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APPENDIX I

BRIEF COMMENTARY ON THE SOKA GAKKAI

IN THE UNITED STATES

The Soka Gakkai has had a long and substantial history of involvement in the United States.SGI-USA has grown into one of the largest of the SGI organizations since the 1960s. Soka University of America, located in Aliso Viejo in southern California, is a sister school of Soka University in Hachioji, a suburb of Tokyo.The Boston research Center for the 21st Century, which was renamed the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialoguein July 2009,is located literally a stone’s throw from the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, promotes scholarly exchange and publications on subjects relating to peace, education, the environment and the like.

Much has been written on SGI-USA[1] to warrant in-depth discussion here, but I will incorporate some general impressions through interviews with SGI-USA members since the 1970s.Over the years I have attended SGI-USA meetings and have interviewed dozens of members.Estimates of the size of SGI-USA from 150,000 to about 300,000—the numbers vary partly because of how one defines members—those who are very active to others who are part-time passive members at best. It is apparent that SGI-USA is very multi-racial and multi-ethnic in its make-up.When counting members I have met since the late 1990s, it seems that roughly twenty percent are ethnic Japanese and another twenty percent Afro-American with a healthy mix of Latinos, Caucasians and non-Japanese Asians.Jane Hurst estimates that 25 to 30 percent of American members are of Hispanic or Afro-American origin while Hammond and Machacek estimate that about 36 percent of the membership in the late 1990s was non-white, non-Japanese.

According to the SGI-USA website:

Practitioners of Nichiren's philosophy chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo, enabling them to tap their innermost wisdom and individual power. This inner transformation allows each individual to develop his or her greatest potential and cultivate the qualities of compassion and understanding. As a result, practitioners are awakened to the inherent dignity and value of all life, a fundamental teaching of Buddhism, which then motivates members to contribute to the prosperity of their communities and to promote dialogue and harmony in society.[2]

SGI-USA promotes itself as a peace-based religious organizationinvolved in non-sectarian, public awareness activities to promote the values of peace, culture and education. It makes note of its work with other civil-society and non-governmental groups to develop youth programs, traveling exhibits, cultural events and symposia.It also proudly promotes the fact that SGI is an active participant in the United Nations as a recognized non-governmental organization.

Eiko Mauzy, who died in 2008, was an active SGI-USA member who worked at MaryBaldwinCollege.Born and raised in Okinawa, she married an American soldier and returned with him to Virginia where she spent the last decades of her life.When interviewed by this writer in 2007, she expressed great joy at her discovery of Nichiren Buddhism in the late 1950s.“This Buddhism has given me great joy in life—has helped me develop a sense of optimism.I have never made a lot of money nor traveled around the world, but life has been very good to me.I credit much of my happiness to this wonderful Buddhism which has given such a positive outlook on life.”

I accompanied Eiko to a few local SGI functions.The nearest community center was 2-3 hours away in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., so travel to a major center was only a few times a year at best.But there were enough local members to have zadankai meetings at least once a month in a local practitioner’s

home.When I attended a meeting a few years ago, there were five older women and two men—4 ethnic Asians, 2 whites and 1 Afro-American.The meeting was a simple process of chanting, swapping stories about their past few weeks, and eating a pot-luck meal.

One of Eiko’s friends, a slightly younger Korean woman who married an American serviceman and moved with him to Virginia, also found great solace in SGI-USA.She had become an American citizen and had remained married for many years before finally divorcing her husband.After her divorce she remained in the United States working as a single adult.“I grew up as a Buddhist in Korea after World War II, but despite the fact that Buddhism was important to my family, it was hardly relevant to my life in Korea.But when I came to the United States in the early 1970s I longed for the companionship of other Asians.I met some other Asians here in the Harrisonburg (VA) area who happened to be SGI members.They encouraged me to try this Buddhism and I did.It meant little at first, but in time I began to find greater confidence and happiness in life.At first I joined SGI for purely social reasons, but later I discovered that this Buddhism really brought meaning and direction to my life.Over the years I have converted two other Asian-Americans to this Buddhism.”

One of my former adult students, an Afro-American SGI-USA member, wrote in an essay that SGI-USA helped save her emotionally after she broke up with her husband.“We had a four year-old child, a beautiful little girl.After our break-up I was an emotional mess, not really fit to take care of my daughter.But chanting brought me much greater confidence—and when I chanted I was able to see a lot more things more clearly.But most of all it was the friendship and emotional support that I got from other local members who showed true friendship and compassion towards me.”

Interestingly, unbeknownst to me at the time, one of my students who was having some emotional issues of her own, joined SGI after she heard my adult student speak in class.I later heard that the younger student went through a lot ofgroup therapy with the other SGI members in the area and was able thereforeto gain the confidence to get her life back on track.But whether or not she stayed with SGI is something that I have no idea about.

When I interviewed a middle-aged California woman in 2009 who had been a member of SGI in the 1990s about why she left the movement, she commented: “Back in the 1990s I was lonely and searching for new meaning and new directions in my life.Nichiren Buddhism seemed like something interesting to look at, so I joined for a few years.The people were friendly and non-interfering in my personal life and there was fun at meetings but to be honest, the movement as a whole really did not catch my interest.So after a while I decided to move on.I harbor no bad feelings about SGI—they never really bothered me about anything, including money.I found that it just was really not my thing.”

These encounters with SGI-USA, though small and quite singular, do provide a glimpse into the meaningful role that the organization plays for its members.There are quite a few Hollywood-type celebrities who belong and give the movement some visibility, but it is the every day acts of ordinary members such as the care my two students received and the changes in life perspectives they experienced as members lies at the very heart of what SGI-USA is all about today.

[1]The leading work is Phillip Hammond and David Machacek, Soka Gakkai in America: Accommodation and Conversion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

[2]