kawabe Dai gohonzon | Akiya | Nikken
The kawabe memo led to a number of gaffes and letters from the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood as they sought to do something about the damage done to their image by the leak of the memo. This letter came out on July 9, 1999 and was translated by Richard Thieme, and posted to alt.religion.buddhism.nichiren. on the 20th of July of the same year.
Richard Thieme writes:
And here is my draft translation of the response from the Shumuin. Would welcome any corrections:
Text:
- Bureau of Religious Affairs
- July 9, 1999
- To All Believers:
Regarding the Crazed Theories Put Forth By the Suspicious Document "Doumei Tsuushinn"
The July 7 edition of that suspicious document "Doumei Tsuushin" contained an article slandering the Daigohonzon of the True Sanctuary. This article concurred with a variety of crazed theories and doubts concerning the Dai Gohonzon of the Sanctuary that have been put forth by members of heretical faiths. Worse than this, the article used a memo of conversations that took place in 1978 between His Holiness The Lord Of The Law (who at the time was head of the Study Department) and the priest Jitoku Kawabe as the basis of its slander, by presenting the contents of the memo as statements of fact.
His Holiness The Lord Of The Law has stated that there are major differences between the matters stated in the Kawabe memo and the actual content of the conversation.
Whilst this conversation took place more than 20 years ago, and thus His Holiness does not remember all of his statements at that time, the conversation was in fact an explanation to Rev. Kawabe of various doubts that had been raised previously from outside of the sect concerning the Dai Gohonzon of the Sanctuary, including a court case at the time. This was an explanation that the High Priest made in his then position as head of the Study Department. Consequently, His Holiness The Lord Of The Law has stressed that there is no way that he would have said himself that the Dai Gohonzon of the Sanctuary is a fake, as it seems to appear to have been presented in the memo.Priests and laymen. Do not be shaken by this memo that contradicts the facts, or by the malicious slander based on the memo. Rather see through the maneuvers of the devil that would vilify (onshitsu) the 300,000 member grand Tozan of the Hokkeko in 2002, celebrating the 750th anniversary of the founding, and progress in conversion and buddhism with the priests and members as one, centered around His Holiness The Lord Of The Law.
Sources for article
- The entire thread still resides at this location:
- http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=24255-37913617-208%40newsd-113.bryant.webtv.net&rnum=3&prev=/groups%3Fq%3DRe:%2Bthe%2BBIG%2BLie%2BMemo%2BScam*%253B%2Bwas%2BPast%2B%2522spin%2522%2Binto%2B%2522writhing%2522%2Bgroup:alt.religion.buddhism.nichiren.*%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dalt.religion.buddhism.nichiren.*%26safe%3Doff%26selm%3D24255-37913617-208%2540newsd-113.bryant.webtv.net%26rnum%3D3