On December 30th, I turn 59 – if I were born in Japan it would be 60, being given credit for my parasitic nurturing in the booze soaked bardo of my mother’s womb. When I was a freckled face prepubescent “Leave it to Beaver” look alike, there was virtually no consideration for aging and death, except that one time when I ushered in my first near-death experience before a little league game. I was practicing my swing with a Louisville Slugger into an inner tube on a clothes pole when I swung the bat wrong, hitting myself between the eyes in the middle of my forehead. Maybe that's how the three stooges would open the third eye, but I don't recommend trying this lamanistic like feat of psychic awakening. Being able to see auras is not all it's cracked up to be. I don’t know how long I was out, but I found myself surrounded by angels. When I came too, it looked like an egg was growing out of my forehead. Aside from that, I saw lots of old people but never made the connection that one day I too might be sitting in a nursing home, lining up the plaid on either side of my bathrobe, and drooling like a bloodhound.
When my early twenties came, I lived a strange but reckless life, and thought with the attitude of the Who’s lyric, “Hope I die before I get old.” Interestingly enough, it was at the age of 22, that I had my second near death experience, when a car I was riding in with five other gifted mopes crashed hard. As we hit the gravel at the side of a sweeping curve on the bottom of a hill at nearly one hundred mph, our vehicle was launched upside down into a small forest, where we did some crude landscaping. The driver neglected to tell any of us that he dropped a tab of LSD about twenty minutes before he got behind the wheel. That life-changing event tore my left foot in half, causing me to lose four of five tendons. I also dislocated my right hip, broke my left collarbone, and was put into traction for three weeks with some brain damaged guy named Gary, who was about my age, that liked to crawl out of his bed and poop in the middle of the floor. Just like the bizarre novelty of when a tornado causes destruction, like driving a piece of straw through a 2” x 4” or gently landing an infant on a mattress a half mile from the trailer park it just leveled, amazingly, none of us lost our lives. Just five months later, I was a homeless, hobbled, acid eating longhair, chanting daimoku on the frozen banks of the Fox River in Algonquin, Illinois. After seeing the light – literally – I seriously set upon the task of enlightenment. When I say that NSA and its practice saved my life, I really mean it. I never forget my debts of gratitude, so that’s why I might offer opinions that expose problems with the SGI, but I don’t maliciously bash the SGI or president Ikeda. Without that youth division training and the order/discipline NSA restored in my life, I would have been taking a permanent dirt nap in the neighborhood marble orchard.
Often, when people reflect on their past, their trials become more dramatic and their accomplishments somehow become much greater. Let me spare you all that hyperbole and give you the plain truth without embellishment. Honin’myo implies, “from this moment on, while hongom’myo refers to looking at your current life from the past. Even though I am relating a story of the past, let me assure you and my detractors, I live a full life that has exclusive focus “in the present moment.” Time, the space in this blog, and the general readability of any good essay necessitates that it should be short and to the point. So please allow me to skim over myriad nonessential details.
It was a bitterly cold winter in 1973-74, with deep snow. I slept in a sleeping bag in the back of my friend’s broken down station wagon, eating frozen sauerkraut my grandparents had given me. About all that did was shield me from the wind and snow. On February 27th, I walked down a lonely railroad tracks some five miles to the district chief’s house, then took a fifty mile ride to receive my Gohonzon. Since I had no home, I wore my Nittatsu Gohonzon around my neck in a beautiful blue sheath my Korean Chikutan had made. Each morning, I would eat a handful of sauerkraut and descend to the riverbank, where I would walk in a large figure eight chanting the daimoku at the top of my lungs. My place of practice was somewhat sheltered from the wind, but the snow was up to my knees. It didn’t take long to pack down a path. Free from the gaze of people by virtue of the location, I would walk that figure eight until dusk, shouting out to the universe for a change in my destiny. It took months until I cut my hair and beard, found a job, and turned my life around. Thank you NSA.
My twenties were characterized by the crude motto of “Practice until you puke.” I got married, fathered a daughter, and became a widget in the establishment that I had once rebelled against. I made every mistake a man could make from illegal drug use to adultery. Even though NSA promoted happiness, I was never, ever a happy person, but more of a hard driving narcissist that believed the erroneous idea that happiness was not a tee-hee and a smile, but the pride one took from being able to overcome any obstacle. In other words, I substituted resolve and the ability to endure for a peaceful mind. There was no peace in me, only restless turmoil and the desire to practice harder than any person on the planet. Even after tens of millions of daimoku, endless study, and non-stop activities, I was about as happy as a Tasmanian devil defending its territory from male rivals.
My thirties began with more of the same and as you all know, at 36, I was felled by stage four Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which wiped off the smirk of whatever satisfaction I may have had from being able to endure any and all obstacles.
My forties began with rebuilding my shattered body and running from bill collectors and the tax-man. I wondered how someone who practiced so much and so hard could still be literally plagued by so many problems. Where was all this good fortune I was supposed to have been accumulating? My leaders would vary their opinions in an effort to console or encourage me. Some said I had to change my attitude. Some said I was angry and was short circuiting my benefit. Others said that I still had a great deal of negative karma to overcome. Others said that my obstacles were proof of my correct practice. No one said, you have so much misfortune because your practice is based on incorrect doctrine that goes against the spirit and will of Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra. I continued through my forties with a second bankruptcy, a marriage that went from seriously ill to DOA. In twenty-five years, I never conceived or believed that the misfortune I experienced was due to my practice of incorrect doctrine. I ended my forties with divorce and a slow, but steady estrangement from the sangha that had initially saved my life.
My fifties began with marriage to a gal that was twenty-three years younger. I never thought I would get married again and never, ever considered becoming involved with a younger woman, it just happened. In 2002 my first book was published and I had that “A Ha! “ moment with the SGI. By the time of book two, in 2005, I had left the organization and began to re-educate myself about Buddhism. Thanks to people like Robin Beck and a number of others, I was able to deprogram the cult mentality that had shaped my world view and thwarted my benefit.
Throughout my fifties, and coincidently, from the moment I marched off on my own as an independent, my life has bloomed in every aspect. Go figure.
At 59, I appreciate the 23 years of extended life, when death seemed all but certain. In that time, I have been able to encourage many, many people in the grips of cancer, chronic illness of all type, and even those facing their last moments. If I were to die in the next moment, I could honestly say that I made a difference in this world by comforting the sick, the suffering and the forgotten, all very much under the radar, on my own time, at my own expense. I made a promise back then to tell my story far and wide to repay my debt of gratitude to the Buddha for extending my life.
Right now, I am encouraging a new friend in faith who is battling latter stage non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Each day I ponder what I might do for him to turn the tide of that wretched disease. If I could trade places with him, I would. Why? Because I know what to do and what it takes to conquer cancer right down to the quantum level. But the way this universe is constructed, we all have to face our own demons, fight our own battles. The wonder of this person’s situation is that he doesn’t know that he has already conqured cancer. Right now, the karmic cause that brought forth his suffering has been transformed. He will take the banner of victory from me – hobbled at first, because he’s been through a war of sorts, and he will help the next person find the Lotus Sutra in their heart, and so on, and so on.
Although I turn 59, physically, I feel like I’m 30. Spiritually and awakened to the Lotus Sutra, I feel 120 (but that's a good thing). The older I get, the younger I feel. Perhaps that’s the most striking aspect of the Capricorn. With a wife that’s 23 years younger, I better feel like I’m thirty, or as they say in the restaurant biz, she’ll 86 me.
Two loaded terms in Nichiren Buddhism are slanderer and heretic. These terms were used often by Nichiren to identify people and sects that disregarded or maligned the Lotus Sutra or the eternal Shakyamuni Buddha. Our website, Fraught with Peril, has been accused of being slanderous and heretical. There are people who hurl the terms slanderer and heretic like dodge balls. Over the years, and especially the last five, I have been accused of being both a heretic and a slanderer by ordinarily decent folk in my former sangha. I have been told by a trusted colleague that some of the same leaders who praised my thesis and personal experience on Modern Buddhist Healing later referred to my book as heretical. I have also been informed that there are other’s at the SGI Plaza who now regard me as a dangerous heretic.
I have no animosity for any of them, just pity. In fact, because today is the anniversary of my first serious mentor’s death, on December 1st, 1947, I thought I might write about my subsequent mentors and the great influence they had on my development.
When I think of my former mentors in the SGI, I do not regard them as slanderers or heretics, even though they could never successfully defend the contradictions between the SGI doctrine and what Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra state. It’s not because I could out debate them. Even after almost two decades apart, I would probably still feel like a young, uneducated lad if I were in their presence. So profound was my respect and admiration for my teacher’s, even after twenty or more years, I would hesitate to correct them or if they took me to task for veering from the SGI way of mentor-disciple, I would probably let them scold me without rebuttal. What would be the point of refuting my mentors?
When I think about the SGI and its members, I do not think of them as heretics and slanderers. Why? Perhaps it goes back to the words of the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren’s himself. It is patently obvious that the SGI has relegated the Lotus Sutra and Shakyamuni Buddha into an idea embodied by president Ikeda and his guidance. Such a cultish transition is most troublesome for me, but the fact remains that even though priorities are seriously misplaced, the SGI members still recite portions of the Lotus Sutra and its daimoku. The members believe in the Lotus Sutra, even though some accept the idea that the daimoku is chanted to smash the Hoben-bon and Juryo-hon. The members still believe in the Lotus Sutra despite their notion that the Gosho is the modern day Lotus Sutra. The members believe in the Lotus Sutra, even though it is rarely cited or studied at meetings, and studying it is a waste of time due to its complexity. The members believe the Lotus Sutra even though the focus is on president Ikeda and his guidance. Even if, as some might say or believe, that SGI members betray the Lotus Sutra by their doctrine or behavior, they utter the daimoku and Sutra with their voice. According to the Lotus Sutra and Nichiren, this brief moment of faith is a virtuous act bearing benefit beyond calculation.
Functionally, the members believe in the Lotus Sutra like a parent believes in Santa and tells his children about what happens on December 25th. My problem as a member was that I knew that the Lotus Sutra was Nichiren’s spirit and will, even though I also believed in the Gosho and idolized president Ikeda like a living Buddha. It was incredibly painful to wake up one morning and realize the marriage was over. By that I mean, there came a point where the evidence was so overwhelming that the SGI had replaced the Lotus Sutra and the will of Nichiren with the ideology of the three presidents and that president Ikeda was now the embodiment and focus of their sangha – not the Lotus Sutra or the eternal Shakyamuni Buddha. Even though I awakened to this, my feelings for my mentors and the SGI members have remained something of warmth and beauty, even when they regard me as a slanderer and heretic. The president Ikeda issue is particularly troublesome to me because he allows the perpetual adulation to continue instead of telling the members to focus on the Lotus Sutra and the will of Nichiren. It is impossible for me to fathom how president Ikeda allows this to happen when it goes against everything that Shakyamuni Buddha and Nichiren stood for. It is frightening and pitiful all at once. Regardless, I still consider president Ikeda a great man, my former leaders sincere to their cause, and the members I knew, unforgettable friends.
I grew up in a very disciplined household and was an athlete in school. My fate was to be coached by very strict coaches, but these are not the teachers I write about today. Nor will I speak of my instructors in yoga and magick. It was my Buddhist teachers that had the greatest impact on the direction of my life, and they were all Soka Gakkai leaders. Their methods of training were a mixture of compassion masked as severity, like castor oil to relieve constipation. I was full of crap, they knew it, and they were the remedy.
My first teacher was a Korean woman who was my first chikutan. Her name was Sun Hi. We called her Sunny and that’s what she was; bright, cheerful, and warm. She fed me when I began coming to meetings. I was a skinny, unemployed, longhaired acidhead, with an intense desire to move away from acid and the occult, and attain enlightenment. She taught me gongyo and the NSA way. I repaid her by coming to the meetings high on weed, refusing to cut my hair, and sleeping with the YWD. She continued to feed me and make me feel special (which I wasn’t), and educate me in basic Buddhist theory. She was a nag that eventually got me to cut my hair, shave my beard, and in reward, found me a job at the factory where she worked. There, I met my first wife who was secretary to the president of the company. It was at Sunny’s house that I met my two primary teachers in Buddhism, Joe Firoved, Richard Sasaki, and later, to a lesser extent, the late, great Ted Osaki.
Joe Firoved was the mentor that taught me the NSA spirit and the importance of the master-disciple relationship. Joe strictly trained me for many years and provided numerous opportunities within the organization. Without the influence of Joe, I would have never met president Ikeda or given the responsibility of being toku betsu chief when Sensei came to Chicago in 1980 for the Capture the Spirit cultural festival. For that particular event, my dear friend, the late Pascual Olivera, wrote, directed, and produced the entire event. Many members fondly remember Pascual as their teacher – to me, he was more of a peer, but his influence on me over the years was enormous. My relationship with Joe was truly one of teacher and student. I always thought that there was an insurmountable gulf of knowledge and experience between us.
Joe was an introvert. I remember riding from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago, Illinois, to Minneapolis. Joe was finishing his twenty-year hitch in the Navy. I was newly married and had been practicing for less than a year. I compiled a long list of questions for Joe. It was the longest, quietest ride of my life. If I asked a question, he would answer the question in a dismissive way in a sentence or two. I realized quickly that I was not in the same league as this guy. If my knowledge was a tree, I would have been a sapling and he would have been one of those giant redwoods. Joe was never really friendly to me in the conventional way, but he surely had my back. He gave me responsibility, always a notch or two above what I was capable of, and he would take me to task over faith, practice, and study. As an example of faith, I have never known anyone who was more devoted to president Ikeda or the activity of faith. If I said something incorrect or foolish at a meeting, he would use me as whipping boy to get the point of faith across to the members. On more than one occasion, Joe humiliated me in front of the members. Why? Because I could take it. In that sense, he was my zenchisiki.
Not a day goes by when I don’t think fondly of Joe, although I’m quite sure he would be profoundly distressed and sad to know the path I have now taken. Sometimes our best teachers are the ones that are the strictest, and Joe fits that bill for me. That strictness leads me to my other great teacher, Richard Sasaki who is a senior vice-general director. Without the powerful training and stress on practice that characterized Mr. Sasaki, I would have never had the ichinen to face and overcome cancer.
If Joe Firoved was an introvert, Richard Sasaki was an extrovert. I remember intimate youth division meetings where everyone was required to bring president Ikeda’s guidance memo. Mr. Sasaki would call on a YMD to stand up straight, read a guidance, and then explain it. If your voice were too weak, you would be reprimanded. If you interpreted the guidance wrong, you would be strictly corrected. If you were late for gongyo, or the meeting, you would be singled out. If you didn’t pay attention, you would be admonished. If he thought you hadn’t chanted enough daimoku, you would be challenged. Thus, the YMD were molded into capable young men.
Once I figured out what Mr. Sasaki required to earn his trust, I would be the first person at the Kaikan for 6:00 a.m. morning gongyo each Saturday, even though I lived 50 miles away. To please him, I tried to memorize the guidance memo. To make my life shine, I would chant two hours a day, even when I was dead tired. To meet the goals he set for us, I would do non-stop shakubuku. In retrospect, I now realize that even though I was doing this for him, and by way of extension, for president Ikeda, I was actually doing these things for myself.
When president Ikeda came to Chicago, I led a team that protected Sensei. When Nikken Shonin and president Ikeda came for the opening of Myogyo-ji temple and the First World Peace Grand Culture Festival, he appointed me as co-toku betsu chief and entrusted me with guarding the High Priest of Nichiren Shoshu.
When I think of my mentors and our different take on Nichiren’s teachings and the Lotus Sutra, I do not think heretic or slanderer. I remember Nichiren’s master, Dozenbo. Even though Dozenbo lacked the courage to embrace and propagate the Lotus Sutra, Nichiren never forgot his debt of graditude for his former master. I also ponder how easy we have it here in America with freedom of speech and freedom of religion. How brave would some people behave if they were in an Islamic country where there is no freedom of religion? Would they throw the dodge ball of slanderer and heretic so forcefully? I doubt it.
To be continued