Waking the Buddha (5 page)

It's worth pointing out, however, that in 1903 there was very little understanding of human origins. It was not widely accepted, as it is today, that human beings had originated in Africa and dispersed only much later to other points around the globe. Therefore, it was still possible for many Japanese people to believe that their emperors had descended from the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, rather than from some common ancestors whose descendents left the African subcontinent approximately seventy thousand years ago—ancestors who have recently been identified by geneticists as the true forebears of all humankind.

At the turn of the twentieth century, there was also nothing approaching a realistic understanding of human destiny or the limits of economic growth. As humanity neared the end of the age of colonial conquest, it experienced a sudden technological explosion—in transportation, in communication, in agriculture, in medicine, in nearly all aspects of life. That explosion literally supersized humanity, extending the influence of those countries who were its masters and expanding the range of human control over the planet and its resources to a level inconceivable to people living only a few decades before.

The availability of cheap effective lighting alone, following Thomas Edison's invention of the incandescent bulb in 1879, greatly extended the range of waking human consciousness, effectively adding more hours onto the day—for work, for entertainment, for study, for discovery, for consumption. Subsequently, one development led to another, and to yet another, fueled by a corporate economy in developed nations, and then later by the arms race, and then the space race, as human ambition literally outgrew the planet. It seemed that there was no limit on what humanity could achieve. But there was a flaw at the heart of that expansive optimism—namely, that humanity cannot exist as a thing apart from nature; it has no destiny but annihilation apart from the land that gave it birth.

I believe that Makiguchi's theory of value has its true origin in the earth, which gives birth to human beings and all other species on the planet, and which works ceaselessly, if naturally, to sustain them and give meaning—and
value
—to their lives. But if this is true, then
homeland
meant something very different to Makiguchi the geographer and the educator from what it has come to mean to us today.

As the twentieth century wore on, the term
homeland
gradually came to be used in fascistic terms. During the lead-up to World War II, the word
Heimatland
was used in propaganda by the Nazi Party, along with its companion term
Vaterland
(“Fatherland”). In fact, the pro-Nazi magazine by the same name, edited by Wilhelm Weiss, was instrumental in that party's rise to power.

Even in America—and in the new millennium no less—the term still expresses a profound ambiguity. Following the events of September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration adopted the name Department of Homeland Security for its newly founded anti-terrorist agency. But even Republican speechwriter and Reagan biographer Peggy Noonan wasn't comfortable with the term. “The name Homeland Security grates on a lot of people, understandably,” she wrote in the
Wall Street Journal
the following June.
“Homeland
isn't really an American word, it's not something we used to say or say now.” Noonan warned that the term had “a vaguely Teutonic ring” and suggested that it was likely to get the Republican Party in trouble. She understood that the concept of homeland, with its overtones of isolationism and ethnic solidarity, didn't accord with who Americans thought they were, or who they wanted to be. And, indeed, the election of Barack Hussein Obama, a man of mixed race, mixed religion, and mixed ethnicity, as the forty-fourth president of the United States seemed to suggest something in the nature of a political correction—a nationwide referendum on the whole notion of homeland and what it means to be secure.

In a speech given in March of 2008, Obama delivered what amounted to a short post-tribal declaration:

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners—an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles, and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

Obama's speech on race was played on the Internet millions of times across the globe, making it one of the most watched events in human history and justifying in some measure the claim by one political commentator that its message was intended, not just for Americans, but for people of varied races, histories, and ethnicities across the globe.

But Obama's message could hardly be called American at its core. The America he described in his speech was a kind of nexus point for the post-tribal age—a place where, beginning hundreds of years ago, diverse peoples from across the globe began assembling to forge “a more perfect union.” From the beginning that union was fraught with difficulty, and much innocent blood was shed to create and preserve it, but at bottom it was never based on the idea of homeland—the rootedness of one people to one place. Its origin lay in the idea that, having been created equal, people of every race, religion, and national origin could at last come together in one land to find a common home. The “union” it proposed was ultimately a microcosm—a picture in miniature of the globe.

All of this is foreshadowed in
A Geography of Human Life,
and Makiguchi's own life is the story of the gradual but inevitable collision of these two very different ideas of what it means to be at home in the world. These in turn boil down ultimately to the question of what it means to be human, whether that means being a member of a species or only a member of a religion, a nation, or a tribe.

Naturally, some may challenge this view of Makiguchi, and I am the first to admit that my way of reading history relies heavily on the power of ideas—especially progressive ones—to have their way. But I believe that slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers's declaration “you can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea” is more than borne out by history, as the examples of Socrates, Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. demonstrate all too well.

W
HEN
YOU
CONSIDER
the revolutions of the past, it is easy to see that the one thing they always have in common is violence. Certainly this was true of the American, French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions. But it is also true when we speak figuratively, as for instance with the Industrial Revolution. Even such a purely historical term calls to mind the massive, sometimes violent upheavals in society necessary to transform an agrarian culture into a manufacturing one. In that process new communities were created, while others were destroyed. Families were separated, sometimes forever, and the land itself was reappropriated for a purpose it had never known before—to be mined, gouged, stripped, and burned. The violent impulse in revolutionary movements is best reflected in the credo of Latin American Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara: “Revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it drop.”

The term
Human Revolution,
however, points to a very different kind of transformation, precisely because it does not require violence, or condone it. Just the opposite of Guevara's “tree shaking,” Human Revolution allows for a process of inner ripening on the part of each individual, and it is this emphasis on individual growth, happiness, and fulfillment—achieved gradually through advances in community, culture, and education—that is at the heart of Makiguchi's theory of value-creating education. Nevertheless, in one respect Guevara's metaphor was apt. Revolution is—or
ought
to be—organic. Because, indeed, its principles are rooted in the land. The question, then as now, is how such a land nurtures human beings, giving rise eventually to the ripe fruit of Human Revolution, rather than inspiring the preemptive tree shaking of war.

The answer goes right to the heart of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi's teachings on value creation, and to the principal method he developed in the 1930s for spreading its message. For it was within the human laboratory of the local discussion group meeting, and the respectful, supportive dialogue it engendered, that Soka Gakkai's new model of religion was ultimately born.

In October 2007 an article appeared in the
Washington Post
reporting the opposition of a neighborhood action group against the construction of an SGI-USA Buddhist culture center on Embassy Row, a prominent area of Washington, D.C. The group's spokesman, John Magnus, claimed that he was not opposed, in principle, to a Buddhist group moving into the neighborhood. After all, the Embassy Row area already hosted the National Cathedral, in addition to a number of other houses of worship. What he disputed was the SGI's claim that its Buddhist culture center was, in fact, a “house of worship.” “The [SGI] says that 100 percent of their activities are focused on advancing peace, culture, and education,” said Magnus. “Personally, I think that's fabulous. All my neighbors think that's fabulous. It's just not worship.”

When I first read this story, I thought it was a simple case of religious discrimination. Had it been a Methodist Church that wanted to build on the same site, the neighbors might still have grumbled about the increased traffic flow, but they would never have dreamed of challenging its status as a bona fide religious organization. Then I remembered an exchange that occurred sometime during the late 1960s between Daisaku Ikeda and a woman whose mother was opposed to her Buddhist practice.

“Do you think your mother would have objected to you joining a religious group other than the Soka Gakkai?” he asked the woman.

“If it had been one of the established Buddhist schools like Pure Land or Zen, I don't think she would mind,” was her answer.

“It's not surprising that your mother has some reservations about your practice,” admitted Ikeda. “Nichiren Buddhism is a philosophy on the forefront of the times that is opening the way toward the future.”

At bottom, I think this is precisely what Magnus was responding to. A new paradigm always looks unfamiliar. He might have had a harder time mustering opposition to a Zen temple, with its overtly religious architecture and shaven-headed priests, or to a Tibetan Buddhist shrine with monks in maroon robes coming and going through its doors. The SGI has no dress code, no priests or monks, and no identifiable architectural style. It has preserved the substance of the religious life and let the appearance of religion fall away.

What remains when the formality and convention of religious worship have been dispensed with? I believe the answer is really very simple: a concern for basic human values—core
life values
such as peace, happiness, and security; good friends, good food, and good water— that are common to any and all religious traditions of every country around the globe. Perhaps for that reason, to the average person they sometimes don't seem religious anymore. There is nothing about such values that marks them as uniquely Jewish or Christian, Muslim or Buddhist, and nothing that roots them exclusively in the soil of any particular land. They simply reflect what every human being wants and needs. That an ordinary, educated person would think religious worship was something
other
than meeting to share such basic human concerns, to discuss how best to address them in ordinary daily life, and to offer one another encouragement in actually doing so, probably says more about the limits of modern religious education than it does about the Soka Gakkai. There is nothing wrong with the Soka Gakkai's form of worship. The problem lies in the split between religion and life that exists in the minds of most modern educated people.

It was the desire to heal that split which motivated Tsunesaburo Makiguchi to establish the tradition of holding monthly discussion meetings. Once when he was asked whether it might be better to have formal lectures instead of a discussion format, President Makiguchi explained that this would defeat the purpose of meeting to practice Nichiren Buddhism, which empowered individuals to make positive changes in their lives. To accomplish that they had to speak to one another about life's problems through open dialogue, and that would never happen if he just lectured and everybody was sitting there taking notes.

I believe that Makiguchi's response points out a fundamental difference between the old religious paradigm and the new. Really, there is very little difference between a lecture and a sermon. A sermon format, which privileges the authority of the speaker over his or her listeners, is well suited to maintaining conformity in religious settings. (In other words, it is effective in making sure that the religious vision of the lecturer remains the norm.) But it is rarely empowering. By contrast, at a discussion meeting, every voice is heard. Such meetings are egalitarian in spirit, democratic in practice, and decidedly life-affirming in their vision of how Buddhist practice might contribute to the happiness of the individual and, in so doing, provide the foundation for a happy society. “Religion exists to resonate vibrantly within each person,” writes Daisaku Ikeda. “Even if one discusses the happiness of all human beings, if it is spoken of apart from the happiness of a single human being, that is mere theory.”

There is a deep but simple wisdom in Ikeda's words. Life does not reveal itself in the abstract. Nor is it a collective reality. Life exists in the particular, as it reveals itself in the unique set of circumstances experienced by each individual. Each person exists in a particular place and time, with a wholly unique set of relationships—to family, to society, to the land. Furthermore, the happiness of that individual exists not in the realization of an exalted one-size-fits-all religious or philosophical ideal but rather in the optimization of the life force within them.