HARMONY - Nov 2011

Special Feature: Beauty, Gain & Good

Dear members and friends of SGI,

Each November we celebrate the founding of the Soka Gakkai.

In honor of the occasion, this month our Special Features will look at Mr. Makiguchi’s perspective on creating value. It is important for us, as an organization promoting peace, culture and education, to examine our roots.

On November 18th, 1930, two years after embracing Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, together with his disciple and fellow teacher Josei Toda, published the first volume of The System of Value-Creating Pedagogy.  It is from this date that we recognize the establishment of our organization.

When I first learned that educators had formed the Soka Gakkai, I was unsure as to the correlation or how this came about.  After all, we are lay believers of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism, not teachers, professors or academics, not most of us anyway.  So what was the connection, that through education we lay the foundation for future life experiences and behavior?

As President Ikeda explains:

“Mr. Makiguchi found that Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism recognizes and seeks to develop the wisdom inherent in all human being. It correlated with his personal views on education and thus he considered it a philosophy of popular education. Mr. Makiguchi felt that in Buddhism he had found the means by which to realize the ideals he had pursued throughout his life–a movement for social reform through education.”

With the happiness and wellbeing of humanity at the core, Mr. Makiguchi & Mr. Toda worked tirelessly to lay a solid foundation for the firm establishment of the Soka Gakkai.  They had the courage to stand up for their beliefs, even in the face of sever persecution, including imprisonment.  It is because of this conviction that the Soka Gakkai exists today.

Under the leadership of our current president, Daisaku Ikeda, our organization has expanded to 192 counties and territories along with the establishment of the Soka Education System.

We hope that in this issue you will gain a greater understanding of how and why a pair of educators came about to establish what is now a dynamic organization that gives hope to people the world over.

Robert “Skip” Williams
editor-in-chief

Available at all HKSGI Culture Centres