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Editorial

Let’s Soar Into the Skies With All Our Might! 

Soaring higher—SGI Guam Ikeda Peace and Culture Center in Tamuning, Guam, January 2023. Photo by Dong Wong Lee / Klaram.

The following message by Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada was translated from the January 2025 issue of the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal, Daibyakurenge. 

Soar!”—what a powerful word, brimming with hope!

Like a sleek jet plane, our Youthful Soka Gakkai Worldwide has boldly taken off into the skies of the new year. As long as we keep soaring higher, our hearts brimming with hope, we can break through the darkest clouds, turning even adverse headwinds to our advantage. Then we will be able to fully savor the blue skies of triumph and happiness, illuminated by the brightly shining sun.

The starting point for the Soka Gakkai’s great ascent can be found in the history of mentor and disciple, when Ikeda Sensei waged a valiant and indomitable struggle to support his mentor, Josei Toda, at a time when his businesses were facing their greatest difficulties.

It was over the New Year’s holiday in 1950, during that most turbulent period, that Mr. Toda laid the first foundations of what was to become “Toda University,” creating the springboard for the Soka Gakkai’s development into a global movement.

His lectures were not about cramming facts into his pupil’s head: they were an earnest life-to-life interaction between mentor and disciple. The disciple, perfectly united with his mentor, sprinted forward with all his might in every area—in his work, in organizational activities and in his daily studies. Like an airplane taxiing at full speed against a headwind in preparation for takeoff, this dynamic energy enabled the Soka Gakkai to take flight and soar into the skies.

As an accomplished graduate of Toda University, Sensei traveled throughout the world, stirring up a whirlwind of dialogue and developing an extensive humanistic network. In 1973, the European Conference, the Pan-American League and the Southeast Asian Buddhist Cultural Council were established one after the other, to enable Soka Gakkai organizations in these regions to work together to inspire and cooperate with one another. The founding of the SGI is a direct result of Sensei’s steady efforts to lay the groundwork for worldwide kosen-rufu.

On the occasion of the establishment of the SGI on Jan. 26, 1975, he expressed his hopes for the members: “Rather than seeking after your own praise or glory, I hope that you will dedicate your noble lives to sowing the seeds of peace of the Mystic Law throughout the entire world.” Now, a half-century later, those seeds have sprouted marvelously, and the smiling faces of young people are blossoming across the globe. In the next 50 years, those youthful successors will plant more seeds, and yet more glorious flowers will adorn our world.

In January 2000, Sensei spoke to members in the Hokuriku region—the part of Japan where his mentor was born: “As long as we keep striving, we will find a way forward. As long as we keep striving, we are sure to thrive; we will never become deadlocked.” Today, a year after the devastating Noto Peninsula Earthquake, let’s embrace this spirit of changing poison into medicine and advance together.

Brave like the eagle, “the king of all creatures that fly in the sky” (“The Sutra of True Requital,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 930), let’s celebrate January, the month of Sensei’s birth, by soaring high and achieving great victories!

January 10, 2025 World Tribune, p. 11

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