Subject: Washington Times Article
From: Kathy Ruby
Date: Sun, Feb 8, 1998 00:36 EST
Message-id: <34DD4444.2E49@erols.com>
Offshoot Buddhist Sect Is Leading Religion in Japan
Washington Times, Religion Section, December 14, 1996
By Masaru Sugimoto
Deutsche Presse Agentur
TOKYO--
Of the 230,000 religious sects in Japan, Soka Gakkai has the greatest
global spread.
The group has been led by Daisaku Ikeda, 68, who has worked all his
adult life for the movement and presents himself as a philosopher,
educator, and poet.
While the mainstream ancient Buddhist temples led by priests have more
adherents, Soka Gakkai has become the biggest lay Buddhist sect in the
country, with 8.12 million members in a population of 125 million. There
are 1.3 million followers in 128 other nations.
The group gained huge numbers of converts in Japan after the devastation
of World War II, but was looked down upon for decades as a movement of
the poor, the ill and the socially disadvantaged.
The massed contributions of its members has given the sect huge
financial resources, and it is very active in political, cultural and
educational projects.
The sect provides funding and a massive bloc of votes for Japan's
main opposition party Shinshinto, which means New Frontier Party.
(Memo by Fujiko: Soka Gakkai does not provide funding to any
political party, even though the members supported the Shinshinto
party for the past several years. The Shinshinto party has
recently split into several small parties. Currently, Soka
Gakkai does not support any of them.)
The religious movement has frequently come under fire in the Japanese media
because of its lower, and there have been allegations of scandal against
Mr. Ikeda, none of them ever confirmed.
(Memo by Fujiko: All allegations of scandal were politically
manipulated. In April 1998, Japan's majority party (Liberal
Democratic Party) apologized Soka Gakkai for having used such
allegations for political reasons. See the first section of
this Fujiko's Homepage.)
He joined the sect at 19 after meeting with its second president, Josei
Toda.
Mr. Ikeda currently holds posts of preseident of Soka Gakkai
International (SGI) and honorary president of the mother body in Japan.
The SGI group boasts that it has visitied 51 states on "peace, culture
and education missions."
Japan is mostly Buddhist, with 85 percent of the population belonging to
75,000 temples with their nearly 200,000 priests. Many Japanese also
observe the native religion Shintoism and see no contradiction between
these two quite different sorts of belief.
Soka Gakkai followers venerate the philosophy of a 13th century
Buddhist teacher and reformer, Nichiren, which was based on a single
prayer, the Lotus Sutra.
They believe that chanting the phrase "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" with firm
faith can resolve any problem and make life happier.
Takayo Hirai, an activist in the sect's group for young women, is
typical of many when she says: "With the never-give-up spirit, I will
help others become happy."
Central to Mr. Ikeda's thinking is the idea that a transformation within
the life of each individual, rather than societal or structural reforms
alone, holds the key to lasting peace and human happiness, according to
a SGI-issued profile of Daisaku Ikeda.
Return to Fujiko's Homepage