Waking the Buddha (2 page)

Doubtless, some of this is due to the inevitable aging and “settling” of the baby boomer generation who first embraced Buddhism, but I can't help wondering if Buddhism didn't also provide us with an escape route from the social turbulence of that era, with its antiwar protests and civil rights marches. The natural rhythms of religious culture seem to involve a certain amount of waking and dozing, only to wake and doze again.

Several years ago, I wrote an article for
Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
pointing out that, by the year 2000, SGI-USA was the only school of Buddhism in the United States to have attracted a racially diverse membership, the other Buddhist groups being composed primarily of upper middle-class Americans of European descent. I suggested that the various other schools of American Buddhism might do well to ask themselves why, in a society as diverse as America's, their memberships were so monocultural. In a letter to the editor, one reader defended that monoculture as follows: “When one is meditating with eyes closed or gazing at the floor, all Buddhist centers seem to look pretty much alike.” The author seemed quite comfortable with an eyes-wide-shut approach to Buddhism that allowed him to ignore issues of race and class. Thinking back, I have to ask myself if maybe he'd once been
very
aware of such issues—only he'd forgotten them. Buddhism had become a way of meditatively “tuning out” certain social realities and relaxing into the normalcy of a relatively privileged middle-class life. Ironically, his meditation practice had become a way of falling asleep.

Given this phenomenon, it is all the more ironic that the Soka Gakkai has often been criticized in America for its focus on such middle class values as economic success and security. The comment I most often hear when I speak of Nichiren Buddhism to other American Buddhists is “they're the ones who chant for stuff like cars and money, right?” Because such comments often come from these upper middle-class Buddhists of European decent who have rarely had to worry about money or cars, I've generally felt obliged to point out the hypocrisy of criticizing others for wanting the very things that they already have and therefore take for granted. Nowadays, however, that argument has lost much of its edge.

Today many Soka Gakkai members who joined the movement during the 1960s and ‘70s have attained the financial security they sought. Open the pages of the
World Tribune
(SGI-USA's weekly newspaper) and, true to the SGI tradition of reaching out to the disenfranchised and the destitute, you will find stories from those who have recently risen from adversity. But you will also find articles about U.S. congressmen, corporate executives, university professors, doctors, lawyers, artists, and an impressive number of successful small-business owners. Naturally, even those who have attained prosperity still struggle with health issues, relationships, and the countless other challenges of daily life, and as a lifelong path, Nichiren Buddhism helps them to overcome those obstacles to happiness as well. Nevertheless, apart from its racial makeup, which continues to be far more diverse than any other American Buddhist group, the gap between SGI members and devotees of predominantly white, upper middle-class Buddhist groups is gradually decreasing. Sadly, that hasn't affected the perception of Nichiren Buddhism as a kind of “prosperity church.” It has, however, changed the way I respond to such misperceptions.

Today, when met with comments like “they chant for money,” I answer that, while financial security is certainly an issue for some, we shouldn't let that distract us from the fact that SGI members also chant for the happiness of their friends and family, for human rights and human dignity, and for equal treatment of gays and women and minorities, or that they exert their influence and enthusiasm as a collective body to guarantee religious freedoms for
all
people—not just for Buddhists. To these I add that many also chant for an end to unprovoked military aggression such as the U.S. war with Iraq. In short, Nichiren Buddhists continue to chant for and take action on behalf of those very “lost values” of the 1960s and ‘70s that many American Buddhists, although they may also hold such values, do not see as imperatives of a Buddhist life.

It is a forceful argument, but a good one, though it occasionally ruffles some feathers. A few of my Buddhist friends have pointed out, for instance, that the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, founded in 1978, has done important work on behalf of peace, as have followers of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. But when I ask these friends if their Buddhist sects were founded upon the ideals of peace or social justice as their most basic, fundamental teaching, the answer is invariably no. They may personally endorse those values, and they may belong to a Buddhist group or fellowship that works on behalf of them, but the teachings of their school of Buddhism are not squarely founded upon them. Their Buddhism has not yet been fully reinterpreted for an age of global concerns.

To rouse itself from inertia, it is sometimes necessary for religion to reinvent itself through the work of revolution or reform, and I have no doubt that American Buddhism will do just that, modernizing those teachings that have come to it mostly in premodern form so that they address not just the need for peace of mind or an enhanced immune system but the need for a more equitable distribution of wealth and basic human rights for all. What distinguishes the Soka Gakkai from other Buddhist traditions in America is that it arrived on U.S. shores in the 1960s with that work largely accomplished. How did the Soka Gakkai accomplish what no other Buddhist school has, either in Japan or anywhere else? How has it managed to “institutionalize” the revolutionary impulse so that, rather than settling back into the predictable mediocrity of a successful religion, it has spread across the globe? What is the driving force that has sustained the Soka Gakkai and preserved its unity as it has traveled to so many other countries and cultures around the world? How has it made the leap from national religious organization to international spiritual movement?

My interest in answering these questions has less to do with the Soka Gakkai itself and more to do with my desire to discover what comes next for religion itself as we transition into a new millennium. For what the Soka Gakkai has discovered isn't just a new form of Buddhism. It's a new way of being religious.

N
O
ONE
KNOWS
WHY,
but for some reason the founders of religious movements tend to come in threes. Shakyamuni, his disciple Kashyapa, and his cousin Ananda come to mind when we think of ancient Buddhism, while Jesus, Peter, and Paul are representative of Christianity. The three founding presidents of the Soka Gakkai—Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, Josei Toda, and Daisaku Ikeda—follow the same pattern. For there seems to be a natural progression in the creation, development, and stabilization of a new religion, and those three phases each require the talents of individuals with very different temperaments, so that the person who
begins
the movement is very different from the person whose role it is to give it
shape
and
form,
while the person whose work is to
refine
and
extend
its teaching is different still. Probably that is why there are usually three founders. Even at its beginning, religion is a communal effort. We cannot create something of collective value on our own.

The initial founder of a religious movement usually takes great risks. That is the reason why he or she is often persecuted and sometime martyred. Jesus is one example, and if we include philosophical movements as well, Socrates would be another. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, the first president of the Soka Gakkai, would be yet another.

Making a clay pot is a good metaphor to explain how a successful religious movement is created. In the beginning, the process of creation can be quite violent. The clay is usually cut several times—either with a knife or with a wire. Then it must be slapped down hard upon the wheel to give the pot a solid footing. When we think of what this means for the founder of a religious movement, we can see that it takes a special kind of individual to allow himself to be treated that way for the sake of what, in its early stages at least, is mostly just an ideal (the pot is, after all, at this point only a lump of clay). There may be a loose organization in the beginning, a group of committed followers, a meeting schedule, or even a curriculum of sorts; however, once the trouble begins—as it always does—this nearly always falls apart.

On the night that Jesus was taken into custody, his disciples all deserted him. Likewise, when Nichiren incurred the wrath of powerful forces in the military government of his day, only the bravest of his new converts dared stand at his side. How easy it would have been for either man to recant his teachings at this point, letting his disciples off easy and sparing himself injury or even death. For that very reason, there always comes a moment of truth in the creation of any new religious tradition—a moment when its founder chooses (not for the sake of what already
is
but for the sake of what
might be)
to hold firm in the face of persecution, enduring what he might easily avoid were he merely to shut his mouth.

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi was repeatedly offered his freedom when he was imprisoned for “thought crimes” against the Japanese Imperial government during World War II. Each time he said no. Makiguchi had undergone a deep religious conversion, an experience the Lotus Sutra called reaching the “stage of non-regression,” the point in one's spiritual development where it becomes impossible to turn back and return to the world one knew before. In Buddhism that old world is sometimes defined as the world of “upside-down views.”

According to the logic of that old, deluded world, freedom means being at liberty to come and go as we please. Such a definition of freedom is often very useful to an oppressive regime. That is because freedom, if so defined, becomes something that can then be taken away. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi said no when offered his freedom because the offer itself was deluded. His captors, who thought
they
were free but in reality were the “thought prisoners” of an oppressive government and the victims of a degraded religious culture that had long since capitulated on the matter of basic human rights, therefore had nothing to offer him. He was free already. Like Nichiren before him, his willingness to die for the sake of the Lotus Sutra offered a freedom that could not be taken away by any worldly power or authority. Like Jesus before him (and Nelson Mandela later), Tsunesaburo Makiguchi found in prison something that, given the state of Japanese society during the war, could not be gained outside its walls—true freedom, and with it the power to change the world.

The first founder of any religious movement must find that freedom and that power, and this means that he must be willing to confront the forces of delusion in society—even those forces supported by religious tradition. That means seeing the world right side up and declaring that truth to anyone who will listen. The second founder receives that right-side-up view from his mentor and builds an organization on its principles, declaring and spreading that same freedom and power to a society that, although it may still resist being told the truth, has already begun to accept it on some level. People who are willing to undergo persecution for their beliefs seem more
awake
(and therefore more convincing) than their counterparts in whatever complacent religious culture is then in power. The work of the second founder is still arduous and still not without risk. Likewise, it requires great energy.

Josei Toda's energy in spreading Nichiren Buddhism is almost legendary. When we consider his character—the fierceness of his resolve to transform postwar Japanese society through faith, plus the creativity and daring he brought to the task of modernizing Buddhism—it is easy to see the hand of a master potter at work. Toda gave the Soka Gakkai the basic shape it has today, a shape that has proven so useful to modern people that it has long since transcended the Japanese culture that gave birth to it and spread to countless other countries across the globe.

We see in the Soka Gakkai, as conceived by Toda, a dynamic and practical philosophy of life that, for the first time in human history, privileges life over religion, rather than religion over life. Toda demanded that the Buddha wake up and be answerable to the lives of ordinary people. He advised his fellow Soka Gakkai members to test the truth of the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism for themselves to see if they actually worked. They did; therefore it spread very quickly and continues to do so nearly sixty years after his death.

But that is not the end of the process, as any potter knows. Even a pot with a very useful shape will not last unless it has been glazed by the potter and then subjected to the prolonged heat of the firing process. Only in this way will the pot become both beautiful and durable enough to survive the constant handling it is likely to encounter in the midst of everyday life.

To the third Soka Gakkai president, Daisaku Ikeda, fell the task of making the Soka Gakkai a thing of lasting beauty. That phase of creation, like those overseen by his predecessors, was not without its challenges. A man of boundless energy and creativity, Ikeda has accomplished many things over the course of his career, but among those accomplishments, two lie at the heart of his mission.

First of all, Ikeda
internationalized
the teachings of the Soka Gakkai, using them to promote peace, culture, and education in other countries throughout the world. Nichiren Buddhism had always stressed the need to share its teachings widely. In fact, you might say that spreading the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism was the
point
of Nichiren Buddhism. The Lotus Sutra taught that it was by practicing the teachings of that sutra and sharing those teachings with others that one attained the highest wisdom, forging the indestructible happiness of a Buddha for this lifetime and in all lifetimes to come.