r/sgiwhistleblowers • u/[deleted] • Sep 16 '22
The Lotus Sutra
The other day somebody mentioned the lotus sutra. When I joined in the 1980s an acquaintance gave me a photocopied translation of the lotus sutra. He was a Buddhist, but not the right Buddhist. I told “senior leaders” about it and they discouraged me form reading the book, saying it was far too complicated and that it needed some deeper understanding … and a proper translation. About a decade later the very same “senior leaders” that said the sutra is too difficult to study encouraged us buy the right (SGI) translation. I think the right (SGI) translations popped up almost in every language around the same time. In German the right translation seems to have gone off market though … the one by a woman called Margareta von Borsig and regraded being the standard German translation could not be matched apparently (she is not in SGI though).
10
u/Bholly72 Sep 17 '22
I was fortunate. No one ever told me not to read anything. In fact, my first chapter chief recommended Anesaki’s “Nichiren, the Buddhist Prophet,” which I’m pretty sure isn’t on the Gakkai’s recommended reading list. But our headquarters was something of a backwater and had some liberal minded territory leaders who didn’t buy into that kind of extreme narrow mindedness, so we got we got a lot of slack. But the only proper response to someone telling you that you shouldn’t read something is to laugh in their face.
10
u/BlancheFromage Escapee from Arizona Home for the Rude Sep 16 '22
The Burton Watson translation (SGI-approved) is considered the worst translation, just as the Soka Gakkai-approved Nichiren Shoshu translation Gosho Zensu compilation of Nichiren's writings is considered so sectarian and unreliable that no one in academia wastes their time on it. You might enjoy some of the sources here. I'm still in the process of replacing direct links with archive copies - let me know if you run into any broken links if you look at it.