Waking the Buddha by Clark Strand Read Free Book Online

and a woman whose mother was opposed to her Buddhist practice.
    â€œDo you think your mother would have objected to you joining a religious group other than the Soka Gakkai?” he asked the woman.
    â€œIf it had been one of the established Buddhist schools like Pure Land or Zen, I don’t think she would mind,” was her answer.
    â€œIt’s not surprising that your mother has some reservations about your practice,” admitted Ikeda. “Nichiren Buddhism is a philosophy on the forefront of the times that is opening the way toward the future.”
    At bottom, I think this is precisely what Magnus was responding to. A new paradigm always looks unfamiliar. He might have had a harder time mustering opposition to a Zen temple, with its overtly religious architecture and shaven-headed priests, or to a Tibetan Buddhist shrine with monks in maroon robes coming and going through its doors. The SGI has no dress code, no priests or monks, and no identifiable architectural style. It has preserved the substance of the religious life and let the appearance of religion fall away.
    What remains when the formality and convention of religious worship have been dispensed with? I believe the answer is really very simple: a concern for basic human values—core
life values
such as peace, happiness, and security; good friends, good food, and good water— that are common to any and all religious traditions of every country around the globe. Perhaps for that reason, to the average person they sometimes don’t seem religious anymore. There is nothing about such values that marks them as uniquely Jewish or Christian, Muslim or Buddhist, and nothing that roots them exclusively in the soil of any particular land. They simply reflect what every human being wants and needs. That an ordinary, educated person would think religious worship was something
other
than meeting to share such basic human concerns, to discuss how best to address them in ordinary daily life, and to offer one another encouragement in actually doing so, probably says more about the limits of modern religious education than it does about the Soka Gakkai. There is nothing wrong with the Soka Gakkai’s form of worship. The problem lies in the split between religion and life that exists in the minds of most modern educated people.
    It was the desire to heal that split which motivated Tsunesaburo Makiguchi to establish the tradition of holding monthly discussion meetings. Once when he was asked whether it might be better to have formal lectures instead of a discussion format, President Makiguchi explained that this would defeat the purpose of meeting to practice Nichiren Buddhism, which empowered individuals to make positive changes in their lives. To accomplish that they had to speak to one another about life’s problems through open dialogue, and that would never happen if he just lectured and everybody was sitting there taking notes.
    I believe that Makiguchi’s response points out a fundamental difference between the old religious paradigm and the new. Really, there is very little difference between a lecture and a sermon. A sermon format, which privileges the authority of the speaker over his or her listeners, is well suited to maintaining conformity in religious settings. (In other words, it is effective in making sure that the religious vision of the lecturer remains the norm.) But it is rarely empowering. By contrast, at a discussion meeting, every voice is heard. Such meetings are egalitarian in spirit, democratic in practice, and decidedly life-affirming in their vision of how Buddhist practice might contribute to the happiness of the individual and, in so doing, provide the foundation for a happy society. “Religion exists to resonate vibrantly within each person,” writes Daisaku Ikeda. “Even if one discusses the happiness of all human beings, if it is spoken of apart from the happiness of a single human being, that is