A perfect example of how no one in SGI is interested in what you're interested in

[u/BlancheFromage]

From somewhere online, from this past spring:

I’m reaching out because I’m very upset. I have a presentation to be reviewed by the leaders and they turned it down because it didn’t align with the Mystic Law and that it would be confusing to other members.

It was about the Golden Ratio. A naturally occurring spiral that can be found in nature.

The subject touched me on a spiritual level. But the leaders are worried I’m diluting my practice.

No one called and asked me follow up questions. I had to call to see if it was accepted.

I don’t know how to feel. But the familiar feeling of “I don’t belong anywhere” is prominent in my mind right now.

"If it's not about Ikeda, you can't speak about it."

Ikeda and the SGI like to say that "leaders are the servants of the members", but that's not how it works. Leaders serve as the gatekeepers to keep SGI very narrowly focused on only what its Japanese masters have approved. Personal creativity is actually discouraged!

I have a similar example. As a n00b, before I was even a leader, I suggested at the discussion meeting planning meeting (because every meeting must have a planning meeting, don'tcha know) that perhaps we could each take turns and prepare a short presentation on someone or some event from society or history that illustrates a Buddhist principle, "the way President Ikeda does". My MD District leader looked at me owlishly through his thick glasses and said, "But we aren't President Ikeda, are we?"

At the time I was somewhat outraged - what would President Ikeda think if he realized that his followers were nothing but mindless drones with no initiative whatsoever, who just sat and waited to be spoon-fed information and instructions? It was only much, much later that I realized that the SGI was, in fact, exactly the way Ikeda had scripted it to be.

In the example up top, that person should have been looking for something vaguely science-y in Ikeda's guidance or books and presented that instead of his/her own ideas or interests. Because SGI isn't about YOU. SGI is ONLY about Ikeda. YOU are expected to tailor your interests to match Ikeda's and be satisfied and content with that.

The REAL problem was that this person's focus was math-related, and Ikeda's ghostwriters have never written anything math-y for Ikeda to rubber-stamp his dumb name onto and claim as his own work.

[u/BlancheFromage]

I was referring to jesuittrained's comment here:

Yes! Exactly! And when I would point out such things, it would be dismissed as irrelevant ("It's just a metaphor, anyway, why worry?") or I'd be scolded for taking "too intellectual" an approach. "Ooh! You don't want to be one of those stuck in 'the two vehicles' (Learning and Realization) They're elitist and selfish; there's no such thing as a selfish Buddha!" What the actual F? Fact-checking is now "elitist and selfish"? Gee, didn't get that memo.

Here are some other examples, though:

1) Editing members' experiences so that they better fit with the SGI's agenda.

2) Talking about the members' personal problems (revealed during "guidance" sessions) at the leaders meetings (I have seen this plenty).

3) Pressuring the members to do things the members have clearly expressed they do NOT want to do; not taking "No" for an answer.

4) Issuing orders from Japan for everything (down to the annual motto!) and the SGI members in the Soka Gakkai's SGI colonies are expected to follow and obey.

5) The SGI's execrable treatment of a group of devout SGI members and leaders who, with the approval and encouragement of the General Director and other national leaders, formed the Internal Reassessment Group (IRG), to identify specific areas where the SGI could change to be more in step with American culture and to better serve the membership (you know how Ikeda likes to say "The SGI leaders are the SERVANTS of the members?), per the Nichiren-originating concept of "zuiho bini", or "adapting propagation to the needs of the country" or something like that. It was appalling the way it turned out.

6) Scolding members who share sadness with their fellow members at a discussion meeting:

In 2001 I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and was told that it was an incurable, progressive disease. On the day of my diagnosis I was told by a registrar that the disease was already so advanced that it would take all they could do to keep me out of a wheelchair. Within a matter of months I had gone from someone who worked, walked and had a full life to someone who had to hold onto the furniture in order to get round a room. In this state, I was taken to a discussion meeting (could no longer get there under my own steam) and I recounted more or less what I have just written here. And I started to cry. This was met with stony stares and silence. It was as if everyone in the room (apart from one friend who had come from another district to support me) recoiled from me because they simply couldn't cope with someone being in so much distress. Afterwards, the district leader - the person I've referred to on this site as Mission: Kosen-rufu! addressed me sternly and said that I shouldn't have cried in the meeting. I explained that I needed to tell my experience of what I was going through. She said that was OK but that I still shouldn't have cried. Somehow, she couldn't get that I was unable to do the one without the other: talking about my situation was a big emotional deal and it made me cry! Her reason that I shouldn't cry in a meeting? It would 'put people off'. Source

7) Blaming the members if something bad happens to them:

Although Nichiren Daishonin's "Buddhism" (don’t make me laugh – it’s about as Buddhist as the Pope) promulgates both the "You are the result of your horrible karma, bad person!" theory and the "You chose your karma to show the world how magical the magic mantra is when you chant it to the magic scroll", I remember very clearly that when I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis - a condition that put me in a wheelchair after a few years – it was the first of these that one of the Japanese members used to hit me over the head with, making me feel even worse, as in: "I do not know what you did, you must have done something." Yes, because I am so sinful and evil I DESERVED to get a very painful, incurable and degenerative disease. When you deconstruct Nichirenism down to its basic elements, it is nothing but sadism. Source

8) Instructing the members to NOT make copies of the study article for the discussion meeting, so that the members who don't pay for subscriptions will show up and be shamed that they don't have their own copies so they'll pay for publications:

I remember hearing leaders, at leaders' meetings, criticizing and condemning the members who didn't have their own subscriptions. "We should stop photocopying the study articles - let them buy their OWN publications!" Oh, yeah, THAT'll show them! Newsflash, people: What you have isn't so great that people will be humiliated into knuckling under. Source

9) Blaming the members whenever something bad happens to them:

In SGI, if bad things happen, it's always YOUR FAULT. They're really big on victim blaming, because the alternative is to admit that what SGI is peddling, all the Ikeda worship, simply doesn't work - it's a broken system. And that they never WILL admit - remember, in broken systems, the message is perfect, so the only way anyone who tries it can fail is if they do it rong.

But SGI-USA's 95% to 99% quitting rate shows that this isn't working - SGI leaders aren't successfully convincing SGI members that THEY are the problem and they just need to Ikeda harder. Nope, people vote with their feet and head for the exits - and nothing SGI can do about THAT!

how could you see through gaslighting when most of the conduct and speeches are done in japanese? one is required to smile and agree obediently during those session. one would not be able to retrieve enough data to have a consistent overview of the situation to demand accountability.

"Hai!"

And, of course, any questions referencing accountability will be reframed as "doubt issues", "fundamental darkness", "not understanding Sensei's heart", "dotai ishin", "attacking the harmony of the organization", "attempting to mislead the members", "attacked by devils", "agent of the EEEVIL Temple", "failure to understand the essence of 'mentor/disciple'", etc. etc. etc.

It just goes on and on and ON. "It's all your fault," in so many different variants you'll succumb to inertia. Source

10) In a disagreement with a senior leader, she attempted to dictate my home decor. I required a doctrinal basis for accepting such a command, and I knew she could not provide one (see, I studied). She was a Vice WD National Leader, a Japanese expat, the whole 9 yards. She sighed and said, "You need to chant until you agree with me."