Hiroshi Hojo

President Hojo was the fourth President of the Soka Gakkai. A war veteran and a long term Gakkai member, he had been practicing this Buddhism since Makiguchi was still alive. He is said to be a direct descendent of the Hojo Clan that had opposed the spread of the Daishonin's buddhism during the Daishonin's lifetime. Yet he joined this Buddhism and fought tirelessly and self-effacingly for the spread of True Buddhism. During World War II he was drafted into the military, where his faith in this Buddhism safely carried him through World War II with both his life and his honor intact. After the war he was one of the leaders of the Sokagakkai, who supporting Josei Toda, helped build it into a million members by Josei Toda's death.

General Director

When Daisaku Ikeda became President in 1960 he supported Daisaku Ikeda's efforts even though, technically, Hojo was his senior in Faith. He was general director the entire time that < a href="ikeda.html">President Ikeda was President. In 1960, when Ikeda visited the US for the first time Hojo was at his side. And in every crisis or problem Hojo was there.

Involvement in Religious Politics

Hojo was intimately involved with all the troubles with the priests (see prior.html). For example when the Gakkai was having trouble with the Myoshinko while completing the Sho Hondo Building, the youth leaders of the Myoshinko knew to try to talk to Hiroshi Hojo because they knew his reputation as an honest and forthright man (http://www.sokaspirit.org/downloads/13_UHFS_Chapter_13.pdf):

The Myoshinko, however, insisted on the idea of a national high sanctuary and criticized the priesthood and the Gakkai for rejecting the term. After failing to persuade the group to change its stance, Nittatsu expelled them from Nichiren Shoshu in 1974. On October 4 of the same year, about one hundred youth, members of the Myoshinko, demonstrated in front of the Soka Gakkai Headquarters in Tokyo. Using car-mounted loudspeakers, they demanded a meeting with Hiroshi Hojo, then the general director. Several dozen demonstrators forced their way into the building. Soka Gakkai staff and police officers pushed the demonstrators out of the building and closed the gate to the property.

Resignation and Succession

Mr Hojo became famous for his sometimes prophetic statements. For instance in one backroom set of comments in a memo in 1974 Mr. Hojo compared Nichiren Shoshu to the Catholic church and the Gakkai to the protestants:

MAY 10, 1974

MEMORANDUM

FROM: Hiroshi Hojo

SUBJECT: Regarding the Head Temple

On May 9th, when I met the High Priest his conversation was really outrageous. It was so outrageous I really came to doubt that he was truly a High Priest, and if indeed he did have faith.

He will become a big obstacle for Kosen-rufu, and I felt the source of all problems in the priesthood regarding the relationship between priests and the Soka Gakkai was due to him.

It seems his true nature, a nature Sensei had perceived years ago, was made very apparent to me in this meeting. All the same, it was still disconcerting and pitiful to experience his opinions firsthand.

He has not thought of Kosen-rufu at all, but has mainly concerned himself with increasing the assets and financial security of the priesthood, and perpetuating their tendency to look down on laity.

In order for the Soka Gakkai to successfully co-exist from here on out, I suggest the following choices, keeping in mind that if the High Priest had faith we should follow him, but he doesn't.

And since he doesn't have faith, we should placate and simply pay him lip service-in effect, prop him up and treat him like a figurehead with no real authority.

Or, we should completely confront him and go the distance. In other words, if necessary we will have it out with him completely, and fight him to the bitter end-forever holding high the banner of the Soka Gakkai.

At any rate, I confirmed my determination to resolve Sensei's most pressing problem, i.e. the problem being the High Priest and the priesthood and their inter-relationship with the Soka Gakkai.

Of course the interesting thing is that the priests had this memo translated as part of their effort to discredit the Sokagakkai for it's eventual rebellion towards the priests. But we see here a characteristically Japanese thinking. Hojo knows that the priests are not what he is presenting them as. And yet he goes along with this tactically because they have the status. His mood becomes even more apparant in the second memo:

Hiroshi Hojo's second memo reads:

JUNE 18, 1974

MEMORANDUM

SUBJECT: Regarding the Head Temple

As you, Sensei, have been reminding us, the High Priest is indeed more unbecoming (gross) than we could ever have imagined. We've decided to somehow fight it out with him-the present state of the High Priest's mind is not a temporary one. He may not imagine that his words have caused antagonism and confusion within the priesthood, but probably thinks that it is the Soka Gakkai that is in a state of consternation.

In the long run, there is no way but to cut ties diplomatically in such a way that the members will stick with the Soka Gakkai.

Essentially, the difference between us and the Nichiren Shoshu sect is one comparable between Catholics and Protestants in Christianity.

We had better not break off relations in the very near future, for to insure the tactical advantage is important. Therefore, in the interim, I would like to open a new path by assuaging his histrionics and improving the channel of communication with Reverend Hayase (at the time chief priest of Nichiren Shoshu Internal Affairs).

But, when the time comes, I will fight for our rights with all of my ability.

He seems to have felt that a split with the priests would be inevitable. Yet he was such a "team player" that he never challenged Ikeda publicly, nor the priests. No matter how much either abused him. When President Ikeda resigned from the Sokagakkai Presidency it was Hiroshi Hojo who took over in April of 1979. Instead he apologized to both Nittatsu and to his successor Nikken on behalf of the Gakkai and kept his feelings to himself and the inner circle.

One gets the sense that he did so out of a genuine and profound sense of responsibility and a very Japanese approach to organization matters. He stewarded the Gakkai through the next several years in which President Ikeda and the Gakkai were being treated disrespectfully -- without us ordinary members even knowing. He stewarded the organization until his death in July 1981.

President Akiya Succeeded him.

Ikeda and The man

He was older than President Ikeda, not as charismatic and of an older generation. In his own way even more frank than President Ikeda. He seems to have admired President Ikeda but not been a complete syncophant. It is to his credit that he saw the split coming back in 1978 and that he saw it in it's historical perspective. President Ikeda claims that the leaders of the Gakkai didn't show sufficient backbone in 1978/1979(see stormyapril.html and that that is why he was forced to resign. His criticism of the comment "you can't go against the flow of the times" is apparantly aimed at Mr. Hojo who is said to be the author of it.² Yet in retrospect President Hojo's comment was right on the money. The Gakkai not only could survive without Ikeda, but continued to thrive, and might be doing even better had he retired completely and put his energy into globe-trotting and writing books instead of waging his "Uchi Iri" war of vindication in a sneaky manner which was to lead him to formally break with the priests without really preparing the majority of the membership for what was coming. Hojo's comments were both apt and showed the mindset of an organization that didn't want to break with the priests and yet knew that itw was inevitable that they eventually would.

Later Ikeda would realize what a useful ally Hojo had been. Ikeda later has his follower Endo recount(http://www.etherbods.com/sutra/wisdom/wisdom52.shtml:

Endo: The late Mr. Hiroshi Hojo, fourth president of the Soka Gakkai, once shared with me an incident that took place shortly after your inauguration, President Ikeda, when you were giving guidance to someone in your office. The member, who had been practicing for several years, was suffering from lung disease. Since his situation was showing no signs of improving, he had come to seek guidance together with his wife.

While you were talking, the phone rang and Mr. Hojo answered it. It was a matter he needed to address, and so he continued to talk in a low voice. Suddenly, you exclaimed: "Stop making all that racket!"

Of course Hojo was talking very quietly. This sounds like a bad boss to me. But Hojo had the sense not to take it personally.

After Mr. Hojo put down the phone in some surprise, you calmly reprimanded him, saying: "This person is suffering from lung disease. When I am giving guidance I picture the Gohonzon in my mind and put my whole life into offering encouragement to the person. Someone who interrupts those interactions is behaving like the thoughtless Wei Yen."

You were referring to the scene in the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms where Prime Minister Chuko K'ung-ming is making his final prayers after a long battle with illness. At that moment, however, an intrusion by the inconsiderate general Wei Yen causes the flame that has burned continuously for seven days in the prime minister's honor to be snuffed out in an instant, and with it the flame of his life also dies out.

Mr. Hojo said that your earnestness when encouraging just one person was electrifying.

Ikeda: I'm sorry for losing my temper with Mr. Hojo! I was so direct with him because I knew he could handle it. If I were to be so direct now, I fear that everyone would disappear! In all seriousness, even though the times may change, we must never forget that the strictness of faith never does.

With whomever I meet, I always put my whole life into each encounter, thinking that I may never have the chance to meet them again. It has been the same with the struggle to advance kosen-rufu around the globe. In the early days of our movement, no one believed that worldwide kosen-rufu could become a reality. But this is the prophesy of the Lotus Sutra and the decree of Nichiren Daishonin. My spirit has been: "If I don't take that first step now, a path forward will never open"; "If I travel the world now, planting the seeds of peace of the Mystic Law in each country, someday those seeds will bear fruit"; "If I open the way now, others will eventually proudly follow." I have taken action with the firm belief that youth will one day stand up with confidence, encouraged by the thought, "This is how far President Ikeda has come for us."

From nothing-no funding, support, human resources or time-we have forged open a path where none before had existed. And now, true to my conviction, Bodhisattvas of the Earth have appeared in 128 countries around the world.

"Universal worthy" can be taken to mean enabling all people to release their wisdom and become truly happy. The desire to help everyone we come into contact with is the spirit of Bodhisattva Universal Worthy.

But of course this passage also recounts mixed feelings, shows Ikeda's own sense of self-importance. How did he know that Mr. Hojo wasn't giving equally important guidance? Hojo knew better than to believe his own myths.

A perspective on the man

When I was looking up materials on SGI leaders I found almost nothing about him. He is barely mentioned by SGI-USA, and only quoted negatively by Hokkeko people. The reverence for the lineage of The Gakkai seems to flow from Makiguchi, to Toda, to Ikeda, and then form a committee after that. That is a shame because Hojo was, in his own way a great human being. He never became President of SGI because he knew his strengths and his limitations. He knew Japan and didn't claim to know the rest of the world. The truth of lineages is that he was a good successor to President Ikeda. Without him the organization would have been in far worse shape. His common sense and wisdom guided the Gakkai through difficult times and back to a point where it was possible to consider talking to priests as equals again. He wasn't perfect, but then, nobody is. The Gakkai/ all of us/ owe him a debt of gratitude.

Links and resources

He is mentioned on this page in a little story President Ikeda tells about rebuking him for talking while President Ikeda was giving guidance. See http://srd.yahoo.com/goo/Hiroshi+Hojo/11/*http://etherbods.com/sutra/wisdom/wisdom52.shtml

http://ww2.netnitco.net/users/jqpublic/apologyh.html

I have taken one of his speeches, made during the "Apology Tozan" from a Hokkeko site and critiqued it at this page: hojospeech.html"

Additional links:

http://www.daisaku-ikeda.com/

http://www.cebunet.com/sgi/apologyh.html

http://members.aol.com/nichiheret/tabloid_journalism/gekknpen.htm

http://www.gakkaionline.net/TIResources/tabloids.html

http://nichirenscoffeehouse.net/Ryuei/SokaGakkai-03.html

ttp://www.gakkaionline.net/TIResources/Hurst4.html

http://www.hrwf.net/html/soka_gakkai__observatory_on_re.html

http://www.sokaspirit.org/downloads/18_UHFS_Appendix_A.pdf

http://www.etherbods.com/sutra/wisdom/wisdom52.shtml

http://www.sgi-norcal.org/ncweb/download/data/SFOverflowingWithPoetry.pdf

http://www.sokaspirit.org/downloads/13_UHFS_Chapter_13.pdf

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws