Today, a good friend and colleague, a pal at work, announced with delight that he had received his new Netflix movie in the mail...."Saw IV"! Blood! Guts! Gore! Pain! Terror! Fear! Yippee!!!
Now, I really like my friend. He's a nice fellow, not a kid, but a grown-up man. And for some reason, he truly seems to enjoy these torture movies.
I think I'm sort of the "Buddha Head" at work. They think I'm a little weird. Anyway, I cried out in dismay and tried to tell my friend about how the Buddha had dealt with Angulimala, the famous serial killer who made a necklace out of the fingers of his homicide victims. When Angulimala chased after the Buddha and told him to stop, the Buddha said, "I've already stopped, Angulimala, when will you stop?"
This didn't make a big impression. My friend waved his hands delightedly and told me about how little these movies cost to make, and how much money they bring in. Then, with an impish grin, he told me all about how the central character in these "Saw" movies likes to drug people into unconciousness, kidnap them, and place them in an environment where they have to mutilate themselves or kill each other in order to live.
Concerned about the karmic consequences of being kidnapped by such a fiend, I asked, "Well, can they just kill themselves in order to avoid forcing the other person to kill them?" He seemed a bit surprised by the question, but conceded that this was possible. The whole point of the movie, though, he said, is to watch the lunatic's victims fly into a state of panic and go after each other...
My God, how unwholesome a state of mind is that?
Why do people go to see this stuff, and what is the appeal? Talk about horrified, I genuinely am!
I felt compelled to rebuke my friend: "(Friend)", I said sternly, "Just how badly to you want to be reincarnated under the Spanish Inquisition? Huh? How badly?!?!"
This didn't seem to make a big impression, either. Instead, he went on and on about how all the creative people and creative executives in the business watch this stuff and try to get ideas from it. Why on earth would you want to get ideas from something like that? I dunno, I just dunno - I must be the loneliest Buddha Head in Hollywood.
In an attempt to redeem himself, my friend pointed out to me that he would never hurt even a spider if he could avoid it. That he didn't deliberately step on beetles, or crush insects. And this is true - I believe him. He did adopt an abandoned kitten. He is an all-around wonderful fellow. I would truly hate for him to be re-born under the Spanish Inquisition. They had all kinds of nifty torture ideas, too.
What is the net effect, do you think, of violence and torture in the movies? Do we become callous? Do we lose a capacity for empathy? I think that's why I can't watch the stuff - I'm too empathetic. Whenever someone else gets hurt in real life, I genuinely "feel their pain". If I watched a torture movie, I wouldn't sleep for a week.
What do you all think? Thanks for your thoughts.
Be peaceful, be wholesome, be cool.
Byrd in LA
Well, I was going to write about today's Gathering of Friends at the Ankers' home in Granada Hills, but the comments on my last entry were so lively that I couldn't resist trying to address the issue of race which was raised by one of my readers.
I had another experience a year or so ago in which I was accused of racism, and it was an interesting learning experience for me.
At the time, I was President of the Board of Directors of the housing cooperative where I live. The co-op is a corporation which owns a mega-multi-million dollar piece of property with 132 apartment units. The residents in the apartment units are all shareholders in the corporation -- they elect a Board of Directors, which manages the corporation's property as well as all legal and financial affairs.
Over the past 10 years or so, the co-op has seen a large influx of new shareholders from what used to be various Soviet Republics. These sub-groups don't always get along with each other, but they did have in common a different way of handling their financial and property transactions -- and by "different", I mean different to what is standard in the US. In a nutshell, these newcomers wanted the corporation to cooperate in financial dealings related to corporate shares -- dealings which were no doubt perfectly normal in the Soviet Republic of Armenia (or wherever), but which, if subjected to the scrutiny of California law might well have been considered fraudulent.
Despite various offers of financial enrichment from some newcomers, I myself stood firm and declined to assist in making the co-op a party to anything which might cause trouble for the corporation down the road. As you can imagine, the newcomers responded quite loudly with cries of "RACIST!!!"
I do not doubt that from their point of view, my position was in fact strongly prejudicial against their ethnic group. After all, the transactions in question were only being proposed by the recent Eastern European immigrants, and my policy was tending to impact them in a manner which it did not impact "homegrown" Americans. On the other hand, they were living in America now, and "I'm from Eastern Europe" is not a defense against a fraud claim in a California court (at least it wasn't back when I took the bar exam).
At long last, the contingent which desired these transactions put in a lot of work to remove me from office (which was actually a relief for me). However, the new administration continued on with the policy I had adopted, and in the end, all that happened was I got rid of the headache of my corporate office, and the newcomers had a momentary and insubstantial thrill of victory.
What I learned from this experience is that sometimes (not always) the race card is really just an intimidation tactic. Sort of a "do what I say, or I'll call you a bad name" gambit.
I know that some people who read here are very uncomfortable with my discussion of Japanese culture as I have studied it out in books, and uncomfortable with my belief that we need to start drawing lines between what is Japanese and what is Buddhist. It's a thorny, swampy problem. Truly, it is. However, I do believe it's a set of issues that need to be thrashed out and addressed, and not just simply avoided by playing the race card. I'm not claiming that the Japanese have smaller brains or smaller anything else than Europeans, or Africans, or South Americans, or Chinese, or that the Japanese should have diminished legal rights in any way -- that kind of claim would in fact be racist. I'm just trying to develop my own Buddhist practice as a Westerner and an American in a way which doesn' t force me to adopt a culture which is extremely foreign to me and not specifically "Budddhist" in any way. I am also unwilling to impose that foreign culture on others by telling them that they have to internalize that culture or they won't be ""practicing correctly" and their prayers won't be answered. This makes it hard for me to propagate the Daimoku, as (from my point of view) within the SGI-USA, the Daimoku is wrapped up in a Japanese governance structure like a hot dog in a bun. Or like a slice of raw tuna in a sheet of seaweed. Whatever. You get the picture.
I honestly don't think my position toward the Eastern European shareholders was racist - I knew what would work in California and what would put the corporation at risk. I had a duty to protect the investments of all the shareholders, not just those of the newcomers. The fact that they did not understand American liability laws or corporate structures didn't obligate me to play by a foreign and a risky set of rules, simply because they would call me a name if I didn't. Similarly, I believe there are significant conditions within the SGI-USA which have caused us to suffer in the court of public opinion. Calling me a name won't make the problems go away, not if we truly want to propagate Nichiren Buddhism in the 21st century - propagate with more than rhetoric.
That's sort of how I got to be where I am in terms of my overall "you're in America now" philosophy. If somebody here can offer me a better way of dealing with the features of the SGI-USA organization which are in conflict with Western culture, I would love to try them on for size. Truly, give me an idea.
I don't seem to be the only person who thinks things are different in the US and Japan - there wouldn't be a whole shelf-full of books about the issues if the issues didn't exist. If we can't examine the cultural differences, then what can we do? I'm genuinely curious as to your thoughts, Best, Byrd in LA
As most of my readers know, I have been practicing Nichiren Buddhism with the SGI for over 20 years. Of late, I have been reading a great deal about Japanese culture and political power systems in an attempt to "tease out" Buddhism from "Japan-ness" in my own mind.
For years, I have been taught that certain "ways of doing things" and "ways of seeing things" were "Buddhist" -- I am only now waking up and realizing that they are not necessarily Buddhist, but they apparently are typically Japanese.
I am not alone in believing that one of the reasons why the SGI has become a "revolving door" -- where people join, chant for awhile with the organization and then leave -- is the fact that the SGI attempts to impose a profoundly foreign culture on its American membership as an expression of "faith" in Buddhism. I honestly believe that most of the leaders who are doing this don' t know they're doing it, but that doesn't make it any less true. I believe that those people who rise in the organization's "leadership" ranks are those who have internalized Japanese values and a Japanese power structure. Those who leave are those who will not. It has little or nothing to do with "faith" one way or the other in the principles of Nichiren Buddhism or the Lotus Sutra, and certainly nothing to do with practice or study.
One of the books I have really enjoyed reading recently is called "The Enigma of Japanese Power" by a fellow named Karel van Wolferen. This book was published back in the 1980's, at the peak of Japans' economic "bubble", and is mostly a look at Japan's political power structure, and how it interacts with various economic forces in that society. But the SGI has a power structure, too, although we do not typically admit it. It is called "the line", and it is (in my opinion) in many ways a colonial governance structure.
So! Just for fun, let's take a few quotes from van Wolferen's book, and see if any of it "sounds familiar", OK?
Here, from a chapter entitled "The Administrators" is a quote:
"The essential condition for the survival of the Japanese System is continued protection of the administrator class by keeping the criteria for membership, and the rules governing transactions among the administrators themselves, informal. The System is what it is by virtue of informal relations that have no basis in the constitution, in any other laws or in any formal rules..." (emphasis in original) (Page 109)
Normal English Translation: The organization maintains its structure by keeping everything "personal". If there are no clear rules, then there is no clear accountability, and more importantly, no clear rights.
Think about it. Do you have a clue how your leaders got to be your leaders? I don't. There was a series of "leadership seminars" a couple of years back on DVD, but the actual criteria and processes of leadership appointments are still very, very murky to me. Now, this doesn't mean that the leadership are bad people, not at all. It just means that, as van Wolferen notes here, the power structure is defined by a lack of reliance on formal rules -- rules that any old member can read, understand, and rely on. Rules that the governed can appeal to if they have a dispute with their governors. This is something that many of my relatives find incredible - I'm 50 years old and I belong to a church where I have no voice at all in church government, church policy, or church finances. If this system is what my relatives have to submit to in order to chant Nam(u)-Myoho-Renge-Kyo, then they will take a pass in this lifetime. This is unfortunate.
I also had an interesting experience with this a few years ago. I decided at one point that I couldn't bring women with personal issues into my local organization because of a huge propensity for gossip among the local leaders. Rather than addressing this as being about ethics, or confidentiality, or leadership standards, or any kind of objective standard, the matter was consistently referred to as "Byrd's issue with (leader's name here)." Actually, the leader was irrelevant. The problem was the absence of standards - the leader was just an example, nothing more. But the matter was "handled" as though it was "personal" rather than policy. As though the problem was with the individual leader (who can simply be removed from office), rather than with the lack of coherent governing principles.
Similarly, those who read this blog regularly will recall last month when I discussed a campaign within the SGI which I found obnoxious. A frequent correspondent here and a loyal SGI member wrote in repeatedly berating me for publicly addressing a policy issue -- he wanted me to do it the Japanese way and "talk to the lady about it" first. We in the SGI traditionally avoid issues of policy and power by "keeping it personal".
By the way, and as an aside, I understand that there has been published a new, 80-page (wow!) "personnel manual" for the SGI-USA. I am really looking forward to getting a look at it, as I hope it will address some issues which, until now, have been decided in secret by local governors (oops, "leaders") on an extremely ad hoc basis. On what grounds can someone's home be declared "off limits" for meetings? On what grounds can the SGI-USA dissolve a district? Do the members have any voice in these matters at all? I hope that some of these questions have been "hammered out" by those who are empowered to do so, and that we will be able to have some kind of recourse for members who have a grievance.
Here's another interesting idea:
..."Resistance to whatever is portrayed as beneficial to the community is...decried as springing from a purely "private" - synonymous with egoistic - motives and not conceived as a possibly valid personal...opinion. "(p/327)
Normal English Translation: "If you disagree with the line, then there is something wrong with you (i.e., you are arrogant, ungrateful, or lack a "seeking mind"). You need to chant about this problem that you have, until you see the wisdom of the line's pronouncement and come to agree. Maybe you need guidance.
I have written before about a funny experience I had with this. A Japanese Women's Division leader came to our Chapter to talk about the importance of "fighting daimoku". I really don't like being in conflict with myself, and I expressed my preference for "hugging daimoku", or "washing daimoku". Yes, she nodded, this was very good. But, she reminded the group...the real daimoku was fighting daimoku. It was really strange - as though my alternative perspective had been a sort of intellectual pothole -- a bump to drive over with her eyes firmly on the road -- rather than a "possibly valid...personal opinion."
Well, I think this is enough babble for one day. What do you think about the "informal" granting and exercise of authority? How about the relationship between individual and group opinions? I'm genuinely interested. Thanks.
Be wise, be insightful, be cool.
Byrd in LA
I had a very pleasant evening last night at my monthly SGI-USA discussion meeting. There were no guests, and our Chapter has recently "split" into two chapters, so there was some discussion of who our new leaders are, etc., and then an open discussion of what our goals are for 2008.
The senior leader who led our gongyo and discussion read aloud from a recent "Daily Gosho":
And yet, though one might point at the earth and miss it, though one might bind up the sky, though the tides might cease to ebb and flow and the sun rise in the west, it could never come about that the prayers of the practitioner of the Lotus Sutra would go unanswered.
So, this raised a question with the group - just exactly who is a "practitioner of the Lotus Sutra"? The leader pointed out to us that if our prayers were not being answered, maybe it was because we were not "really" practitioners of the sutra. We need to examine ourselves and our practice, need to make sure we are really "practitioners", if we want our prayers to be answered.
This leader defined a practitioner as someone who never gives up (surprise!), and who always keeps moving forward, who doesn't "get comfortable". Interestingly, in her definition, she mentioned nothing about any feature of the Sutra itself (such as the enlightenment of evil people like Devadatta, the universality of Buddhahood as demonstrated by the Dragon King's Daughter, or the eternity of the Buddha's life, as revealed in the "Lifespan" chapter which we recite twice daily). We also discussed the new-again women's division theme of "today again, never be defeated".
How do you define a "practitioner of the Lotus Sutra'? How do you think Nichiren meant to define it? What do you think Nichiren meant when he talked about having one's prayer answered? Does the answer always have to be "yes"? Who or what is doing the anwering?
Just curious. I hope you all have a fabulous MLK weekend. Keep on practicing, Byrd in LA
P.S. The gosho in question is entitled "On Prayer", and can be read in its entirety at the SGI or the SGI-USA webpage. They have a search engine, and you can put in the title of the gosho and read the whole thing. I'm genuinely interested in your perspectives.
As you may recall, I have started volunteering as a literacy tutor through my local library. Its been going quite well. My student is a middle-aged fellow who gave up on learning to read as a child because the adults would hit him when he made mistakes.
He is a wonderful guy - I really like him, and he's a very hard worker. He works by day as a manual laborer/driver, and wants to pass his GED so that he can get a better job.
Now, to my conundrum.....
My student was recently diagnosed with diabetes (a disease that is starting to be a recurring theme with me on this blog). He lives with family, so they can help him with some of his meds, but I have ended up reading a lot of labels to him. He's been having a lot of ups and downs with his blood sugar lately,though - the diabetes doesn't appear to be very well-managed. His HMO...well...let's just say that I almost sued them a few years ago when they radically mis-medicated my mother. I don't particularly trust them, but they're what we've got to work with.
I've been doing online research for him into diabetic diets, but the problem is....he doesn't read! Certainly not well enough to absorb the material on the Mayo Clinic web page! So, I have started reading the content of the web pages into a pocket dictation machine. I didn' trealize until I had this situation how much we all rely on reading! I had no idea! I keep thinking, "well, I'll just run this off for him..." and then I remember that the online printout is just a bunch of squiggles on paper to him. How vexing! I've told him about the practice, but I don't think he's doing it regularly, and I don't want to come off like a religious nut rather than a teacher and a friend.
I'm chanting about this as well, so I thought I'd throw it out there for anyone else who may have encountered a problem like this one. Any advice? Please? I'm actually getting quite worried about him...
Thanks a lot in advance,
Byrd in LA
My last blog entry was on the topic of awe. One of my readers wrote in to say that trying to provoke an emotional response seemed strange to him - like trying to make yourself cry or trying to make yourself laugh.
I remembered reading something in the paper a few years ago about groups of Indians (in India) who stood around and laughed in groups as a health exercise. The story was pretty funny, and it did make me laugh. They had a picture of a whole bunch of women in saris gathered in a public park throwing their heads back and showing their teeth, seemingly having an uproariously good time. I laughed and thought no more about it until this morning, when I read my reader's comment.
Amazingly enough, there is actually a practice called "laughter yoga" - apparently, you can train (for only $795 for a five-day course) to be a laughter yoga teacher. Are you laughing? Then, you can have your own laughter yoga classes.
Here is the site:
http://www.laughteryoga.org/index.php
Or, you can just google "laughter yoga"
I agree that laughter is good for you. Norman Cousins credited his own health recoveries to the benefits of laughter:
(From a Wikipedia entry): Told that he had little chance of surviving, Cousins developed a recovery program incorporating megadoses of Vitamin C, along with a positive attitude, love, faith, hope, and laughter induced by Marx Brothers films. "I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep," he reported. "When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval."
What an amazing discovery!
I don't know if I'm going to sign up for that laughter yoga instructor class, though - $795 seems like a laugh, right there. If I got certified, though, I could hold regular laughter yoga clases at my local YMCA. That's a laugh. And I could start off all my legal consultations with a few minutes of hearty laughter. That's a laugh. Maybe I could go in to court for hearings and suggest to the judge that we "warm up" the jury with a few minutes of belly laughter. I'd like to see the reaction to that one. There's a laugh.
So you see, Harry- there is a good reason to try to make yourself laugh. The doctor ordered it.
Have a fun-filled day, everyone,
Best, Byrd in LA
I was listening to a speaker last night, who encouraged his listeners to find something every day which evoked in them a sense of awe. As in a-w-e, not as in "awwww...isn't that a cute puppy calendar?"
He offered as an example, the sense of awe which he experienced on viewing a few shoots of grass popping up through a crack in the concrete when he was out taking his morning walk. How amazing it seemed to him that the grass was able to fight its way up through the concrete crack and grow towards the sun against all odds.
That seemed like a good assignment, and certainly a way to expand the old consciousness. So, this morning on my way to work, I tried to find something which provoked in me a sense of awe.
At first I looked at the long, long limes of telephone poles which lined the street from my home in North Hollywood to Burbank. Hmmmm, not all that awe-inspiring, more like an eyesore. So, I looked at the clouds, but they were all obscured by the telephone poles.
I suppose I could have been awed by my cats when I first woke up, but I was too busy fulfilling their food demands to think about them as objects of awe. I could have been awed by how wonderfully my body works, walking me out to the car and up to my cube at the office, but my mind was too occupied with whether my online banking summary would show a bounced check or not (it didn't).
I could have been awed by the amazing internet and how I can punch buttons with shapes on them, these shapes can somehow go onto a screen, and then you can think about my thoughts and ideas, even though you're miles and miles away. That is pretty awesome, when you stop and think about it. I could have been awed by that, but I was too busy thinking ahead about what I wanted to type. It just sort of goes from my brain to my fingers, to the screen, to the blog to your eyes without any time for awe in there.
I could have been awed by the telephone - I picked up this device, I punched some buttons, and I was able to talk to someone who isn't even in the same room as I am. They're actually in a different city. Wow. That's pretty awesome, isn't it? Huh.
Finally, though, I settled on the Santa Monica Mountains, and decided to be awed by them. Just think how big the earthquakes must have been to thrust those mountains so high up from the ground. Wow. That's awesome. I'm glad I wasn't around when that happened, I think I would have been scared to death!
So, anyway - is there anything that provokes awe in you? Just curious...
Have a good day, all - be alert, be humble, be cool.
Byrd in LA
The third "new cornerstone" of the SGI is Myth.
What is a myth? For now, I will work with this definition:
"...a sacred story... The active beings in myths are generally gods and heroes... In saying that a myth is a sacred narrative, what is meant is that a myth is believed to be true by people who attach religious or spiritual significance to it." (emphasis mine).
Myths aren't necessarily a bad thing at all - they bind us together in a common world-view, and they can give us a sense of purpose, a sense of our place in the cosmos. They can lift us up, or hold us back, or anything in-between.
So, what are the primary myths of the SGI? What do we believe to be true, not because it is, but because we attach a spiritual or religious significance to it? I will be very interested to hear what the people who read here think about this question, as well.
1. The Nichiren Shoshu once taught a "purer" or "truer" form of Nichiren Buddhism than any other lineage. As a result, the SGI springs from a "purer" source, and has a uniquely valid "connection" to the Dharma (what we call the Law of Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo).
This is an interesting, but problematic myth. The SGI has been engaged for some time in establishing a lineage - the successive Presidents of the SGI (Makiguchi, Toda, and Ikeda). Lineages are a means of authenticating a teaching in most schools of Buddhism, and are very important to the traditionally-minded Japanese. The mandala Gohonzons most Nichiren Buddhists have enshrined in their homes show a calligraphic lineage from Shakyamuni through Nagarjuna and T'ien T'ai to Nichiren. Nichiren included this lineage on his Gohonzon because it served to authenticate Nichiren's Lotus Sutra practice, and to place it squarely within the larger universe of Buddhism.
History shows that Nichiren appointed six successors to carry on his work of propagating Nam(u)-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. The SGI's parent sect, Nichiren Shoshu, claims that only one of these individuals - Nikko - truly "inherited" Nichiren's teachings, basing this claim on two separate and partly conflicting stories:
a) Nichiren left his teaching to all six disciples, but only Nikko was trustworthy and the other five "betrayed Nichiren's intent" in various ways.
b) Nichiren authored a sort of last will and testament in which he "entrusted his teachings" to Nikko alone - these "transfer documents" first surfaced long after both Nichiren's and Nikkos' deaths, and are generally regarded as forgeries by independent modern historians and scholars.
So, which was it? Did Nichiren leave the whole shebang (whatever it is) to one disciple only, or was Nichiren an incredibly bad judge of character and only one of the six successors was trustworthy? In the end, I don't think it really matters what the rationale for this myth is - the spiritual or religious significance of this myth is that: THE SOKA GAKKAI SPRANG FROM UNPOLLUTED SOIL.
I like this myth because it reminds me of the story of the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Everybody else was screwing around, but not the unmarried Mother of Our Lord. Our religious organization has a sort of miraculous beginning - our church alone is unsullied by the currents of history, politics, money and prestige. We alone have something which traces its roots back to some precious and perfect beginning, and it is our connection with this which gives us a great sense of mission.
In the years after World War II, Second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda flogged the hell out of the myth of Nichiren Shoshu supremacy, and so did his deputy, Daisaku Ikeda. I believe they believed in it, too. It was a myth which the Japanese at that time desperately needed. They needed to connect up with something proudly Japanese, something that helped them in a practical way, and was not bombed out, dirty, sick, tired, or bankrupt. The Nichiren Shoshu had also invented two other doctrines which further assured the post-war Japanese nation of its "sole authenticity": They had a "Dai" Gohonzon, a particular piece of wood which the Nichiren Shoshu claims can be traced back to Nichiren and was the "power-source" for all other Gohonzons, and they had the novel and scripturally unsupported claim that Nichiren himself was the True Buddha.
The spiritual or religious significance of this myth is that: The Real Buddha was Japanese. You could chant his invocation and feel proud and hopeful again. You could also chant his invocation and get stronger, move ahead in your business, or regain your health. Nichiren Shoshu supremacy was a perfect myth for its place and time - that's why I don't bear the Temple any ill will. However flawed and unsupported their doctrines, I don't think the Soka Gakkai would have flourished without them. If Nam(u)-Myoho-Renge-Kyo is like the sun, the Nichiren Shoshu Soka Gakkai claimed a Monopoly on the Light in a country which was plunged into darkness. And that was one hell of a marketing pitch....
A lot of people in Japan are still quite attached to this myth, it seems. They're probably more influential,and closer tothe center of the Empire than we are here in the US. Like many other Americans, I believe that the SGI needs to move away from Nichiren Shoshu and move toward a more cooperative stance in relation to other Nichiren Buddhists (and other Buddhists in general). The playing field in the US is very, very different.....
...more myth discussions to come.....
We all know that the Empire of Soka is characterized by monuments to the Leader(s), as well as by a centralized and Japan-centered organzational structure. Just as all roads led to Rome in the days of that Empire, all important decisions in the SGI lead "up the line" towards Tokyo. Local customs (as in America, the custom of financial transparency or the custom of respecting peoples' right to choose their own church, even if it's a church we don't like) take a back seat to Japanese customs of hierarchy and uniformity. The other two new cornerstones of the SGI-USA are Legacy and Myth.
I will preface this portion of my entry by stating that I do not intend any disrespect at all to Daisaku Ikeda as a man, or as the leader of the SGI. However, the SGI's focus on building a personal legacy for him has beome quite pronounced. It is a difficult issue to discuss objectively without offending those members and leaders who continue to invest great amounts of their personal time in the practice of promoting Daisaku Ikeda.
I have frequently heard it said in the SGI-USA that "President Ikeda is 80 years old - there's not a lot of time left to build his legacy"...as though building his legacy were some sort of sacramental Nichiren Buddhist duty. My problem is that I'm not even sure what the legacy is that I'm supposed to be building. Am I selling books? Am I arranging for touring exhibits about Daisaku Ikeda? Am I seeking out opportunities to name parks and streets after him? And what is supposed to be the Buddhist significance, if any, of this? Clearly, there is a strong sense that "time is of the essence" in regard to this legacy-building, and I understand that this is part of what makes a "good" SGI member, but I am at a loss as to what aspect of Buddhism, if any, this personal legacy-building relates to. Again, I mean no disrespect to Daisaku Ikeda when I ask this, I am just genuinely flummoxed as to how this legacy-building fits into any Buddhist understanding of life or Buddhist practice.
As I understand it (and my understanding may be flawed - please correct me if I'm wrong) one of the basic ideas of Buddhism (as opposed to Christianity and Islam and Hinduism) is the idea of non-self, or anatta. When we look within, we cannot find anything that we can coherently call a "self" - anything that remains unchanged. In other words, the "self" is constantly changing, and I believe this idea is present in Nichiren Buddhism as well as in other schools of Mahayana.
So, if there's no real "self" there, in Daisaku Ikeda, or in me or in you, then what is it that we are building a legacy for?
The whole question of legacy-building is another head-scratcher for me. I didn't start studying Buddhism in college (years before I encountered the old NSA) so that I could engage myself in building anybody's legacy. I was trying to find out the answers to questions I had about myself, the universe, my place in the universe, and how what's "in here" relates to what's "out there". It had nothing to do with monuments or exhibits, except perhaps when I traveled abroad as a tourist.
Is it possible to function as an SGI member and not be engaged in legacy-building as a fundamental religious activity? How does this activity relate to the idea of non-self, and how does it help anyone to learn basic Buddhist principles? Does it help you get in touch with any basic Buddhist principles, and if so, what principles are those? This is a puzzlement to me, and I hope someone else here can shed some light on it.
In my next entry, I will briefly address the third modern SGI cornerstone of Myth.
Still scratching my head. Thanks for reading. Best, Byrd in LA
P.S. OK, I just got some more info on the "anatta" thing, and it seems to be more a matter of whether we are relying on the conditioned, which will lead to suffering, or on the unconditioned. If monuments and legacies are conditioned (that is to say they depend on folks like me to construct them), then what is the Buddhist significance of all this legacy building? It's later on in the day, and I'm still scratching my head. Oh, well.....
Byrd in LA
The Soka Gakkai International is my church - I don' t mean it's my church building, I mean it's the religious organization to which I belong. I attend meetings in my local SGI district, I chant Nam(u)-Myoho-Renge-Kyo with my friends, and I try to introduce others to Nichiren Buddhism to the best of my ability - sometimes that's easy to do, and sometimes it's harder. I've been practicing this form of Buddhism for over 23 years, now - most of my adult life. I don't really remember what my life was like without the daily discipline of prayer and meditation which I practice as a Nichiren Buddhist. I started when I was young, and now I'm middle-aged. My practice continues to be a means of developing compassion and insight. I'm glad I encountered the practice in this lifetime, and I truly love my wonderful SGI friends.
As any member of the SGI knows, the three cornerstones of Nichiren Buddhism are Faith, Practice and Study. I try to practice all three, as I'm sure do all my friends in the SGI.
Three new cornerstones of the SGI have emerged over the past few years, however - cornerstones which in some cases are replacing the old ones. I have chosen not to participate in the development of these new cornerstones, and that decision on my part has caused me to move (or be moved) toward the fringes of the organization. These new cornerstones of Buddhism in the SGI are Legacy, Empire and Myth.
The overall problem with these three new cornerstones, of course, is that they are not Buddhist. They all have their basis in ego - a false sense of self which is contrary to the mainstream Buddhist principle of "non-self". I'll write a bit later on about the cornerstones of Legacy and Myth. Today, I want to just reflect on the cornerstone of Empire, as this is the one I've been thinking the most about lately.
The SGI's liturgy, which its membership performs twice daily, includes the following suggested silent prayer:
"I pray that the great desire for kosen-rufu be fulfilled, and that the Soka Gakkai International develop in this endeavor for countless generations to come."
What does that mean, anyway? What is "kosen-rufu"?, and what is "the SGI's development"? Are the two terms synonymous?? What do they mean to you? The SGI Dictionaryof Buddhism defines kosen-rufu as:
"Wide propagation, or wide proclamation and propagation. A term from the Lotus Sutra that literally means to declare and spread widely."
The same term (kosen-rufu) is generally defined at SGI gatherings as "world peace", meaning that when the practice of chanting Nam(u)-Myoho-Renge-Kyo is widely propagated, that world peace will be a natural result. To me, the term "kosen-rufu" means that Nichiren's practice of the Lotus Sutra will be generally available to all, and that anyone who wishes to practice will be able to practice freely and joyfully -- in the sangha of their choice -- without any coercion, oppression, or conflicts of conscience.
"The SGI's development" may mean increased membership numbers, or it may mean real property development. This past Monday, I was at my area's traditional New year's Gongyo service - we watched a videotape of SGI President Daisaku Ikeda talking at length about various SGI properties around the world. Properties such as the New York Culture Center and the San Francisco Culture Center, both in historic buildings. He also mentioned a number of Ikeda Parks and Streets which had been named after him, as well as properties developed in other countries, such as Brazil. We can't build a triumphal arch in Paris,though, because...well...that's been done.
As an aside, it can be a lot of fun being a part of something bigger than yourself -- a part of some movement or institution. I myself have been able to visit with SGI members in different countries, and in different cities of the US. I have "e" pen-pals in several countries, and I love writing to them and sometimes sending them souvenir items from my local SGI-USA bookstore. It's always great to get together and to see what our organization has done in different areas, as well as meeting new people you share a practice with. There's a nice predicatability to the layout of the coummunity center buildings, and anyone who knows the liturgy can "plug in" to the services very easily.
I know this will sound irreverent, but I kind of get the same feeling with the movie studio where I work. We have pleasantly predictable theme parks around the globe (more are being built as we speak), and the studio's Founder has a huge global name recognition. "Oh," people say, "you work there." A lot of people love us, and a lot of people (mostly striking writers) hate us.
With the SGI, difficulties arise when the definitions of kosen-rufu conflict with each other -- when the kosen-rufu of propagation (Nichiren's kosen-rufu) collides with the kosen-rufu of the Soka Empire. One such example was discussed by me last month - the kosen-rufu of Empire demanded the closure of "enemy" houses of worship, and the kosen-rufu of Propagation demanded following American norms of religious tolerance. Which is the true kosen-rufu? What do you think?
Another example is with the SGI's unwillingness to cooperate with any other Nichiren Buddhist groups (at least in the USA). Not content with rejecting our parent sect, Nichiren Shoshu, the current SGI-USA leadership insists on being hostile to all other groups of Nichiren Buddhists - even if it means promoting bad scholarship. The kosen-rufu of Empire requires that the SGI claim a market monopoly on the Nichiren practice - any group other than the SGI is bad, or a "fake". The kosen-rufu of Propagation demands a greater level of flexibility --a recognition that those who chant outside the SGI's structure have a right to chant, and a right to do so with the groups of their choice. Which is the true kosen-rufu? What do you think?
to be continued.....
I have received a hundred slabs of steamed rice cake and a basket of fruit. New Year’s Day marks the first day, the first month, the beginning of the year, and the start of spring. A person who celebrates this day will accumulate virtue and be loved by all, just as the moon becomes full gradually, moving from west to east, and as the sun shines more brightly, traveling from east to west.
First of all, as to the question of where exactly hell and the Buddha exist, one sutra states that hell exists underground, and another sutra says that the Buddha is in the west. Closer examination, however, reveals that both exist in our five-foot body. This must be true because hell is in the heart of a person who inwardly despises his father and disregards his mother. It is like the lotus seed, which contains both blossom and fruit. In the same way, the Buddha dwells within our hearts. For example, flint has the potential to produce fire, and gems have intrinsic value. We ordinary people can see neither our own eyelashes, which are so close, nor the heavens in the distance. Likewise, we do not see that the Buddha exists in our own hearts. You may question how it is that the Buddha can reside within us when our bodies, originating from our parents’ sperm and blood, are the source of the three poisons and the seat of carnal desires. But repeated consideration
assures us of the truth of this matter. The pure lotus flower blooms out of the muddy pond, the fragrant sandalwood grows from the soil, the graceful cherry blossoms come forth from trees, the beautiful Yang Kuei-fei was born of a woman of low station, and the moon rises from behind the mountains to shed light on them. Misfortune comes from one’s mouth and ruins one, but fortune comes from one’s heart and makes one worthy of respect.
The sincerity of making offerings to the Lotus Sutra at the beginning of the New Year is like cherry blossoms blooming from trees, a lotus unfolding in a pond, sandalwood leaves unfurling on the Snow Mountains, or the moon beginning to rise. Now Japan, in becoming an enemy of the Lotus Sutra, has invited misfortune from a thousand miles away. In light of this, it is clear that those who now believe in the Lotus Sutra will gather fortune from ten thousand miles away. The shadow is cast by the form, and just as the shadow follows the form, misfortune will befall the country whose people are hostile to the Lotus Sutra. The believers in the Lotus Sutra, on the other hand, are like the sandalwood with its fragrance. I will write you again.
Nichiren
The fifth day of the first month
Reply to the wife of Omosu
I always enjoy reading this gosho at the beginning of a new year. Last year (2007), I kind of kvetched to my Chapter leader about the SGI's failure to include this gosho in its new years gongyo meetings, and I got to read it to the group on New Years' Day, 2007. That was really cool. This year, the gosho went back to the back burner in favor of three different messages from SGI President Daisaku Ikeda (one message for the US members, one for the bookstore volunteers, and a forty-minute video presentation of a talk he gave at a meeting of Soka Gakkai headquarters leaders in Kansai, Japan).
The beauty of the world wide web, however, is that we can still discuss and read the gosho together, even if its not done at official SGI gatherings. I'm curious to know what you-all, dear readers, take from this gosho, and whether you enjoy reading it as a New Year's tradition, as I do. What follows is my own humble commentary - I very much look forward to reading yours:
My commentary:
I really enjoy a lot of different things about the"New Years' Gosho". One of them is the poetry with which Nichiren describes life and the Buddhahood which is inherent in our lives. With example after example, he notes how beauty comes upon us by surprise, and sometimes when we least expect it - a lotus flower blooming from the mud, or cherry blossoms from the gray stick of a tree branch. Buddhahood is like that, he teaches us. A graceful surprise, an unexpected delight.
I also enjoy the fact that some of his examples really make me furrow my brow. Who the hell was "the beautiful Yang Kuei-fei", anyway? That's something that Nichiren had a tendency to do - he drew a lot of comparisons to the people and myths of his day, and I'm left here in the 21st century scratching my head and trying to come up with some kind of similar example in my own time. Was the beautiful Yang-Kuei-fei the Elizabeth Taylor of her day? Did the BYKF end up with prescription drug problems, too? Or was the BYKF sort of like Britney Spears, springing from a trailer park? (sorry, Britney). Who was that gal, the beautiful Yang-Kuei-fei? Did she have a publicist? Can we get an 8x10 glossy head shot, so we can at least decide for ourselves how beautiful she was? No, we can't - we have to take Nichiren's word, and just sort of imagine (insert your favorite beauty here).
The issue of Japan "inviting misfortune from ten thousand miles away" is an interesting one. As we all know, Nichiren repeatedly predicted that Japan would be attacked by the Chinese Mongols, and the Mongols were twice confounded in their attempts at invasion by hurricanes in the Sea of Japan. Was this a mystical vindication of Nichiren's teachings, or were the Chinese just incredibly bad meteorologists and ship-builders?
Remember: Misfortune comes from ones mouth and ruins one, but fortune comes from ones heart and makes him worthy of respect. Is this another Confucian ideal, or is it (as I like to think) a good warning against gossip? What do you think?
What does it mean to be a "country that is hostile to the Lotus Sutra"? Does this mean specifically hostile to the Daimoku? Hostile to the Sutra's underlying premises of equal access to enlightenment? To me, "hostility to the Lotus Sutra" means more than just whether or not a country allows the publication and reading of a particular book. It means a hostility to the dignity of human life and its potential for enlightenment and fulfilment. I am forced to wonder if, according to that definition, the United States is becoming a "country hostile to the Lotus Sutra". What do you think?
Finally, it will always be a challenge to look within ourselves for the Buddha Land. No matter how often I read this letter, and no matter how often I remind myself, I still struggle with the notion that the Buddha Land is within me. That's a daily struggle, and a daily process of applying my "washing daimoku" to the jewel in my life.
Here's my hope that you all enjoy a wonderful and happy New Year. May you all accumulate virtue and be loved by all.
Be happy, be thoughtful, be cool.
Byrd in LA