Word: gakkai
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Converts to Soka Gakkai are a mixed assortment of religion seekers. Some were first attracted to Oriental thought by an exposure to Zen; others have worked their way through a number of religions without finding spiritual satisfaction. The most notable seeker to date is a onetime Mormon elder who tried 30 different religions before joining the sect. Negroes who join the movement claim to be impressed by the absence of racial prejudice. Whatever their motives for joining, converts generally admire the warmth and zeal of the sect's prayer meetings. "I felt like I wasn't really alone...
Clean Government. Soka Gakkai was founded in Japan in the early 1930s by an evangelizing Japanese schoolteacher named Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, who blended the theology of a militant 13th century Buddhist monk named Nichiren with a philosophy of this-worldly benefit that stressed personal success. The sect now claims a membership of at least 16 million in Japan, and its Clean Government Party is the third largest political group within the Diet. In the U.S., Soka Gakkai at first concentrated on winning converts among Japanese-Americans or G.I.s who had married Japanese girls. About 1967, because the movement had virtually exhausted...
...Soka Gakkai makes few demands on its converts: beyond shakubuku, all a person has to do is practice Gongyo-the morning and evening recitation of Buddhist sutras and the chanting of the Daimoku "until they feel satisfied." "It's a matter of practicing," explains one young member. "As long as you're chanting, you're in. If you stop chanting, you're out." Members can chant for anything, any time, and the newer ones often concentrate on material wants: a better apartment, a new job, a new car. Members even testify to such minor miracles...
...they develop, though, members of the sect are expected to chant for spiritual blessings, such as moral rectitude and deeper understanding of the faith. "Your desires get higher and higher," says Sandi Mytinger, 25, "and your life gets higher and higher." Ultimately, the goal of Soka Gakkai is the establishment of an earthly kingdom come -an era of world peace that will be achieved when at least one-third of mankind adopts the sect's version of true Buddhism. The movement clearly has a long...
...myoho-renge-kyo," are roughly translatable as "Glory to the Lotus Sutra of the Mystical Law." In homes, it is usually chanted in front of a Go-honzon, a small wooden altar containing a replica of the original prayer scroll, the Dai-Gohonzon, still enshrined in Japan. * One Soka Gakkai song-to the tune of I've Been Working on the Railroad-immortalizes the practice: "I've been doing shakubuku all the livelong...