Growing exodus of SGIers worries Nichiren Shu

No NShu for me

I don't understand the attraction some people have for Nichiren Shu. If you leave SGI you are better off not joining any Nichiren group. They all have their idiosyncrasies. Why bother with more japaneseness and BS?

Just chant to the best of your ability. Do a little gongyo here and there. Read any of the many gazillion excellent books about Buddhism that are available. Anything by Trungpa or Chodron or Suzuki will run circles around Ikeda and most everything that passes for dharma lit in the Nichiren crowd.

Hell, read poetry or gardening books.

Long and short of Nichiren Buddhism: chant namu myoho renge kyo and live your flippin life.

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by: mroaks @ Tue Apr 21, 2009 at 04:22:43 AM CDT

Me thinks the Ryuei protests too much

I agree with mroaks...upon trying to read through Ryuei's plea I am compelled to turn a line from the Bard... Me thinks the Ryuei protests too much...Ryuei's ego is nothing short of breathtaking.

Franko the Fool

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by: fgwalmsley @ Tue Apr 21, 2009 at 10:03:07 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Ryuei's comments

Franko,

On this one, I have to disagree with you.  Ryuei is in a particular position to know if people are considering leaving the Gakkai to the degree that he says and that they are contacting him.  If this is indeed so, Ryuei informs us all that Nichiren Shu is not in a position to offer inquiring people what they may think they want.  If he is making that up, he is saying so very publicly.  If he is accurately reporting his experience, I don't think that is grounds for criticism.  Further than that, I have no thoughts on the matter.

Armchair

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by: Armchair @ Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 02:28:36 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Sigh

Ryuei has helped a lot of people understand Nichiren Buddhism better. I'm not going to diss him. My perception, too, is that many former SGI members are interested in Nichiren Shu.

Some of the commenters on his site say he doesn't speak for all of Nichiren Shu. That's a fair point. I got the impression he was speaking about his own perceptions, not making an official statement.

I sigh because...well, the grass is always greener. After I left SGI I dabbled with other sanghas (and still do) but I have come to believe that chanting daimoku is an individual practice -- mostly. It's something you have to do and grow from without a lot of external support.

I have not seen Engyo posting in a long time but he (at least I think he's a he) challenged us as to why we can't hold a Nichiren summit of sorts, where Nichiren practitioners from all the lineages can get together in fellowship.

I think that's a wonderful vision, and I would like to see that happen. This sort of thing -- getting together as a group -- strikes me as a special event, though, not typical of daily practice.

Daily practice is more about facing your own life with all its uncertainty and insecurity and chanting up your own spark of insight that all is well, and you have a role to play in this life, so play it to the hilt.

What group you join (or don't) doesn't make this easier. Just thinking out loud.

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by: brooke @ Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 13:02:09 PM CDT

Well said

When I hugged Mr. Williams and left the NSA HQ for the last time in 1983, I determined to follow the guidance of a very wise priest (who, naturally, was deported from the U.S. by NSA) by the name of Shoubo Sakata.  He said to me, "You know, Cris... when the Daishonin lived and established the greatness of his teaching and his life in Japan, he was all alone.  It was all about what he did by himself and that is how it is for each of us."  We discussed how lovely it would be a truly grass roots Nichiren Sangha naturally evolved throughout the world and then ruefully realized it would probably not happen in our lifetimes.
Over the years, when I have yearned, more than anything else I have ever wanted, for people to chant with and a group to cherish the Gosho with, I have periodically gone back to Sakata and asked, "How about if I go here or there? (meaning anywhere from the Hokkeko to the Danto to the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood [as a would-be acolyte] to Nichiren Shu to just about anywhere I could think of for human spiritual closeness)."  And always his answer has been the same -- "the Daishonin did it on his own and why would you want to jump from the frying pan into the fire?"
Finally, I have realized that any religious organization, by dint of its existence and need for survival, must possess a dogma and the lack of dogma attached to the practice of Daimoku to the Gohonzon is what makes the Daishonin's teaching so totally and universally practicable.
And so, finally in my mature years, I realize that my sangha is contained within the entropy of the relationships I have built with a number of Nichiren believers, both lay and priestly, both organizationally attached and not, over the years.  Still, the notion of a Nichiren Sangha gathering, as proposed by Brooke, does resonate.  Count me in. But, for now, I count my blessings and appreciate my fortune at being able to travel almost anywhere in this land and find those with whom I can chant.
I used to think Nichiren's protestations about the rarity of being able to embrace the Lotus Sutra and "easy to begin, but difficult to continue" were simply encouragement meant to inspire us in the quest to spread a religion that would certainly envelop the world within my life.  Now I realize they were true and, in that realization, celebrate every day my appreciation at being one of very few in the vanguard of practicing a spiritual teaching which, like so many universal truths, may take centuries, if not millenia to establish itself in global mainstream consciousness.

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by: crisro @ Thu Apr 23, 2009 at 19:23:47 PM CDT