In 1991, a speech by President Ikeda was recorded by agents, or allies, of the priests of Nichiren Shoshu (probably from the mysterious rebel organization known as the Kenshokai but could have been any of dozens of enemies of the Gakkai within faction ridden Japan). This speech, at the "35th Anniversary Leadership Conference" This speech provoked the priests to criticize the Gakkai, and the Gakkai in turn criticized Nichiren Shoshu. The issues raised there are the subject of this page in conjunction with related pages on this website. What was set off became known first as the "Temple Issue" and later as "Soka Spirit" by the Gakkai, and the NST perspective came to be known as "The Soka Gakkai issue."
There are two sets of Issues within Nichiren Shoshu from my point of view. First are the issues that were raised by the Soka Gakkai regarding NST and it's priests (see also Temple Issue Page). And the second set of issues were raised in my mind by the response that NST gave to allegations from SGI and others to these issues. These provoked a raising of other deeper issues regarding Nichiren Shoshu that also related to myths and legends that had become part of the doctrines of the Sokagakkai as well. On this page I'm trying to outline what they are rather than delve into each one. I could present them in an authoritative manner, but that would deny their complexity.
There are warring websites that deal with these issues superficially. They are useful as source materials, but only if you take them with a grain of salt. Most of my links on this page are to pages within this website. However, if the subject interests you it pays to read what each side is saying. To me the most useful sites are:
- SGI Soka Spirit:
- http://www.sgi.org/
- Nichiren Shoshu:
- Nichiren Shoshu Webpage
- http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/nichiren.html
- Don Ross's list of more links
But you aren't going to find an objective account anywhere. Not even with me or with Don Ross. I try.
- The issues raised by the SGI about NST fall into the following list:
- That the priests are Corrupt, see Clowe Case
- That the priests conspired to Attack the SGI (personal.html and revenge.html
- That the lineage of NST is not continuous, and that therefore the High Priest is not the paragon of perfection that he is portrayed at and his lineage is not perfect.
- That the priests lied to SGI members
- You'll find the victimization version of SGI history laid out at this web page:
- http://www.sokaspirit.org/sgi_ns/index.shtml
The above allegations raise their seriousness from the NST tradition that people should respect the priests and obey them as emissaries of the Buddha. As a result, after the "split" SGI now alleges that this teaching is part of an erroneous doctrine (see http://www.sokaspirit.org/sgi_ns/RNSPart3_cur.shtml:
- The {high priest} as the one and only recipient of the heritage or lifeblood should be viewed as an entity of veneration, inseparable from the Dai-Gohonzon of the high sanctuary.
- Faith toward these two fundamentals [meaning the Gohonzon and the high priest] must be absolute.
- The true Buddha, the Daishonin, the Dai-Gohonzon of the high sanctuary, and the successive high priests are all essentially one inseparable object of worship. (Dai-Nichiren, Sept. 1991)
Yet none of the above is new. In the 80's, these precise doctrines were used to crush dissenters who rallied around the so-called "Shoshinkai" or "true faith" priests because they had challenged the legitimacy of Nikken Shonin's heritage. For example a pamphlet I later scanned into PDF format (gdiscussion) says:
With our simple-mindedness we should not try to judge the high priest of the Head Temple. "It would be like a firefly laughing at the sun. . . The high priest is trying to nurture NSA and SGI through-out the world. It is necessary to realize this great understanding he has. A person who cannot realize this is not a believer. The issue is whether we protect this organization or create destruction. In December the high priest commented that everyone should center around General Director Williams and create unity. Before you are an NSA member, you are a believer in Nichiren Shoshu. Nichiren Shoshu believers follow the high priest.Now, this was 1984. In 2004 the doctrines are very different. The Gakkai had prior to 1991 taught the priests as such people and the high priest as a person of great and ineffable wisdom. At least to us "ordinary members." They said they were "people" but of such dedication that they should be treated specially. Moreover the Gakkai had passed on the idea of the "kechimyaku of the law" as handed down by the high priests. Thus if the priests are in fact, like everyone else, and yet they are holding themselves forth as such paragons than they are deceptive people. This line of reasoning continues, that if they are not in-fact paragons of virtue, and yet they claim to be Buddhist monks, then that makes them according to literalistic thinking "law devouring hungry ghosts" or false priests. This is to me a simplistic argument. I would look closer at the premises involved. And the process of demonization and mythologization that it embodies. To me, based on my understanding of Buddhism and of what Nichiren Buddhism teaches in fact, the Gakkai should never have put them on such a pedestal in the first place. In fact a close gander at the Gakkai's own records shows that it didn't start out that way. The Gakkai had a buried history of conflict with the priests that went back to it's founding. This history was buried until the split, but not very deep.
- For more on this follow these links:
- History and Conviction
- Ogasawara.html
- Makiguchi, Toda
Consequently the deeper "issues" of the so-called temple Issue require one to look at both SGI and NST at the same time. After all, conflict doesn't arise in a background. And simply defeating one "manifest" group of enemies doesn't end conflict and establish world peace. The only peace that can be established that way is the peace of the graveyard. The path of suppression is like trying to "defeat" a boiling pot of water by holding the lid down. There are deeper problems, of which the "surface issues" are only symptoms. This is what I've learned from studying Nichiren so far. He says that if you confuse the "general" and the "specific" even slightly you will continue your wanderings lost in samsara. (See So-Betsu page).
Thus there are deeper issues that need to be dealt with that go deeper than surface issues and acquire true understanding of what Buddhism is really teaching. It is these issues that make a real difference in whether or not NST or the Gakkai or any other Nichiren Group is a functional religion (it's possible to function without being very functional unfortunately) or merely yet another competing sect within a contentious religion.
- Thus the issues within Nichiren Shoshu that are universal summarize as follows:
Attitude of the priests towards literal proof, apocryphal writings, Issues about the Gohonzon and about the Dai-Gohonzon. Claims to a "True Lineage" and the "Kechimyaku". Exclusivity Claims that Nichiren is the True Buddha and Shakyamuni a "provisional Buddha." The fight between the Gakkai and Nichiren Shoshu: temple.html Nikken Shonin and the effort to make this dispute "personal" This page started out as part of a critique of Nichiren Shoshu, but over time has become a realization that all religions, because they are made up of people, are made up of myths and legends. And this adds another layer of discussion here, one that puts the above into perspective:
- The "Metaphysical" origins of religious myth and conflict:
- Upaya,Soka/Value Creation,
- To understand these you need to study the Lotus Sutra
Nichiren Shoshu has been alone in some of it's doctrines for most of it's 700+ years since Nikko Shonin left Mt. Minobu back in the 1280's. The other schools disputed the claims of Nikko Shonin's successor that he was the true Successor to his mentor Nichiren Daishonin. Indeed the Transfer Documents that Nichiren Shoshu claims prove this "kechimyaku" have been alleged to be bogus since they first surfaced. (See transfer.html)
When the Sokagakkai and Nichiren Shoshu were together, there were buried strains between the two. (See prior.html) But essentially the Gakkai acknowledged that it was subordinate to Nichiren Shoshu and that the word of the HP was supreme. In return the Gakkai was acknowledged as the premier lay group of Nichiren Shoshu. We were taught to respect the priests and that the Dai-Gohonzon was the supreme object of worship of true Buddhism, and thatNichiren Daishonin was the True Buddha. (See nsa.html or click on any keyword for a link, for more on these things). We were taught to value the 750 year history of Nichiren Shoshu as a thing of sacrosanct authority.
In the 1960's and 1970's the Gakkai grew world wide with the encouragement of the High Priests of Nichiren Shoshu and the understanding that all of it's members were also Nichiren Shoshu members. In 1963, future High Priest Reverend Abe had the great honor of bestowing some of the first Gohonzon on NSA members in the USA starting in Seattle and travelling from city to city. By the end of the decade Sokagakkai was building both Temples and Community Centers all over the world and had finished building a wonderful building designed specifically to house Nichiren Shoshu's treasured Dai-Gohonzon. Later all these wonderful accomplishments were centers of controversy.
In the 1970's a series of issues began to appear between the Gakkai and Nichiren Shoshu, these involved issues around the Sho-Hondo, the behavior of the leaders and priests of the respective organizations, and claims and counterclaims about the "lineage of true Buddhism" and whether it was appropriate for the Gakkai to claim a Master/disciple relationship between it's top leaders and their followers. In 1978 the Gakkai capitulated to NST on these issues and stopped referring to Third President Ikeda as "Master" and henceforth referred to him as a "mentor," which has been the case ever since. They did so in the apparant interest of Unity. President Ikeda apologized and everything seemed Settled. However, that condition wasn't to stay stable. Nittatsu Shonin died during the settlement, his successor didn't have a clear "title" to his succession, and the Gakkai supported that successor, Nikken Abe, getting little in return except that they bought time from their threatened expulsion that Nittatsu might have carried out but didn't get a chance to. The issues were settled by recourse to authority, and Nittatsu's most able disciples seceeded and formed a group that became referred to as the "Shoshinkai group." The Gakkai, with the help of the High Priest in the 80's suppressed the influence of the Shoshinkai priests, but some of the attitudes that had led to their rebellion were shared by many of the priests who hadn't rebelled, it turns out, including the High Priest himself. These issues were publicly debated in Japan but most of us outside of Japan were kept ignorant of them.
Since the split with Nichiren Shoshu a number of issues showed their heads above ground about Nichiren Shoshu as well as about Nichiren Shoshu and it's relationship with the Gakkai. (For more on those issues related to the Gakkai visit this link: sgissue.html). The High Priest had always claimed doctrinal and legal authority over Nichiren Shoshu as "General Administrator" or "So kancho" of the sect. The Gakkai had supported some of these notions as they valorated it's own status as the "premier laygroup" of Nichiren Shoshu and the avatars of a one true faith. These now problematic notions, such as the notion that there was a seperate "kechimyaku" or lifeblood of the law and a lifeblood of faith, and that the High Priest "inherited" this "lifeblood of the law" with his "face to face transmission" from the previous high priest, now were being used to try to scare Gakkai members away from the Gakkai. This notion of a face to face transmission had been a tradition of the sect for centuries, and involved the transmission of the properties and teachings of Nichiren Shoshu. As a tradition it is very honorable and valid, but the priests of Nichiren Shoshu began to teach that it also was the conveyance of an esoteric understanding that others could only partake of through their relationship with the priesthood. The priests asserted that only through this special "kechimyaku" bond between the believer, his Gohonzon and his Gohonzon and the Dai-Gohonzon, could people reach enlightenment. People with unauthorized or "unconnected" Gohonzon would fall into the avidya hell. This of course is complete nonsense.
Generally, Nichiren Shoshu had borrowed ideas from Shingon, Zen, and managed to twist the words of the Dai-Shonin so badly that they would interpret his Gosho to where he would say "Shakyamuni" and they would say "but this really refers to Nichiren himself." This was in the interest of teaching the "original Buddha" notions of true Buddhism, but it was a doctrinaire and authoritarian way to interpret the Gosho. So much so, that people were discouraged from actually reading the Gosho less they interpret it more literally.
Ultimately Nichiren Shoshu was teaching views that were based on an oral heritage and the writings of the various priests of it's lineage and these teachings were sometimes incompatible with Nichiren's teachings as he actually taught them or distorted those teachings from what he actually said. To me the ultimate cause of the "split" with the Gakkai was this and not the personal conflict between the personalities of the two men; Nikken and Ikeda and the various accusations aimed at each of them which formed their manifestation. So, while the precipitating event seemed to be President Ikeda's "35th Anniversary Speech" which appeared to criticize the high priest himself and so ignited most of the priests behavior, to me the ultimate cause lies in errors in interpreting Nichiren's teachings which led to reliance on the authority of the chief priest of the sect. (See heritage.html) as opposed to strict reliance on literal, Theoretical, and actual proof. Part of the problem was lack of confidence that they could explain their "wisdom" without resorting to such distortions of the sources and while admitting the legendary and oral originations of many of these teachings.
The priests view of Nikko Shonin and the inheritance:http://www.nstmyosenji.org/sermons/2001/koshie01.htm| ,www.nst.org
This google thread shows the attitude of the Hokkeko towards their High Priest:http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=20011206211709.15834.00001338%40mb-fy.aol.com&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dalt.religion.buddhism.nichiren%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch%26site%3Dgroups
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