There was a King of a great land. This King had a strong army and many generals who were loyal but the King had one constant thought that they were not truly loyal and he sought to build an even great army with soldiers possessing greater skill and younger and more agile.
He prayed day and night that his dreams be realized without truly understanding that he had already achieved that which he sought.
One day a demon was sent from the Gods to help him attain that which he thought he had not yet attained. At the sight of the demon the King rejoiced thinking “what fortune have I to be sent this demon to bring me what my heart truly desires!”
The King began to amass an even younger and more skilled army which quickly began to replace the soldiers who had been loyal to the king for all of their lives. As the King’s generals began to leave to seek other Kings to serve as they had always done, the King thought to himself “Behold, these old and weak followers who were never loyal! Let them leave, I do not need them at all. I alone possess a demon that will stand beside me and provide for me all which I desire!”
The King’s empire appeared to grow and grow and his army became very strong until one day the King fell very ill and painfully passed away. On his death bed he pleaded to the demon to spare his life and cause him to live longer but the demon only replied “Oh vain and foolish King, I gave you only what you have desired, a young and strong army and a mighty kingdom. You yourself have failed to understand the true nature of your life and have been unable to see that you have been sick for a very long time. Now you must learn the forth of the four nobles truths, the truth of death”
After the King had passed away his Kingdom and army scattered to the eight directions as the King had never been concerned with leaving a successor to follow in his footsteps. Soon thereafter it was as if the King had never lived at all.
Alrighty then, a new blog and not a single comment. Seems to be little interest in the Lineage of Magic or anything other than matters pertaining to SGI.Ok, fine then.
Here goes The Lineage of Gakkai Magic
Don’t misunderstand, I’m not Gakkai bashing. I am merely writing about something I’ve experienced and understand. You see magic is something that isn’t understood well. The concept of magic is largely dismissed in these modern times as childhood fantasy, the subject of recent movies or the product of performance trickery.
While it is commonly accepted that modern science and technology has disproved the existence of all things magical it is quite apparent to anyone who takes the time to observe the society around them that human beings are still amazingly superstitious and magical-thinking.
I personally believe that modern technology and science has merely obscured our ability to perceive the magic around us.
Back in the olden days in the early 1990’s the Soka Gakkai was excommunicated from Nichiren Shoshu. If you were to later rejoin the “temple group” you would then say that only the leaders of the Soka Gakkai were excommunicated and that the members themselves were still considered members of Nichiren Shoshu. It’s all a matter of perspective.
An interesting series of things happened in the years immediately following the events of 1990 surrounding the issuing of Gohonzon. To begin with there was a few years when Soka Gakkai members simply couldn’t receive Gohonzon. It was during this period that SGI began to seriously and sincerely, in my honest opinion, re-examine the nature of the physical Gohonzon and the importance of having one enshrined in your home. When I say “physical Gohonzon” I’m talking about the actual scroll. This is important to define since the real Gohonzon is found in the mortal flesh of us individual believers.
New members during these few years were issued a very nice certificate of membership. This was not meant to replace the Gohonzon rather it was simply something tangible that could be handed to those wishing to join SGI.
SGI began researching and exposing the truth of the lineage of the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood (I’m not going into that now because it simply doesn’t matter) and leaders began to speak about how only recently individual believers were able to receive Gohonzon en mass and prior to this only a very few believers had Gohonzon hand-inscribed for them by priests. Others simply chanted and recited the Lotus Sutra without an altar, or to an altar of a different configuration. Having a Gohonzon, we learned, was simply extra.
For a while this seemed, at least to me, to be an important redefinition of our faith in the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin for the SGI. It was something important and real and it made sense. It was a serious step towards the demystification of true Buddhism.
Then something totally unexpected happened; the SGI received a Gohonzon from a group of breakaway Nichiren Shoshu priests. Copies of this Gohonzon were then issued to new members and then many SGI members exchanged their Nikken Gohonzons for the new Nichikan Gohonzon. The new Nichikan Gohonzons were cool, and it was the new official Gohonzon for SGI. The only problem for me was that our new organizational realization of the real nature of the physical Gohonzon STOPPED. It was replaced with theories on why the Nichikan Gohonzon was a GOOD Gohonzon and the Nikken Gohonzon was an EVIL Gohonzon. This was unfortunate. It was a return to magical thinking.
There was talk from the temple members on the infamous alt.religion.buddhism.nichiren that the issuing of the Nichikan Gohonzon was wrong since each Gohonzon had not been “eye opened” by a priest. The eye opening ceremony is in itself a magical feat and can only be correctly performed by an official Nichiren Shoshu Priest, unless you’re from Nichiren Shu or some other sect, but that’s another blog altogether.
SGI countered that the original Gohonzon from which the copies originated had been eye opened and so all the copies were also eye opened. Apparently magic can be transferred by photocopier.
By the time of the new millennium SGI had to face a new evil, digital Gohonzons printed off of the internet. Nichiren’s coffeehouse had been created by Don Ross and on this website Nichirenists can print high resolution copies of original Nichiren Gohonzons, of which there are over 100 still in existence. Yes, there are original Gohonzons in Japan inscribed by the Buddhist priest Nichiren Daishonin.
SGI has vehemently spoken out against this act, and frankly I haven’t read their arguments in detail as I simply don’t care. They may have minded that believers are chanting to a Gohonzon printed off of the internet, or copied on a copier, but all of our Gohonzons in the modern age are reproduced using modern technology. That’s just fact.
SGI has also mentioned that the correct Gohonzon must be a transcription based on the Daigohonzon, the Gohonzon inscribed for all mankind, but this posses another problem; in saying this SGI denies the validity of Gohonzons transcribed by the very founder of their sect, and also SGI continues to pay homage to the priesthood that excommunicated them.
One way out of this dilemma is found in the spin which states that the Daigohonzon is still valid, however the Highpriest Nikken Shonin is evil and he is holding the Daigohonzon hostage.
Whew, magic lineages, magic spells, magic Highpriests. Magic in our reprographic technology. Magic explanations that change as circumstances unfold, magic EVERYWHERE.
Being a ninja I believe in magic. I’ve seen Soke Hatsumi perform budo magic and I understand how the ninja used magic in dealing with those who tried to stop them from performing their missions. SGI uses magic in the same way, for control. The only problem is that until you understand the true nature of Gakkai magic, you simply can’t use it skillfully.
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi
Matters such as magic lineages and the like are a difficult subject to write about. One cannot write authoritatively because magic, beliefs, magic lineage – all these things are like religion, they exist largely in the human mind in the form of subjective experience.
Nonetheless they are something I know about and have had a great deal of experience with.
Among the nine schools of the Bujinkan there is a less-studied school of Ninpo called Gyokushin Ryu. Not much is known of this school since Soke Hatsumi has chosen not to share much from it. One of the few techniques from Gyokushin Ryu Ninpo involves a strange weapon called the kyoketsu shoge.
There’s this trick that is done with the shoge, with the rope, based on the scenario that a Gyokushin Ninja is swinging the ring at a foe and launches it at him in an attempt to bean him with it, but the foe catches the ring. DOH! Denied! But wait! The Ninja expertly throws a loop down the rope back over itself and ensnares the attacker’s wrist. He may repeat this feat with another loop over the attacker’s head, or other wrist. He then reels the bad guy in and defeats him with the hooked knife.
I’ve tried for years to master this skill. It’s one of a handful of mystical and rarely mastered skills in the Bujinkan among which are Bo shurikenjustu and one-handed cartwheels. I can throw the shuriken.
Last month a senior master-instructor who is living and studying in our area demonstrated this skill with the shoge once and all of the sudden I got it.
I became slightly obsessed. I set up a practice station in my kitchen and began throwing 50 to 60 loops a day until my arm was too sore to continue. Now I’m a master of this ancient and esoteric ninja technique. It was during this strange shoge-enlightenment that I finally understood the reality of the concept of magical lineage. The instructor had the chip, and he passed it to me, somehow someway in a process that comes as close to magic as chanting Nam myoho renge kyo itself.
Lineage is a concept that plays heavily in the marketing of martial arts. If a sword teacher is able to claim he is a descendant of a Samurai family he is practically guaranteed a healthy student enrollment and yet that teacher may have received no actual instruction from his Father or Grandfather who themselves were products of the suppression of the Japanese martial culture following the defeat of Japan in WWII.
Religion capitalizes on the concept of lineage in a fashion even more magical than martial arts. In the Bujinkan of Masaaki Hatsumi our magical lineage is based on Hatsumi Soke’s personal relationship with the last true Ninja, Toshitsugu Takamatsu. Prior to that the lineage to the nine ancient schools is considerably less clear, and that’s ok. We have Soke Hatsumi himself whose martial arts evolution has truly become a magical thing.
What I’m working up to here (if you haven’t figured it out already) is the lineage we in the SGI claim to have with Nichiren Shoshu, who we maintain and defend as the sole legitimate school of Nichiren’s Buddhism via the sole successor Nikko Shonin. It is not important to the context of this blog that it was the SGI themselves that so ruthlessly exposed the myth of a continuous lineage of Fuji School High Priests. What is important is that the myth of the magical lineage must be accompanied by some tangible evidence of its magic in order to be a useful magical thing.
In the end we can justify our magical connection by the existance of a tangible product or result. What Soke Hatsumi is teaching the members of the Bujinkan is a level of budo beyond anything that has previously been seen in the world of martial arts. I myself can now pass the loop with the shoge, truly a work of magic (if you were me you’d know this to be true) but what do we in the SGI have as proof of our connection to the Daigohonzon and the Taisekiji? We carefully subdivide the Fuji school lineage (which is good) from the current High Priest (which is bad), but what do we have as proof of our lineage of magic?
What proof is there that our magic is real? What do we have that they don’t have? Or more importantly, is the myth truly worth the price we pay for it?
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi
I find it ironic that Rev. Ryuei read Eugene Hirahara’s article in Living Buddhism. Actually I find it highly ironic that the esteemed Rev. reads Living Buddhism at all. I only open it when I am preparing for a Gosho lecture for my district and then only read what I need.
I have, since reading Rev. Ryuei’s latest blog, been feeling quite weary. I have, this last decade, been entertaining the hope that SGI, in its wisdom, would let Taisekiji mythology lie where it is and eventually fall away, like a frostbitten gangrenous toe.
The Daigohonzon is poorly misunderstood. SGI has generally held that this “super Gohonzon” was enscribed for all mankind, in fact the central Gohonzon. Taisekiji themselves go much further believing that the Daigohonzon is an actual physical embodiment of the life of Nichiren.
See the shroud of Turin. See magical objects. See superstition.
There are lots we still don’t know about how far Taisekiji goes with their marketing mythology. Be warned, that is what we are talking about – MARKETING.
Regardless of what one believes, we as SGI members need to understand and accept that there is tremendous controversy surrounding the Fuji school’s version of Nichiren's Buddhism.
What I wish to address in this blog and my response to Ryuei’s blog, is simply the despair I feel when I realize that SGI is still grasping at this notion that we’re the BEST TEAM. This is an addiction that has no reward. There is no benefit in making this cause. It simply perpetuates the appearance of our ignorance, dogma and stubbornness.
INSTRUCTIONS TO SGI MEMBERS WHO STILL BELIEVE IN TAISEKIJI BUDDHISM
First, you shouldn’t be reading Fraught With Peril. Walk away. Don’t come back. I say this for your own good
Second, do not talk to other Buddhists, especially members of other Nichiren sects.
Third, read only SGI approved periodicals and books. Never, EVER buy or read Daniel Montgomery’s Fire in the Lotus (this is easy since it’s out of print).
MY PERSONAL MESSAGE TO EUGENE HIRAHARA
I do not know you, you do not know me. Believe that I am an active and faithful member of SGI. I am bitterly disappointed that you and the Living Buddhism magazine chose to perpetuate a legend and myth that is so clearly contrary to recorded history and the very documents that it is based on.
You are either a devoted dogmatist, or a stupid man. I doubt you are stupid. Writing this latest article is, in my mind, like a heroin addict telling himself “just one more hit, then I’ll kick it tomorrow”. Your article was one more hit that will lengthen the pain we must go through when we, as a religious organization, realize we’ve been following a theology that was invented only as a propaganda tool originally intended to win Taisekiji more money and believers.
You should be ashamed of yourself. I know you know better.
CONCLUSION
I had an image come to mind yesterday in my travels of one of those Calvin stickers on a car window. This one was an SGI Calvin peeing on Nichiren Shu. Just like Dodge peeing on Ford, and Raiders peeing on the 49’s, our tribalism and chest thumping is indicative of win at any cost and our team is best.
This has never and will never bring us SGI members closer to the Gohonzon, or deepen our faith in Nam myoho renge kyo. I believe that this attitude will always create a barrier between us and the mystic law. SGI members don't shop around for the best sect, they join because they are introduced by people whom they care about and who practice themselves.
We don’t need to be the best team. There are tangible and excellent reasons why we should continue to practice in the SGI and none of them have to do with a MYSTICAL MAGICAL LINEAGE to the ONLY CORRECT SECT, a sect who in fact excommunicated all of us in 1990.
It’s simply not real, and it’s not important.
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi