TO: SGI (Part 2)

General Introduction

Today's post is the next installment in my series, the first of which was entitled "TO: SGI (Part 1)," which was posted on August 24.

These "TO: SGI" posts are primarily addressed to current and former members of the Soka Gakkai International. Of course, anyone else is invited to read and ponder this post, but please keep in mind that it would be helpful if you are familiar with the details of SGI Buddhism's practices and terminology.

This link will connect you to the homepage of my Lotus Sutra Champions blog so you can access links to other essays I've posted and so you can read a general introduction to this new site:

http://lotussutrachampions.blogspot.com/2013/07/lotus-sutra-champions.html



Specific Introduction

Today's post will cover two topics:

• Back in 1976, I destroyed my gohonzon; but in 1996 I was issued a new one.

• On Aug. 28, 2013, I was banned from the Chicago SGI Culture Center by "director" Ethan Gelbaum.

My Gohonzons

Background

I first joined the SGI (known as NSA - Nichiren Shoshu of America - at the time) in 1974, which is when I received my gohonzon. When I quit NSA in 1977, I secretly destroyed my gohonzon by setting it on fire, dousing it with water, and tossing it into a trash can. What I should have done was return my gohonzon to NSA. However, I destroyed it because I wanted to prove to myself that I hadn't been brainwashed into thinking this was some kind of amulet with magical powers that could destroy my life should I mistreat it.

I didn't have any contact with NSA/SGI until 1993 when I rejoined, but this time - under my terms. I was asked if I had a gohonzon due to my having been a member 16 years earlier. I confessed that I had destroyed it. SGI offered me another gohonzon, but I declined, insisting that I could practice by using a "gohonzon" of my own creation. This was just an ordinary piece of paper on which I typed (in English) a variety of names and phrases that I could focus on while I chanted. The names were of persons in my life who were important to me, while the others words were representative of a variety of Buddhist concepts.

At no time did the SGI inform me that I was engaging in heretical behavior by chanting to my own gohonzon. I do remember, though, one leader gritting his teeth and saying, "That's not a gohonzon." To which I replied, "Since the word 'gohonzon' means 'supreme object of worship, veneration, or focus,' and that's how I view it, this typed sheet of paper fulfills the purpose and definition of 'gohonzon' as far as I'm concerned. But I'm not asking for your approval nor am I expecting that you would ever chant to it."

Ethan Gelbaum

At this point, I will introduce Ethan Gelbaum who runs the Chicago SGI-USA Community Center. He introduced himself to me as the regional director upon my first meeting him about a month ago, but I've seen him mentioned on-line as an SGI Vice President and Vice General Director. In any event, he's pretty high up the chain of command, which means he gets paid for his services as a leader. And by that I mean, "paid" in terms of this being a full-time job. Try as I might, I couldn't find much info on-line regarding Ethan's long-runnning stint with the SGI. So it seems to me, he's pretty good at keeping a low profile.

I will mention Ethan more prominently in the next section of this article. But for now, I will highlight his unique reaction to the news that I had destroyed my original gohonzon - he was angry. And that's unique because none of the other SGI leaders or members I'd told about this back in 1993 reacted that way. In fact, they tried very hard to get me to accept a new gohonzon. But I demurred, preferring the "gohonzon" of my own creation instead.

My New Gohonzon

After a couple of years, though, I did finally apply for a new gohonzon and was issued one.  And, to this day, I still have this gohonzon enshrined in my home. But I rarely chant to it, preferring instead to read aloud from my English-language translation of the Lotus Sutra, with my eyes riveted to the pages of this translation. I usually recite in my own home, but on occasion I'll recite while sitting on a park bench.

As far as the gohonzon itself is concerned, I do not cherish it (as Nichiren urged) nor do I worship it. When I do chant to it, I feel a sense of comfort and find it to be a useful focal point for my concentration during those rare times when I do gongyo or chant daimoku. Nowhere in the Lotus Sutra - which I've recited over 150 times - is there any mention of the gohonzon. Shakyamuni never had a gohonzon nor did any of the other Buddhas or bodhisattvas mentioned in the Lotus. So, as far as I'm concerned, the gohonzon was an expedient means invented by Nichiren meant to serve as a focal point for the faithful.

The only other significance my gohonzon has for me is my promise to return it to the SGI, should I decide I don't want to keep it any longer, rather than destroy it as I had done in the case of my first gohonzon. Looking back on how I destroyed my first gohonzon over 35 years ago, I regret having broken my word to protect it. In my defense, however, I will say the SGI bears some responsibility for what I did. Nothing happens in a vacuum; so when I destroyed it, that was in reaction to the oppressive, cult-like behavior of NSA/SGI at the time. Yes, I was angry because I felt NSA misbehaved in terms of how it treated its members - expecting much from them, but not even giving much in the way of respect back in return.

A blackly humorous anecdote

NSA/SGI was also at fault for how easily they conferred gohonzon, not really treating it as the object of respect it was supposed to be. This brief anecdote highlights my point:

A couple of years before I rejoined SGI in 1993 (I think it must have been around 1987), I ran into my brother-in-law who had been out partying at a local dance club. We sat down on a bench and chatted for a few minutes, when two people came up to us. These two were doing street shakubuku on the last day of a month-long shakubuku campaign. They asked if we wanted to go to a Buddhist meeting. My brother-in-law wanted to go, since he was curious about this Buddhist thing I used to do. So we hopped into a cab and went to the SGI Community Center which was on Wrightwood Avenue in Chicago at the time.

I made it clear to the SGI members that I was a former member who was there only because my in-law asked me to join him. Did I mention that he was very drunk? Like I said, he had been out partying. So I couldn't help but laugh (to myself) as he was guided through the process of filling out a membership application (at this, his first meeting!) and paying a $15 fee so he could get his gohonzon that night! So I was treated to the amusing spectacle of watching my bro-in-law stand in line with the other new members to receive their gohonzons from a visiting priest. As he walked down the center aisle toward the priest, I could see he was drunkenly weaving instead of walking straight. So I thought, "Looks like SGI will give anybody a gohonzon these days in order to jack up the shakubuku numbers. Has it really come to this?"

Yes, I'm afraid it has (or at least "had") come to this. So when Ethan Gelbaum chose to express a degree of anger toward me for having destroyed my gohonzon, he should have realized that the disrespectful attitude the SGI itself had toward their supreme object of worship might have been an indirect cause for a member, in turn, disrespecting it. Besides, as I've already pointed out, the SGI was eager to get me to accept a new gohonzon knowing full well that I had destroyed my first one.


My banishment from the Chicago SGI-USA Culture Center


What happened?

Ethan banned me from the SGI Center on August 28, 2013. I arrived around 12:30, started to chant in the Round Room, and after about 10 minutes Ethan taps me on the shoulder. I follow him to a point about 10 feet or so from the Round Room's entrance. After Ethan asked how I was (and I said I was okay), he told me the Center is only for SGI members. I added, "And guests?"

He said, "Not for guests who diss the organization and blog about it."

I replied, "So...we're not going to have a discussion meeting or a dialogue about this?"

He said, "We've already done that."

Me: "That was one time weeks ago for scarcely 10 minutes and I did most of the talking." And that brief meeting was before I'd sent him e-mails asking a variety of questions. He didn't respond to any of them or respond to my invitation for a one-on-one dialogue.

And then I started to leave but added, "You should be ashamed of yourself." When he said, "I'm not," I said, "You should be."

After he said something like have-a-nice-day, I said, "I hope you enjoy your epic failure." And I left. I hope he got that point about "epic failure," which perfectly describes the decline of this layman's Buddhist movement. Back in the mid-seventies, SGI boasted of having 12 million members - 10M in Japan and 2M elsewhere. Today, they "boast" of exactly the same numbers.


"We've just got 20 years to go."

Back in the seventies, we SGI members used to sing the "Shakubuku Fight Song," which included these lyrics:


Do your Gongyo early in the morning.
Daimoku late at night.
Going to follow President Ikeda.
Make this planet peaceful and bright.
Shakubuku is the way to Kosen-rufu.
Twenty years and we'll see Kosen-rufu.
Keep chanting! Keep chanting! 
We've got just twenty years to go.

Ahem, we've just got 20 years to go? That was the assertion based on our confidence that we would be successful based on the Rule of Thirds. If we could get one-third of the world's population to chant (and that was supposed to be a slam dunk), that would mean another third would support us but not chant themselves, and the remaining third wouldn't support us but they wouldn't oppose us either. Well, guess what, Ethan. A lot more than 20 years have gone by (more than 35 years in fact) and SGI isn't in ascendancy; it's in precipitous decline. But I suppose as long as the SGI continues to pay your salary, you needn't concern yourself about such things.



My deal with Ethan

I had kept up my end of the deal I'd made with Ethan about a month ago, when he first told me he was contemplating barring me from the Center. I didn't speak to anybody on the Center's premises about how I practice or my particular interpretations of Buddhist doctrine. I was respectful of Ethan's territory.

But he decided to extend his authority to my outside activities - that is, to what I put on my blog. That's my territory and my business. But what bothered me the most was his initial attempt to lie to me. His first shot was, "The Center is only for members." I knew full well it's also for guests and the receptionist doesn't check the status of anybody who walks through the Center's doors. But obviously he thought a lie would simplify matters and I'd be gone. Ethan didn't think I'd question his claim. I ask a lot of questions, to which the Ethans of the world must ultimately fall silent.

About that member of 40 years and Nichiren's alleged Buddhahood

About 10 years ago, I went to my SGI district meeting, being the first to arrive. I asked Mrs. Oishi, a member of 40 years or so, if she'd ever read the Lotus Sutra. She told me she'd read excerpts in the SGI organ publications but had never read it in its entirety. She found it too daunting. Now this is a woman who told me she gets up a 5 AM everyday and chants four hours of daimoku. When I told Ethan about this, I said, "It would have been better if she'd chanted only 3 hours of daimoku, and dedicated that fourth hour to an recitation of the Lotus Sutra." He didn't respond to that, but I suppose he thought my comment heretical, since reading aloud from the Lotus isn't a practice SGI recognizes.

And something else Ethan Gelbaum didn't respond to: I asked him, about a month ago, if he could cite any scriptural source in which Nichiren claimed he was a Buddha. He turned to his assistant, Marty, and asked him to send me an email response to that. I will now quote Marty's email and a portion of an email I made in response:


QUOTE:


I hope all is well with you. From our previous discussion here is a reference for your inquiry.

Question: In the Writings of Nichiren Daishonin (WND), where does he reveals his identity as the Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law ?

Answer: In the Opening of the Eyes WND-Vol. 1 (One of the 5 major treatises of Nichiren Daishonin). This treatise clarifies Nichiren’s identity as the true Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law. He reveals “casting off the transient and revealing the true”, post Tatsunokuchi Persecution.

If you want further background on intent of the Opening of the Eyes, please read Actions of the Votary of the Lotus Sutra (WND- Vol. 1). Moreover, another writing to read would be The Unanimous Declaration By The Buddhas (WND-Vol. 2).

:UNQUOTE.


QUOTE:


After reading your response, I sense a difference of styles between our approaches to answering questions. Basically, what you did was throw a library at me, saying (in effect): "Here are sources you can investigate, so go ahead and find that needle in the haystack."

By my last comment, I mean, "For instance, the Opening of the Eyes (which I had read over 15 years ago) is a very long gosho, though perhaps somewhere in there Nichiren is claiming he's a Buddha. I can't, however, remember having read any such claim within its many pages." It would have been far more helpful if you'd quoted at least one decisive and key passage wherein Nichiren makes this claim rather than burdening your reader (me) with having to sift through a lot of background material that (really) doesn't make the point.

I, on the other hand, will provide quotes from Nichiren which cast grave doubts on any claims of his being a Buddha:

ONE:  "Why did I first begin to chant as I do? Bodhisattva Jogyo is the one destined to make his advent in this world to propagate the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo. But before he had even appeared, I began, as though speaking in a dream, hardly knowing what I was doing, to chant the words Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and so I chant them now. In the end, is this a good thing I do, or a bad thing? I do not know, nor can anyone else tell for certain." - Letter to Myomitsu Shonin.

The two areas I highlighted are hardly the words a Buddha would be speaking.

TWO:  "...but since I am a common mortal, it is beyond my power to know the past. There is no doubt, however, that in my present life I am the votary of the Lotus Sutra, and that in the future, I will therefore reach the seat of enlightenment without fail."

"I cannot hold back my tears when I think of the great persecution confronting me now, or when I think of the joy of attaining Buddhahood in the future."

These two quotes appear on page 386 of the True Aspect of All Phenomena and show that Nichiren, even after he started chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, had not yet attained Buddhahood. Instead, he speaks of doing so "in the future."

:UNQUOTE.

Not only did I send this email to Marty, but I also copied it to Ethan Gelbaum. Neither of these two gentlemen offered any further defense of their belief that Nichiren is a Buddha. If they can't even defend this critical assertion, that speaks volumes of not only their competence but the truth of this assertion.


In closing

I'm not at all surprised at Ethan or the SGI for that matter. I chose to interact with Ethan as I did, fully expecting his cowardly response. I hadn't even considered setting foot in the SGI Center until an SGI friend, whom I shakubuku'd 13 years ago, suggested we meet there. The rest, as they say, is history. Frankly? I had written off the SGI years ago as a failed enterprise hardly worth my time to engage. But for old times sake, I decided I'd try one more time to appeal to their sense of mission and to their commonsense. Having failed in that, I now move on in my own Buddhist practice in terms of trying to reach current and former SGI members with my blog posts. And, of course, in continuing to (as Shakyamuni Buddha urged) to "read, recite, ponder, and teach to the best of my ability the Lotus Sutra."

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Steven Searle, Just another member of the Virtual Samgha of the Lotus