Originally Posted by Southern Girl
Silence...not today. Need a little reality here.
I have been a member of SGI-USA for 15 years. Our ONLY mentor is President Daisaku Ikeda. Southern Girl
The reality is that you don't know what you're talking about. I am frontally challenging your position as being absolutely incorrect. If the only mentor in the SGI were Daisaku Ikeda, then I think you would actually have the personality cult that the SGI is accused of being by it’s opponents.
First of all, may I confirm that I am a proud member of the Soka Gakkai (as in Soka Gakkai of Japan). I haven’t been a member of the SGI-USA for several years, but here I am respected and referred to as ‘sanbai’, which refers to a respected elder classmate. Daisaku Ikeda is a mentor to many, but I believe to say that he is the only one in the SGI is a statement that negates the Buddha Nature, faith and life experience that pervades many of the SGI members that practice Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism throughout the world.
I believe ‘mentor’ is by definition a one on one process. Mentoring is a life-to-life experience involving exchanges of concepts, feelings and experiences. The idea is for mentors to capably convey what they know in a fashion that allows another to share and express it as a mentor themselves. The growth and benefit of this experience always has a degree of mutuality; mentors grow from mentoring. This is ultimately expressed in our Buddhist practice in the form of the practice of shakubuku.
In my life experience, shit stinks. Period. Where ever you have people you have shit and it always stinks. The SGI is made up of people and their shit stinks too. The point I reached in my exhaustive search of the alternatives as it relates to the practice of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism (without wishing to qualify that statement further) is that the alternatives shit stinks more. However, in my experience, for one to say that the only mentor to be found in the SGI for the practice of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism is the president, living in (to many) far off Japan, is ridiculous.
That message is propounded by ignorant people or enemies of the Soka Gakkai; don’t believe it.
(Or a simpler thing to say would have just been: Where does it say that? Where does it say, “Our ONLY mentor is President Daisaku Ikeda?”)
I guess this old post from 2005 pretty much sums up my understanding. Thanks for all your efforts pb! They are sincerly appreciated!
T
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