Value Creation Society

As previously stated the image of Japan you have depends on the things you see or are willing to see in Japan. And of course in which area you interest lay. Because I am following some courses on Japanese religion it is not really surprising that I have some opportunities to visit religious institutions. As part of our study program we went to Soka Gakkai, one of the biggest “new” religions in Japan. We already had some lectures on other “new” religions (generally speaking the religions that originated from 1868 and later) but not yet on Soka Gakkai . Our teacher wanted us to go there without to much previous knowledge so that we first had our own impression before it was coloured in by him or by the media.
So here I go: Their headquarters/main building was just a big block in Osaka. It was not really pompous, but it didn’t look like a religious institution either. Inside, we first entered a hall which looked to me as a museum where they kept all the prices. It had awards, and big pictures of the handing over of doctorates to the present president of Soka Gakkai International, Daisaku Ikeda. There was nothing in the building that reminded me of the Buddhist background of Soka Gakkai. We were directed towards another smaller room, there our delegation was placed opposite of the delegation of Soka Gakkai, all men and everybody was wearing black suits.
We started off with an introduction of Buddhism and the place of Soka Gakkai in Buddhism.
Soka Gakkai belongs to the group of Nichiren Buddhism in Japan. Nichiren was a thirteen century Buddhist monk. And he discovered the "ultimate truth" in the Lotus Sutra, a Buddhist scripture. The two main points he found in this sutra are: All individuals are manifestations of Buddha nature. And all individuals can achieve Buddha hood at any time. After this general introduction we could ask questions. What I found remarkable there was how sure they were about their beliefs, our questions didn’t cause any doubt, and their frequent quotations of the president of Soka Gakkai, Daisuke Ikeda.
I asked was why they don’t teach any religion in any of their elementary, high schools and university. They seemed to be proud about it and stressed various times that didn’t have any religious classes. Instead they try to incorporate the Soka Gakkai values in the whole school curriculum. They told me that it was because of the indoctrinating religious teaching about so called State Shintoism in the period before World War II, which is said to be partially responsible for the behaviour of the Japanese during WWII. I was surprised because I would thing you could also have religious classes without solely focussing on one religion, but showing that there are more religious views in the world. Than I asked if they could elaborate some more on the values they were trying to teach, because until that moment what they told me is that peace, culture and education were the things they promoted. Although of course this is a very nice position, I think it is not something that would be disputed by other religious groups or secular people. But unfortunately they couldn’t explain to me how they gave this hands and feet, except for the fact that their leader Ikeda, had wrote a number of interesting books in cooperation with international scholars about this kind of topics.
The basic practice of Soka Gakkai they told me is the daily chanting of "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" and reciting Gongyo (Expedient Means Chapter and Life Span Chapter of the Lotus Sutra, which takes about 5 minutes to recite). Most important in this study are the collected writings of Nichiren. And now comes the crucial point of Soka Gakkai: it’s followers believe that through chanting one becomes energized and refreshed, both spiritually and mentally, and most important, more prosperous. So by chanting you can help to improve you financial position, which is a great impetus for people to try the chanting.
After the meeting we moved on to the Soka Gakkai Museum, which was not so much a museum about the history of Soka Gakkai in the Kansai region but it mostly focussed on the visits of president Ikeda to the Kansai area. So my impression was that there was a great focus on their spiritual leader, even surpassing the teachings of the Buddhist monk Nichiren who is said to be the founding stone of Soka Gakkai.