Role in the History Leading to the Split between the SGI and Nichiren Shoshu.
Nichijun Fujimoto is High Priest Nikken's second in command, and is rumored to be next in line for the position of High Priest, once Nikken retires. Nikken is supposed to retire after the completion of the Hoanden, so that should be pretty soon. If anyone thinks that his accension will change anything with regards to the war of words between the Gakkai and Nichiren Shoshu, well, I can express my doubts based on the fact that most of what has been said, actively, about the Gakkai has come from him. Expecially in the early days.
In an article originally published in the Daibyakuho, 9/1/94 Nichijun Fujimoto wrote about the split with the Gakkai. Craig Bratcher provided these articles to ARBN and I made copies of them and also discussed them on ARBN at the time. I have made these same articles available here, (with commentary of course), on the following pages:
- Links this page references:
- expel1.html
- expel2.html
- expel3.html
Nichiren Shoshu expelled the Gakkai (several times) in 1991/1994 and each time tried to tell the members they were only expelled unless they would accept the "guidance" of the High priest Nikken and come back to "correct faith" (which they defined as accepting the place of "believers" as inferior to priests as "leaves" to the HP's "trunk"). The priests insist that no one but a priest can correctly understand Buddhism, and that, even more-so the High Priest has a "special" inheritance (see sobetsu.htmlheritage or lineage) that qualifies his wisdom as superior to laymen.
These events were based on a fundamental lack of respect that Nichiren Shoshu had for the Gakkai leaders, and a similar lack of respect on the part of the Gakkai for the Nichiren Shoshu priests. This lack of respect came to the forground when a secret taping was made of President Ikeda's remarks at the 35th leaders conference. These remarks (true or untrue) angered the priests (at the end of 1990) into starting the overt "split" with the Gakkai that year. President Akiya made most of the speeches for the Gakkai, purportedly as number one in SG, but actually President Ikeda's right hand man. Nichijun Shonin made most of the public speeches for Nichiren Shoshu as Nikko's deputy, to emphasize that "Akiya" was a "subordinate" and to demonstrate that Nichiren Shoshu felt that President Ikeda was the man behind the fight. Little symbolisms, nearly incomprehensible to us "Gaijin" were the points on which many of the events turned.The Nichiren Shoshu Hokkeko members will tell you that Nichiren Shoshu is not obsessed with the Gakkai and is the victim of the Gakkai's persecution. But if one actually reads their publications, one finds that they are, in their own way as obsessed about the Gakkai as some in the Gakkai are about them. They complain about The Gakkai seeking to "do away with this one source of the problems" (Quote from Rissho Ankoku ron), yet they tried to use the Government to disband the Gakkai legally (since it was a lay organization of their religion). For example he said:
"If we look at the Gakkai until now, its idea of Kosen Rufu was nothing more than to use the Daishonin's Buddhism as a means to collect ballots for the Komeito party. In other words, the Gakkai is a political party that borrowed a religious name. Furthermore, it is becoming obvious that it is in actuality an organization that borrowed a religious name for the pursuit of profit. That kind of organization is a danger and a threat to Japanese society the larger it gets."http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&safe=off&th=ac61a9f8fb1411c,45&seekm=7s5p9n%24ol2%241%40nnrp1.deja.com#pWeekly Asahi, 9/24/93This sort of "evil" rhetoric is why both sides of this issue have so much trouble ending their "engagement." There is no fight worse than a family fight and the Gakkai and NST were family for forty years. Nichijun Goes on to say:
"On the other hand, without a doubt, it is a fact that it is an organization that was born from Nichiren Shoshu. We are acutely aware of that aspect of our responsibility, and we realize that only Nichiren Shoshu can uproot Soka Gakkai."And that is exactly the sort of behavior that you will see from Nichiren Shoshu members. For more see personal.html.
back to index | back to temple.html | back to nstissue.html