This section features Ikeda Sensei’s seminal guidance to the members of the United States. The following is an abridgement of his speech given at the Youth Training Session, held at Soka University Los Angeles, Calabasas, California, February 25, 1990. The full speech can be found in My Dear Friends in America, fourth edition, pp. 76–83.
There are various kinds of careers and roles that people fill in society. While each role, of course, has significance, the fundamental role that we each play as a Buddhist is that of a philosopher of life and of humanity who can impart eternal value to humankind. There are leaders in all areas of human endeavor. We are leaders of happiness and creators of peace. In this sense, our role is unique.
Please deepen your awareness of this vital role and further exert yourselves in your practice and study of Buddhism. I sincerely hope that you will grow to be leaders of a new era of the SGI-USA who combine profound wisdom and human warmth.
All of you are young. Because life is long, you should not be impatient. What matters most is that you embrace the Gohonzon throughout your life. It is vitally important to continually challenge yourself to chant even a little more daimoku and to pray before the Gohonzon for the fulfillment of your desires.
So long as you maintain this attitude in faith, the seed of Buddhahood planted in your life will continue to grow. On some occasions, you may be unable to do gongyo, or you may only be able to chant daimoku. Nevertheless, so long as you maintain faith, you will not experience negative effects on account of your occasional failure to carry out a complete practice of gongyo. While you should not take advantage of this statement or misconstrue it as condoning a lax or lazy attitude, you don’t have to be overly strict or inflexible either.
Buddhism aims to make people free in the most profound sense; its purpose is not to restrict or constrain. Doing gongyo is a right, not an obligation. Because Buddhism entails practice, tenacious efforts are required, but these are all for your own sake. If you want to have great benefits or to develop a profound state of life, you should exert yourself accordingly. …
SGI-USA Members Are All Equal
All members of a family are equal. In terms of the organization, the father corresponds to the men’s division, the mother to the women’s division, the brothers and sisters to the youth division, and there are others who belong to the guidance division or who are students.
Although each member of the SGI-USA family has a different situation, they are all the Buddha’s children who enjoy equal rights. In fact, the higher one’s position, the heavier the responsibility one assumes. Try to imagine, for example, a family where the father alone eats good food and the children cry in hunger. This is not a home. Parents want their children to eat, even if they themselves can have nothing.
Nichiren Daishonin warmly encourages a female disciple: “If anything at all happens, please come over here. I will welcome you. Let us die of starvation together among the mountains” (“The Supremacy of the Law,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishoinin, vol. 1, p. 616). What compassion the Daishonin shows!
The family is a unit where all joys and sorrows are shared among its members. As a result, the sadness is more than halved and the happiness more than doubled. Neither orders, authority, nor threats can unite a family. It is love, harmony and consideration that bind its members to one another. In a family, there is no particular need for a hero. What is needed is a strong father who can protect everyone and a mother who is impartial, fair and kind.
In a family, if one person is unhappy, then so is the entire family. Therefore, in the SGI- USA, I would like you to sincerely pray for and protect one another so that there are no people who are unfortunate and unhappy, or who will abandon their faith, and that every person will become happy. These are the kinds of humanistic bonds that give birth to true unity. Coercion or force stemming from power and authority is ineffective at critical moments.
The point is that Buddhism exists for the sake of each person’s happiness. The same can be said of the organization. The organization exists for the sake of the people, not the other way around. To embrace and protect all individuals, leading them to happiness and attaining Buddhahood—this is why the organization exists. …
Companions of Kosen-rufu From Time Without Beginning
We are family not only in this lifetime. Rather, we have been brothers and sisters from time without beginning. To view our relationship only in terms of this single lifetime is extremely shallow; it is to assume the view of pre-Lotus Sutra teachings and the theoretical teaching of the Lotus Sutra, both of which held that Shakyamuni attained enlightenment for the first time in India.
To see our relationship as that of companions spanning the three existences of past, present and future is to accept the point of view of time without beginning that is expounded in the essential teaching of the Lotus Sutra. In other words, together we are carrying out an ongoing struggle, from now into the future, to advance kosen-rufu, to promote peace and culture for the sake of humanity.
I would like you to build an enviable, endearing SGI-USA family, of which those around you will say: “Those people seem truly happy. How warm the light from the window of that SGI-USA house looks!” Steadily infusing society with smiling faces and hope, please construct, with the Mystic Law as your foundation, an eternal family of peace and a happy and beautiful America.
I would like to conclude today by saying that I will watch over you throughout my life while praying for your great growth.
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