Word: nichiren
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MAXI JAZZ A devout Nichiren Buddhist in a band called, paradoxically, Faithless, he raps religiously against the war in Iraq...
...attraction on this Tuesday night in late June is holding forth in the auditorium. There, more than 2,000 people have gathered to see a man whom they believe possesses unsurpassed wisdom and power. In their eyes, Shoei Asai, the 70-year-old leader of a religious sect called Nichiren Kenshokai, is a healer and a prophet who envisions a looming calamity for Japan that he alone can avert. "Asai sensei understands" says Kazuhito Suzuki, a disillusioned, young construction worker who professes nothing but disdain for Japan's establishment and despair for the future. "He has the answers...
...still exists, but another movement has eclipsed it. Asai's Nichiren Kenshokai sect, which drew throngs to the Kawaguchi civic center, claims to have 881,865 followers. "Kenshokai is the biggest of the new religions," says Taro Takimoto, a lawyer who helped in 1995 to organize a group comprising family members trying to rescue relatives from cults. "There are many high school students quitting school, people quitting their jobs, to join Kenshokai." Kenshokai's nationalistic appeal is particularly popular among young men, including members of Japan's Self-Defense Force. The cult claims to have attracted 11,000 new adherents...
...group and does agree to meet?the first time, he says, he has given an interview to a journalist. A serious man in a business suit, he explains how the movement was started by his grandfather in 1957, when he and his acolytes splintered from the centuries-old Nichiren sect of Buddhism. Kenshokai differs from other Nichiren sects?especially the politically powerful Soka Gakkai?in that its practitioners see it as destined to become the national religion of Japan. "We still believe that," says Katsue Asai...
...talkies and earplugs roam through the crowd, reminding people to turn off their cell phones. Two of these guards, surprised to see a foreign visitor, stop me from entering before another explains that I was invited. It's the first time a journalist has been allowed to witness a Nichiren Kenshokai meeting...