Recently I was told a story of a member who was visited and found to have received a Gohonzon from “another source”. The story went on to say that the persons visiting delivered warnings of slander, and assured the member being visited that the Gohonzon came from someone outside SGI, therefore they were themselves slanderers and probably were among those trying to start their own sect.
Of course they explained in detail that our SGI Nichikan Gohonzon is the correct Gohonzon and others are not.
Regardless of right or wrong, I do feel bad for the member. We’re not suppose to be about religious authority, but we’re all still human and human nature prevails.
The thing about the Gohonzon… I don’t claim to be an authority or a historian on Nichiren’s Buddhism but this one has always escaped me, that Nichiren’s own Gohonzons are somehow not correct rather Gohonzons from our ex-priesthood are.
I’ve heard the reasoning behind both sides. Fact is I probably know more than your average ex-NSA member. In truth I’d be the first to admit that SGI doesn’t have many true historians and those few we have are strongly guided by SGI policy.
Since 1990 it seems that alternate Nichiren groups have proliferated on the internet. The internet has give even that most insignificant entities a presence. It’s become a simple matter to “beat” SGI in the Nichiren game. There’s always a more fundamentalist viewpoint to rally behind. All a groups needs to do is tighten the screws of Nichiren theology and presto! Instant orthodoxy.
What has always made me uncomfortable is the history, culture and language barrier. I’ve seen break-away Nichiren groups pick and chose what points they wish to uphold in order to distinguish themselves from SGI.
Funny stuff really - the Daigohonzon real or fake? Chant Nam or chant Namu? Nichiren the true Buddha? All of these things are in truth mostly intangible to me personally. I think they would be difficult to verify concretely even for a Japanese scholar, how much more allusive for someone without access to original documents and books?
All this being said I wonder often about people I meet, and how they really look at Buddhism, or what attracted them to Buddhism in the first place. I’ve heard that in modern times Japan has become infatuated with Christianity. That would make sense. New sights, new images, new culture all seeming exotic and desirable. The grass is always greener on the other side, neh?
This is how many Americans discover Buddhism I think. Incense, priests, temples, bells - all things Asian. Asiatic fashion and culture is becoming more and more attractive and common place, especially in California.
When I was introduced to Buddhism it was all about Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. I know this is childish in retrospect but the offer of chanting a magical phrase to get what you wanted, that worked for me. Since then I have gradually discovered the Buddhism inside NSA/SGI.
This is all I have to offer in defense of SGI - we practice. As a group we aren’t the smartest, perhaps we aren’t the cleverest or the best read in Buddhist theology, but we are trained to practice and in the end I believe, with all my faith and all my heart, that Buddhism is about practice. Once you strip away the culture and history from any particular country through which Buddhism has passed you’re left with practice in one form or another.
I was looking through a Tricycle magazine the other day and saw a picture of a woman in beautiful Buddhist priests robes. I thought “how strange, in the country of those robe’s origin they’re like work clothes while in the Western world she is wearing something of status and ego”. In America I think the appropriate dress for a Buddhist priest would be a school janitor’s uniform -Forest green Ben Davis pants and matching shirt. Black leather belt, black work shoes with rubber safety soles…
And don’t forget the white with red lettering name patch with your first name… The kind they use in auto repair shops…
Mine would say DON, and I would probably wear my little gold statistics pin I received from Pres. Ikeda, or would that also be too showy?