Word: gakkai
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...self-ordained Christian missionary (and self-made millionaire) whose message of repentance was blatted across the U.S. last year by thousands of zealous young converts to his Unification Church (TIME, Sept. 30). Yet another prophet is Daisaku Ikeda, 46, president and spiritual leader of Japan's Soka Gakkai (Value-Creation Society), a laymen's Buddhist organization. Ikeda is fast earning a reputation as a super missionary for peace...
...peace," Ikeda last year was received by both Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin and Chinese Premier Chou Enlai. When he visits the U.S. this week to address his organization's 200,000 converts in the country, Ikeda will meet U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim to inform him that Soka Gakkai has collected 10 million signatures against nuclear armament...
...current fascination with Buddhism in the U.S. centers on three distinctly different varieties: Zen, Tibetan and Nichiren Shoshu of America, the U.S. branch of Japan's 20th century, militantly evangelistic Soka Gakkai, which bears little resemblance to classical Buddhism of any kind. Nichiren Shoshu claims more than 100,000 members in the U.S.-mostly neat, middle-class individuals who commit themselves to hour after hour of chanting the sect's brief ritual prayer, often for the material prosperity and success that they believe such chanting brings...
JAPAN'S militant Nichiren Shoshu sect of Buddhism, better known as Soka Gakkai (the Value Creation Society), is a phenomenally successful blend of 13th century Buddhist theology and 20th century power-of-positive-thinking. Scarcely 3,000 strong in 1945, the sect numbers 8,000,000 members today, including at least 100,000 in the U.S. It was the founding force and remains the sustaining power behind Japan's third largest political party, the Komeito (Clean Government) Party. Its formula for success, both personal and collective, is simple: the relentless chanting of a brief ritual prayer before replicas...
When it came to building a suitable new shrine for Nichiren's sacred tablet, the Soka Gakkai devotees decided to proceed in typical grandiose style. In a four-day fund-raising blitz in 1965, they collected more than $100 million for the project. This week, at the sect's headquarters on the lower slopes of Mount Fuji, followers are concluding seven days of ceremonies to celebrate the opening of the new High Sanctuary, a mammoth ten-acre complex including a plaza that can accommodate 60,000 worshipers. The steel, aluminum and concrete structure, embellished with rare marble inside...