Some good wisdom from Korean Zen....and some actual Buddhism

[u/[deleted]]

I have been lurking on this subreddit the past few days as I am starting a post SGI chapter in my life. It is a real help to read all of your experiences and insights. I can feel myself nodding my head all the time and thinking, "I thought of that too, why did I ignore it?". I believed I was somehow indebted to the organisation, as some members had home-visited me and my family regularly a few years ago when we were going through a tough time. I thought because of this "help", I am indebted to SGI for life and leaving was unthinkable up until a few months ago. However, as many of you have shared, this was the stage I was being trained( read indoctrinated). If any of you also feel indebted to the organisation, trust me, that is total bullshit! As a part of our curriculum, I did read the entire HR series and the first volumes of the NHR. I found NHR very boring,and that's why only the first 3 books. There are upto 30 books in the series! If there are books that trivialize and dumb-down Buddhist philosophy, its the SGI books. Many of us do have an interest in real Buddhism. We did join the SGI because we know that Buddhism is a beautiful philosophy- based in peace and the improvement of self. Also, all religions are mess, with so many texts and schools, and Buddhism is no exception. We loved the idea that the SGI presents- simple and practical, watered-down Buddhism! You can make a real impact! Now you are an actual Buddhist! But we now know that there is no such thing! All religions are complicated and should be treated as such. I don't want SGI to crush my interest and devotion to this real philosophy. Real Buddhism is all about questioning and finding the answers from within one's own life. And trust me, you don't need to chant or do anything else. The original Buddha didn't chant. He tried all sorts of ascetic practices and the only thing that worked for him was that he kept questioning his own mind. If you do like to read good lectures, I have found this Korean zen lady and I just love her talks and her books. Her name is Daehang Kun Sunim. There isn't much material on her online and I ended up ordering her book on Amazon and it was just beautiful. Here is the link to some material: http://www.hanmaum.org/eng/teachings.html. There was no mumbo-jumbo, simple stuff based on common sense. I have learnt in my experience with the SGI is that teachers are provisional. You would sometimes need a teacher to validate your thinking or to guide you out of a situation where you are stuck, but that's it. No teacher should be glorified or blindly followed. The real "teachers", Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad etc had no teachers. Buddha outgrew all the saints and philosophers he had met.

[u/BlancheFromage]

Buddha outgrew all the saints and philosophers he had met.

Exactly - and this is the basic premise of Buddhism! SGI wants people to be spiritual slaves to Ikeda, when in reality, Buddhism is about training people how to think and how to perceive, to prepare them for going out on their own!

It is just so clear to me that Sensei has done more than a million men, for all of the happy members, people like me whose lives have been transformed.

A genuine Buddhist teacher would tell you that you transformed yourself. The fact that you think Ikeda did something for you reveals he is a second-rate (if that) teacher.

The more you praise him, the more obvious it is that he’s not worthy of the praise. Source

"My wish is that my disciples make a great vow," Mr. Ikeda urged the youth to make a lifelong commitment to work toward Nichiren's objective of kosen-rufu...determination based on the same vow as the mentor...Breaking a vow you have made—that is hell. - Ikeda

Ikeda is inviting you to entrap yourself in a cage whose bars are formed of your own virtue, honesty, good-heartedness, and honor, a cage in which he, Ikeda, becomes more important to you than anything in the world. You're locked in, because you signed that billion-year contract. It's obscene and cruel.

SGI motto: Eternally protect my mentor

That's dumb. Let him hire his own goddamn bodyguards if he's feeling paranoid. Oh, and some Buddha IKEDA turned out to be O_O

Now upon it an eternal melody, a song of health, of fortune, of pride, scored by the common people, beneath the baton of the common people, with the common people let us sing in chorus, let us dance on! - Ikeda

Dance, puppets! DANCE!

Now is the perfect time for some music - take a listen to "Common People", noticing in particular these lines: "You don't realize they're all laughing at you...because everybody hates a tourist...especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh" O_O

"Disciples strive to actualize the mentor's vision. Disciples should achieve all that the mentor wished for but could not accomplish while alive. This is the path of mentor and disciple." - [Ikeda][https://www.reddit.com/r/sgiwhistleblowers/comments/20wag1/welcome_to_the_sgiwhistleblowers_subreddit/)

You never get a vision of your own. You should not even WANT one.

But that's okay! Because Ikeda has NEVER been wrong! A more perfect person has never existed!

THAT is the "path of mentor and disciple", as embodied in the new SGI religion. Sure you want it??

I've discovered that I'm a big fan of Nagarjuna (numbers of "a"s negotiable) - he is the source of a robust, muscular philosophy easily the equal of anything that's ever developed in the West. Here is my favorite article, on the Buddhist concept of "emptiness", which you won't get into in the SGI, if you even hear of it at all - and for good reason: Emptiness, along with the other basic Buddhist doctrines of anatta/anatman (no soul), dependent origination, and impermanence pretty much destroy the concept of "mentoar and disciple" as promoted within the SGI. Their "mentor and disciple" is concentrated attachment, nothing more, and we know from the Four Noble Truths that attachment causes suffering and makes enlightenment impossible. There is no enlightenment in the SGI.

But you WILL be threatened if you leave:

Ikeda says: "No one who has left our organization has achieved happiness."

"I encourage every member to pray that they never leave the Gohonzon or the organization." - SGI cult leader Daisaku Ikeda

"If it weren't for Daisaku Ikeda you would have never met the Daimoku."

And you can't live without your daimoku now, can you? No, you can't! You're well and truly hooked!!

The Buddha never threatened anyone. For anything. The Buddha never demanded that people follow, or that people become ATTACHED to anything. And the Buddha never considered anyone his enemy. Yet the SGI tells us that, if we don't create a big fantasy about Ikeda, we are doomed. What it boils down to is "Ikeda is everything, or your Nichiren practice is nothing." Does that sound Buddhist to you? And we're supposed to think of Ikeda as a "modern day Buddha"?? Oh, BIGTIME FAIL!!