Holy Wars in Buddhism
My journey into Buddhism began several years ago shortly after the passing of my wife. I had joined the lay Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai and have absolutely no regrets. They taught me practice of Nichiren Buddhism and have been a valuable resource to have all my questions about Buddhism answered.
I was so thirsty for knowledge that I went to as many meetings as I could possible go to, in hopes of learning more about the life of Nichiren and Shakyamuni
Once I had a good understanding of the basics, it seemed that more and more emphasis was placed on shakubuku, or the propagation of this Buddhism. I fully understand how any organization, religious or not, Buddhist or baseball needs to actively have a means of bringing new members in order for the organization to grow. In our chapter it seemed to be more of an obsession. Each meeting revolved around recruitment and very little attention was giving to the basics of the practice.
This trend continued and as it did I attended fewer and fewer meetings. I still enjoyed the practice and have full faith it as the correct teaching and on a daily basis I chant and continue to receive incredible benefits. I’m still actively telling everyone I can about the practice and how wonderful it is, but at this point I am totally embarrassed to bring them to a meeting and have opted to provide them with alternative resources which will be a topic for another post in the future.
So here I am, happily going to my weekly toso which primarily consist of group chanting and some study along with our monthly meeting at our state’s activity center. Then while in a personal conversation with another member one of our more enthusiastic leaders jumps in ranting and raving about the “priesthood issue”. Evidently he got wind that I wasn’t particularly interested in it.
In the past, the Soka Gakkai and the Shoshu Temple worked in harmony. The Temple being clergy based and SGI the lay arm. Long story short, they had a falling out. I’m not even going to go into details on this as 1) it was before my time and I have no first had involvement in it. 2) It’s become very partisan. Each side has their own story and quite frankly I’m not going to devote my life to figure out who’s correct. 3) Leave me alone and let me practice MY Buddhism.
So now, I no longer go to our monthly meetings and am awfully close to dropping my affiliation with the SGI all together and have had several people (from the SGI and other organizations) express interest in forming an ad hoc local group for the purpose of study, advancement and true world peace efforts with an eye towards globalization.
