Sensei’s Writings
DAISAKU IKEDA: Buddhist philosopher, peace builder and educator
“A great human revolution in just a single individual…will enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.”
Daisaku Ikeda, President of Soka Gakkai International (SGI)
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Essays & Articles
EDUCATION
The Dawn of a Century of Humanistic Education
The following paragraphs are excerpts from an essay by Daisaku Ikeda that was first published in Japanese in the Seikyo Shimbun newspaper on January 1, 2000.
Mr. Toda declared, “Let’s make it the best university in the world!” On that day, the flame of Soka University that burned fiercely in his heart was passed on to me.
The flame within Mr. Toda had been lit by his mentor, the Soka Gakkai’s founder Tsunesaburo Makiguchi. Mr. Makiguchi once said to him, “In the future, we must found a school based on the value-creating (Soka) pedagogy that I have been formulating. If we can’t do it during my lifetime, please do it in yours.”
Writing in the 1930s, the Soka Gakkai’s founder [Mr. Makiguchi] expressed his deep concern that education in Japan seemed either to consist of empty abstraction-with scholars lacking actual teaching experience importing new theories from the West and imposing these on classroom teachers–or to be designed to instill narrow-minded and intolerant nationalism.
Subservience to the tyranny of borrowed ideas or subservience to political authority…both demonstrate a lack of moral courage; neither expresses the courage and conviction of independent thought.
Mr. Makiguchi used the allegory of medical treatment to make his point. If a physician prescribes the wrong treatment, he can kill the patient. Mistaken education can be equally deadly. While the results may not be as immediately apparent as the effects of the mistaken treatment of a medical condition, the negative impact will become undeniable with the passage of decades. Japan’s present course, Mr. Makiguchi warned, would result in ruin.
The willingness to do whatever is needed, the clear understanding that teachers exist to help all children, without exception, to become happy-the pedagogy of value-creation was born from the spiritual light of compassion and love for humanity. This is why it has found a reception among educators around the world.
Holding aloft the flame that has been cherished by the succession of mentor and disciple of Soka-the light to which we have devoted our lives-build magnificent, triumphant treasure towers of humanistic education in your respective spheres of mission.
We must send the sparks flying!
From the hearts of youth!
Using the flame within!
To educate is to kindle the soul’s flame!
Read President Ikeda’s full essay, “The Dawn of a Century of Humanistic Education.”
The Flowering of Creative Life Force
This is an excerpt from a speech delivered on April 18, 1974, at the fourth entrance ceremony, held at Soka University’s Central Gymnasium.
Never for an instant forget the effort to renew your life, to build yourself anew. Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway of life itself. This is not an easy task. Indeed, it may be the most severely challenging struggle there is. For opening the door to your own life is in the end more difficult than opening the door to all the mysteries of the universe.
But to do so is to vindicate your existence as human beings. Even more, it is the mode of existence that is authentically attuned to the innermost truths of life itself; it makes us worthy of the gift of life.
Read President Ikeda’s full essay, “The Flowering of Creative Life Force.”
Peace Proposals
Humanizing Religion, Creating Peace
2008 Peace Proposal
Almost twenty years have passed since the end of the Cold War, almost ten since the start of the new century, and still the contours of a new and different way of organizing the world have yet to take shape. While the processes of globalization possess a seemingly unstoppable momentum, this can hardly be considered a global order. Rather, the effort to contain through the application of force the many highly explosive situations around the world has met with limited success at best. The situation could perhaps be characterized as one of global disorder.
Important efforts, however, are being made. Recently (January 15–16), the Alliance of Civilizations Forum was held in Madrid, Spain. Based on the belief that the maintenance of international peace and security requires the overcoming of cultural animosities, more than 75 UN member states and international organizations participated in this event. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon encouraged further action toward peace, saying, “You may have different backgrounds and perspectives, but you share a common conviction that the Alliance of Civilizations is an important way to counter extremism and heal the divisions that threaten our world.”
Likewise, in a press conference held at the start of this year, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a “policy of civilization” with an emphasis on humanity and solidarity. Stating that, “You cannot organize the world of the 21st century with the organization of the 20th,” he proposed that the current G8 summit meeting be expanded to include China, India, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil to create a new G13 system.
I have long urged an expansion of the current summit system to include the participation of such countries as China and India to form a “summit of responsible countries,” which will promote the wider sharing of global responsibilities. As such, I can lend my support to this proposal. [Read more]
Restoring the Human Connection: The First Step to Global Peace
2007 Peace Proposal
The year 2007 marks fifty years since the second president of the Soka Gakkai, Josei Toda, made an historic declaration condemning nuclear weapons as “an absolute evil’ and calling for their prohibition, stating he wished to rip out the claws that are hidden in their very depths.
His insight was rooted in the universal plane of human life, transcending differences of ideology and social system. It laid bare the essence of these apocalyptic weapons whose destructiveness could put an end to human civilization and even to humankind’s continued existence as a species.
Today, when the threat of nuclear proliferation continues to preoccupy the international community amid revelations about the black market in nuclear weapons technology and concerns surrounding the ultimate objectives of the nuclear development programs of North Korea and Iran, the significance, farsightedness and gravity of Toda’s declaration are strikingly apparent.
Much of the responsibility for the current situation must be laid at the feet of the states already possessing nuclear weapons. Any effective movement toward nuclear disarmament must be predicated on the sincere efforts of the existing nuclear-weapon states to disarm.
We need a fundamental reconfiguration of our worldview if we are to move away from nuclear proliferation and toward disarmament. The crucial element is to ensure that we are rooted firmly in a consciousness of the unity of the human family. When our thinking is reconfigured around a sense of human solidarity, even the most implacable difficulties will not cause us to condone the use of force. Without this kind of shift, it will be difficult to extract ourselves from the quagmire logic of deterrence, which is rooted in mistrust, suspicion and fear. [Read more]
President Ikeda’s Peace Proposals:
http://www.sgi-usa.org/newsandevents/peaceproposals.php
Books
The New Human Revolution
The New Human Revolution is an ongoing novelized history of the history of the Soka Gakkai in the United States. The series details the story of third SGI President Daisaku Ikeda (who goes by pen name Shin’ichi Yamamoto), embarking on his first trip outside Japan – to America – to fulfill his mentor’s lofty vision of worldwide kosen-rufu.
For the Sake of Peace
For the Sake of Peace, by Daisaku Ikeda, describes the seven paths to peace. Ikeda begins in the preface by addressing the obstacles to peace - environmental destruction, nuclear disarmament, poverty etc. Then he lists the seven paths. One of the paths to peace is “self mastery.” President Ikeda says on page 17, “the ability to perceive the negative in oneself enables one to perceive the positive in others.” He goes on to say “even as we lock horns with a rival, we should be seeking to manifest the good and obliterate the bad. The power of self-restraint can help us avoid conflict and estrangement and enable us to take a correct stance of mutual acceptance and respect.”
(Recommended by Darcia Elliott – Houston WD)
For a full listing of books written by Daisaku Ikeda, please visit the Ikeda Books website.
Dialogues
Choose Life: A Dialogue with Arnold Toynbee
For over two years, historian Arnold J. Toynbee and religious leader Daisaku Ikeda exchanged views on a wide range of topics, probing for answers to the urgent as well as the perennial questions that confront humanity’s existence. From the personal to the international and the political to the philosophical, every sphere of human nature and interaction was vigorously discussed by these two men, who, though of different cultures and traditions, shared the same commitment to the value of human life and the biosphere that sustains it.
While their exchanges occurred in London in the 1970s, the insights they offer are timeless and relevant, providing both a panorama and a vital framework for understanding the choices and interlinked issues facing humanity in the 21st century.
Toynbee, raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and Ikeda, a product of East Asian culture and a Buddhist, agree on the dilemma facing the individual and society: self-mastery or self-destruction. This challenge underlies humanity’s task in responding to the many global concerns we face, which include population growth, dwindling natural resources, armed conflict and life with technology. [Read more]
Poems
Restoring Our Connections (excerpts from an essay on poetry by Daisaku Ikeda, published in The Japan Times on October 12, 2006)
The poetic spirit has the power to “retune” and reconnect the discordant, divided world. True poets stand firm, confronting life’s conflicts and complexities. Harm done to anyone, anywhere, causes agony in the poet’s heart.
A poet is one who offers people words of courage and hope, seeking the perspective—one step deeper, one step higher—that makes tangible the enduring spiritual realities of our lives.
Now more than ever, we need the thunderous, rousing voice of poetry. We need the poet’s impassioned songs of peace, of the shared and mutually supportive existence of all things. We need to reawaken the poetic spirit within us, the youthful, vital energy and wisdom that enable us to live to the fullest. We must all be poets.
