The 2024 documentary Join or Die opens with a man sharing why he signed up for a fraternal society in Waxahachie, Texas, two decades earlier, shortly after his brother had died. “I was needing some brotherhood in my life,” he says. “When I came here, I knew I had found myself a spot where I was going to stick.”
The film, whose tagline is “why you should join a club … and why the fate of America depends on it,” is told through the eyes of the eminent social scientist Robert Putnam, whose 2000 book Bowling Alone drew on vast data to dissect the roots of our country’s decades-long civic unraveling.
Putnam argued that in the late 1960s, social capital, which he defined as features of social organizations, such as networks, norms and trust that facilitate action and cooperation for mutual benefit,[1] began a long, steady decline in the U.S. At around the same time, a new network of human connection was coming into its own: the Soka Gakkai district discussion meeting. At these monthly, neighborhood-based gatherings, now going on 64 years, members and their friends gather as equals to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo together, discuss Buddhist principles and hold informal discussions about the very real joys and sufferings of life. Today, these focal points of human connection take place in some 2,400 neighborhoods across the country.
Ikeda Sensei, who established the first U.S. districts on his first voyage to the U.S. in October 1960, writes that, when we speak of the tradition of district discussion meetings, it doesn’t refer to our long-held history of holding them but rather to the tradition of valuing the individual, which is epitomized in these gatherings:
In the eyes of society, our discussion meetings may seem very simple, modest gatherings, involving a small number of individuals and not particularly noteworthy. But these meetings are based on a profound philosophy that teaches the Law pervading the entire universe. They have a warmth that embraces everyone. They brim with irrepressible hope that can inspire even those overwhelmed by painful karma to get back on their feet again. They are joyful, inspiring and often deeply moving. Soka Gakkai discussion meetings are oases where ordinary people gather; they reverberate with a spirit of fresh resolve and gratitude, where suffering is transformed into courage, and exhaustion into a satisfying sense of fulfillment.[2]
Lawrence E. Carter Sr., dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, went so far as to say that the SGI’s “house meetings” overcome structural violence.
“Structural violence is communication that does not allow for feedback,” Dr. Carter said during a March 2019 book-signing event in Los Angeles for his spiritual memoir A Baptist Preacher’s Buddhist Teacher. “You’ve got the platform, the mechanism and the instrument to get pastoral care closer to where people are living.”[3]
This November, the SGI-USA is focusing on connecting and reconnecting with people—members, friends, everyone—and meeting together at their district general meetings, to provide a beacon of hope, as we mark one year since Ikeda Sensei’s passing.
As we prepare for vibrant and powerful November discussion meetings, the World Tribune spoke with district leaders across the country who are gathering their community by connecting life-to-life and chanting for each person’s victory.
—Prepared by the World Tribune staff
We don’t just send out the schedule by email, but also work with the chapter leaders to deliver it to pioneer members and those who are unable to participate very often.
—Lucas Creek District, Virginia
We reach out to members one by one and visit them at their homes. We chant with them, encourage them and sometimes connect deeper over brunch.
—Perimeter District, Georgia
Because we practice in an outlying area, we are able to form stronger bonds with our guests and youth who don’t have cars through our dialogues as we transport them to and from the meetings.
—State College District, Pennsylvania
We strive to treasure each day as an opportunity to interact with others positively as a global family. With that spirit, we visit each of our members and learn from them about their journey and how to encourage them.
—Lake Whatcom District, Washington
While our schedules are hectic, we chant with heartfelt conviction that each member will live a life filled with beauty, benefit and good, and we truly enjoy the SGI activities we have in our limited time.
—South West Cary District, North Carolina
We are working hard to foster more unit leaders so that the
entire district can get to know one another and talk openly about their various experiences.
—Cedar Park District, Texas
We pray for each member to overcome their worries and challenges, pray for the health of the members of the district, pray for no accidents and for our district to be full of smiling faces.
—Sutton/Beekman District, New York
We have seen moving from Zoom planning and study meetings to in person—which includes doing gongyo and chanting together—has strengthened unity and contributes to a sense of community.
—New Era Oxnard District, California
We have regular member care meetings and go through our membership list to make sure we have planned care of every member and guest in our district.
—Chandler District, Arizona
We chant together, sit together at Soka 2030 on Sunday mornings and frequently update one another on our progress with our personal challenges.
—Brookline-President District, Massachusetts
When we make sincere efforts to support the members and guests, there always seems to be a breakthrough. That energy appears in the meeting as joyful faith experiences and participants’ glowing life conditions.
—Royal Oak District, Michigan
One of the most enjoyable treats in life is introducing people to this wonderful practice. One of our group women’s leader’s home is always open for people to chant and have meetings.
—Desert Hot Springs District, California
Connecting Life-to-Life
The Soka Gakkai is made up of all kinds of people. Some may refuse to meet or speak with other members, while others perhaps joined as children along with their parents but do not consider themselves believers. We may even come across members highly critical of the Soka Gakkai. Others may be suffering so deeply from financial difficulties or illness that they have lost all hope.
It is no easy task to visit the homes of such members, to try and make conversation, forge bonds of friendship, talk about the importance of faith, and teach them about chanting and Buddhist principles. Doing so is far more challenging than talking with members we see at meetings or organizing various activities.
But it is these very efforts that enable us to polish ourselves. In striving to help others grow, we grow too. Furthermore, struggling in this way constitutes true Buddhist practice. Promoting activities together with those who regularly attend meetings is simple, but this in itself will not enable Nichiren Buddhism to spread. To concern ourselves only with such members would be comparable to the captain of a ship bound for a distant shore being content with sailing around the harbor. Leaders must realize that the main stage of Soka Gakkai activities is not meetings themselves but the hard work that takes place beyond the meetings.
The network of life-to-life bonds that is the Soka Gakkai was built through the efforts of individuals to visit and personally encourage their fellow members. Just as a broad interwoven network of roots that sink deep into the earth supports a mighty tree, it is the consistent and painstaking actions of members to offer personal guidance at the grassroots level that hold up the Soka Gakkai.
—Ikeda Sensei, from The New Human Revolution, vol. 8, revised edition, pp. 86–87
November 1, 2024, World Tribune, pp. 6–7
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