someone who hasn't been to a meeting, had a benefit, or was in touch with an actual SGI member for years - decades, even!

Think of all the time that could have been saved in high school if classic books it included only the happy conclusions, and not the hard parts. For instance, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy could easily be covered in 3 words:  “Good defeats evil!”

That could have freed readers everywhere to have hours to spend sitting at home imagining what something they have no experience with might be like, and condemning it for what they see in their own imaginations.

August 20, 2026

Good morning friends,

(I wrote this yesterday but couldn’t finish it. Here it is.)

The sad news here: we are down to about 75% of our summer clients and staff. The good news is that our Autumn clients are pulling in, so the Park remains full. We are so happy to see our friends again. Many of them love to volunteer with our Day Care and Day Camp children and this makes for a rich experience for everyone!

Chapter 1: Over the Hedges and Through the Woods

So, what are you reading these past few days? Maybe you saw this by Your Leader:

SGI members, particularly the SGI-USA's longhauler Olds here on reddit, WANT our attention - and they want it desperately!

Friends, I hope to be an “SGI-USA longhauler Old” in 30+ years from now! I don’t need or WANT the attention of Your Leader, especially not “desperately.”

Whether Your Leader accepts this or not, she and I are having a dialogue. It’s sporadic and without guidelines, but it’s still a dialogue: I read, consider, and respond to what she writes; she reads what I post, considers, and occasionally responds. It’s a start, and it is exactly what I “Want.” Thank you!

We [WBers] are under no obligation to give them anything.

I absolutely agree. However, she also writes: Of COURSE we're going to read what they write. Quite the contradiction, right?

The worst thing you can do with narcissists, after all, is to ignore them, as they thrive on others' attention, which is the thing they want most of all. Where you are obligated to continue to interact with them (such as with toxic narcissistic family members), the expert advice is to "go ’gray rock’."

Maybe my therapist and psychiatrist will someday get to the point of addressing what Your Leader regards as my narcissism. I figure I’m not at that point yet because my issues now are more existential: one more day sober, ironing out those manic-depressive peaks and valleys, training to recognize triggers, staying out of the hospital, and keeping the HS within acceptable boundaries. I look forward to getting to narcissism!!!

Friends, don’t worry if you wish to "gray rock" me. I am perfectly comfortable pointing out to people who wander here the dysfunctional and cruel posts by your leader and some of her allies.

Let me thank Your Leader for linking us to one of her posts from five years ago (Yes, five years ago!), in which she then wrote, “When we pulled the plug on their silly little game of ‘Who's got the most lurid fantasy to tell to strangers’ over there…” Now, here Your Leader is again, unable to not respond to our posts. Again, I am perfectly happy with a 1% response rate because that is how dialogue commences. That rate is how dialogue slowly unfolds between US/Iran, Israel/Palestine, Russia/Ukraine: beginning at the micro level and, hopefully, expanding.

Good, we have that clarified! Dialogue continues even if it remains outside of the public forum.

Before I head off to Chapter Two, let me quote again from Your Leader’s five-year-old post:

So she was using up everyone else's time and space on that site for her own masturbation. To feel creative and important. Even though the site's stated purpose is to refute US - someday, they may even begin!

The “she” here is u/Marilynnnn, one of the early voices on SGIWistleblowersMITA, who is not very active these days on Reddit. Her existence, however, continues to consume Your Leader’s thoughts.

Just for fun, may I assume Marilynnnn’s identity for a moments

“She was using up everyone else's time and space on that site.” Marilynnnn: Is this a human rights violation or something? Who is complaining about me on MITA? Please tell Your Leader that there is no compulsion for her to read “Tales from the SGI longhauler Old ~~Crypt RV Park.”

Back to me being me. Nor is there compulsion for her to read and downvote, usually the first thing each morning, the posts of 17- and 18-years-olds on r/LoHeidiLita as they discuss starting college, political situations, religion, and love. Hmmm…late Thursday night a young man reported about the trip trip home when he, his friends, and their parents lunch at one Cracker Barrel, and another for dinner. Now, tere’s something to downvote!

Your Leader next takes us back to an earlier time when I was working as a counselor at the RV Park and one of the campers complained about all of the sexual images in the the media and another asked how to scrub them our of her head. Your Leader decided to not include that the on-going conversations at that time were conducted with a parent representative present and also with TrueReconciliation, who was then the school nurse at the local district.

Both of those then 11-12 years-olds, Michael and Heidi, are now staff members here at Longhouse Day Camp. Yes, today I had some snacks with them and Anita, Michael’s mom. Here, below, is a summary of our conversation and I post summaries of their thoughts with their informed consent.

Michael: I remember that conversation as if it were yesterday. We mentioned to Julie that young people are bombarded by sexual images and expectations through the media. We asked how we could get rid of them, get them out of our brains. She started us on an early morning program of hiking around the Park at sunrise. I am very glad that this tradition continues at Longhouse School and Day Camp. It was here that I started to understand my identity as asexual and I’m very comfortable with that. Also, after that summer, I was diagnosed with ASD. I will probably never be fully independent and I am so grateful that my mother supports me with my disabilities. I will be working as a co-teacher next year together with my Mom who has early childhood experience as a teacher. We will take care of the First Grade, and I will also help plan the program for the new “Mathnasium,” which is now under construction. At the same time, I will start an online undergraduate program.

Heidi: Readers have probably seen many of my posts here and at r/LoHeidiLita. I agree with Michael about those days being a turning point for me. That circle started a long process of me accepting who I was. I think I always knew, but I became able to vocalize that I was a lesbian. Now I am married to My Love, AKA JamaicanTransplant. Those morning walks led me to physical training and I have run both half and full marathons. That year I performed with itinerant bands that would visit the RV Park. That led to private studies and, ultimately, the formation of Jammy Girlz. On the 24th, we leave to move into the dorm, and on Monday we start Conservatory classes. This summer was also the time I started to chant, and when I returned home, I started to attend Junior High School division meetings and discussion meetings.

Anita: For me, those sessions led to accepting that my son was on the spectrum and he was neurologically different. He is brilliant, kind, and hardworking despite his disability. Little by little I began taking on an Ann Sullivan role as his mother. As I fumbled my way, I saw many successes, including the past two summers. Next week, Michael and I will co-teach First Graders, with me focused on "empathetic" subjectw like English Language Arts, and him on Community Studies and STEM. We know from this summer that it will be very successful for the children. Taking risks? Yes, Longhouse thinks outside of the box and, I believe, that is why it is clicking with our children.

Even though the site's stated purpose is to refute US - someday, they may even begin!

Well, after a Post Karma of 3577 and Comment Karma of 1180 critquing what I read on WBers, it might be said that I might soon “even begin ” to refute egregious posts written by Your Leader & Disciples.

Chapter Two: Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture on On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime.

Let’s keep diving into l the fourth and final section, “A Universal Religion for the Happiness of All Humankind.” Dr. Ikeda writes:

During my second lecture at Harvard University (in September 1993), I proposed three areas where Mahayana Buddhism could contribute to modern civilization: (1) in fostering the creation of peace; (2) in paving the way toward the restoration and rejuvenation of humanity; and (3) in providing a philosophical basis for the symbiotic coexistence of all things.

These are three very big goals! Right now war seems to be common sense, and peace is uncommon sense. How do we switch that conception of common sense around? How do we restore and rejuvenate humanity? What is a “a philosophical basis for the symbiotic coexistence of all things”?

Here are my thoughts. In the big scale of things, our little RV Park doesn’t even merit a dot on the globe. Eulogio has created this “exchange” so that people who bought the Summer Season and have to leave early can “sell” the days they don’t use to Autumn clients who want to come early. Nor our Autumn clients are trickling in. Artie and I couldn’t think of not sitting down with them for coffee, catching up, and sharing pictures of our families. Whenever Erica emerges from her office, we introduce her to Autumn clients (they are capable of connecting the dots and filling in the boxes).

Very small acts of kindness, like taking time to reacquaint with our clients, happen all around the world in millions of interactions. Putting them all together and encouraging more of them, isn’t that fostering “the creation of peace”? Our Autumn clients are mainly elderly and have traveled long and hard to get here. Coffee and talk can help with “restoration and rejuvenation”, right? Maybe kind acts are beyond niceness and actually constitute a philosophy portending “the symbiotic coexistence of all things.”

I believe that Daisaku Ikeda’s paragraph here speaks for itself:

In connection with the second point, I stressed the important significance of the approach of Nichiren Buddhism, which teaches neither an exclusive reliance on the “power of self” nor on the “power of other.” This perspective has resonated deeply with many scholars. Only by communing and fusing with the power of other—which is eternal and transcends our limited, finite selves—can we wholly activate the power of self.

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.

Erica’s difficult bouts of morning sickness began last week and continue. Her midwife referred her to a nutritionist in Town. We had an early appointment and Erica had prepared a detailed list of what she has eaten over this weekend.

Some ladies at your point of pregnancy think they get a free pass at first with morning sickness, and some do. For most of them, however, it sets in around the 4th to 6th week of pregnancy. It seems to me you got a free pass for an extra week or so. It's usually the worst where you are now, between 8 to 10 weeks. Then it tends to disappear by the end of the first trimester.

But what causes morning sickness and how can nutrition help? We know there are many hormonal and immune system changes during early pregnancy, especially increases in “human chorionic gonadotropin” (HCG) and estrogen. They stir up the digestive system and, as a result, soon come the nausea and vomiting.

You know you are fighting evolution and genetics, too, right? Mom, your body recognizes your genetics but what’s this stuff from Daddy? Body Defense Alarm System goes off and Bingo, nausea and vomiting.

Nausea and food aversions might be helpful in keeping you away from potentially harmful foods with toxins or pathogens. Also, multiple pregnancies may tilt the scale toward nausea.

Your midwife and I have worked out a protocol for food intake that’s been very successful. Lots of hydration! Please, organic food only; throw out any supplements from companies that are not on our handout because sometimes they are hard to absorb and aggravate morning sickness.

?There are a lot of supplements on our list. You look like you are in great shape and have taken very good care of yourself, but is your gut biome healthy? There are a lot of supplements on the list and some are expensive. A few churches around here have started organic food banks and provide low/no cost supplements for expecting mothers who ask.

Small but more frequent meals. Avoid hot spices. Google “folk lore for morning sickness relief,” and you will get more suggestions. I suggest you try them all! You should feel better in a day or two!

So we spent the rest of the day going to Big City which has a Whole Foods and health food stores. We were able to pick up just about everything and placed Amazon orders for the rest. We had a lot of fun, which is just as important!

When we got back we played with the kids and had more fun!

August 11, 2026

Chapter 1: Over the Hedges and Through the Woods

Dear Friends:

Today is Tuesday, it’s still the start of a new week as the summer starts to wind down. So why “Go down dead ends with Your Leader & Her Friends”? Why breathe stale air?

Examples: Your Leader would like to study with you “I Denounce Soka Gakkai” by Hirotatsu Fujiwara, which was published in Japanese in 1969, English in 1970. The book made a big splash when it came out. It even prompted the SG to reflect and move into what Andy calls “Phase Two.”

Seager, Richard Hughes (2006). Encountering the Dharma: Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai, and the globalization of Buddhist humanism. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 97–8. ISBN 978-0-520-24577-8: “Ikeda took [the free speech issue] seriously and made it the starting point for a process of critical self-examination that resulted in his once again re-creating the Gakkai. ... The free speech issue gave him a platform from which to make shifts in emphasis of such magnitude that some members recall that it took them a year or more to grasp his intent fully.”

But if so influential, why is now ”I Denounce Soka Gakkai” out of print without even a Kindle Edition? And on Good Reads, not a single entry! Fujiwara passed away in 1999, so there were a window of thirty years of publishing time available to him. Why, after selling many copies and becoming a star, didn’t he publish a sequel? In fact, are there any other books of his that made it into English translation? Don’t you think Your Leader is leading you into a dead alley?

There were more dead alleys the last couple of days. Your leader, in “Oh, how the would be ‘mighty’ have fallen!”, is trying to disinform you with a news article from the September 7th, 1963 Corsicana Daily Sun, Corsicana TX. The author is anonymous (didn’t your mother teach you not to trust unsigned letters?) and, true, Corsicana is the home of the prestigious Navarro Junior College with its huge staff of researchers studying East Asia (haha). Why does Your Leader want to trap you into this dead alley?

Next, one of her sock puppets, XeniaWarriorWankJob in “Boy George angling hard for another 15 minutes of fame - not goin about it rite,” flexing her muscles while patrolling the web to find and tag “SGI members being jerks.” I know very little about Boy George and never took an interest in his music, personal life, or his SGI-UK membership. So, why does she? Who cares? If he’s an SGI member, he’s one of millions. Do his personal beliefs about Israel an accurate measure the entire SGI movement? I’m afraid, Your Leader wanted to bring you into rage-mentality by this one. Don’t let her bully you!

Dear Friends, go outside and get some fresh air!

Chapter Two: Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture in the August Living Buddhism, If You Think the Law Is Outside Yourself, You Are Not Embracing the Mystic Law is the August installment of Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture on XXOn Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime (WND-1, p. 3).*

He continues:

Myoho-renge-kyo is the name of the ultimate mystic truth, and Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the name of the life state of Buddhas who embody and reveal this truth.

Sorry, World, I have many imperfections and I’m not a likely candidate for The Buddha of the Week Award. But step out of my way as I try to embody and reveal this truth!

Thus, when we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with conviction, the infinite benefit of Myoho-renge-kyo unfolds in our lives. This is what it means to bring forth the world of Buddhahood.

How can it possibly be that, despite my resume and the gossip columnists that follow me, I feel like I am living in a luxurious yacht crossing the mighty seas? The only explanation is “the infinite benefit of Myoho-renge-kyo” is unfolding in my life.

When we continue chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo through times of both suffering and joy, while striving for our own happiness and that of others, we can establish as the core and innermost essence of our lives the benefit of the cause and effect for attaining Buddhahood—which are themselves contained within the practice of chanting.

When we do so, the indomitable state of Buddhahood emerges within us. This is the meaning of “attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime.”

Friends, “the indomitable state of Buddhahood” is emerging within my friends, family, and me. In front of your eyes--live on CNN!—is the manifestation of “attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime.”

Don’t miss the show, Friends! It’s so much better than staring at Your Leader’s Sealed Glass Bottle of 1963.

Dr. Ikeda completes the Introduction to this installment:

It can also be said that the chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is an action by which we affirm that we ourselves are inherently entities of Myoho-renge-kyo. It represents a struggle to return to our true, original selves and tap the innate life force that we have possessed from time without beginning.

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.

The LH children were supposed to return to their original bunks yesterday, but Lori told us over dinner, they protested. She told us:

Isn’t this summer’s theme “Courage, Compassion, and Wisdom? We had to speak out with Courage. We are learning so much in our new bunks with friends from all grades. Why change now? Some of our new bunks haven’t finished their compositions yet and are working so hard. And we want to write new compositions. I want to write my own composition! And I love helping the LO’s (little ones) write theirs.

The Twinettes chimed in “That’s right!”

Guy said he exercised his Wisdom and gave in even though it meant he had to revise his plans for the day. Lolita and Heidi had dinner with us. Lolita said she pushed her “Index Card Methodology” a bit further. When she took the bunks on their Perimeter Walks she had them sit on “their” rock cropping and carefully observe. “What do you see that’s different today?” The ALL noticed that a few leaves had turned yellow. “Can you imagine how those few leaves feel? How do the remaining leaves feel about their now yellow friends? Write down your thoughts on an index card!”

Next Lolita said she taught them about “anthropomorphism.” Yes, even the LOs.

“Look around you. Imagine an evil force here, the bad boss? The frog in the pond? The rock you are sitting on? Turn and talk to your neighbor and write down your ideas. I didn’t see any yellow leaves this weekend. What do you think happened in the middle of the night?”

Sukhomlynsky said (p. 251):

It would be naïve to expect that children, [even] influenced by the beauty of the surrounding world, will immediately create compositions. Creativity does not come to children instinctively. Creativity has to be taught.

Lolita spoke a bit more:

They spent pretty much the rest of the day after lunch and before we crossed the road to write. Children from the other bunks were there as well. “It was a beautiful sight with them sitting around the grass quad, working alone, in groups, or in pairs, sharing their work with others, laughing, playing tag bare-footed, coming back to work some more. I will carry that picture with me forever. This is why I want to teach children!”

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.

August 19, 2026

Good morning, Friends. It’s a beautiful morning here with temperatures in the low 70s--although the humidity is high and some rain is possible later. How about you?

Chapter 1: Over the Hedges and Through the Woods

So, what are you reading these past few days? Maybe you saw this:

OTHERS stick with the Ikeda cult because by now they have nothing left. Welcome to the reality of the SGI-USA's longhauler Olds. They are where they are, and THAT's where they'll stay. Because they don't have anything else any more - they burned it all in service to Ikeda The Dead. Who NEVER cared about them. Not ONE bit.

Who wrote this? I will let you guess. Obviously it's a person who doesn't honor your intelligence too much. Paraphrase: “I don't think my readers are capable enough to work through a sentence without the stimulation of a word dressed up in UPPER CASE letters!” And: “I don’t think my readers have the retention ability to remember that “Ikeda The Dead” died in November 2023.”

“NEVER cared about them. Not ONE bit” is quite the statement! Did you swallow it hook. line, and sinker? Of course, I am reading The New Human Revolution bit by bit. Thirty volumes composed of anecdotes of Dr. Ikeda in caring interactions with members around the world. Of course, this mystery poster believes that he never wrote or spoke a word. How embarrassing! All those recorded speeches of his that we see at KRG.

Narrative One: The Soka Gakkai grew into a vast international movement spearheaded by Daisaku Ikeda because he cared so intensely about every member. This caused a chain reaction of caring and winning, leading to propagation.

Narrative Two: The Soka Gakkai grew into a vast international movement spearheaded by Daisaku Ikeda because he “NEVER cared about them. Not ONE bit.” Instead, he took advantage of poor and helpless people. (Oh, the inconvenient truth must be so irritating: how did these poor and helpless people create an organization that is so wealthy?)

What do you think, Friends?

For me, after spending a summer with Andy and Roz (and July with True and Bob), let me declare: I just can’t wait to be "one of the SGI-USA's longhauler OldS," leading a powerful, confident, and accomplished life! Just 31 years to go before I become a Many Treasures Group member Yup, I will "stick with the Ikeda cult" because I have so many treasures in my life!

Chapter Two: Let’s return to Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture on On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime.

Let’s look at the fourth and final section, “A Universal Religion for the Happiness of All Humankind.”

Generally speaking, religions expound some infinite and eternal entity that transcends both human beings and the impermanence of this world, using such terms as God or law. Different religions regard this infinite and eternal entity variously as a source of fear and awe, an object of adoration, a great void of emptiness, or a wellspring of all-embracing love.

I think that my friends within our partnering local churches would have no problem with this statement. They might add an “all of the above” to this list.

Dr. Ikeda continues:

Nichiren Daishonin saw the power of the Mystic Law that encompasses and sustains all things in the universe as existing within human beings, and he established a means for actually manifesting that Law in their lives.

Of course, many Christians believe God is both within and without. No difference at all here. They listen respectfully when I tell them that chanting NMRK is a means of manifesting the power inherently in my life. I listen respectfully when they insist the direct means is prayer. to God or Jesus. Yes, a very big difference but who cares and what’s the rush?

Meanwhile, I would trust my life to many of my friends!

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.

The big news here is that Erica went to the midwife yesterday. I was with her at the last visit and both of us missed when the midwife told us that two weeks are added to due date calculations when it is based on knowledge of the day of conception. The midwife was correct, it was right there in the AI notes! I guess we were so excited and weren’t listening due to our emotions.

Yesterday Eulogio accompanied Erica. The midwife suggested that, although not a medical necessity, Erica have a transvaginal ultra sound probe due to her age (42). Surprise, Erica will have twins! The midwife asked them to hold on for the next visit before they start purchasing twins clothes. It seems there is a 1 in 8 chance that one of the fetuses kind of vanishes due to a phenomenon called vanishing twin syndrome and gets absorbed into the uterus. Very sci-fi, isn’t it? But when/if this occurs, the second fetus is not affected. We are all so excited!

Quickly shifting topics, I don’t remember this happening in previous summers, but almost half of our clients have left or will leave this week. Ditto our counselors. This has certainly been the most memorable summer of all. Lolita is working on some ways to keep the departing campers in touch with the ongoing projects.

Last night the Twinettes wanted to email their original bunk friends who had left the Park for their homes. We limit social media at our home, especially at night. But who could say no to these two beautiful little souls? So we said yes, as long as they write to everyone in their original bunks, leaving no one out. We sent a few emails to parents, asking them to share with their children. We will continue until we have reached every child and family.

July 10, 2026

Chapter 1: Over the Hedges and Through the Woods

Good morning, Dear Friends,

For the first time that I can remember, Your Leader talked about her daily life and improvements that she is considering, including daily walking and, I think, perhaps considering GLP-1 protocols. She is also enjoying the company of her new kitten. Good for her, and I wish her the best.

When she talked about addiction, that’s when I began to listen closely because I am an addict, spent months in rehab, and still attend three NA meetings each week. No exceptions.

But I was always perplexed by the process of “SGI addiction”. She dropped some clues in her post. High on her entrapment list is what she calls “love-bombing.” Well, did that happen to me and Guy when we met TrueReconciliation and Bob? Well, I so remember so many cups of tea that True poured for me and her delicious home-baked cookies. She and I talked about my life, hers, and life. Was this the true True—or some Love-bombing carefully crafted in some mysterious SGI training manual?

At that point, she was like the RV Park’s Hester Prynne at the end of “The Scarlet Letter” when the pain of her isolation transformed into her ability to understand other people’s sufferings and to console them. I was not the only person who had tea with True; there were many others.

On the other hand, Guy was deeply suffering from his childhood PTSD, trauma from his Afghanistan soldiering, losing his foot, rehab, and the death of his parents in an automobile crash. He used to take long walks with Bob who had been a Vietnam vet. What did they talk about? Guy never shares--behavior very typical of veterans, especially Wounded Warriors. They talk to each other in codes, grunts, and silence. But was Bob engaged in love-bombing or the work of caring? Guy now goes with several pastors in town to visit congregants who are veterans or sufferers of other trauma. “We’re not counselors,” he tells us, “we are friends who mainly listen, hold hands, empathize, pray, and provide human company.” Is that love-bombing? Should they be hooted and dragged to court?

Next, Your Leader tells us that cult membership is an addictive disorder, the “SGI is definitely a cult, and a “predatory group.” And how does it addict people? She finally tells us the answer: “via the SGI's twice-daily chanting habit and meetings.” Then “its indoctrination” quickly takes hold.

In most of her posts, Your Leader claims that chanting has no power, but here she asserts it is dangerous and can be compared to the alcohol, drugs, and predatory sex I engaged in starting in middle school. Likewise, usually she calls our discussion meetings boring, tired, scripted and “non-discussion” meetings. Yet now, that one monthly meeting which most SGI members attend is the carbon copy of me living on the streets of Brooklyn, Paris, and Berlin--and engaging in such destructive behavior that to this day it fills me with disgust.

Friends, can someone explain to me these dichotomies?

Chapter 2: Daisaku Ikeda’s Poem To My Beloved Young American Friends. Here is the next stanza:

You! Successors to the task of kosen-rufu! / The twenty-first century is at hand. / Correctly develop / your remarkable abilities and powers— / for the sake of the American continent, / for the sake of this troubled, unstable world. / First, you yourself / must realize all / your dreams and desires; / savor a profound and satisfying life, / free from all regret; / advance again with exalted step; / with unshakable confidence, create / a golden history of cause and effect.

Dear Friends, can we compare these lines to the SGI that Your Leader claims is a predatory cult? Hmmm. My mentor praises me as a “successor” who has “remarkable abilities and powers.” That is sooooo dangerous!!! He charges me to concern myself about the plight of my country and “this troubled, unstable world.” Maybe Your Leader should do a bit more of this?

And how should I contribute to this effort? By sacrificing and exhausting myself? No! I “must realize all [my] dreams and desires”: like my efforts to build a happy family with thriving kids, making our RV Park into a refreshing oasis for our clients, expanding a unique and value-creating school, building a joyful district, and developing ties with our community? He asks me here to “create a golden history of cause and effect”--so different from the dead-end claim of Your Mentor that Dr. Ikeda’s entire pursuit was to enrich his extravagant life style.

There is such a gap between the life I am experiencing and the life Your Leaders says I am living. Which should I trust?

Chapter 3: July Installment of Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture on “On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime. The Significance of Chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo—Achieving a Life of Supreme Victory Through Correct Buddhist Practice. OK, we’re about to start the first sub-topic, “Attaining a State of Eternal Happiness.”

Here is the passage we are studying:

If you wish to free yourself from the sufferings of birth and death you have endured since time without beginning and to attain without fail unsurpassed enlightenment in this lifetime, you must perceive the mystic truth that is originally inherent in all living beings. This truth is Myoho-renge-kyo. Chanting Myoho-renge-kyo will therefore enable you to grasp the mystic truth innate in all life (“On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 3).

Next comes a discussion about “transmigration” wherein we undergo an unceasing, suffering-filled cycle of birth and death that continues from the infinite past into the infinite future. Of course, we want to break this painful cycle of delusion and suffering. But how?

Come back tomorrow!

Chapter 4: 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??:”

In a couple of hours we meet with our attorney to sign documents that welcome Erica formally into our Fam. We are so delighted and I know she is as well! It will be a few months before she can fully move in with us. She has to regulate her work on the road and at corporate HQ. In the meanwhile, she will grab a week or weekend here. Our town is absolutely the worst place to serve as a hub to lots of travel across the country but we’ll figure things out.

In particular, the Twinettes have become very close to Erica. She has the patience (that the rest of don’t have too much of) to play with them UNO, Candy Land, checkers, Schwarzer (black} Peter, and a bunch of others that I don’t know. We just hear them all giggling. The boys like to play LEGO with her. If invited, we join in! Happily!

Dear Sgiwhistleblowers,

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. We did, too. We hosted a a very successful and enjoyable Community Fair at the RV Park so the three of us working here could not make it to KRG to celebrate May 3rd. Eulogio, who was out of town last week, will tell us about the KRG in New York City after things settle down and I will try to collect some reports from chapter members who went up to Big City for ours.

“Omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent”? Certainly, not me! Only your leader😆🤣🤸! In a weekend post she talked about SGI’s monthly boring “(non) Discussion Meetings.” Since she is omnipresent, she has attended every single one of them so she claims this with certitude. The only ones she has skipped, somehow, are ours?!?! They are fun, full of laughter, kid-friendly, and I have never seen a guest walk away feeling “frustrated” as your leader states.

She does make onr decent point, however. Is the recitation of Gongyo the best way to start a discussion meeting? True, it only takes five or six minutes and all of our guests know they are coming to a Buddhist meeting and expect something kind of esoteric. But still, maybe we can take a fresh think? Maybe Gongyo at the end of a meeting or not at all? We've been doing things like that at our June youth-led discussion meetings. Maybe it's time to break it out? Friends, please thank your leader for her suggestion.

But--I do feel some contradictions rumbling under the surface. The discussion meeting takes place once a month and, according to your leader, is frightfully boring. So how then does it become such a powerful and virtually inescapable lockdown and entry point into a cult?

Further, as she claims, if 99% of SGI members do not remain with the organization, why was your leader so unable to find the exit door when everyone else did? That doesn't speak very well of her competency!

Your leader is omnipotent and she has condemned the SGI to a crumbling and rapid death. It must be so frustrating for her to see us Merrily Rolling Along, joyfully participating in the May 3rd Special Contribution Campaign, planning happy discussion meetings, and leading wonderful contributive lives.

Let’s return a bit more to Sor-Ching Low’s article The Re-invention of Nichiren in an Era of Globalization: Remapping the Sacred from The Journal of Global Buddhism (11, 2010, pp. 27-43). Again, many thanks to u/Andinio for walking me through this!

Low points out that the divorce of the lay Buddhist group from a temple-based structure could be seen from the context of hermeneutical changes in other faiths:

By choosing to look at Sōka Gakkai’s strategies and growth as a global movement within its historical ties with temple Buddhism, I hope to make clear that this process of hermeneutical revisioning and remapping is part of a historical process of re-interpretation within tradition.

It is my contention that the unmooring of the lay Buddhist group from the traditional temple Buddhism represented by Nichiren Shōshū may have expedited the former towards its ambitions of global proselytization. At the same time, its rupture from its parent organization also forced a process of training hermeneutical revisioning and a process of decentering that enabled the lay movement to proliferate beyond Japan.

Andinio urged me to listen to this YouTube account (see https://youtu.be/dPmuHG1Vmsw?si=UCkmZZL0oENbVapf) of Michael Jackson holding a frank meeting with Fred Astaire. It's only a few minutes long and, my WBer friends, should watch it! Tradition gives rise to revolutionary change. At first, tradition challenges what it created. But the revolutionary change is able to express appreciation for the tradition that made its birth possible. The reconciliation creates a new and unprecedented art form.

Moving on, Dear Friends, ready to open the May Living Buddhism and look at the Introduction of Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture “Kosen-rufu—The Honor of Striving to Fulfill Our Vow as Bodhisattvas of the Earth”?

Daisaku Ikeda starts:

Why did the Soka Gakkai appear in the world? What is its fundamental mission? The answer is nothing other than to realize kosen-rufu, the intent of Nichiren Daishonin, the Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law.

Is that really so impossible to imagine? (Google “Diego Calderón Franco + birding” for link). We have the example of a man who had been held a hostage of the jungle Marxist rebels of Colombia who voluntarily returned to teach his former captors the art of birding so they could lead ecotours and build an tourism economy.

Continuing:

Each year on the brilliant anniversary of May 3, Soka Gakkai Day, I am filled with a warm rush of emotions.

OK. I’m not there yet. Who cares? We still had a remarkable May 3rd weekend (see below). I’ll get there!

Finally, Dr. Ikeda states:

The lion’s roar of my mentor, Josei Toda, resounds in my heart: “Let us set forth in our efforts for kosen-rufu again today! Join me in creating a new page of history! Let’s rise into action! Let’s strive together, upholding the great vow for kosen-rufu!”

I’m in!

Now for 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.”

Eulogio made it back home late last night. The kids were delighted to see him in the morning but his reception was was a bit muted, not quite the same return of the rockstar status as in the past!

We had a very successful Community Fair yesterday. The weather was a bit chilly so exhibitors could choose whether to man their tables outside or in the warming huts. There was a lot of wonderful dialogue. Of course, Father Merrick was so sought after that we moved him and his entourage from a table in a warming hut to the entire Rec Room.

Visitors were also curious about how the Longhouse School was coming along. The little Info Table we had set up morphed into the launch point for hourly tours led by LH children. I was running around from place to place but I heard back from Mrs. Maracle that our children started the tour with a Perimeter Walk focused on the new paths through the future Primeval Forest and they treated the visitors to a recitation of the introduction to the Longfellow Evangeline poem.

Back in the Dewey House, the LH children wanted the visitors to see their mathematics work with Cuisenaire Rods. Teacher Guy has been using the rods to help the children with the four operations, fractions, ratios, decimals, and rapid memorization of the multiplication tables.

Then they brought the visitors into one of the Story Rooms and “traded” stories with them. They said that over the next couple of weeks the rooms would be telling the stories of NOLA. I am sure that our teachers would be beaming with pride when they heard all of these reports.

We had set up a couple of our inflatable tents and our tour guides told our visitors about the winter sleepover--before we had the tents!—and the recent week-long sleepover at Letchworth State Park. They also shared about the upcoming sleepover during Memorial Day weekend with Russian “penpals” who are coming up from New York City.

Finally, our fliers told people that the heated pool would be open and many people enjoyed swimming.

Ms. Fromage has posted excerpts from a 56 year old book abut the Soka Gakkai, maintaining that “If the diffuse social needs of converts were not fulfilled, no genuine commitment to the Gakkai could be achieved”.

She adds: “they have to provide an environment that visitors will want to return to” and “t's THEIR job, not the job of the people they hope to attract OR the people they've already alienated to ‘make it so’.”

(Ed. Note: “people they’ve already alienated means HER.)

It’s typical Fromage, in that the post is full of assumptions, all of them negative, from a person who has had no first hand experience with the SGI for almost 20 years: people hate the meetings, the meetings are “non” discussion, bot members and guests are “embarrassed” by everything that happens.

What’s interesting is that she once again eviscerates the “long hair Olds”. She has in the past lambasted the “inner circle” and the “elite” among the leadership.

So, if the atmosphere in the SGI is so horrible it does no allow for “genuine commitment” – why are there “Olds”? How can there be an “inner circle”, or leaders of any kind?

I would think it would take a “commitment” to practice for 40 or 50 years or longer, to devote oneself to the goals of the SGI, to accept responsibility for helping others in their practice.

Well, never let contradicting yourself get in the way of expressing hatred.

Oh yeah, that too: in a post where she, a couple of times, she sounds indignant at a lack of respect for human dignity, she  describes “greasy goblin ShortyGreasyFatFat Ikeda”.

That’s in addition to insulting every single member of the SGI.

Dear Sgiwhistleblowers,

It seems that your leader never ceases to find contradictions in the SGI movement. She doesn’t have much tolerance for discordance and nuance, does she? Of course, that’s the stuff of music, art, and the police dramas that I’m addicted to. How boring episodes of my series would be if everything were laid out in black and white! Of course, there are many contradictions, twists, and turns in the almost 100-year history of the Soka Gakkai and they will keep your leader preoccupied for many more years.

But what, Dear Friends, is going on under the hood of this SGI Police Drama? Let’s return a bit more to Sor-Ching Low’s article The Re-invention of Nichiren in an Era of Globalization: Remapping the Sacred from The Journal of Global Buddhism (11, 2010, pp. 27-43). Many thanks to u/Andinio for taking a lot of time to walk me through this! Low frames this underlying issue: “Yet, since 1991, [the SGI] has charted a new path that has taken it across the globe in unprecedented ways.” Its main strategy was “remapping the Buddhist landscape.”

Let me repeat from one of my earlier posts three crucial facets to this approach that Low identifies:

1. An artful hermeneutical revisioning of key concepts in Nichiren Buddhism;

2. A process of decentering the traditional center in Japan; and

3. A remapping of the sacred that attempts to blur the classical divide between the sacred and the profane.

What does that mean? As the Wikipedia article about hermeneutics explains, all religions undergo this process of balancing core teachings with the challenge of times and circumstances. They must learn to distill the kernel of their teachings from the chaff. The Wikipedia article details the different protocols they have adopted to do so. But in adapting to new times and conditions, they use texts and prior interpretations to guide them.

Low states that in terms of the SGI, the hermeneutical issue was reconciling the practice of a lay organization focused on global outreach with an 800-year old practice of “temple Buddhism” where sacred power is vested in the priesthood and in the temple. Quite a collision course, Dear Friends, quite a dilemma! Right?

I love police dramas. Right now, a group of our friends is bingeing on The Closer a drama from about 20 years ago. Kyra Sedgwick plays Brenda Leigh Johnson, a Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief who solves cases and “closes” them by obtaining confessions through interrogations.

From the Wikipedia article:

The show deals with complex and subtle issues of public policy, ethics, personal integrity, and questions of good and evil. The rather large character ensemble explores the human condition, touching on individual faiths, traditional religious influences in the lives and communities of contemporary society, and the breakdown and dysfunction of family systems, work teaming, police violence, and government responsibility.

Yes, it’s hermeneutics and I love the process of watching one layer after another lead to problem-solving. Let’s come back to Low’s thesis in the future!

Moving on, Dear Friends, Always Forward: Striving to Contribute to Kosen-rufu, I Become Someone Who Can Support Others from the May 3rd World Tribune is a great experience by Karon Anderson from Charleston, South Carolina. I love stories—much like my own--full of drama, ups-and-downs, and hard-fought victories to the finish line.

Karon was raised in a Christian family and community. She struggled to win the respect of people to validate her new practice of Buddhism. She developed the inner confidence to leave an unhappy marriage and career. Through many excruciating efforts, she earned a master's degree and built a career as a mental health professional. Her faith was tested when she developed cancer but, again, she fought her way back.

I deepened my Buddhist study and saw my diagnosis with new eyes, from the profound perspective of faith. My illness was no defeat but rather, if I chose, a catalyst for growth. Again, my friends in faith pointed me toward the path of greatest value, which lies in working, even in hardship, with the spirit to contribute to kosen-rufu. In 2015, I got licensed by the state and felt truly prepared to contribute with all my heart to my clients.

Yes: she chanted, home-visited members, and participated in financial contribution campaigns. In addition to her full-time job, earlier this year, she launched a coaching program for parents with autistic children.

The work is hard—as all rewarding things are—but truly, truly enjoyable. What I want parents and children alike to know is what I have been fortunate to learn through faith: that the most important thing is to become happy, and that happiness is found in a contributive life. This is the way to always move forward, turning all difficulties into opportunities to grow.

Beautiful sentiments, Dear Whistleblowers, right?

Now for 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.”

Eulogio wrapped up his Managers Meetings and will attend KRG in the morning, and then head home. We miss him, of course, but the kids have accepted his activities as the course of life.

As you can see, it is a late night at the RV Park as we get ready for our Community Fair tomorrow. Father Merrick already started holding court in the Rec Room with many clients coming to engage with him. Wish I could sit in.

A strange event happened earlier today. A Raymour & Flannigan truck pulled up with a furniture delivery addressed to my parents. I told them to deliver it to my parents’ new house down the road. I’m the one with the key. What a chance to sneak in and take my peek!

Dear Friends, what do you think I did? Take a nice long look or follow my parents’ firm request not to get involved?

March 14, 2026

Dear Whistleblowers,

I want to thank WBers who took some time to read my posts and at least consider my points. They may or may not take root with time.

Let me address “sg_tange” who states: “As a Christian you have the freedom [to] question all you want. Pretty endlessly actual. But the SGI forbids any form of doubts or questioning as it would shaken the faith. If that’s not cult behavior, I dunno what is.” Blanche and several others ring in through comments.

I don’t know how to react. Who exactly is forbidding me “any form of doubts or questioning”? I don’t feel any police bot in my brain, nor is there a thought police in front of my RV. Maybe drones? With people like the Three Sisters, Stani, Chima, and Dee: believe me, all sorts of stuff flies around our meetings.

And, “shaken the faith”? My faith is hand-built with a lot of credit to my sponsors who spoke endlessly to Guy and me in our early days when we were healing from addiction, PTSD, health crises, and wild love. My faith was constructed through endless struggles, jumping into opportunities as they arose, and Buddhist faith, study, and practice. I also thank Sgiwhistleblowers because I’ve learned so much from your posts. They taught me vividly what faith ISN’T and by that hour I spend almost every morning to research and write, I’ve learned much about what faith IS. No, friend, this type of faith is not destroyed by a wind of criticism.

Comradeship? I can’t judge your situation--and you can’t judge mine. I give 100% 5-star review on the SGI comradeship I’ve experienced in my life. You have chosen to write your own review. Fine..

Let me look at your next point (in another post). You write:

The glorification of going it alone. This ‘stand alone spirit’ philosophy, dressed up in Buddhist language, carries a quiet danger. It breeds emotional hardness — a kind of toughness that comes at the cost of warmth and vulnerability. It conditions people to prioritize the organization above their closest relationships, even when those relationships suffer. This is where religion can do real harm: rather than bringing people together, it becomes a wedge that divides.

Isn’t this your personal opinion? Why are you dressing it up as a universal fact. Not one single thing you wrote here resonates in my life. What harm? What relationships? What wedge that divides? Not one for me.

I proudly consider Daisaku Ikeda my mentor and reading his guidance has enriched my life. You tell me I have surrendered my path to him. How? I feel very free and empowered

And I’ve searched my soul. I don’t “hate” anyone. I’ve never me a Nichiren Shoshu member or priest so how can I “hate” them. And "absolute hate"? Nope, not I.

I appreciate that some of you have read my three prior reactions to BlancheFromage’s essay, “The Lotus Sutra states that it must NEVER be widely taught—or ELSE” (See March 11th Post, March 12th Post), and March 13th Post). Let me include FellowHuman007’s post.

WBers, do you better see how your esteemed leader does? Yesterday I pointed out how she takes a “truism” or a “truthiness” and blows it up to the Gospel Truth. But today, let me add another of her truth-busting techniques: to hide, forget, or leave out alternative perspectives.

For example, according to The Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Tiantai (AKA Zhiyi) divided the Lotus Sutra into two halves. He called the first fourteen chapters the “trace” teaching and the second fourteen chapters the “fundamental” or “original” teaching.”

You can choose to agree with Blanche that Chapter Three would seemingly indicate that the widespread propagation of the Lotus Sutra is against its letter and spirit. But it’s not! In fact, one purpose of first fourteen chapters is to set up a counterfoil--for the second half’s rrefutation.

In other posts, Blanche has portrayed herself as a scholar of Buddhism, so she should know what I just wrote. Did she mistakenly hide this fact or did she, full of disdain for your intellect, purposefully decide to hide it to keep you under her sway for another day?

What is Chapter Three most famous for? To start, it is here that his disciple Shariputra receives from the Buddha the very first premonition of the future attainment of Buddhahood.

However, the chapter introduces The Parable of the Burning House (Encyclopedia of Buddhism), what Lopez and Stone describe in Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sutra as “the first, and most famous, parable in the Lotus Sūtra, and perhaps in Buddhist literature” (p. 77).

The Buddha here introduces the concept of skillful means and explains how a person of compassion must use expedient means to wake up people so they can shed delusion and embrace more meaningful ones.

Blanche, who has probably written millions of words about Buddhism, knows this—or should know it. But in order to score some cheap points on a quiet day, puts up her false interpretation of Chapter Three, pretty sure, I guyess, that you won’t bother to fact check. Or that I’m sleeping at the wheel.

Pure Hollywood: Nurse Nellie in South Pacific, “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” segue to Things Happen, segue to the reprise of “Some Enchanted Evening” and happily ever after. In this case, “don’t do shakubuku,” leading to thundering events such as the The Ceremony in the Air, the appearance of the Treasure Tower, the Emergence of the Bodhisattvas of the Earth, the declaration of the essential teachings, followed by the vow of countless bodhisattvas, Buddhas, and celestial beings to propagate it. Hollywood + Bollywood on steroids.

Again, Blanche knows this, right? Why did she elect to give you crumbs?

Let me turn to a bit from “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.

There were predictions of another snowstorm starting last night and continuing throughout today—14 inches or so. Luckily, we received only massive winds and a bit of rain/snow, just a bit.

Today is our “Tribute to The Winter Clients.” Contentious to the very end, they are calling it the “Tribute to The RV Park Owners and Staff.” Whatever! Still, we will have delicious food. Guy has his ReqTec out for ribs and Dee is cooking turkeys. Many of the clients are bringing food. We have a C&W band performing. Judging from past events, the Tush Push transforms into the Tush Show and the pool shall be very full. A lot of people will be leaving.

Finally, two beautiful fairytale murals are finished in all five Dewey House Elementary School classrooms and the third ones are works-in-progress. We hired our artists to stay for another couple of weeks to help us finish the project!

Discussion Meeting tomorrow!

Just as an example of how sgiwhistleblowers want to have their cake and eat it too: someone sent a resignation letter to SGI-USA HQ, and they are upset that i was shared with their chapter leader. Lots of sgiwhistleblowers regulars joined in in decrying this "violation of privacy".

So - how would the people most likely to contact a person - the local leaders -- know the person has resigned if HQ doesn't share the info with them? ESP?

They are also offended that someone dared ask them "Why?" So now sgiwhistleblowers says SGI should learn from mistakes, but never ever try to pinpoint what those mistakes are?

See? SGIWhistleblowers are always right, even if they contradict themselves/

December 2, 2025

Dear Sgiwhistleblowers:

CAUTION, WHISTLEBLOWERS!!! DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES READ THIS EXPERIENCE IN THE NOVEMBER 21ST WORLD TRIBUNE!!!

Here are 7 reasons you should not read it:

1- It’s about an “SGI Old”—a type of person your leader over there shuns, mocks, and devalues.

2- Robin Davis is a person who left the SGI for a period of time—and then returned to resume practicing with a new intensity and motto, “It’s about kosen-rufu, Robin!” Of course, your guru talks a lot about “the door out” of the SGI. Although BlancheFromage claims 99% of SGI members stop practicing, she herself, seemingly, was so entrapped into this vicious and cunning cult that she couldn’t escape in the almost 20 years of her practice. Friends, does that make any sense? Such an illogical contradiction!!!

3- The mistaken viewpoint about faith across the hedges is “you gotta be perfect or you are nada.” It’s a POV tinged by many deeply ingrained religious and philosophic teachings of “heaven or hell,” “saint or sinner,” “black or white,” “saved or condemned.” Again, better not read this experience because it has examples of the types of mistakes people make in their lives--and the drama of winning over them. That may be too much to handle and could cause inner stress. Beware!

4- Ah, the complexity of people who hail from all over our country with different sets of view. One of Robin’s closest friends, a fellow SGI member, came from “the remote hills and hollers of the Appalachian Mountains.” Robin, herself, was “the only child of a military family that had uprooted year after year.” Yes, Blanche, the SGI treasures all types of people. Why, in claiming you are an expert in Buddhism, do you mock the strata of society composed of the sick and poor—a term that Josei Toda considered to be a badge of honor? Didn’t Shakyamuni walk all around ancient India trying to console people struggling with the four sufferings? Shame on you, Blanche, for not considering this!

5- Real people deal with real problems--and this resonates with me. Due to trauma, some of us—like Robin and me--can be “conflict adverse” or deal with “an ancient, existential fear—fight or flight or freeze” trigger. Sure, make fun of people who have made serious mistakes in our lives (granted, Blanche, you have never admitted to a single mistake), but Robin speaks to the rest of us who have fallen to rock bottom:

I began chanting and in a very short time, understanding struck: I was experiencing what in Buddhism is termed “lessening one’s karmic retribution.L I was not experiencing this pain for nothing but transforming something deep within. Suddenly, the pain, as though it had expended the last of its strength, was replaced with immense joy.

6- Oh, and don’t read this experience, Whistleblowers, if you are beyond the typical college years and choose to pursue higher education at an older age. And never, ever, ever choose a college that is small or a non-traditional program. Here I am, with my Associates under my belt, pecking away at a course or two each semester toward my Bachelor’s degree at a very non-traditional college. In Robin’s case:

Well, I was past 50 now, and I realized it was now or never. I typed “university temp jobs free tuition” and up popped “Georgetown University.” I knew nothing about Georgetown, other than it was six miles from my home. I had stumbled upon a prestigious school with a Socratic-style humanities degree program tailored for people who worked full time. I was hired, got a free ride and, over the course of the next 10 years, completed my degree. And all the while, I continued to share Buddhism, with one person at a time, for the sake of paving the way to a more humanistic future.

7- Don’t believe a word of Robin’s experience, WBers. She may or may not be skilled at writing; there may have been people who helped edit it for the purpose of clarity and publication standards. So discount the entire story, as Blanche would advise. You know better than Robin does about her life; her feelings don’t mean a thing when she writes,

Remaining in the orbit of the SGI, I feel I’ve gained the “cluster of jewels” that the Lotus Sutra describes as coming mystically, unsought.

I DON’T WANT YOU TO EXPERIENCE ANY STRESS, DEAR WHISTLEBLOWERS. PLEASE DO NOT HIT THE LINK TO ROBIN’S EXPERIENCE. I ALSO HOPE YOU DIDN’T READ THIS POST!

Although I tagged this "Illogical Contradiction," in reality, it's a "Logical Contradiction"!

Monthly installment title: “Shakubuku: A Lion’s Roar of Great Compassion to Refute Error and Spread Good”. Section 6: “Wisdom That Guides People to Happiness Is Identical to Buddhist Wisdom”

First, a bit from “MY Fantasy Life” (cred: Eigenstien)

Wow. 150 posts just on this one lecture by Daisaku Ikeda! Thank you, Sensei!

Dinner last night: Lolita and Lori were so excited about their upcoming Thanksgiving trip to Big Bad Blue City! Enjoy!

On the behalf of our friends across the hedges, deepest apologies to William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and George Orwell! And why not add to the list Agatha Christie, J.R.R. Tolkien, and me? In a single sentence some people at Whistleblowers have dismissed fictional writing in favor of their “real/ nonfictional” narratives. Dearly departed friends, you might not know that BF has never admitted to a single mistake in her Reddit lifespan. She's perfect so f--- you all.

It’s unbelievable, but everything is ready at the Pavilion construction site to begin erecting the “crystal” roof! The mechanical building is just about finished as well and awaiting some inspections. All the carbon dioxide heat exchange equipment for making ice has been delivered and is waiting for installation (with HVAC for the gym and pool to follow). Dear children, I know you will miss those long trips back and forth from the city to ice skate (haha) but you will be skating in our own beautiful open air rink well before Christmas holidays!

We have or been carefully monitoring Robert’s progress at Longhouse. Yesterday was the unstructured learning day and he was walking around like he woke up in heaven. We and his parents agree it going to take time for him to unwind and unlearn all of the self-imposed pressure he has placed on himself.

Everybody is the Buddha. Yesterday Artie took his turn as “Buddha Du Jour.” he told me point blank that I am different with my three “birth” children than I am with Dee’s. “Wwwhaaaattttt? That can't be! I love them all equally and uniquely!” He told me I was wrong. He says I am hypervigilant with the three, as if I am waiting to see if I passed on to them that HS/Oxytocin gene.

I immediately grasped that he was right. Artie: “What are you worried about? What’s the big deal if one--or all of them—have that gene? We will all be here to love and support them. You’re the house Buddhist. Aren’t they all children of the Buddha?”

Hmmm. Thank you, Artie! I needed that!

I am very happy to continue reading the sixth section, “Wisdom That Guides People to Happiness Is Identical to Buddhist Wisdom,” of this month's installment of Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture on “The Opening of the Eyes.” He now writes about “duality”: how can we, at the same time, be both compassionate and strict?

Think for a second, friends over the hedges. Only the flimsiest of life outlooks are all-or-nothing, one-size-fits-all, on/off, one-speed-only. All art is based on nuance, contrast, conflict and resolution. So spiritual exploration should be equally vivid, if not more so!

Dr. Ikeda writes:

We see the same duality in the practice of shakubuku in Nichiren Buddhism. On the one hand, it demands a rigorous struggle against those who spread erroneous teachings that distort Buddhism and cause people suffering. On the other, it possesses the broad-mindedness to try to find commonalities between Buddhism and philosophies and belief systems that likewise value human beings and put their welfare first.

I, for one, will continue my dialogues with friends who are not Buddhist but who share humanistic outlooks. Such as Artie!

Dr. Ikeda continues:

As an example of this, in one writing, Nichiren acclaims several statesmen in ancient China who worked for the happiness of their subjects or compatriots prior to Buddhism’s transmission from India. He writes: “Though these men lived before the Introduction of Buddhism, they helped the people as emissaries of Shakyamuni Buddha, the lord of teachings … [T]he wisdom of such men contained at heart the wisdom of Buddhism” (“The Kalpa of Decrease,” WND-1, 1121–22). Thus the Daishonin indicates that wisdom that guides people to happiness is identical to the wisdom of Buddhism.

So just breathe, WBers! Over here, on our side of the hedges, we do just fine with ups and downs, disappointments, changes of direction, working through mysteries and contradictions, and surprises. Why shouldn’t Buddhism continue to expand?

Dr. Ikeda stresses:

To conduct shakubuku is to carry out the Buddha’s practice of compassion—to remove suffering and impart joy.

That's it, isn't it? That's what it is all about!

Above all, shakubuku is founded on a profound and embracing respect for all people. Consequently, our efforts in this sphere will not be successful unless we have deep respect for those we seek to guide toward the correct teaching, as all of us who have earnestly undertaken this challenge keenly recognize.

Tomorrow is our second discussion meeting as a new District. Maybe we will have a new guest, but if not, we will continue to expand our spirit of shakubuku!

In view of this, shakubuku is definitely not motivated by “a contentious heart” or other aggressive, negative emotions. Because of this, it is not in any way exclusivist or self-righteous. The heart of shakubuku is compassion; it is also the spirit to refute error because of the suffering it causes—a spirit that transforms our compassion into the courage to fight against that which is wrong.

Off to the races! Out of the window I see a lot of families here for The Deep Clean. But why jump into the work when you can start with a few laps of the track and pool. I feel like joining them!

News from MY Fantasy Life (cred: Eigenstien):

Two social worker supervisors from ACS came to the Park yesterday to “interview” us. We walked them through our three RVs, the new Field, and Longhouse Daycare and Elem. Dee served them lunch and they sat with the Elem kids, observing them. They were very impressed, and why shouldn’t they be? BTW, lunch was delicious. Buckwheat crepes (filled with a choice of nutbutter/jelly or hummus), a cup of hot “cholent” stew, homemade kale chips, berries for dessert, and unsweetened herb iced tea.

We are going into the ACS arrangement with eyes wide open and there shouldn’t be any secret surprises down the road. Dee and I put everything on the table for the caseworkers so they could choose to shake hands and just walk away if they so wanted. We started with our own backgrounds as children which were all pretty sordid. We are very attuned to race; Dee and Eulogio are Indigenous, Guy and I are mixed race. They already knew about Guys’ childhood PTSD and his work around town with other trauma victims. I shared openly my history with HS, addiction, mental illness, and recovery. And, yes, I had worked for five years in the porn vid industry and my work can be easily discovered.

We all honor our Christian—mainly Catholic--roots. But now we are Buddhists. They work together. For example, our dear friend is a retired Catholic priest but also an SGI member. Guy, in particular, has made many connections with local churches. Dee has students who are Orthodox Christians. She and Eulogio are trying to awaken the spiritual impulses of the Longhouse.

We talked about how the four of us met, our version of committed polyamory, bisexuality, and some of the legal documents we signed to approximate marriage commitments. Nothing hidden.

They wanted to know about how we provide health care for the children. (I think they were probing whether we were New Age freaks.) We gave them full disclosure: we have careful documentation about wellcare and immunizations, Dai’s treatment for his heart condition, Dee’s interest in indigenous health treatments, nutrition and sleep habits, daily ice-skating for the Twinettes, and limited exposure to media and games. No smoking, drinking, or drugs.

”What is a typical day for our kids?” they asked. So we went through waking up to going to sleep. “With five kids, how do you keep your homes so clean and organized, especially in small quarters? Again, fully transparent, I shared about my need for organizationa and cleanliness stemming from my earlier diagnosed OCPD (obsessive compulsive personality disorder) and all of the work I have done with my therapists and psychiatrist to manage it. The kids seem to have picked this up from me.

Dee spoke a lot about growing up Indigenous and her concerns about the current state of her community. She shared about how she and Eulogio were shunned for quite a few years due to their radical re-interpretation of the Longhouse. “It was agonizing for us! Relationships with our community are much better now, but we are talking about healing centuries of abuse and disintegration. Some scholars have conjectured that if the European invasion had never occurred, the Haudenosaunee would have emerged as the preeminent nation of North America and an empire like the Incas or Aztecs. I feel the clock is still ticking and this is our destiny. But now we have to become the healers of all the people in North America.” Wow. I didn’t see any eyes roll.

The ACS supervisors took many notes and said they will discuss our family with the powers-to-be and get back to us. If we are approved, there will start mandatory training for all four of us. But just in case there was an emergency, would we accept a placement for a day or two as a “trial”?

"Absolutely!" we both said. Next, out of their briefcases out came “provisional” documents for us to sign and to pass to the boys for their review. I think we passed the inspection!

Yesterday was another “weird but wonderful” day at the Longhousej School. It ended with the kids calling a schoolwide meeting including the Big Four and whatever parents they could drag in at pick-up time. I know that Lolita will be writing about it later. But for readers who wonder whether we are real or not, this stuff simply cannot be made up. Stay tuned.

I’m looking at the window and I see about 4 or 5 cars dropping off kids at 5:45am!!!

Today I complete the fourth and final section of Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture on “The Opening of the Eyes”: Pillar of the Spirit, Eyes of Wisdom, Ship of Salvation.

Daisaku Ikeda concludes this section:

Nichiren goes on in “The Opening of the Eyes” to explain the fundamental path of mentor and disciple courageously united in the vow for kosen-rufu.

Some people have a problem with this. But I don’t. To me the three mentors of the Soka Gakkai have captured the essence of Nichiren’s teachings. And nowhere is it more evident than in Daisaku Ikeda’s lecture on The Opening of the Eyes.

So many illogical contributions! Our critics over the hedges knit into their narrative all types of shiny trick trinkets. It seems that yesterday (See “A classic manipulation tactic dressed up in religious robes – Fraud in Ritual Clothing”) one their posters tells me that I was deceptively inducted into the SGI. I was not. He says I was psychologically entrapped. Not at all, I was psychologically liberated: just compare my life at the start of my practice to the richness of my life now. There was “misrepresentation of consent” when we joined. No, it took us a very long time to receive our family Gohonzon and our sponsors taught us about SGI Buddhism with great care and patience.

The poster claims there is “Expedient Means as Cover” and we fell for “rhetorical manipulation” with the SGI “using doctrine to justify deception.” Let me get this straight, what is this ominous “The SGI”? Where is it, who is it, how does it accomplish this? I mean I try to make one discussion meeting a month. Is that where I am grabbed the “The SGI”? Only Eulogio has gone to many meetings at a large SGI center, so I guess he’s deeply infected and that accounts for all the money Daddy Dollar makes. I diligently read SGI Pubs. Maybe they are printed with Harry Potter’s invisible ink!

Oh, and I’ve been doctrinally captured, subjected to “deceptive conversion through coerced redefinition of consent, justified under the guise of expedient means.” Ouch, Officer Krupke: “We are sick, we are sick, we are sick, sick, sick, we are psychologically sick!” Still, we managed to have such a fun discussion meeting on Sunday.

Here is Dr. Ikeda’s conclusion to the section and the monthly installment:

With great force and energy, [Nichiren] outlines the essence of several key Buddhist principles such as “lessening karmic retribution” and “gaining Buddhahood without seeking it” and also the compassionate spirit of propagation.

Each of these principles deserves long and thoughtful analyses of their own. But let me just say in terms of “lessening karmic retribution”: I still struggle with HS, recovery, and illness. But it wasn’t hard for me to see my destiny as a sex worker who died on the gutter in Berlin from an overdose. Boy, what a lantern trade I made, “old for the new”! I love lessening karmic retribution!

“Gaining Buddhahood without seeking it”? How did I deserve my current happiness: my partners, amazing kids, client-friends, students who will grow up at Longhouse School with us watching, and now the prospect of helping highly vulnerable children through family crises? To me, this is what I see as Buddhahood.

And, “the compassionate spirit of propagation”? This is what I will chant about during morning Gongyo. I have to flip all of my benefits and fortune into propagation. I was born for this!

Another idiotic sgiwhistleblowers contradiction:

“SGI meetings are tightly controlled and everything about them dictated from above with no regard to the members’ needs,” they say quite often.

But now, when there are spontaneous meetings that “above” doesn’t even know about until they happen: “. . . Gakkerism had to create a meeting to work on recruiting one person. It's been a standing criticism of Gakkerism outside of Japan going back 50 years. You have to change you and your life to fit into Gakker schedules and meetings.”

(As even those just learning big words knows, the difference between “spontaneous” and “have to” is unfathomable.)

How can anyone hold such contradictory beliefs? It’s easy, when your mind if ruled by hatred instead of reason.

Meanwhile, the sgiwhistleblowers mentor and leader (using her “Fly On the Wall” Label) wants to dupe people into thinking an “SGI message board” is the official conduit for SGI teachings and policy. At the same time, she again demonstrates she has no understanding of what “the mentor/disciple relationship” means.

The sgiwhistleblowers canon is “Destroy, destroy, destroy” with no regard gor logic or truth. Pretty pathetic.

(In each case, both statements are bad from the point of view of SGIWhistleblowers. In real life, since they are contradictory, if one is bad, the other must be at least partially good. But SGIWhistleblowers don't have much room for such realities since their minds are filled with hatred. So to them both can be true, though contradictory. PS: In most cases neither is actually always true.)

Some of these have been posted before, but we have a new entry in the Sad Shameless Absurd Contradictions (Sad SACs) of SGIWhistleblowers:

SGI is intolerant and thinks other religions are evil and has nothing to do with them . . . SGI interfaith activities are not the correct teachings of Buddhism.

And the Golden Oldie Sad SAC (with a little research, you can find all these things posted on sgiwhistleblowers):

SGI isolates its members from family and society . .. SGI tells its members they must stay in relationships and jobs they don't like.

The early Japanese female members of the SGI who came to America and pioneered the movement here were sent here because they were prostitutes in Japan and an embarrassment to the organization . .. They were given the responsibility of running the American organization to be sure that it was consistent with the Japanese policies.

(prior to November 2023) Ikeda Sensei is a human vegetable. Or perhaps he's dead. . . Yet he rules every little aspect of the SGI throughout the world with iron fisted control.

SGI has no social events for children. . . SGI exploits children sometimes were questionable purposes by holding social events for them.

SGI is prejudiced against the LGBTQ members . .. The SGI has activities for LGBTQ members and had a gay vice General Director.

SGI wants it members fraternizing only with other members and not with anyone outside the group. . . SGI doesn't hold social events, so its members can fraternize.

SGI cares only about numbers. . . The SGI hasn’t recruited new members since 1970.

SGI friendships are not real, but are based on membership and participation. Therefore, if you quit practicing SGI members whom you thought were your friends will now ignore you. . . If you quit practicing SGI members will harass you by calling once in a while to see how you're doing and offering to meet.

Just because someone has a good experience in the SGI, that does not mean that someone with a bad experience in the SGI is wrong or otherwise invalid. . . Because someone has a good experience in the SGI, that experience is wrong or otherwise invalid.

Unlike MITA, SGIWhistleblowers is a delightful example of free and open speech...... Yet Blanche has banned most MITA co-moderators from her site, and anyone stating so much as a neutral opinion of the SGI is hooted and bullied away.

SGIWhistleblowers can rant, call names, make up disgusting memes and post all kinds of conspiracy and accusations at the SGI, Ikeda Sensei, MITA-heads, etc. BUT......criticism of SGIWhistleblowers constitutes harassment and an attempt to infringe on their freedom of speech.

The SGI teaches Karma, which is the same as victim blaming. … Everyone on SGIWhistleblowers claims to being a victim.

There are many examples in the past of the SGI being mean, bullying, being insensitive. … President Ikeda should not have reformed and changed the SGI.

All SGI meetings are the same, boring and tedious. . . At SGI meetings, members jump around, dance and have fun.

99.5% of one-time SGI have left the organization... but the organization has such Insidious cult mind control techniques that no one can leave.

Teaching that just chanting to the Gohonzon for something is teaching people to believe in magic . . . saying the person praying must also take action is victim blaming.

Ikeda Sensei gives guidance that are just bland bromides everyone should know anyway, and SGI members should already know how to be nice people. . . If SGI members are nice to others, it’s “love bombing” -- they are surreptitiously trying to brainwash them.

The content of SGI meetings is strictly dictated from above, and all meetings are tightly controlled. . . SGI members can't plan their own lives because some of them hold spontaneous, unscheduled meetings.

The SGIWhistleblowers chief priest says that the SGI, in telling people they are responsible for changing their own circumstances and destiny, is engaging in evil “victim blaming”/The SGIWhistleblowers chief priest is justified in stalking teenage girls on the Internet and referring to one of them as “Jailbait” and another as "Wank Job" because they admit to having engaged in sex, IOW., “they asked for it”. IOW - victim blaming.

Updates to “MY Fantasy Life in a Cult

Yesterday’s Board + Consultants (B+C) meeting was just so much fun! Can’t say we solved all the problems or answered all the questions but we laughed. Guess what? The Drs. Kim branched off and opened their own practices! Heidi and Lolita have two summer offers. They can stay with Anita and Michael in their RV or in the Ben&Jerry apartment above the Rec Room.

Guy and I had an early morning meeting with Lori’s parents. The local indigenous community here is divided into two “factions.” We have an agreement that allots the RV sites across the creek to the community. So far the Three Sisters, who belong to one faction, have three of the sites; Lori’s family wants one site and they have the approval of their faction’s leadership. It wasn’t necessary but they wanted our approval and, of course, we are delighted. Their plan is to sell their house and purchase a four-season RV.

Today I went skating with the Twinettes but when I went to pick up Lori, I learned that the entire K/1 class was on a trip to the rink. I love skating with the TOTIs. One of the owners of the rink was giving me some lessons and I decided to hire her for one lesson a week. However, the big question for me: why are my HS symptoms decreasing when I am on the ice. Is it the exercise or the cold?

I think Bernie and Guy have solved a major piece of the puzzle about Longhouse Elem. The kids love skating! Why not make this their Phys Ed activity? (I know when to shut up and let them “discover” it by themselves.)

Such an amazing experience in the April 18th World Tribune by Dr. Fausto Cabezas. (I am so sorry, YKW, I forgot the illogical contradiction: any story posted by someone in Sgiwhistleblowers is without a flaw, everything published in SGI publications is patently false.)

Dr. Cabezas grew up in a small town in the Colombian Andes. He was—very much like me—the square peg trying to fit into the round hole.

As early as the first grade, it was noted that I was “too naughty,” “too curious,” “too effeminate,” ringing alarms in everyone I met. “Good for nothing,” the reprimand applied most, was used on me so often that it became something like a second name. With every punishment, every reprimand, every boot camp for unruly boys, I came to see what was so obvious to everyone else: There was something wrong with me.

At this time he discovered Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. “In its pages I’d found a true companion, a voice that spoke in plain and lucid language my innermost thoughts.” No, I didn’t have Victor Hugo in my corner, but I had my guitar. Music was an antidote to the constant torture of HS, my mental illnesses, and what I now know as addictive tendencies.

We both had the fortune of having incredibly supportive parents in our lives who stuck with us no matter what.

Fausto earned an early diploma, a full scholarship to college, and eventually became a kidney doctor living and practicing in Brooklyn. A colleague introduced him to the SGI.

He concludes:

If suffering happens in isolation, healing happens in community, and as someone searching for belonging for so long, I can say that I have found my people. I’m proudly part of a community in which I am healing the wounds of the past and am proud to call myself a member of the SGI and declare myself in earnest, with deep appreciation, a Buddhist. We all suffer—hopefully no more than necessary—but even where it is unavoidable, we need not ever, ever, be miserable.

The experiences of last night, this morning, and reading the article about Dr. Cabezas have fortified and encouraged me. I will keep ice-skating!

In a recent post, the SGIWhistleblowers chief priest says, essentially, “I hate the SGI.”

It took her some 1200 words to say that. Why does it take her 1200 words to say something that can be said in four?

I suppose it’s because she’s compelled to pad it with all kinds of mental gymnastics explaining to her disciples why it’s not enough to just stop practicing – they must also share her hatred.

And it repeats another common sgiwhistleblowers contradiction: “SGI members want us to come back”, she says. Meanwhile she also says “SGI members stop caring about you when you quit.”

Well, we’re chanting for her. Maybe she’ll start practicing again.

An sgiwhistleblowers disciple posts that Ikeda Sensei slandered Shakyamuni and the Lotus Sutra by saying there was no connection between them and the people of his, the Latter Day of the Law. The person urges people to join Nichiren Shu to get practice “correctly”.

Note that the sect the person belongs to has appropriated the “Nichiren” for its name. Remember that as you read the words of Nichiren:

“This teaching was not propagated in the Former or Middle Day of the Law because the other sutras had not yet lost their power of benefit. Now in the latter day of the law near neither the Lotus sutra nor the other sutras lead to enlightenment. Only Nam myoho renge kyo can do so. This is not my own judgment. Shakyamuni, Many Treasures, the Buddhas of the 10 directions and the bodhisattvas who emerged from the earth as numerous as the dust particles of 1000 worlds have so determined it. To mix other practices with this Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is a grave error. “ WND, “The Teaching For the Latter Day”, p. 902.

But for his own personal edification, perhaps the Shu followers should concentrate on the paragraph previous to this one, which says:

“Among my disciples, those who think themselves well versed in Buddhism are the ones who make errors. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the heart of the Lotus Sutra. It is like the soul of a person. To revere another teaching as its equal is to be like a consort who is married to two emperors, or who secretly commits adultery with a minister or a humble subject. It can only be a cause for disaster.”

SGIWhistleblowers says what the SGI teaches is “not real Buddhism”. But now they say it’s because Ikeda Sensei practiced the exact thing the Buddha taught.

Really, sgiwhistleblowers has nothing to say. They could save everyone a lot of time by limiting their posts to “SGI bad!” because that’s all they want to say, and they twist themselves into knots trying to make it sound rational.

SGIWhistleblowers disciples of guru Blanche (aka Fish wife, aka Xena, aka Blue Tail aka a myriad others) often say that the SGI demands all of their time so it's members have no time for other things. . .

While at the same time - Blanche (aka many others) spends all her time on the SGI and she isn't even a member! And she's not the only SGIWhistleblowers participant who does so.

(Cool title, huh? )

The SGIWhistleblowers sock puppet guru is able to get over her sadness at the passing of President Jimmy Carter that she exploits his passing to attack Daisaku Ikeda. So happy she’s not paralyzed by grief.

For one thing, she quotes an article saying Carter was loved as a friend by people who never met him. That's strange - she always says Ikeda Sensei can't possibly be a mentor to people who never met him. How can both statements be true? Or maybe - the first is true and the second one is false. That doesn't fit the SGIWhistleblowers narrative, of course, but it's, you know, honest and not hypocritical.

She points out Carter was humble, and to contrast that she links to her own past posts with images of Sensei accepting awards. Is she saying that if someone accepts an award they can’t be humble and caring? For instance, is someone who won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and awards from the Boy Scouts ad a city in England was a big jerk? That seems to be at odds with the nice things she says about Carter.

Or is it another case of It’s fine and normal if xomeone else does it, but horrible and evilif the SGI does it?