My 900-page letter

Did anyone ever send you a 900-page letter? Beautifully hand-printed on 8.5x11” sheets of loose-leaf notebook paper?

I once received such a "letter," although it didn't go through the US postal system. I shudder to think of the postage on something like that. No, David Ewald took the better part of a year composing this thing, and simply handed it to me when he finished. And the quality of his printing was as good on the last page as it was on the first page.

At the time, David and I had been members of the same Buddhist sect – the Soka Gakkai International – USA. He told me in advance that he decided to write this piece in an attempt to answer many of the questions about Buddhism that I had attempted to raise over the years. I had run my questions by David as well as by members at SGI-USA discussion meetings and numerous leaders within the organization.

My questions were either ignored or badly answered. David at least seemed to listen and try to process what I was saying. However, his oral responses were brief and largely unsatisfactory. Hence, his thought to try a prolonged written approach.

Word of David’s undertaking had become widely known by many of the SGI-USA members in our immediate circle. I was curious as to what this self-motivated scholar would come up with. David didn’t have an advanced academic degree; I doubt he had completed even a bachelor’s degree program. But his home library was huge, he was a voracious reader (for instance, having read all of Mark Twain's writings), and had even invented a coded language of his own to record thoughts he never intended to share with anyone else.

When David presented his 900-page letter to me, I read it immediately – taking about two months to plough though it. There was a lot of fascinating information on the history of cults in the USA, as well as an appreciable amount of Buddhist theory. BUT…for the most part, David didn’t even try to answer any of the questions I’d been posing for years. I didn’t have the heart to tell him this, since I knew he’d worked so hard on it.

I did thank him profusely for his efforts and I even spent the better part of a day making a photocopy of it, so he’d have a copy. He asked that I do this, and provided the money in advance so I could feed the photocopier. I even made up my mind to eventually re-read the manuscript and jot down points for us to disuss.

BUT…before that could happen, David Ewald passed away at the age of 69, seven years ago. I attended a farewell ceremony in his honor at the SGI-USA Cultural Center in Chicago, our home town. The gathering took place in a lovely, intimate space nick-named the Round Room. And there were maybe 200 members present. After we chanted and offered incense, a few of us took the mic to address the congregation.

When my turn came, I showed them the 900-page letter and explained why David had written this. And I heard a few “oohs” and “ahs” from those assembled. But I didn’t offer my opinion on the content, just saying it was rare these days for anyone to even consider undertaking such a project. And I was profoundly humbled that he'd do this for my sake.

After I finished speaking, the meeting came to an end after another speaker or two had offered their anecdotes and fond farewells. Most of us broke into small groups, just hanging around and chatting. To those few who walked up to me, wanting a closer look at David’s letter, I repeated my earlier statement about David having offered this in order to answer my religious, doctrinal questions. I was surprised when a long-time member, Dale Stankiewicz, interrupted by saying, “That should have shut him up.” [Meaning me.]

This wasn’t the first time Dale and I had crossed swords. When I was a member of the district he was in charge of (“District Chief”), on occasion I would ask a question or make a challenging statement. So Dale knew I wasn’t a member of blind-faith – far from it. For example, once, Dale told us about a fairly large sum of money he’d inherited recently. He considered that to be one benefit due to his decades of dedication to the organization and to the practice of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism.

He bristled when I suggested that he would have received this windfall without having practiced at all. Maybe, maybe not. It sounded too much like bragging about winning the lottery because he chanted.

In his own way, Dale was somewhat of a scholar – at least of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism as practiced by the SGI. That’s why I was surprised when, in a private conversation, he told me, “The word ‘daishonin’ in Japanese means ‘Buddha.’” I was too stunned to reply, as I should have, “No, the Japanese word for ‘Buddha’ is ‘butsu.’ ‘Daishonin’ means ‘great sage.’”

Dale’s words were spoken in answer to my question: “Why don’t we simply call him [the founder of our sect] Nichiren Buddha, if we really believe he’s a Buddha? Why do we stick with calling him ‘Daishonin?’”

So when Dale gave his inaccurate answer, he was either intentionally lying to me or he had suffered a momentary mental glitch. I suspect the former, since the translation of the word “Daishonin” is widely known among long-time members – and most new ones as well– as being “great sage.

Truly sad. But even sadder, since we have an obligation to study the Buddhist sutras and commentaries? Not one single member present at this gathering, including Dale, asked me, “May I borrow your letter – I’d like to read it?”

END NOTE:  I am sorry to report that I no longer have David Ewald’s letter. A former roommate of mine put it in a storage locker about five years ago. Last I heard, that letter probably ended up being destroyed. On the plus side, at least the copy I’d made for David survived and is part of his personal estate of 10,000 books he’d kept in his house.

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Steven Searle, just another member of the
Virtual Samgha of the Lotus and
former candidate for US President (in 2008 & 2012)

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com