Today, I met with Kenji Yoshigo, the Vice President and
Executive Director of Soka Gakkai Office of International Affairs.
Soka Gakkai is a Buddhist sect which is one of the largest and most
influential in Japan. One of the key things that sets it apart from
other Buddhist sects is their active involvement in society
including education, International relations and politics. They are
the force behind the Komeito Party.
I had heard about Soka Gakkai from a variety of people, usually
with negative connotations. Some people alluded to conspiracy,
others refer to them like some sort of cult. The only real first
hand negative interactions that I had heard of were interactions
with overly enthusiastic members trying to recruit people. I had
always been curious about the Soka Gakkai, but not curious enough
to overcome the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and actually
approach them.
Kana, a young woman who works for me is Soka Gakkai. I found out
when I learned that she was marrying a staff member of the Komeito
and I asked her whether she was Soka Gakkai. She is one of the
hardest working people on our team and has a passion for justice
that exceeds ones expectations. She invited me to give the toast at
their wedding. At this wedding, they showed video messages from the
young children she was mentoring, and I met many of the Soka Gakkai
people she worked with. I was very impressed with how intelligent,
aware of current issues, and friendly they were. The impression I
got at the wedding changed my mental image of Soka Gakkai.
Early this year, Lou Marinoff, a well known philosopher who I
had met several times in Davos visited Japan. He had been invited
by Soka Gakkai. I had dinner with Lou and his Soka Gakkai host. Lou
told me how impressed he was with their efforts and urged me to
contact them and learn more about Soka Gokkai. I respect Lou's
opinions greatly and he is quite knowledgeable and objective. His
description of the variety of things Soka Gakkai was doing made me
decide to try to contact Soka Gakkai to try to get a first hand
impression.
After the dinner with Lou, I asked Kana if she would help me
learn more about Soka Gakkai. It took a bit of scheduling, but she
coordinated this meeting with Mr. Yoshigo.
I asked Yoshigo-san to explain Soka Gakkai to me. Soka Gakkai is
Buddhist sect and their core principles are very much in tuned with
the teachings of most Nichiren Buddhists. Soka Gakkai was
originally set up as an educational institution and has worked very
hard to try to make society a better place by actively
participating in it, unlike many more "passive" sects. I think it
is the active participation in politics that causes those in power
to fear Soka Gakkai. Yoshigo-san said that they teach people to
question authority, think for themselves and be very active. These
are also my core principles. Although Soka Gakkai has a large
organization with "management" he said that they do not control the
thinking of their members and have quite a diverse group of people.
They do not worship their founder, nor do they teach people to
blindly follow.
Since I am quite curious about the definition of "evil", I asked
Yoshigo-san what he thought was "evil". He said that in Soka
Gakkai, they believed very strongly in life and believed that those
who destroy life, either through murder or the destruction of
humans rights were evil. In the same context, those who ruin their
own lives were in a way, "evil". Killing human beings, especially
in the name of religion, he believed was evil. This definition
works for me.
He also said that Buddhist teachings say that 1/3 of the world
will be "believers" or "followers of the path," 1/3 of the world
will be people who will be supportive and part of the same
community, and 1/3 of the world will be actively involved in trying
to hurt or subvert "believers." According to these teachings, this
was the proper "balance" and that trying to make the whole world
peaceful or "converted" was not only impossible, but unnatural. So,
although there are some overzealous young Soka Gakkai members who
try to convert all of their friends, Yoshigo-san made no attempt to
try to make me join and made it clear that Soka Gakkai is open to
interaction and cooperation with everyone. In fact, the head of one
of their schools is Muslim.
When I visited
Koyasan, a monk told us that during the Meiji
Restoration, the Japanese government visited most of the European
countries in power those days and realized that they were able to
use religion as part of the State and used it in war. Japan took
the decentralized animist religion, Shinto, and centralized it
under the Emperor. When Japan lost WWII, they lost their religion.
Similarly, the student uprisings in the 60's and 70's were
squashed. Images of young soldiers dying for their divine Emperor
as well as the images of youths wearing helmets and fighting with
the riot police are considered silly and quite unfashionable to
youths in Japan today. Young people in Japan today believe that
fighting for a cause, either religious or political, is stupid and
un-cool. This lack of spiritualism and activism makes Soka Gakkai's
role quite clear.
We talked about Japan. We agreed on nearly every point about the
lack of democracy, the apathy among the people, the risk of a
right-wing popular uprising, and other issues. We agreed that the
notion of unquestioning dependence on authority is still prevalent
in Japan and was the cause of much of the problems. We talked about
how those in power abuse power and those who follow do not have the
will to rise up. Having recently had more and more experience with
those in power in Japan, I began to realize how dangerous the Soka
Gakkai was to those in power.
It makes sense that those in power would spread FUD about Soka
Gakkai and try to discredit their efforts. The more I listened, the
more I saw how the negative image Japanese have of Soka Gakkai was
part of the standard operating procedure of those in power. If you
can't co-opt them, marginalize them in any way possible. Call them,
lefties, freaks, extremists, a cult... what ever it takes. Being
quite sensitive to how powerful the mass media FUD machine is these
days, it was a great feeling to discover yet another mental stigma,
planted in my head by "the machine" that I was able to yank out and
make my mind more clear.
I have still only had one meeting with Yoshigo-san, but we spent
nearly two hours and he answered every question I had directly and
without hesitation. He said I could blog anything we talked about.
He also agreed to be available if I had any further questions. Now
I ask YOU -- Especially all of you who told me that I shouldn't
even meet with them. What do you actually KNOW about Soka Gakkai
and why do you think they are so weird/bad. Could it be that you
are also just a subject of Japanese mass media FUD? If you have any
questions for Soka Gakkai, please let me know. Obviously, this can
not consume ALL of my time, but my intention is to try dispel some
of the FUD and understand more clearly.
Just some correction. The Komeito is no longer a branch under
Soka Gakkai and is no longer related to Soka Gakkai officially as
Soka Gakkai would like to have more neutral stand on politics in
Japan. Komeito still do have a lot of supporters from SGI Japan
though.
Another thing to note. SGI and SGI Japan are different
entities. 
Just some inputs.
