The "Temple Issue"

Background

The "Temple Issue" is the original name given to the issues between Nichiren Shoshu and the Sokagakkai, by the Gakkai, when those issues first broke out into public awareness and the two groups split apart. The Gakkai has since renamed the issue "Soka Spirit" which is pure newspeak, since the dispute between the two groups seems more about personal issues than anything to do with the noble idea of value creation. Studying these issues is an appropriate activity, and understanding how a 700 year old tiny, almost family temple, Taiseki-ji,Nichiren Shoshu, could have come to be linked with a giant and aggressive lay based group led by a charismatic leader(Ikeda) is worth the effort, even if one has no intentions of getting involved in the acrimony.

Foundation of the Temple System

Nichiren Shoshu traces it's "lineage" back to Nichiren and his disciple Nikko Shonin, and specifically to the first "split" between Nikko Shonin, the Jito of Minobu and the other five disciples which broke into the open when Nikko Shonin left Mt. Minobu to found Taisekiji Temple and the "Fuji" lineage.

Main/Branch System

While the historical record seems to try to blame someone for Nikko's departure from Minobu, the actual history is more complicated. The forceful, transcendental and downright prophetic figure of Nichiren Daishonin hung over his disciples like a bright light and they all wished to emulate his example and propagate his teachings. But they also wanted to do so in their own fashions, and so they argued over what the founder intended them to do. They also were each founding "lineages" in Nichiren's name that would also bear their names. And so these early direct disciples, once their master was gone, were anything but self-effacing. What they established was a pattern of "main temples" creating "branch temples," and those branch temples often vying jealously with one another to be "main temples" of their own and to have their own branch temples. Thus Nichirenism, by the time of the modern era had broken up into literally hundreds of lineages and sects, each with main temples and each with branch temples who were semi-independent. , and each took actions that reflected the constant juggling of these relationships. Nikko and his own disciples were no exception, and there were no less than 12 disciples of Nikko, many of whom tried to stake out their own "turf" after the death of his designated successor Nichimoku. Of these lineages he established, two congealed into rival systems. One based originally at Taisekiji, had its unique doctrines and teachings formulated initially by its 9th high priest; Nichiu, and reformulated and set in stone by its 26th High Priest, Nichikan Shonin. Its opponant, based initially at Nikko's own Omosu Seminary and later at Yobo-ji, eventually mostly merged with the big umbrella organization Nichiren Shu. The Taisekiji school eventually became known as Nichiren Shoshu

Nichiren Shoshu

Thus this Fuji school lineage is represented by a number of Temples -- and not all of them at anyone time is directly with Nichiren Shoshu. They may be affiliated with Nichiren Shoshu loosely or completely independent. And often they exist in a slightly rebellious middle zone, as represented by the two federations of priests called respectively the ShoShinkai and the Domei Priests who are affiliated with the Sokagakkai.

Family versus Universal

Indeed the distinctive doctrines of the Taisekiji branch of the Fuji School are the result of its efforts to distinguish itself from being a "family temple" founded by the Tokimitsu family every bit as much as by Nikko Shonin and his successor Nichimoku, to being not only a head temple, but "the" head temple. Thus some of the apparent conservativism of the priests has its foundations in doctrines and methods developed by this school during the years of it's relative obscurity and isolation. It reflects an insecurity about its "oral" and unique doctrines. See nst.html and nstissue.html for more.

Therefore while the "Taisekiji" lineage is the largest of these Fuji School temple groups, it has always been involved in a complex relationship with these other temples. Some of them have been at one time or another "branch temples" with a chief priest and a collection of members, but some of them have spent time as "head temples" of their own, with their own teaching facilities and affiliated temples associated with them. This plays a role in the internal politics of Nichiren Shoshu, and more-over, as Revernd Tono tells us in one of his Oko's, there are strong internal lineages in Nichiren Shoshu. The current High Priest Nikken Shonin represents one of those lineages, and his doctrines represent teachings that have been passed down within his particular "flavor" or school. The late priests Nichiko Hori and Reverend Horigome, represented completely different ways of looking at Nichiren Shoshu Doctrines. The answer to this variety in thoughts has been for the high priest to try to immitate the Catholic Church and try to manufacture a kind of esoteric shingon style "heritage of the law", or Kechimyaku of the Law, with the result that those who were taught differently are currently rebelling against Nikken. This is the ideological background of what has come to be known among temple members as "the SokaGakkai Issue" and among the Gakkai, originally as the "Temple Issue" but in newspeak "Soka Spirit" more recently. For some fanatics the battle with Nikken has become a personal and "eternal struggle" with our former membership.

For more on how the parties see themselves, and each other, follow these links:

Nichiren Shoshu:

http://www.nst.org/

Sokagakkai:

http://www.sgi.org/english/

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

Foundation of the Gakkai and early issues with NST

The Sokagakkai was the premier lay group of Nichiren Shoshu from it's founding under Tsunesuburu Makiguchi as the "Soka kyoiku Gakkai" to it's split with them in 1991. For that entire time it, at least on the surface, was pledged to respect and obey the priests. However for that time, it was involved in power struggles not just with the priesthood but with rival Nichiren Shoshu laygroups such as the Myoshinkai (Later the Kenshokai).

Ogasawara Affair

These conflicts started even prior to World War II, with one that was symbolized by the Ogasawara affair after the war(Follow the links for more). Tsunesuburu Makiguchi died during world War II in Prison, and Toda laid the direct blame, not just on his arrest by the Government, but also on the activities of some of the priests, specifically one Jimon Ogasawara. He writes about this in his History and Conviction of the Sokagakkai. This issue during world war II led to a conflict in 1957 near the end of his life (follow the ogasawara link. This conflict in turn sowed some of the seeds that would later blossum into the 1991 "split." Toda had overstepped his bounds, and realizing that he had been wrong to take disciplinary matters between priests into his own hands, had made a pledge to shakubuku the entire Japanese Nation on behalf of Nichiren Shoshu. In his efforts to fulfil that pledge, his disciple Ikeda would take the Sokagakkai to new heights of membership. But because Ikeda himself shared in the resentments that were behind the Ogasawara affair, and had indeed been among the 47 young men chosen to execute it the seeds for future conflict were already sewn with this incident.

A Complex Relationship

Toda himself had been very willing to denounce corrupt or haughty priests, but that very effort often left him on a razors edge of being excommunicated. After the Ogasawara affair he made a series of speaches in which he not only pledged to support the priesthood, but to shakubuku the entire Japanese Nation on behalf of Nichiren Shoshu. In return for this effort, the High Priests continuously praised and protected the Gakkai from various machinations by priests and layfolks to discredit it or damage it. The two groups had a complex relationship. As long as the High Priest was in the "gakkai" camp, the Gakkai could develop unmollested. Under the "protection" of the High Priest the Gakkai grew to a million members under Josei Toda before Toda's death. Under his disciple Ikeda's leadership, that membership increased again to 10 million, and at one point it exceeded 20 million before various factors began limiting further growth. What those factors are, we'll discuss later.

Development of the Gakkai

When President Ikeda became third president he made the same sorts of pledges. Under him, with the help and support of Nittatsu Shonin the Gakkai led the way in building a beautiful building to house the Dai-Gohonzon, called the Sho-Hondo and refurbished or built other buildings. The Gakkai also grew to about 10 million members. Under President Ikeda membership in foreign countries also grew. The SGI-USA (then known as NSA) was created and grew, eventually, to a high somewhere between 20,000 and 200,000 members. NSA taught it's members that the Priests of Nichiren Shoshu had unfailingly handed down a lineage of true teachings untouched from 1279 to the present through the founder Nichiren Daishonin, and should be respected for their role in protecting the teachings of Buddhism. The Japanese members isolated us from knowing the details of their problems with the priests.

I really thought I had found the "one true faith" when I joined in 1973. The Sho Hondo Temple was completed when I joined in 1973 and destroyed by 1999. Indeed while there were some outbreaks of weirdness from time to time, expecially in 1978 and 1979, for the most part we Americans were isolated from the politics. Lisa Jones puts it best, the best guidance we'd receive was "don't let the organization destroy your practice." For more on NST, NSA sokagakkai and it's doctrines please follow the links and learn more. NST destroyed the Shohondo, but the building they replaced it with is okay. And they own it unquestioningly.

Rumbles of troubles

In 1978, President Ikeda apologized and in April of 1979 he resigned as President and took responsibility for his then "deviations"[at least he said so at the time -- nowadays there are people who say that all his words then were ghostwritten], the religion of Nichiren's teachings made perfect sense to me from the viewpoints of "literal" "theoretical" and "actual" proof. Ikeda and the other leaders all made an apology Tozan in which they apologized for their mistakes and made all sorts of pledges of fealty to the priesthood. Among other things, they stopped teaching that Ikeda was the universal master of Buddhism, and "corrected" that concept to refer to the guidance of the High Priest. Later we were permitted to refer to him as "mentor" a term that has stuck to this day. Craig Gleefully catalogues these speeches at this website: http://ww2.netnitco.net/users/jqpublic/sgstatements.html. I personally was kind of happy at the changes in some ways, as the Gakkai had been really acting a lot like a "cult" with excessive reliance on our "sensei". When he resigned I figured new leaders would take over. And some did, and we were "re-educated" in the "correct" doctrines of Nichiren Shoshu by our seniors in faith from the Sokagakkai who told us to obey the priests and that "wagoso" with them was the only alternative between a correct practice and one that would invite the sufferings of hell. For more on NSA and the history of that time visit NSA page The Gakkai was constantly changing. We entered and left something called "phase two", we stopped Street Shakubuku, started it again, stopped it again. The Youth division was dissolved, reconstituted. Democratic ideas were tried, enjoyed by the membership, rejected by the senior leadership.

The only admonition that carried over from phase two was one that meetings were to end by 8:30 so that people who had to get up and go to work the next day could do so. The rest came and went. We never went back to full fledged 24 hours a day activities or unbridled street shakubuku. But I later found out that was due to intense opposition to reintroducing such things after we once had tasted some personal freedom. President Ikeda had resigned but not been forgotten. I was later to hear from Richard Yoshimachi all the suffering he supposedly endured during the period after his resignation. According to him:

President Ikeda wanted desperately to encourage people, but he couldn't write articles in the Seikyo Shimbun or go to meetings."

I don't know if Richard was just stretching the truth or telling a fib, but the truth is that nearly as soon as he resigned, Nittatsu Shonin died, Nittatsu's successor Nikken needed his support, and before you know it Ikeda was back to traveling giving speeches and "dialoguing" with everyone his advance men could make an appointment with. In fact, I cannot really remember when, if ever he really was restricted in travelling. If he disapeared from the stage for the two years from 1979-1980, the result was to only make him more popular with the members of Japan. And here in the USA he never disappeared. Indeed his failure to disapear from the stage is what set the stage for the Shoshinkai revolt in the early 1980's. They felt that the Gakkai was being let off too easilly. Between 1980 and 1989 or so, President Ikeda began to appear more and more in our publications, and even began to dominate them. Also the organization began to try to get back into more aggressive propagation activities.

NSA to NST

Having Ikeda not so much front and center all the time wasn't that bad a thing anyway. Looking back at my publications I realize that Mr. Williams also lectured on the Gosho, wrote at least as well, and was present in the publications. Mr Williams took his role as discipel seriously. We had a pantheon of appreciation, which rightly included the self-effacing Fujimbu. All that was to change. (See nsa.html) Around late 1989, early 1990 Mr. Williams began to disapear from the helm of the Gakkai. In early 1990 President Ikeda visited the country and made all sorts of refreshing suggestions for improving things in his famous "mirror guidances." These also, it turned out, involved criticisms of the management style and fanaticism of Mr. Williams. For more information on the rise and demise of NSA visit NSA.html. By 1992 Mr. Williams was gone. There could be only one sun in the sky, and Mr. Williams was held responsible for the failure of the Sokagakkai to connect overwhelmingly with people in the USA.

The war of words breaks out.

In 1991 the sometimes ugly war of words and conflict broke out to the surface, between the Sokagakkai and the priests. It was springtime here in the capitol, and I was preoccupied somewhat by other concerns. I remember visiting the Temple and finding people, with shocked expressions, giving me handouts that ranged from a relatively terse Communique from Reverend Fujimoto to various essays, including one complaint about the 35th Anniversary Speech by President Ikeda which showed a much more vulgar and crude President Ikeda than the charming fellow we were used to. The Gakkai prepared decent enough study materials such as Confirming our Path in Faith. However, the Temple didn't seem at all prepared to debate issues or really inform people. Most of their pamphlets seemed warmed over Shoshinkai allegations. I remember going back and forth between the Temple (Myozenji in Silver Spring) and the SGI Community Center ( In Mt. Rainier Md) gathering documents from each group. At the time I was surprised to find out the depth of the acrimony and misunderstanding. It turned out that there had been tension under the surface for a number of years. It was all the more shocking because the Gakkai had been effusive in it's praise and support of the priests of Nichiren Shoshu and the priests had been equally effusive, at least in public, about the Gakkai. Indeed, there was praise of the High Priest in the very same world tribunes I was reading at the same time I was reading the communique. Later when a formal notice of expulsion came out, it came as less of a surprise. For more on this visit the page personal.html.

The Appearance Issue and organizational reform

In the beginning I wrote letters to Nikken about the initial split, and I stuck with the Gakkai. I also looked at handouts from both sides. The Gakkai had slick presentations of their side of the story. The materials that the temple had were pretty lame. Mostly rehashes of the old issues, such as the "unauthorized Gohonzon" from 1978, or complaints about the arrogance and presumption focusing on President Ikeda's remarks in his 35th anniversary speech in relationship to his apology Tozan of 1979. For more on the issues within SGI as NST sees them see my sgi-issue page.

For more on the "Temple Issue", as a member of the IRG central committee I helped write our paper on the subject. Please follow this link: http://daimoku.com/IRG-TIpaper.html and read my IRG Issues and Reform pages, for how the personal issues of the temple issue began to become issues aimed at the ordinary members who sought reform.

Making it personal

I kept hoping that the Gakkai would find a way to disengage from their battle with Nichiren Shoshu before it began to destroy itself from within, but recent guidance from Japan (2002) shows me that this is not going to happen anytime soon. And reports from other areas show me that self appointed "direct disciples" of President Ikeda (mostly Japanese) are appearing everywhere and causing trouble for the members. To them the very notion that the battle is somehow more slanderous than the behavior of the priests themselves seems traitorous. The personal war continues at this moment. Nevermind that it is destroying the organization. The Gakkai is losing the "dialogue War" by treating it as a war. We have a duty to refute incorrect teachings, but we have no duty to act like fools. Unfortunately the people who want to "destroy the Nikken Sect" are exactly that, fools.

For more on this subject visit this page: personal.html.

Note the highlighted names above are mostly links to other websites on this page.

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