Waking the Buddha (12 page)

Expressed so simply, this hardly seems like a revolutionary idea. In fact, as used in general conversation, the term
humanism
has become so vague and bland that it is hard to say exactly what it refers to. For this reason, in the West, humanism has become an exceptionally weak philosophical position, roughly analogous to the term
secular,
with which it is often paired. Today it has come to refer to a philosophical position that finds value in human life, human knowledge, and human society, irrespective of any religious system of value or belief. To say that one is a “secular humanist” in America is invariably to designate oneself an atheist, though perhaps an optimistic one.

There is no well-established tradition of religious humanism in the West. God may have created human beings in His image, according to the Bible, but we Westerners tend not to believe that we can trust in that belief to the extent of building a religion on being human. Perhaps this is due to the Christian idea of humanity as “fallen,” or perhaps it is the result of the rift between Greco-Roman rationalism and Jewish monotheism, which sent science and philosophy off packing in one direction and religion in another. But even in the relatively timeless writings of Marcus Aurelius we find the split deeply pronounced, as if it had been there from the beginning. “Either Providence or Atoms!” he proclaims. Either there is God ordering all things for the best, or there is humanity, struggling nobly, but somewhat blindly against the backdrop of a beautiful but indifferent universe.

This was precisely the value of Human Revolution for the West, I suggested to Saito. In the Lotus-based teachings of the Soka Gakkai we find an approach to humanism that, at last, is vigorous enough to stand alongside religion as an equal partner in conferring dignity, meaning, and value on human life. To articulate this position—and to
strengthen
it—has been the primary purpose of Daisaku Ikeda's landmark dialogues with philosophers, statesmen, and scientists from around the world. With his mentor-driven practice of raising up each individual as the basis for Human Revolution, Ikeda has internationalized a message that seems destined to become universal over the coming century, as it spreads to other religions, other cultures, and other ways of thought. The SGI has a very special mission in spreading that new religious model around the world.

T
HIS
BRINGS
us to a question that often generates some controversy, both in the United States and Japan—namely, how much is the Soka Gakkai driven by its religious humanism and how much by the personality of its third president, Daisaku Ikeda? “Ikedaism” his detractors sometimes call it, claiming that the SGI president demands unquestioning loyalty of his followers, insinuates himself into international affairs through various dialogues and peace declarations, and curries favor with foreign colleges, institutes, and universities— institutions which subsequently add to his growing list of honorary degrees. Almost no one I met within the SGI voiced agreement with such criticisms. Nevertheless, new members sometimes struggle to understand the near-ubiquitous presence of Daisaku Ikeda in the Soka Gakkai as its third and sole living founder. His photo is everywhere. And the other members speak of him in terms of utmost respect and veneration, like a trusted guide or a beloved teacher. They refer to him as “my mentor,” although few had ever had any direct contact with the man. At some point in the early decades of the twenty-first century, Ikeda will pass away and the problem (if there really is one) will cease to exist. It is the nature of religious founders to command this kind of veneration from the people whose lives they have changed. But societies seem to have an easier time accepting them once they're dead.

Because I have spent so much time in dialogue with the Soka Gakkai, both in the United States and Japan, I've been accorded a kind of honorary status in the movement, even though I am not myself a practicing Nichiren Buddhist. That is why, when I travel on business, I sometimes attend meetings in various places. There's something inspiring about the fact that, almost anywhere in America today, I can find a discussion meeting to go to. After one or two phone calls I can simply show up unannounced for an evening of chanting and discussion.

That was how I came to catch a ride back to my hotel one night with an SGI-USA member I had never met before. She had been exposed to the movement some years earlier but had decided to join only the year before. She had many friends already in the SGI and regularly attended discussion meetings and other activities, she told me. She'd recently even undertaken to tell others about the faith. But there was a problem. “What do you honestly think about Daisaku Ikeda?” she asked me finally as we were pulling up to the hotel, “because the truth is I'm a little bothered by all the adoration he receives— and all those honorary degrees! I just don't know what to think about all that. Sometimes I feel like I'm not a real member of the organization because I can't get behind that kind of hero worship. What should I do?”

I explained that I was not an authority on the SGI but only a person who was intensely curious about it. I had done the SGI's chanting practice very rigorously for some time in order to understand it more fully, trying to grasp its teachings from within the movement rather than judging them from a safe objective distance as most scholars and journalists chose to do. But I was not a believer in the same way that those who attended the meeting with us had been. She should speak to one of them about her concerns. I didn't know if she'd be convinced by what they said about Ikeda and his role in their lives, but at least she would be getting her answer from a person who had experienced the mentor-disciple relationship from within the organization and could therefore testify to its effect on their lives.

But she would not be deterred.

“I want to hear what
you
think,” she said firmly. “I really do.”

A few weeks before this encounter, the SGI had celebrated the seventeenth anniversary of its excommunication by Nichiren Shoshu—the day which, in a sense, marked its birth as a new religious paradigm.

“If November 28, 1991, is the SGI's Spiritual Independence Day,” I asked her, “then what would you call the SGI Gohonzon, the scroll it distributes to its members, which they house in their altar cabinet and chant to every day?”

She looked puzzled at first, but after a moment she smiled. “I guess you could call it our Declaration of Independence.”

“And whose signature first comes to mind when you visualize the Declaration of Independence?” I asked.

Here her face clouded over. I knew that I had confirmed her worst suspicions.

“John Hancock's,” she answered, with evident distaste.

Like most Americans, all she knew of John Hancock was that he had written his name in ostentatiously large script when he signed the Declaration, so that it loomed large on the document, much bigger than the signatures of the other signers. That is why people sometimes say “just put your John Hancock here” when requesting a signature for a petition or a legal document. The name is synonymous with an unusually big ego, and I could tell that, initially at least, I had confirmed her worst fears about Ikeda. But I wasn't finished yet.

A legend grew up around Hancock that he had signed his name in large script “so that England's king could read it without his spectacles,” I told her. It was, in other words, a brave and audacious gesture, mixed with more than a little bravado. However, this story was almost certainly apocryphal, since it didn't appear in the historical record until many years later. The real story was far more impressive.

The document we have today is not the original Declaration of Independence. The document sent to the printer has been lost and may even have been destroyed in the printing process. What we do have is the famous “Dunlap broadside,” the first published version of the Declaration that was widely distributed throughout the American colonies and would therefore have been visible to everyone, including the British Army. The first version of that treasonous document, the only Declaration available for the first six months, included the printed name of only one signer: John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress. The other names were added later to the handwritten version that resides today in the National Archive. One theory as to why Hancock's signature looms so large on that later document is that it was meant to recognize the special risk he took. Being the first signer, in the event the Revolution was a failure, he would logically also have been the first to be hung.

“And who was the first signer of the Gohonzon?” I asked.

“Nichiren,” she answered.

I told her to go home that night and look very carefully at Nichiren's name inscribed vertically right below the characters for Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. “Notice how large and bold it is,” I told her. “And think about what that might mean.”

“Nichiren risked his life every step of the way in order to spread his teachings on the Lotus Sutra, beginning with the first time he publicly declared Nam-myoho-renge-kyo as the ideal teaching for people living in an era of struggle and strife. ‘On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land,' the letter of protest he wrote to the military government, was one of his declarations, signed by no one but himself. And after that there were many others. Finally, he inscribed the Gohonzon, also signed by no one but himself, and wrote his name larger than ever before. It was his ultimate declaration, undertaken with the ultimate risk.

“When you see Daisaku Ikeda's name ‘written large' within the organization,” I told her, “or on his honorary degrees, or when you see him participating in public forums like dialogues with famous intellectuals or world leaders, you should realize that he is also signing all these with his life force and his lifeblood, just as Tsunesaburo Makiguchi did when he wrote articles critical of the Imperial government, and as Josei Toda did when he delivered his declaration for the abolition of nuclear weapons. After that you can ask yourself a simple question: When the opportunity comes to add your own name to the roster for Human Revolution—through practice, through spreading the teachings, through goodwill to all other peoples throughout the world—will you hesitate to add your name to that declaration? And if not,
why
not? Isn't it because of the examples you have seen— examples of honor, like Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, who died rather than betray his beliefs; of compassion, like Josei Toda, who championed the causes of the sick and the poor; and of fearless determination, like Daisaku Ikeda, who plunged ahead into the twenty-first century with a message for all humanity in every country around the globe?”

I told her that she still ought to seek the advice of others within the movement. Nevertheless, since she had pressed me for an answer, these were my honest thoughts on the figure of Daisaku Ikeda, third president of the Soka Gakkai and founder of the SGI.

A
s
THE
S
OKA
G
AKKAI
I
NTERNATIONAL
continues to spread its paradigm-shifting message around the globe, two issues are central to the health and vitality of its mission: the mentor-disciple relationship and the passing down of Soka Gakkai tradition within families. The first explains how the Soka Gakkai's message has spread so far so quickly. The second explains how that message puts down roots as a permanent culture in the societies it has traveled to.

I recently met with a New York University professor who is a lead researcher in the newly emerging field of meditation-based neuroscience. We began by talking about the health benefits—mental and physical—experienced by practitioners of Buddhist meditation but ended up talking about the mentor-disciple relationship as it is experienced by Asian and American Buddhists.

An experienced practitioner in half a dozen different spiritual disciplines, most of them Buddhist, this researcher conducts studies investigating the effects of meditation on the brain. We had been friends for some years and had often discussed the Soka Gakkai but never in connection with his work. That night, as he described the results of one of his most recent investigations, I shared the story I told earlier in this book about the journalist who had tried to write an article on the life-changing effects of meditation practice, only to find that very few Western practitioners could cite specific ways in which their lives had changed as a result of their meditation.

He explained that the effects of meditation tended to include generalized feelings of well-being and greater mental clarity, in addition to a host of physiological health benefits, including lower blood pressure and enhanced resistance to stress and pathogens like viruses. He conceded, however, that meditators tended not to claim what Nichiren and the Soka Gakkai called “actual proof” of the teaching—specific instances when their practice had inspired them to make positive life changes or led them to confront and surmount a particular obstacle to happiness in their lives.

I suggested he might want to consider studying the effects of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo on the brain. Meditation was an esoteric discipline practiced by relatively few people worldwide. Surely, if there were significant neurological and health benefits to Buddhist chanting (as I was sure there would be), these would make for a far more interesting set of scientific results than the studies now being conducted, if only because there were so many more people around the world chanting some kind of Buddhist mantra each day than there were meditating. He'd never considered the logic of this before and couldn't remember ever hearing anyone make such a suggestion. But that wasn't the most interesting part of our conversation.