Queen Lolo
April 24, 2005
A friend from the SGI recently read FWP and sent me an email. It was a pleasant surprise, as she is a leader and has been involved in the organization for decades and I hadn’t expected such positive feedback. I told her I wanted to share her comments on the site, since the question “Is the SGI changing?” comes up so frequently and her voice was important here.
She also raised a point about meetings being different in other parts of the country. Here in Los Angeles, there’s a huge focus on material gain and career success. The experiences people share are usually about an external success, rather than an inner spiritual breakthrough. I’m not saying our lives are not important and that I don’t want success as much as the next person. I’m just saying I don’t believe that is what “true Buddhism” is about. Material success is a great part of life and I love having money and a nice house and a cell phone and quality medical care. But to call the acquisition of such “Buddhism” is just too much of a stretch even for eclectic old me. Buddhism is a inner practice that certainly does effect the outer world – but the focus should be on the inner and not the end result. At least that’s what I think today. As I always say, check back with me tomorrow because all is subject to change.
I also want to add that unlike my friend, I don’t think the “biggest” problem with the SGI is the focus on material gain. I think the problem is that it’s an organization. Buddhism was never meant to be "owned" or governed by any organization, and certainly not one that professes to have an exclusive on “true” Buddhism and openly expresses hostile attitudes toward those who think differently. But that's another topic, one that's already been talked to death, and something that doesn't really bother me much anyway since I'm really not a group kinda gal...
Now, on to her email.
She wrote:
“I think the biggest problem with the SGI experience format is the “I chanted and got a new job thing.” It makes people like me and you feel like things are topsy turvey-- which they are -- and also that we have no real voice. I'm at the point with my practice now that I can see clearly that the benefit to practicing is not in "getting what you want.” For me, my practice is really about a broader range of appreciation... appreciation of what my life tells
me and really trusting my inner voice... not judging things that I've felt are "bad" or "wrong" with me as necessarily "bad" or "wrong" at all -- really trusting my life and letting those "bad" things serve to benefit me... appreciating my full range of feelings and human emotion--not trying to always push things to a positive side.
Right now, my daimoku is almost exclusively based on self-reflection -- really seeking to see all sides of issues I'm dealing with and then listening to my life for the best action to take, even if it's based on my favorite world -- anger -- and really having faith to see that everything has value when the center of your life is buddhahood...
Any leader who really practices true buddhism will tell you that determinations should always be in the background of buddhahood-- not the reverse... they will also tell you that buddhahood is found in the 9 lower worlds.
I'm really struggling to get away from this "I chanted and got this thing" approach and really deepen our group's understanding of what the practice is actually about. It's next to impossible to have a real dialogue at the meetings when so many members are focused on material goals. I would love to build the group in a way that is authentic versus based on some kind of bizarre marketing message, if you know what I mean. I'd like to build a group that people of similar minds as ours can really enjoy -- we just don't know where they are because they don't come to meetings anymore!!!"
Posted by at August 12, 2007 04:45 AM