CategoryGlobal Perspective

Click on the link below to read the university speeches. The Enduring Self (UCLA, 1974) The Age of ‘Soft Power’ (Harvard, 1991) Mahayana Buddhism and Twenty-First-Century Civilization (Harvard, 1993) Radicalism Reconsidered (Claremont McKenna, January 1993) Peace and Human Security (East-West Center, January 1995)

On June 13, 1996, Ikeda Sensei spoke at Columbia University, the “premier institute for graduate study in education in the United States,” outlining the shared qualities of bodhisattvas and global citizens and how humanistic education is the key to fostering such people. Founding Soka Gakkai Presidents Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda never set foot outside

Speaking at Harvard University two years after his 1991 lecture there, Ikeda Sensei explores how the Mahayana Buddhist view of life and death holds the key to a 21st century that embraces the interconnectedness of all life.

At Harvard University, Ikeda Sensei highlights the shift from “hard power” to “soft power” as the driving force for change and discusses the role of a philosophy of self-motivation in cementing this change.

Ikeda Sensei’s speech delivered at the University of California, Los Angeles, April 1, 1974.

At Claremont McKenna College, Ikeda Sensei discusses the differences between radicalism that resorts to violence and gradualism based on dialogue and self-motivated change. Just over a year after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ikeda Sensei delivered a lecture at Claremont McKenna College, a private liberal arts institution with a curricular emphasis on government and

At the East-West Center, Ikeda Sensei discusses the departure point for lasting peace and human security: the renewal and invigoration of the human being. In October 1960, Ikeda Sensei began his worldwide travels for peace, starting from Hawaii. Incidentally, that same year, the U.S. Congress established the East–West Center in Honolulu to foster better relations

Bryan Wilson and Daisaku Ikeda

Nur Yalman and Daisaku Ikeda

Excerpts From Ikeda Sensei’s Annual Peace Proposals: Change Through Dialogue

Aurelio Peccei and Daisaku Ikeda

The heart of the SGI’s peace movement can be found in Nichiren Daishonin’s statement, “Life is the foremost of all treasures.” This sentiment is no more persuasively expressed than in the landmark Declaration for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, which second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda delivered in September 1957 and which, thus, marked the

René Huyghe and Daisaku Ikeda

Excerpts From Ikeda Sensei’s Annual Peace Proposals: World Citizen Education

Chingiz Aitmatov and Daisaku Ikeda

Excerpts From Ikeda Sensei’s Annual Peace Proposals: World Citizen Education

Nelson Mandela and Daisaku Ikeda

Excerpts From Ikeda Sensei’s Annual Peace Proposals: Combating Poverty

Where Ethics, Medicine and Spirituality Converge René Simard, Guy Bourgeault and Daisaku Ikeda

On the 50th anniversary of second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda’s Declaration for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, SGI members cosponsored the Civil Society Peace Forum at The Cooper Union in New York, on September 8, 2007. The following is Ikeda Sensei’s message to this event, where he emphasizes key points in the campaign to