TagMonthly Message

The following encouragement from Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the July 2018 Living Buddhism, pp. 4–5. Part one appears in the May 20, 2022, World Tribune, p. 10. Interestingly, some plant seeds can remain viable for centuries or even millennia. In 1951, the year that my mentor, Josei Toda, was inaugurated as second Soka

Originally published in the June 2022 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. Nichiren Daishonin writes, “If the [source] is inexhaustible, the stream will never run dry” (“Flowering and Bearing Grain,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 909). It is the Soka Gakkai’s unsurpassed honor to have an everlasting source in its founding

Originally published in the May 2022 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. “Start anew with a fresh spirit!”—that’s the message I imparted to our Soka Gakkai Sports Division members. Whatever your present condition, the key is to always start anew and tackle the next challenge with a fresh spirit. We have the writings of Nichiren

This encouragement from Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the July 2018 Living Buddhism, pp. 4–5.  We, the members of the Soka family, are the sowers of seeds. We sow the seeds of the Mystic Law, the supreme seeds of happiness and peace, spreading them far and wide.  Nichiren Daishonin, the Buddha of the Latter

Originally published in the April 2022 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. In “The Parable of the Medicinal Herbs,” the fifth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, we find the beautiful expression “human flowers” (The Lotus Sutra and Its Opening and Closing Sutras, p. 142). I recall my conversation with South Africa’s great humanitarian leader

Originally published in the March 2022 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. As human beings, we cannot be more than human beings, nor do we need to be. Nichiren Daishonin opened the way for all human beings, just as they are, to shine their brightest, with supreme nobility, dignity and humanity. Praising Sage Nichimyo,

Originally published in the February 2022 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. I am reminded of a passage from Nichiren Daishonin’s writings that my mentor, second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda, and I spoke about as we walked along the street one chilly winter night, gazing up at the luminous full moon: The moon

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the January 2022 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. In my conversations with leading thinkers in Japan and around the world, they often say how impressed they are by our members, some calling them precious treasures of humanity and remarking how struck they are

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the December 2021 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. Faith is the deepest, noblest and most powerful conviction—unshakable, inviolable and unyielding. The starting point of his great struggle to spread the Mystic Law, Nichiren Daishonin says, was his “resolve to withstand the harshest trials”

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the November 2021 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. In this month of the anniversary of our founding [November], let us once again join in expressing our gratitude to Soka women around the world, the shining suns of kosen-rufu. I am reminded of a

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the October 2021 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. In October 1961, when I saw with my own eyes the Berlin Wall that had been built just two months earlier, I was outraged by the forces of evil that divide and separate people. It

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the September 2021 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. Four decades have passed since I called out “Youth, scale the mountain of kosen-rufu of the 21st century!” in a poem of that same title I composed in Oita, Kyushu, a place so close to

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the August 2021 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. I once shared the following words of Nichiren Daishonin with our dedicated statistics department members, whose careful and accurate behind-the-scenes efforts have been crucial to the development of kosen-rufu: “Though the 4,994,828 men and women

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the July 2021 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. When I was young and struggling with illness, my mentor, second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda, once encouraged me by having me read this passage from The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings: Our head

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the June 2021 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. Those who practice Nichiren Buddhism just as Nichiren Daishonin teaches are certain to become happy and win in life. That is the essence of the Soka Gakkai’s “faith for absolute victory.” Our founding president, Tsunesaburo

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the May 2021 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. My mentor, second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda, declared: “The reason for our appearance in this world is to hold high the great banner of kosen-rufu.” These were the closing words of his article titled

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the April 2021 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. In 1951, just ahead of his inauguration as second Soka Gakkai president, my mentor, Josei Toda, began preparing for the publication of the first issue of the Seikyo Shimbun, the Soka Gakkai’s newspaper. He demonstrated

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the March 2021 Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. As we enter the month of March, I’m reminded of the triumphant lion’s roar of my mentor, second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda [on March 16, 1958]: “The Soka Gakkai is the king of the

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the February 2021 issue of the Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. We are the conductors of our own lives. We hold the baton, directing the flow of our precious life’s music through the days and years of our existence in this world. Nichiren

This monthly encouragement by Ikeda Sensei was originally published in the January 2021 issue of the Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal. Kosen-rufu is a journey of mentor and disciple continuing from the infinitely distant past into the eternal future. Year after year, we call forth and welcome to our movement many new Bodhisattvas