My Starting Point, August 14

The discussion meeting on that hot, humid midsummer night exactly two years after the war’s end was a lively drama of ordinary people finding fresh hope in life. But outside, the unlit streets were pitch black, and many parts of Kamata were still dotted with ghastly, burned-out tracts from the wartime bombings. The sufferings of the ordinary, good-hearted citizens, among whom there had been so many tragic victims, were deep and persistent. And young though I was, I also relentlessly asked myself day after day who was responsible for all this pain.

I suffered from tuberculosis, and an ever-present fever left me feeling listless and ill by the end of the day. I was searching for a guiding star, a compass that would lead me to a life of hope. Thus, I placed my trust in the words of a close friend who invited me to attend a discussion on “a philosophy of life,” and without really understanding what kind of gathering it was, I made my way to the meeting place.

I think it was about 8 p.m. when I arrived, because it was already completely dark outside. As I removed my shoes at the doorway, a spirited but somewhat hoarse voice resounded from the interior. This was the first time I ever heard the voice of Josei Toda. He was giving a lecture on “On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land,” a work in which Nichiren Daishonin proclaims the establishment of his great philosophy for attaining a peaceful society.

I learned later that this lecture was part of a recently commenced lecture series on this treatise by Mr. Toda, and that he was conducting it in addition to a lecture series on the Lotus Sutra that had begun the previous year.

At the lecture he gave at my first meeting, Mr. Toda poured all of his passion and determination into sounding a warning to people in society. It was a lion’s roar proclaiming the very essence of Nichiren Buddhism.

Mr. Toda’s lecture did not present an antiquated, dead Buddhism. It revealed a great path with the promise of a brilliantly shining future, a path that overflowed with tremendous conviction and dynamism.

While Aug. 15, 1945, was the day when Japan announced its defeat in World War II, it was on Aug. 14 that it formally accepted the Allies’ Potsdam Declaration and agreed to end the war. Aug. 14, therefore, effectively marked the collapse of militarist Japan with its narrow-minded ignorance of the outside world.

During its years in power, the militarist regime in Japan cruelly oppressed and punished those who advocated freedom and peace, people whose convictions were based on a correct view of life. Although Japan had arrogantly invaded many of its Asian neighbors, it donned the mask of self-righteousness and spread about the false propaganda that such blatant acts of imperialism were part of a “sacred war” to liberate fellow Asians from Western colonialism. Such was the childish immaturity that guided Japan in its deranged and evil acts!

In a country still suffering from the aftermath of its miserable defeat, it was destiny that I should meet Mr. Toda on that day, Aug. 14, two years after the war.

I, a youth of burning seeking spirit. And Mr. Toda, a pioneering leader who upheld a great philosophy of peace and had launched a monumental struggle for kosen-rufu, giving rise to a vigorous new people’s movement.

Coincidentally, on that same evening, a new nation in Asia was counting down the minutes to unfurl the banner of independence. It was the eve of India’s declaration of independence—India, the land of Buddhism’s birth.

In a speech before the Indian parliament in New Delhi late that night, Aug. 14, India’s first president Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) said: “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new.”^[1]

As the people of India, which was known in ancient times as the “Land of the Moon,” were opening their eyes to freedom, I encountered the light of the Buddhism of the Sun for the first time, and my young life was awakened.

After concluding his lecture, Mr. Toda held an informal discussion. Chewing on menthol pastilles, he was completely open and natural. He showed none of the puffed-up, arrogant attitude of condescension found in so many phony religious leaders and politicians; he was just himself. Though it was our first meeting, I felt free to ask whatever questions I had in my young heart. I plunged in and asked, somewhat intensely I recall, “Sir, what is the correct way of life?”

I was 13 when the war broke out and 17 when it ended. The most impressionable period of my young life had been shrouded by the dark clouds of war. Moreover, I was ill with tuberculosis. War threatened from without, while tuberculosis threatened from within—the shadow of death always hovered over me. Then with Japan’s defeat, my entire view of life and the world was completely shattered. What was the true way of life for a human being? What should I devote my life to?

Mr. Toda gave me a clear answer filled with conviction and utterly lacking in any intellectual game-playing or dishonesty that obscured the true point of my question. I was tired of adults who were patronizing to young people, so I was especially moved by Mr. Toda’s sincerity. I also couldn’t bear politicians and intellectuals who, though they had sung the praises of war earlier, were suddenly transformed into pacifists after the war ended. The fact that Mr. Toda had been persecuted by the military authorities and spent two years in prison for his beliefs was decisive in my becoming his disciple.

I wanted to be a person who would be prepared to resist any future war, even if it meant going to prison myself. I wanted to live my life as a person of courage who would not bow to any kind of oppression. And I was seeking a practical philosophy to become that kind of person.

Fifty-five years ago, I was just an ordinary youth searching for his path in life. I am convinced that it is precisely because I have devoted myself wholeheartedly to the path of mentor and disciple that I have been able to lead an unsurpassed life dedicated to the highest good.

In a speech I delivered at Teachers College of Columbia University (in June 1996), I declared, as if addressing Mr. Toda: “Ninety-eight percent of what I am today I learned from [my mentor].”^[2] The relationship of mentor and disciple is one unique to human beings. Following the path of mentor and disciple, we can better ourselves as human beings. Herein lies the essence of human existence.

I wish to pass on everything I possess to my youthful successors. I wish to entrust the future to them.

I want you, my disciples, to deeply understand my heart in this regard. 

It was also on Aug. 14—in the summer of 1952, five years after my encounter with my mentor and 50 years ago today—that I first set foot in Osaka and initiated a great struggle for kosen-rufu.

It was nearly dusk when the Tsubame special express train I took crossed the bridge over the Yodogawa River and pulled into Osaka Station. Mr. Toda was scheduled to arrive the following day, Aug. 15. I had made a personal vow to support my mentor behind the scenes in his struggle to build a great citadel of kosen-rufu in Osaka that would rival—no, surpass!—Tokyo. To do that meant personally taking bold initiative on the front lines of our movement to expand kosen-rufu. And so immediately upon my arrival in Osaka, I rushed to a discussion meeting in Sakai City.

The next day, a special seminar on Buddhism with Mr. Toda as the main speaker was held at the Otemae Hall in front of Osaka Castle. I was also one of the speakers. Finding that I had a little bit of time left before the meeting began, I went outside to help the Osaka members hand out leaflets advertising the event. Words brimming with the eager spirit to share Buddhism with others danced across the surface of the cheap paper.

As one of the team, I handed leaflets to passersby and urged them to attend. Soon my shirt was dripping with sweat. No one appreciated our efforts. All I saw were suspicious faces or glances filled with either hostility or curiosity. But I endured their looks and simply continued to call out to them with all my youthful vigor and sincerity. My being was filled with wordless joy at being able to work alongside my mentor as his disciple to realize his great wish of achieving kosen-rufu without fail.

The path of mentor and disciple does not lie in some far distant place. It is found in our actual struggles for the happiness of others.

Four years later, during the landmark Osaka Campaign of 1956, our Osaka members and I achieved an indestructible record of victory by welcoming 11,111 new member households to the Soka Gakkai in a single month. This record remains unbroken to this day. Being victorious is the hallmark of a genuine disciple. For when a disciple is defeated, it is a defeat for mentor and disciple alike.

In the 21st century, we are advancing intrepidly toward a towering new mountain range. My proud fellow members! Let us once again write a brilliant history of high-spirited, unprecedented triumph for all eternity, forever following the path of mentor and disciple and adorning our lives with total victory!

Mr. Toda said: “Even with Soka Gakkai leaders, the more negligent a person is, the more arrogant they tend to be. Leaders who have a really solid practice and understanding of faith and who diligently apply themselves to Buddhist study are never arrogant.” He also strongly admonished time and time again, “Nothing is set into motion without passion!”

August 2, 2024, World Tribune, pp. 2–3