I still remember what my mentor, Mr. Toda, said to me one day as he looked out at the sunset sea in his hometown of Atsuta Village in Hokkaido: “It’s a big, wide world. There are still people who weep in anguish and children who cower in the crossfire of war. You must illuminate Asia and the entire world with the flame of the Mystic Law. You must do this in my place.” …I would like to present our youthful Bodhisattvas of the Earth, whose hearts are one with mine, with the words my mentor said to me in the past, and ask that they strive “in my place.”

From the October 2024 Living Buddhism, p. 53