Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The Writer's Path (Eng Version only)
The Writer's Path
by Daisaku Ikeda
In the autumn of 1937, when he was eight years old, Chingiz Aitmatov boarded a train at Moscow's Kazan Station with his mother, younger brother and two younger sisters. His father came to see them off.
“Why are we leaving?” Chingiz wondered. He couldn’t figure out why his father was suddenly sending them all back home to Kyrgyzstan. His father, a respected figure in his community, was a leader in the newly formed Kyrgyz Communist Party. He had come to Moscow with his family to study.
But the Stalinist purges, which are said to have claimed the lives of tens of millions, had begun. Sensing danger, his father was determined to ensure the family’s safety.
Young Aitmatov’s father walked alongside the train with his palm pressed against the window as it began to pull out. As it gathered speed, he started running and continued in stride with the train, right to the end of the platform, as if to prolong his farewell to the last possible moment. His children innocently waved good-bye to him, unaware of the significance of the moment. Aitmatov remembers that the day was September 1. He recalls it every time he passes Kazan Station. “Father, you knew that was our final farewell . . .”
Kyrgyzstan is a beautiful land, with vast grasslands and the Tien Shan Mountains ranging high into the clear blue skies. It is blessed with crystal streams, azure lakes shimmering with silver waves; its green hills are blanketed with poplars, and the night skies glow with countless stars.
In the midst of all this natural beauty, in the remote village that was their home, the Aitmatov family had to live as virtual outcasts.
When Chingiz’s mother asked the Party what had become of her husband, she was told he was sentenced to ten years in prison without permission to write or receive letters. That, of course, was a lie. He had already been executed, just two months after their farewell at the station. He was only 35.
When the family returned to Kyrgyzstan, the youngest child was only six months old. Though their mother was in poor health, she had to shoulder the full weight of caring for her family. She raised her children while working as an accountant for one of the local collective farms. Chingiz Aitmatov worked in the fields from the time he was a child.
The neighbors cast a cold eye on the family, who didn’t even dare speak their father’s name out loud. Many villagers assumed that since their father was being punished he must have done something bad. There were times when the young Aitmatov didn’t even want to tell people his last name.
But there were some in the village who did not allow their vision to be clouded by the swirl of events. One was an elementary school teacher who said to Chingiz: “Never look down when you say your father’s name. Do you understand?” These words became a lifelong treasure to him.
“That teacher gave me courage,” Aitmatov says.
I first met Mr. Aitmatov in Tokyo in 1988, when he was traveling the world as a spokesperson for the perestroika reforms of President Mikhail Gorbachev. Later he became a member of the Soviet Presidential Council, where he was a supporter of the humanistic political philosophy known as “new thinking.” The moment I shook hands with him, I intuitively felt that he was a man of lion-like courage. His countenance revealed a dauntless spirit. He exuded an air of great strength, passion and sensitivity.
Chingiz Aitmatov was born in December 1928, the same year as myself. “Our generation,” he says, “experienced war when we were young. We have seen what terrible suffering war causes and the starvation and grief war brings. We have also seen how people rise from the ashes of destruction in search of the light of a new age.”
When World War II began, all the able-bodied men in Aitmatov’s village went off to fight. Only the elderly, women and children remained. The Aitmatovs’ life grew even more difficult. They lived in a dilapidated mud-brick shack that had been abandoned.
Struggling against poor health, Mrs. Aitmatov was unable to send all four children to school, so Chingiz had to quit school at 14. But because he excelled in reading and writing, he was chosen to be secretary of the village council. In this capacity, he had to collect taxes from the villagers. This was a truly onerous task for a 14-year-old, as many of the families had lost their main breadwinners and didn’t have enough to eat.
But the job he hated most was delivering the official death notices to the families of soldiers killed in action. When he appeared at the homes of those who had loved ones at the front, they would peer at him with frightened, anxious faces. He would take out of his bag a small piece of paper roughly the size of the palm of his hand bearing the seal of the Soviet army. He had to read out the brief message and then translate it into Kyrgyz.
The mothers would give a heavy sigh that he said sounded like “a mountain of stone collapsing.” A sigh that was filled with a rush of unbearable sorrow as if to say: “Ah, my son will never return! I will never embrace him again . . . That my son should be reduced to this piece of paper!” The young Aitmatov dared not look up but he could not leave. He had no words of comfort to offer them. All he could do was stand there in front of the grieving mother, while an unquenchable anger rose in his heart. Why, he needed to know, were people killing each other? For whom? Are nations nothing more than furnaces that consume people as fuel? And what force had consumed and robbed him of his father?
Since that first encounter, we have met many times. Over the course of wide-ranging discussions, we have found we agree on many issues: The enemy of the people is totalitarianism, whether of the left or right. It is blind and narrow-minded nationalism. It is bureaucracy and authoritarianism. It is the unscrupulous commercialism that will do anything to turn a profit. It is every variety of fanaticism.
Suffering gave strength, depth and breadth to the boy’s spirit. “When I was very young, I saw life from a bright, poetic perspective,” says Aitmatov. “But then it revealed its harsh, raw, painful and heroic aspects to me.”
Now, no matter what grand surroundings he finds himself in, Aitmatov never forgets where he came from. He never forgets the profound debt he owes to the working people who made him who he is.
He believes that in some respects we should all remain “country folk” at heart. We should never lose the smell of the earth, he says, for it is in that very earth that the delicate blossoms of the spirit bloom.
From childhood, his paternal grandmother told him the ancient tales and legends of the people of the steppes and sang to him the old folk songs. When he grew older, he looked for answers to his questions about life in the works of great writers. At the age of 27, he entered the Institute of Literature, attached to the Soviet Writers Federation in Moscow.
Published when he was 29, his novella Jamilya came to the attention of the French author Louis Aragon, who praised it as “the most beautiful love story in the world.”
“The responsibility of a writer,” Chingiz Aitmatov states, “is to bring forth words that capture, through painful personal experience, people’s suffering, pain, faith and hope. This is because a writer is charged with the mission of speaking on behalf of his fellow human beings. Everything that happens in the world happens to me personally.”
Aitmatov knew nothing of his father’s fate for decades. When his mother died, some 30 years after they had said farewell to his father at the station, Aitmatov had her tombstone engraved to say that they both rested there.
Then, twenty years later, his father’s remains were discovered.
A mass grave containing 138 bodies, identified as victims executed by Stalin in 1937, was uncovered on the site of a former brick factory in Kyrgyzstan. Because of the passage of time, the victim’s clothes and shoes had completely disintegrated. But among the remains a piece of paper pierced with a bullet hole was found. It was a written indictment on which the name Trekul Aitmatov was clearly legible. After 54 years, Chingiz Aitmatov was finally reunited with his father.
by Daisaku Ikeda
In the autumn of 1937, when he was eight years old, Chingiz Aitmatov boarded a train at Moscow's Kazan Station with his mother, younger brother and two younger sisters. His father came to see them off.
“Why are we leaving?” Chingiz wondered. He couldn’t figure out why his father was suddenly sending them all back home to Kyrgyzstan. His father, a respected figure in his community, was a leader in the newly formed Kyrgyz Communist Party. He had come to Moscow with his family to study.
But the Stalinist purges, which are said to have claimed the lives of tens of millions, had begun. Sensing danger, his father was determined to ensure the family’s safety.
Young Aitmatov’s father walked alongside the train with his palm pressed against the window as it began to pull out. As it gathered speed, he started running and continued in stride with the train, right to the end of the platform, as if to prolong his farewell to the last possible moment. His children innocently waved good-bye to him, unaware of the significance of the moment. Aitmatov remembers that the day was September 1. He recalls it every time he passes Kazan Station. “Father, you knew that was our final farewell . . .”
Kyrgyzstan is a beautiful land, with vast grasslands and the Tien Shan Mountains ranging high into the clear blue skies. It is blessed with crystal streams, azure lakes shimmering with silver waves; its green hills are blanketed with poplars, and the night skies glow with countless stars.
In the midst of all this natural beauty, in the remote village that was their home, the Aitmatov family had to live as virtual outcasts.
When Chingiz’s mother asked the Party what had become of her husband, she was told he was sentenced to ten years in prison without permission to write or receive letters. That, of course, was a lie. He had already been executed, just two months after their farewell at the station. He was only 35.
When the family returned to Kyrgyzstan, the youngest child was only six months old. Though their mother was in poor health, she had to shoulder the full weight of caring for her family. She raised her children while working as an accountant for one of the local collective farms. Chingiz Aitmatov worked in the fields from the time he was a child.
The neighbors cast a cold eye on the family, who didn’t even dare speak their father’s name out loud. Many villagers assumed that since their father was being punished he must have done something bad. There were times when the young Aitmatov didn’t even want to tell people his last name.
But there were some in the village who did not allow their vision to be clouded by the swirl of events. One was an elementary school teacher who said to Chingiz: “Never look down when you say your father’s name. Do you understand?” These words became a lifelong treasure to him.
“That teacher gave me courage,” Aitmatov says.
I first met Mr. Aitmatov in Tokyo in 1988, when he was traveling the world as a spokesperson for the perestroika reforms of President Mikhail Gorbachev. Later he became a member of the Soviet Presidential Council, where he was a supporter of the humanistic political philosophy known as “new thinking.” The moment I shook hands with him, I intuitively felt that he was a man of lion-like courage. His countenance revealed a dauntless spirit. He exuded an air of great strength, passion and sensitivity.
Chingiz Aitmatov was born in December 1928, the same year as myself. “Our generation,” he says, “experienced war when we were young. We have seen what terrible suffering war causes and the starvation and grief war brings. We have also seen how people rise from the ashes of destruction in search of the light of a new age.”
When World War II began, all the able-bodied men in Aitmatov’s village went off to fight. Only the elderly, women and children remained. The Aitmatovs’ life grew even more difficult. They lived in a dilapidated mud-brick shack that had been abandoned.
Struggling against poor health, Mrs. Aitmatov was unable to send all four children to school, so Chingiz had to quit school at 14. But because he excelled in reading and writing, he was chosen to be secretary of the village council. In this capacity, he had to collect taxes from the villagers. This was a truly onerous task for a 14-year-old, as many of the families had lost their main breadwinners and didn’t have enough to eat.
But the job he hated most was delivering the official death notices to the families of soldiers killed in action. When he appeared at the homes of those who had loved ones at the front, they would peer at him with frightened, anxious faces. He would take out of his bag a small piece of paper roughly the size of the palm of his hand bearing the seal of the Soviet army. He had to read out the brief message and then translate it into Kyrgyz.
The mothers would give a heavy sigh that he said sounded like “a mountain of stone collapsing.” A sigh that was filled with a rush of unbearable sorrow as if to say: “Ah, my son will never return! I will never embrace him again . . . That my son should be reduced to this piece of paper!” The young Aitmatov dared not look up but he could not leave. He had no words of comfort to offer them. All he could do was stand there in front of the grieving mother, while an unquenchable anger rose in his heart. Why, he needed to know, were people killing each other? For whom? Are nations nothing more than furnaces that consume people as fuel? And what force had consumed and robbed him of his father?
Since that first encounter, we have met many times. Over the course of wide-ranging discussions, we have found we agree on many issues: The enemy of the people is totalitarianism, whether of the left or right. It is blind and narrow-minded nationalism. It is bureaucracy and authoritarianism. It is the unscrupulous commercialism that will do anything to turn a profit. It is every variety of fanaticism.
Suffering gave strength, depth and breadth to the boy’s spirit. “When I was very young, I saw life from a bright, poetic perspective,” says Aitmatov. “But then it revealed its harsh, raw, painful and heroic aspects to me.”
Now, no matter what grand surroundings he finds himself in, Aitmatov never forgets where he came from. He never forgets the profound debt he owes to the working people who made him who he is.
He believes that in some respects we should all remain “country folk” at heart. We should never lose the smell of the earth, he says, for it is in that very earth that the delicate blossoms of the spirit bloom.
From childhood, his paternal grandmother told him the ancient tales and legends of the people of the steppes and sang to him the old folk songs. When he grew older, he looked for answers to his questions about life in the works of great writers. At the age of 27, he entered the Institute of Literature, attached to the Soviet Writers Federation in Moscow.
Published when he was 29, his novella Jamilya came to the attention of the French author Louis Aragon, who praised it as “the most beautiful love story in the world.”
“The responsibility of a writer,” Chingiz Aitmatov states, “is to bring forth words that capture, through painful personal experience, people’s suffering, pain, faith and hope. This is because a writer is charged with the mission of speaking on behalf of his fellow human beings. Everything that happens in the world happens to me personally.”
Aitmatov knew nothing of his father’s fate for decades. When his mother died, some 30 years after they had said farewell to his father at the station, Aitmatov had her tombstone engraved to say that they both rested there.
Then, twenty years later, his father’s remains were discovered.
A mass grave containing 138 bodies, identified as victims executed by Stalin in 1937, was uncovered on the site of a former brick factory in Kyrgyzstan. Because of the passage of time, the victim’s clothes and shoes had completely disintegrated. But among the remains a piece of paper pierced with a bullet hole was found. It was a written indictment on which the name Trekul Aitmatov was clearly legible. After 54 years, Chingiz Aitmatov was finally reunited with his father.
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Another Way of Seeing Things (Eng Version only)
Another Way of Seeing Things
by Daisaku Ikeda
I have long felt that Turkey, as a country pivotally linking East and West, North and South, has a unique role to play in fostering the harmony of humankind.
In 1992, on my first visit to Turkey in 30 years, I found myself in Istanbul gazing at the Bosporus Strait. The land on the west side of the narrow strait was Europe; that on the east, Asia. Travelers from the West encounter the cultural richness of the East, and those from the East can encounter the West, champion of modernization. To both, the world begins to show a new and different face.
Turkey is the land of the poet Homer’s birth. It was crossed by the conquering Alexander the Great. Classical Greek civilization once flourished here. During the Byzantine Empire, it was a leading center of the Christian world. And later, under the Ottoman Turks, it was the heart of Islamic civilization.
Mirroring its kaleidoscopic history, Turkey today is a place of immense human diversity. In the towns and cities one can see people with Arab and Mongolian features, people with faces reminiscent of Greek statues, Russian faces, Eastern European faces…
It is as if the land of Turkey is trying to encompass all humanity and make it one, calling out: “West, you may be East in my embrace! East, you may be West in my home!”
For the historian Dr. Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975), Turkey had a particular significance, as it was events in Turkey that prompted him to become a pioneer in looking beyond the Eurocentric view of history. During our conversations in his London apartment, he told me that he had once been forced to quit his post at London University because he had “angered people prejudiced against Turks” with his straightforward reporting of events in Turkey.
Toynbee visited Turkey in 1921, when he was about 32 years old. He had gone to observe the Greco-Turkish War that had been raging for two years. He first observed conditions from the Greek side, then from the Turkish. For Toynbee, guided as he was by Saint Augustine’s injunction “Audi alteram partem” (Hear the other side), this was absolutely crucial. And he placed particular importance on listening to the side that was “the more in danger of not being given a fair hearing.” As he said:
“In the present conflict and controversy between Greeks and Turks, the Greeks were the vocal party once again. The Greeks had the ear of the West, and the West was in the ascendant in the world. I was familiar with the Greeks’ case; I felt that it could take care of itself; the Turks’ case was the one that I must take pains to understand.”
Toynbee traveled to a town where Turkish civilians had been massacred. He witnessed the suffering of Turkish refugees, and was outraged that these atrocities went completely unreported in the West. Writing down the facts exactly as he had seen them, he wired these to the Manchester Guardian, a leading British newspaper. The editor of the paper courageously published the full texts of Toynbee’s reports.
Why “courageously”?
For centuries the Turks had been portrayed in the West as uncivilized savages. To make matters worse, the horrors of the 1915 Armenian Massacre[1] carried out by the Ottoman Turks were still fresh in people’s memories. And indeed, when the articles appeared, the newspaper was besieged by a storm of criticism. People attacked it for shamelessly publishing articles sympathetic to the “unspeakable Turk.” But the paper’s admirable stance of refusing to bend to what Toynbee saw as prejudice against Muslims shines to this day.
At the other end of the spectrum, the article made a deep impression on the Turks. They were astonished that a young Englishman had visited a Turkish refugee camp, that he had impartially recorded what he had seen, and that a British newspaper had actually published it. It was the first time their side of the story had been conveyed to the world. Years later Toynbee animatedly recounted how Turkish people gathered around the newspaper, their faces flushed with excitement as they read his article.
Relying only on information from the West—viewing things always from the Western perspective—does not provide a true picture of the world. There is an African view of the world, a world seen from the Middle East, from Latin America, through the eyes of various ethnic minorities. There is more to international society than just the West.
On his homeward journey by train from Istanbul, Toynbee began to outline what would become his lifework, A Study of History. Based on those notes, he later developed the groundbreaking historical theory—written from a global perspective—that was his great gift to humankind.
Shortly after his return to Britain, Toynbee was forced to resign from his post at London University over what was seen as his support for the Turks. He told me that for the next 33 years, he made his living writing reports on international issues for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, an independent research organization.
The young Toynbee knew it was wrong to stereotype and thus dehumanize people as the Turks had been. It was necessary to get to know individual Turks. He put this conviction into practice, learning Turkish and making friends with Turkish people. “When one becomes personally acquainted with a fellow human being, of whatever religion, nationality, or race, one cannot fail to recognize that he is human like oneself …”
Has the danger of stereotyping people lessened since the days of Dr. Toynbee’s youth? I don’t believe so. In fact, what I call the “tyranny of images”—that is, the propagation of stereotypes and ready-made images—may have even increased.
Much of the information that floods our world has been selected and tailored to fit preconceived notions and stereotypes.
It is vital that we each ask ourselves some important questions. For example: Do I accept without question the images provided to me? Do I believe unconfirmed reports without first examining them? Have I unwittingly allowed myself to become prejudiced? Do I really have a grasp of the facts of the matter? Have I confirmed things for myself? Have I gone to the scene? Have I met the people involved? Have I listened to what they have to say? Am I being swayed by malicious rumors?
I believe that this kind of “inner dialogue” is crucial. This is because people who are aware that they may harbor unconscious prejudices can converse with people of other cultures more easily than those who are convinced that they have no prejudices.
If we think about it, people are not born Turks or Americans. They are not born Palestinians or Jews. These are merely labels.
Each of us is born as a precious entity of life, as a human being. Our mothers didn’t give birth to us thinking, “I’m giving birth to a Japanese” or “I’m giving birth to an Arab.” Their only thought was “May this new life be healthy and grow!”
In any country, a rose is a rose, a violet is a violet, people are people—though they may be called by different names.
Perhaps the clouds and winds high above the blue waters of the Bosporus are whispering among themselves as they gaze down upon humanity: “Wake up! There is no such thing as Americans, no such thing as Iraqis. There is only this boy, this life, called Bob, who happens to live in America; there is only this boy, this life, Mohammed, who happens to live in Iraq. Both are children of Earth. Wake up from this foolishness, this cruel habit of passing hatred and resentment on to the next generation.”
We need to awaken to a common consciousness of being all inhabitants of Earth. This consciousness is not to be found in some distant place. It will not be found on a computer screen. It lies in our hearts, in our ability to share the pain of our fellow human beings. It is the spirit that calls on us: “As long as you are suffering, whoever you are and whatever your suffering may be, I suffer also.”
by Daisaku Ikeda
I have long felt that Turkey, as a country pivotally linking East and West, North and South, has a unique role to play in fostering the harmony of humankind.
In 1992, on my first visit to Turkey in 30 years, I found myself in Istanbul gazing at the Bosporus Strait. The land on the west side of the narrow strait was Europe; that on the east, Asia. Travelers from the West encounter the cultural richness of the East, and those from the East can encounter the West, champion of modernization. To both, the world begins to show a new and different face.
Turkey is the land of the poet Homer’s birth. It was crossed by the conquering Alexander the Great. Classical Greek civilization once flourished here. During the Byzantine Empire, it was a leading center of the Christian world. And later, under the Ottoman Turks, it was the heart of Islamic civilization.
Mirroring its kaleidoscopic history, Turkey today is a place of immense human diversity. In the towns and cities one can see people with Arab and Mongolian features, people with faces reminiscent of Greek statues, Russian faces, Eastern European faces…
It is as if the land of Turkey is trying to encompass all humanity and make it one, calling out: “West, you may be East in my embrace! East, you may be West in my home!”
For the historian Dr. Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975), Turkey had a particular significance, as it was events in Turkey that prompted him to become a pioneer in looking beyond the Eurocentric view of history. During our conversations in his London apartment, he told me that he had once been forced to quit his post at London University because he had “angered people prejudiced against Turks” with his straightforward reporting of events in Turkey.
Toynbee visited Turkey in 1921, when he was about 32 years old. He had gone to observe the Greco-Turkish War that had been raging for two years. He first observed conditions from the Greek side, then from the Turkish. For Toynbee, guided as he was by Saint Augustine’s injunction “Audi alteram partem” (Hear the other side), this was absolutely crucial. And he placed particular importance on listening to the side that was “the more in danger of not being given a fair hearing.” As he said:
“In the present conflict and controversy between Greeks and Turks, the Greeks were the vocal party once again. The Greeks had the ear of the West, and the West was in the ascendant in the world. I was familiar with the Greeks’ case; I felt that it could take care of itself; the Turks’ case was the one that I must take pains to understand.”
Toynbee traveled to a town where Turkish civilians had been massacred. He witnessed the suffering of Turkish refugees, and was outraged that these atrocities went completely unreported in the West. Writing down the facts exactly as he had seen them, he wired these to the Manchester Guardian, a leading British newspaper. The editor of the paper courageously published the full texts of Toynbee’s reports.
Why “courageously”?
For centuries the Turks had been portrayed in the West as uncivilized savages. To make matters worse, the horrors of the 1915 Armenian Massacre[1] carried out by the Ottoman Turks were still fresh in people’s memories. And indeed, when the articles appeared, the newspaper was besieged by a storm of criticism. People attacked it for shamelessly publishing articles sympathetic to the “unspeakable Turk.” But the paper’s admirable stance of refusing to bend to what Toynbee saw as prejudice against Muslims shines to this day.
At the other end of the spectrum, the article made a deep impression on the Turks. They were astonished that a young Englishman had visited a Turkish refugee camp, that he had impartially recorded what he had seen, and that a British newspaper had actually published it. It was the first time their side of the story had been conveyed to the world. Years later Toynbee animatedly recounted how Turkish people gathered around the newspaper, their faces flushed with excitement as they read his article.
Relying only on information from the West—viewing things always from the Western perspective—does not provide a true picture of the world. There is an African view of the world, a world seen from the Middle East, from Latin America, through the eyes of various ethnic minorities. There is more to international society than just the West.
On his homeward journey by train from Istanbul, Toynbee began to outline what would become his lifework, A Study of History. Based on those notes, he later developed the groundbreaking historical theory—written from a global perspective—that was his great gift to humankind.
Shortly after his return to Britain, Toynbee was forced to resign from his post at London University over what was seen as his support for the Turks. He told me that for the next 33 years, he made his living writing reports on international issues for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, an independent research organization.
The young Toynbee knew it was wrong to stereotype and thus dehumanize people as the Turks had been. It was necessary to get to know individual Turks. He put this conviction into practice, learning Turkish and making friends with Turkish people. “When one becomes personally acquainted with a fellow human being, of whatever religion, nationality, or race, one cannot fail to recognize that he is human like oneself …”
Has the danger of stereotyping people lessened since the days of Dr. Toynbee’s youth? I don’t believe so. In fact, what I call the “tyranny of images”—that is, the propagation of stereotypes and ready-made images—may have even increased.
Much of the information that floods our world has been selected and tailored to fit preconceived notions and stereotypes.
It is vital that we each ask ourselves some important questions. For example: Do I accept without question the images provided to me? Do I believe unconfirmed reports without first examining them? Have I unwittingly allowed myself to become prejudiced? Do I really have a grasp of the facts of the matter? Have I confirmed things for myself? Have I gone to the scene? Have I met the people involved? Have I listened to what they have to say? Am I being swayed by malicious rumors?
I believe that this kind of “inner dialogue” is crucial. This is because people who are aware that they may harbor unconscious prejudices can converse with people of other cultures more easily than those who are convinced that they have no prejudices.
If we think about it, people are not born Turks or Americans. They are not born Palestinians or Jews. These are merely labels.
Each of us is born as a precious entity of life, as a human being. Our mothers didn’t give birth to us thinking, “I’m giving birth to a Japanese” or “I’m giving birth to an Arab.” Their only thought was “May this new life be healthy and grow!”
In any country, a rose is a rose, a violet is a violet, people are people—though they may be called by different names.
Perhaps the clouds and winds high above the blue waters of the Bosporus are whispering among themselves as they gaze down upon humanity: “Wake up! There is no such thing as Americans, no such thing as Iraqis. There is only this boy, this life, called Bob, who happens to live in America; there is only this boy, this life, Mohammed, who happens to live in Iraq. Both are children of Earth. Wake up from this foolishness, this cruel habit of passing hatred and resentment on to the next generation.”
We need to awaken to a common consciousness of being all inhabitants of Earth. This consciousness is not to be found in some distant place. It will not be found on a computer screen. It lies in our hearts, in our ability to share the pain of our fellow human beings. It is the spirit that calls on us: “As long as you are suffering, whoever you are and whatever your suffering may be, I suffer also.”
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Sunday, April 29, 2012
The Spirit of Reverence for Life (Eng Version only)
The Spirit of Reverence for Life
by Daisaku Ikeda
Dr. Wangari Maathai is traveling around the world urging the importance of protecting our natural environment with the rallying cry mottainai. Why has this Japanese word—which means, “What a waste!”—so captured Dr. Maathai’s imagination? The moment I saw her beaming smile at our meeting in 2005, I understood immediately: because Wangari is also known as the mother of the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots effort to plant trees in many African countries. In the past 30 years, poor women in the countryside have joined Wangari in planting more than 30 million trees across Africa. They are women who must rise early in the morning and walk many miles each day, their infant children strapped to their backs, in search of water and firewood. This movement to make their lives easier and at the same time protect the natural environment is indeed a movement of mothers, for mothers and by mothers.
It’s only to be expected that Wangari, who has led such a movement for decades, should be impressed by the wisdom of Japanese mothers as exemplified by their byword, mottainai.
For people of my generation, who lived through World War II, the word mottainai reminds us of our mothers. Any scrap of food left over from our dinner or its preparation was transformed by our mothers’ hardworking hands into a delicious home-cooked treat to fill the stomachs of her growing children. She pickled the leaves cut off the top of radishes, chopped vegetable peelings into a tasty side dish, and served us leftover grilled fish as our afternoon snack. Kids were proud to wear pants with patches their mothers had sewn on their knees. Mothers were masters of a science of nutrition based on love, a home economics based on thrift and ingenuity.
The spirit of loving care that precluded wasting anything was one of Japan’s most admirable virtues in those times, and it was intimately linked to a nurturing ethos of reverence for life and consideration for others. I’m sure I’m not alone in lamenting the loss of this spirit as one reason behind the loss of humanity so painfully evident in our world today.
My wife, who also experienced the privation of the war years, has always striven to be thrifty and economical in managing our household. She never wastes so much as a grain of rice, and any leftovers from dinner are certain to make a second appearance at another meal. Recycling is second nature to her, and she has always saved things like wrapping paper and ribbon for reuse.
These examples of everyday ingenuity and resourcefulness may seem slight or negligible, but mothers of the world have used this homespun wisdom and love as effective tools for sustaining their families and improving their lives.
Wangari also conceived of her Green Belt Movement out of compassion and concern for the future of her children and her homeland of Kenya. She applauds the noble, ordinary women who participate in the movement as “foresters without diplomas.” Their committed solidarity and steadfast efforts in their communities are not only preventing the desertification of Africa but also raising awareness of environmental issues in the minds of people the world over. Their service to humanity and the Earth far exceeds that of any national leader. In a speech given at our university, Wangari said that politicians inevitably try to take advantage of the people, and so it is vital for the people to prevent that by involving themselves in government. This is indeed true. I believe that democracy in the 21st century needs to be based upon learning from the wisdom of mothers, who are truly representatives of the people, and putting the wisdom of women to the fullest possible use.
My mother is also the starting point of my activities for peace. She remained brave and undaunted though four of her sons were taken away from her, one after another, to fight in World War II. But after the war, when she received the news that her eldest son had been killed in the fighting, she was heartbroken. I will never forget the sight of her pain and sorrow at that moment as long as I live.
The sorrow of one good-hearted mother is the sorrow of millions of mothers. War, which forces the mothers of the world into submission and subjects them to starvation and such bitter grief, must never be permitted, no matter what the circumstances.
Planting a tree is planting life; it is fostering the future, fostering peace—these are beliefs that Wangari and I found we shared at the deepest level when we met and talked.
“No matter how hopeless the situation seems,” she told me then, “the light of hope can shine."
by Daisaku Ikeda
Dr. Wangari Maathai is traveling around the world urging the importance of protecting our natural environment with the rallying cry mottainai. Why has this Japanese word—which means, “What a waste!”—so captured Dr. Maathai’s imagination? The moment I saw her beaming smile at our meeting in 2005, I understood immediately: because Wangari is also known as the mother of the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots effort to plant trees in many African countries. In the past 30 years, poor women in the countryside have joined Wangari in planting more than 30 million trees across Africa. They are women who must rise early in the morning and walk many miles each day, their infant children strapped to their backs, in search of water and firewood. This movement to make their lives easier and at the same time protect the natural environment is indeed a movement of mothers, for mothers and by mothers.
It’s only to be expected that Wangari, who has led such a movement for decades, should be impressed by the wisdom of Japanese mothers as exemplified by their byword, mottainai.
For people of my generation, who lived through World War II, the word mottainai reminds us of our mothers. Any scrap of food left over from our dinner or its preparation was transformed by our mothers’ hardworking hands into a delicious home-cooked treat to fill the stomachs of her growing children. She pickled the leaves cut off the top of radishes, chopped vegetable peelings into a tasty side dish, and served us leftover grilled fish as our afternoon snack. Kids were proud to wear pants with patches their mothers had sewn on their knees. Mothers were masters of a science of nutrition based on love, a home economics based on thrift and ingenuity.
The spirit of loving care that precluded wasting anything was one of Japan’s most admirable virtues in those times, and it was intimately linked to a nurturing ethos of reverence for life and consideration for others. I’m sure I’m not alone in lamenting the loss of this spirit as one reason behind the loss of humanity so painfully evident in our world today.
My wife, who also experienced the privation of the war years, has always striven to be thrifty and economical in managing our household. She never wastes so much as a grain of rice, and any leftovers from dinner are certain to make a second appearance at another meal. Recycling is second nature to her, and she has always saved things like wrapping paper and ribbon for reuse.
These examples of everyday ingenuity and resourcefulness may seem slight or negligible, but mothers of the world have used this homespun wisdom and love as effective tools for sustaining their families and improving their lives.
Wangari also conceived of her Green Belt Movement out of compassion and concern for the future of her children and her homeland of Kenya. She applauds the noble, ordinary women who participate in the movement as “foresters without diplomas.” Their committed solidarity and steadfast efforts in their communities are not only preventing the desertification of Africa but also raising awareness of environmental issues in the minds of people the world over. Their service to humanity and the Earth far exceeds that of any national leader. In a speech given at our university, Wangari said that politicians inevitably try to take advantage of the people, and so it is vital for the people to prevent that by involving themselves in government. This is indeed true. I believe that democracy in the 21st century needs to be based upon learning from the wisdom of mothers, who are truly representatives of the people, and putting the wisdom of women to the fullest possible use.
My mother is also the starting point of my activities for peace. She remained brave and undaunted though four of her sons were taken away from her, one after another, to fight in World War II. But after the war, when she received the news that her eldest son had been killed in the fighting, she was heartbroken. I will never forget the sight of her pain and sorrow at that moment as long as I live.
The sorrow of one good-hearted mother is the sorrow of millions of mothers. War, which forces the mothers of the world into submission and subjects them to starvation and such bitter grief, must never be permitted, no matter what the circumstances.
Planting a tree is planting life; it is fostering the future, fostering peace—these are beliefs that Wangari and I found we shared at the deepest level when we met and talked.
“No matter how hopeless the situation seems,” she told me then, “the light of hope can shine."
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Thursday, April 26, 2012
A Message of Hope (Eng Version only)
A Message of Hope
by Daisaku Ikeda
Dr. Hazel Henderson describes her wide-ranging activities as an environmentalist, an author and an economist—as those of a “futurist.” She also insists that her ideal is to be a complete person. I find her approach deeply inspiring. Only humans envisage a better, more valuable future and make efforts toward its realization. To believe in the future is to believe in humanity. A futurist is engaged in the scholarship of hope.
Traditional economics is based on a very pessimistic view of human nature; it is assumed that people are essentially selfish, that our actions are motivated solely by the urge to maximize profit. But, Dr. Henderson questions, what about all the things people do without any thought of gain, the acts of “caring and sharing” that she has witnessed time and again? Traditional economics focuses only on competitive activities in which currency is exchanged. But what about spontaneous acts of collaboration and cooperation, the work of volunteers and citizens groups that enhance the quality of life for people? What about the gifts of nature itself? What about the energy generated by the sun, without whose warmth and light, life on Earth would be unthinkable? Shouldn’t these also be accorded value?
These questions have pushed Hazel Henderson toward a radical rethinking of economic theory, one aspect of which she calls the “love economy”—all those things people do, not in quest of profit, but simply out of love. The United Nations has estimated the value of such unpaid labor at 16 trillion dollars annually—11 trillion by women, 5 trillion by men. By taking all of these factors into account, Hazel has developed a view of economic activity that is actually far more “realistic” than that of traditional economists.
It was concern for the future that inspired an “ordinary housewife,” as she described herself, to engage in the intensive self-study of economics that has enabled her to successfully challenge the views of Nobel laureates.
Living in New York City in the 1960s, Hazel founded the group Citizens for Clean Air because, as she says: “We were anxious that our children have the best future possible.” She later realized that her concern gave her the strength to endure and prevail over the many challenges she would later face.
It all started when she noticed that her daughter was coming home stained with soot that even the most vigorous scrubbing wouldn’t remove. Hazel herself was suffering from a persistent cough. Something wasn’t right. She started talking to the other mothers at the neighborhood park as they watched their children playing. “Don’t you think the air here is bad?” she asked them. These discussions eventually led to the formation of Citizens for Clean Air.
Hazel began using the time during her daughter’s afternoon naps to write letters to the mayor and other city officials. Eventually, she received a reply from the mayor stating that what she thought was pollution was probably just mist rolling in from the sea. Not discouraged by his callous response, she investigated further and found the city actually kept measurements of soot particles in the city’s air on a daily basis.
She and her group, which now had about ten members, started urging the TV networks to include air pollution data in the daily weather forecasts. Hazel wrote to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington, DC, responsible for assuring that broadcasts were consistent with “the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” She wrote to all the major TV networks, enclosing photocopies of encouraging letters she had received from the chairman of the FCC and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. A few weeks later, she was surprised to receive a phone call from the vice-president of one of the major New York television stations. A month later, the New York Air Pollution Index was on the air. Three months later, all TV stations, most radio stations, and local newspapers were covering the index.
Encouraged by this success, Hazel started taking on new challenges, one after another. “I felt I ought to say out loud what I had to say. Nobody could stop me.” Many people assume that it is impossible to achieve change. They think the obstacles are too vast. But Hazel was confident that a way could be found if people who shared the same concerns joined forces.
Born in England in 1933, Hazel Henderson never received formal university training in economics. At age 16 she began working at a local women’s clothing shop and later in a hotel. She has said that she studied in the university of human life. There she learned that all people have potential, a great untapped capacity to do good.
When Hazel was 25 she moved to the United States and worked selling airline tickets. She married, and it was the simple desire to have her daughter breathe clean air that inspired her tireless efforts that continue to this day.
We first met in 1998 and since then have engaged in an energetic exchange of ideas and views. In our first meeting she described the early years of effort waged largely alone. The response of politicians and experts to her appeals for cleaner air was always the same: It costs too much money, they said, we can’t do it. Lurking behind such responses she often sensed contempt: What does a housewife like you know about the way the world really works?
But she wasn’t put off. If economic theories require that we destroy the environment and make people suffer, there must be something wrong with the theories. She began thinking about the kind of economics that would be focused on people’s happiness. Her approach is simple, it could be called naïve, but that is her strength. If something doesn’t seem right to the ordinary citizen, it probably isn’t. Arrogance takes hold and everything goes awry the moment such specialists start telling the “amateurs” to shut up and keep their opinions to themselves.
Feeling the need to arm herself with knowledge, she wrote to many colleges asking if they had courses on how ecology related to economics, biology, sociology, anthropology and physics. Her ideal has always been to view things in a holistic, big-picture way. But there were no such courses available, so she began an extensive program of self-study in economics and other fields. When she found an author whose ideas inspired her, she would send off a letter; in this way she developed personal mentoring relationships with many leading thinkers, including Dr. Ernst Schumacher, author of Small Is Beautiful.
Hazel credits her parents with instilling an attitude of not blindly accepting what she was told. She learned to stop and think for herself before making judgments. As her research efforts progressed, she came to question more and more of the core assumptions of modern economics. How meaningful, for example, are statistics that include in the measure of economic growth activities that pollute the environment or harm people’s health while ignoring the related costs?
Economics, she soon concluded, despite the complex and seemingly precise mathematical formulas in which it is expressed, is not a science at all. Rather than being a neutral, value-free science, she found that economics focuses on justifying the gains of the winners and silencing the losers. It is really politics in disguise. Her ideas horrified traditional economists. She was publicly insulted and dismissed. On one television program, an economist sitting next to her said, “She is a nice lady, but she doesn’t know a thing about economics.” She responded to such criticism by buying more books and studying even harder. Letters were sent to her husband’s employer calling her a communist. “That was very hurtful,” she says, “because it was the furthest thing from my mind.” In one corporate public relations newsletter she even was referred to as “one of the most dangerous women in the United States”—a title she now wears with pride.
Her expertise and unique and forward-looking proposals eventually gained recognition. From 1974 to 1980 she served on the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment Advisory Council. She has advised more than 30 governments on their economic policies. Her columns are carried in some 400 newspapers in 27 countries worldwide. She has helped promote the concept and practice of ethical investing, for those who wish to be sure that their investments support ecologically and socially sustainable corporate practices. She has developed an index which measures quality of life much more effectively than the narrow scales which only consider economic growth.
Throughout it all she has remained first and foremost a citizen activist, committed to building grassroots solidarity for a better future, through informing and educating people,. The title of one of her books sums up the essence of that vision: Building a Win-Win World. She wants to help humanity move beyond a system that produces winners and losers.
Buddhism teaches that we live within a framework of interdependence—that we need one another and offer each other essential support in seen and unseen ways. The same relationship exists between humans and the natural environment. Without the freely-given blessings of nature we could not exist for even a moment. It is this sense of appreciation that leads Hazel to speak of “Mother Sun”—the nearest star that provides all the essential energy for our planet.
From her own mother, Hazel absorbed a “tremendous faith that human beings, at their core, wherever they are on this planet and whatever their culture, can come to accept their oneness.”
As we move into an economy that is less about building the “hardware” of factories and machines and more about software and services, Hazel expects that the special talents of women as harmonizers and communicators will come more into play. She believes that women have a special commitment to and aptitude for peace.
She says: “Women know how much time, love and effort goes into raising a child. When war arises, all that is reduced to nothing. . .this is why women’s active participation in conflict resolution is of great importance.”
Having observed debates between high-level Israeli and Palestinian women, she states with confidence: “If those women had been empowered and fully represented in negotiations, there would have been a peace settlement decades ago. . .We have the power to alter our destiny. This is very much my own view. This is what my work for the last 30 years has been all about.”
by Daisaku Ikeda
Dr. Hazel Henderson describes her wide-ranging activities as an environmentalist, an author and an economist—as those of a “futurist.” She also insists that her ideal is to be a complete person. I find her approach deeply inspiring. Only humans envisage a better, more valuable future and make efforts toward its realization. To believe in the future is to believe in humanity. A futurist is engaged in the scholarship of hope.
Traditional economics is based on a very pessimistic view of human nature; it is assumed that people are essentially selfish, that our actions are motivated solely by the urge to maximize profit. But, Dr. Henderson questions, what about all the things people do without any thought of gain, the acts of “caring and sharing” that she has witnessed time and again? Traditional economics focuses only on competitive activities in which currency is exchanged. But what about spontaneous acts of collaboration and cooperation, the work of volunteers and citizens groups that enhance the quality of life for people? What about the gifts of nature itself? What about the energy generated by the sun, without whose warmth and light, life on Earth would be unthinkable? Shouldn’t these also be accorded value?
These questions have pushed Hazel Henderson toward a radical rethinking of economic theory, one aspect of which she calls the “love economy”—all those things people do, not in quest of profit, but simply out of love. The United Nations has estimated the value of such unpaid labor at 16 trillion dollars annually—11 trillion by women, 5 trillion by men. By taking all of these factors into account, Hazel has developed a view of economic activity that is actually far more “realistic” than that of traditional economists.
It was concern for the future that inspired an “ordinary housewife,” as she described herself, to engage in the intensive self-study of economics that has enabled her to successfully challenge the views of Nobel laureates.
Living in New York City in the 1960s, Hazel founded the group Citizens for Clean Air because, as she says: “We were anxious that our children have the best future possible.” She later realized that her concern gave her the strength to endure and prevail over the many challenges she would later face.
It all started when she noticed that her daughter was coming home stained with soot that even the most vigorous scrubbing wouldn’t remove. Hazel herself was suffering from a persistent cough. Something wasn’t right. She started talking to the other mothers at the neighborhood park as they watched their children playing. “Don’t you think the air here is bad?” she asked them. These discussions eventually led to the formation of Citizens for Clean Air.
Hazel began using the time during her daughter’s afternoon naps to write letters to the mayor and other city officials. Eventually, she received a reply from the mayor stating that what she thought was pollution was probably just mist rolling in from the sea. Not discouraged by his callous response, she investigated further and found the city actually kept measurements of soot particles in the city’s air on a daily basis.
She and her group, which now had about ten members, started urging the TV networks to include air pollution data in the daily weather forecasts. Hazel wrote to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington, DC, responsible for assuring that broadcasts were consistent with “the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” She wrote to all the major TV networks, enclosing photocopies of encouraging letters she had received from the chairman of the FCC and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. A few weeks later, she was surprised to receive a phone call from the vice-president of one of the major New York television stations. A month later, the New York Air Pollution Index was on the air. Three months later, all TV stations, most radio stations, and local newspapers were covering the index.
Encouraged by this success, Hazel started taking on new challenges, one after another. “I felt I ought to say out loud what I had to say. Nobody could stop me.” Many people assume that it is impossible to achieve change. They think the obstacles are too vast. But Hazel was confident that a way could be found if people who shared the same concerns joined forces.
Born in England in 1933, Hazel Henderson never received formal university training in economics. At age 16 she began working at a local women’s clothing shop and later in a hotel. She has said that she studied in the university of human life. There she learned that all people have potential, a great untapped capacity to do good.
When Hazel was 25 she moved to the United States and worked selling airline tickets. She married, and it was the simple desire to have her daughter breathe clean air that inspired her tireless efforts that continue to this day.
We first met in 1998 and since then have engaged in an energetic exchange of ideas and views. In our first meeting she described the early years of effort waged largely alone. The response of politicians and experts to her appeals for cleaner air was always the same: It costs too much money, they said, we can’t do it. Lurking behind such responses she often sensed contempt: What does a housewife like you know about the way the world really works?
But she wasn’t put off. If economic theories require that we destroy the environment and make people suffer, there must be something wrong with the theories. She began thinking about the kind of economics that would be focused on people’s happiness. Her approach is simple, it could be called naïve, but that is her strength. If something doesn’t seem right to the ordinary citizen, it probably isn’t. Arrogance takes hold and everything goes awry the moment such specialists start telling the “amateurs” to shut up and keep their opinions to themselves.
Feeling the need to arm herself with knowledge, she wrote to many colleges asking if they had courses on how ecology related to economics, biology, sociology, anthropology and physics. Her ideal has always been to view things in a holistic, big-picture way. But there were no such courses available, so she began an extensive program of self-study in economics and other fields. When she found an author whose ideas inspired her, she would send off a letter; in this way she developed personal mentoring relationships with many leading thinkers, including Dr. Ernst Schumacher, author of Small Is Beautiful.
Hazel credits her parents with instilling an attitude of not blindly accepting what she was told. She learned to stop and think for herself before making judgments. As her research efforts progressed, she came to question more and more of the core assumptions of modern economics. How meaningful, for example, are statistics that include in the measure of economic growth activities that pollute the environment or harm people’s health while ignoring the related costs?
Economics, she soon concluded, despite the complex and seemingly precise mathematical formulas in which it is expressed, is not a science at all. Rather than being a neutral, value-free science, she found that economics focuses on justifying the gains of the winners and silencing the losers. It is really politics in disguise. Her ideas horrified traditional economists. She was publicly insulted and dismissed. On one television program, an economist sitting next to her said, “She is a nice lady, but she doesn’t know a thing about economics.” She responded to such criticism by buying more books and studying even harder. Letters were sent to her husband’s employer calling her a communist. “That was very hurtful,” she says, “because it was the furthest thing from my mind.” In one corporate public relations newsletter she even was referred to as “one of the most dangerous women in the United States”—a title she now wears with pride.
Her expertise and unique and forward-looking proposals eventually gained recognition. From 1974 to 1980 she served on the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment Advisory Council. She has advised more than 30 governments on their economic policies. Her columns are carried in some 400 newspapers in 27 countries worldwide. She has helped promote the concept and practice of ethical investing, for those who wish to be sure that their investments support ecologically and socially sustainable corporate practices. She has developed an index which measures quality of life much more effectively than the narrow scales which only consider economic growth.
Throughout it all she has remained first and foremost a citizen activist, committed to building grassroots solidarity for a better future, through informing and educating people,. The title of one of her books sums up the essence of that vision: Building a Win-Win World. She wants to help humanity move beyond a system that produces winners and losers.
Buddhism teaches that we live within a framework of interdependence—that we need one another and offer each other essential support in seen and unseen ways. The same relationship exists between humans and the natural environment. Without the freely-given blessings of nature we could not exist for even a moment. It is this sense of appreciation that leads Hazel to speak of “Mother Sun”—the nearest star that provides all the essential energy for our planet.
From her own mother, Hazel absorbed a “tremendous faith that human beings, at their core, wherever they are on this planet and whatever their culture, can come to accept their oneness.”
As we move into an economy that is less about building the “hardware” of factories and machines and more about software and services, Hazel expects that the special talents of women as harmonizers and communicators will come more into play. She believes that women have a special commitment to and aptitude for peace.
She says: “Women know how much time, love and effort goes into raising a child. When war arises, all that is reduced to nothing. . .this is why women’s active participation in conflict resolution is of great importance.”
Having observed debates between high-level Israeli and Palestinian women, she states with confidence: “If those women had been empowered and fully represented in negotiations, there would have been a peace settlement decades ago. . .We have the power to alter our destiny. This is very much my own view. This is what my work for the last 30 years has been all about.”
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Saturday, December 31, 2011
The Courage to Rebuild (Eng Version only)
“The journey of life is not smooth and unimpeded, but may be fraught with difficulties exceeding our worst nightmares,” observed Kan'ichi Asakawa (1873-1948), a historian and peace advocate originally from Fukushima Prefecture.
More than three months have now passed since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami struck the Tohoku-Kanto region, leaving a trail of death and devastation of an unprecedented magnitude. The number of confirmed fatalities exceeds 15,000, with around 7,500 more missing. Each victim was someone's father, mother, child, relative or friend—each was an irreplaceable individual.
As a Buddhist, I have been offering my earnest prayers for their peaceful repose, as well as for the health, safety and well-being of all those affected by the earthquake, and for the success of relief and reconstruction efforts.
The scale of the destruction is immense, with more than 110,000 people still living in shelters and temporary housing. There is a clear need to make official responses to the disaster more focused, speedy and effective.
My heart goes out to the huge numbers of people undergoing unspeakable difficulties.
The suffering of those whose loved ones and livelihoods were swept away has been compounded by uncertainties about the future, the seemingly unending problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the threat of economic recession, harmful rumors and many other obstacles to recovery.
But I believe we must not allow feelings of defeat to take root in our hearts. Dr. Ved P. Nanda, an expert on international law, sent a message of sympathy stating: “Now is the time to profoundly cultivate the security of the spirit, the inner strength that can overcome any threat.”
The Buddhist scriptures teach: “More valuable than treasures in a storehouse are treasures of the body and the treasures of the heart are the most valuable of all.” There are no greater treasures than the highest human qualities such as compassion, courage and hope. Not even tragic accident or disaster can destroy such treasures of the heart.
Even though the earthquake and tsunami was a cruel catastrophe that has left everyone stunned, I believe we can see three signs of hope.
The first is a sense of human solidarity. This can be seen both locally and internationally. We will never forget how the rest of the world offered Japan prompt and practical relief as soon as the disaster occurred. The gratitude of the Japanese people is heartfelt and immense.
Also, within the affected communities, a renewed and powerful spirit of cooperation is visible. When individuals stand up together in the face of a catastrophic challenge in this way, a dignified human community imbued with mutual care and support is born. No one should be left to suffer alone.
The second sign of hope is the indomitable courage of those affected by the earthquake. Words cannot express how deeply I have been moved by the selfless acts made for the sake of others by people who were themselves victims.
I was told of one woman from Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, who saved the lives of her neighbors. As the raging waters reached the second floor of her apartment building, she held onto an air-conditioning unit, meanwhile preventing a man carrying a baby from being swept away by pinning him against a wall with her back. With her free hand she then grabbed and held onto another man by the collar. She said she was determined not to let them go even if her arms were torn off.
There are thousands of such unsung heroes still working tirelessly for the reconstruction of their communities, undefeated by the heart-wrenching loss of families and friends, homes and belongings.
A Buddhist scripture states: “When we light a lantern for others, our own way forward is lit.” When one takes action for others, one's own suffering is transformed into the energy that can keep one moving forward; a light of hope illuminating a new tomorrow for oneself and others is kindled.
The third sign of hope is the passion and vigor of youth taking action.
A young man I know from Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, was swept up by the tsunami and escaped death by clinging to a pine tree above the freezing waters through the night. A plumber by occupation, he lost his shop and home.
But he refused to succumb to the crushing burden of hopelessness, assisting efforts to reestablish vital services throughout the city. Amid the ruins and on the site of his former home, he and his friends put up a huge sign that read “Don't give up, Ishinomaki!” made out of salvaged wood. The sign has become a symbol of the spirit of the people of Ishinomaki.
Young people are, by their very youth, the embodiment of hope. No matter how dark it is, the sun rises where young people take a stand.
The path toward full reconstruction will be long. But we will continue to move forward, inspired by the example of such courageous youth, joining forces with others exerting themselves for the recovery of the affected communities.
Each step, no matter how seemingly small, will help plant the seeds of hope and be counted among the treasures of the heart.
More than three months have now passed since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami struck the Tohoku-Kanto region, leaving a trail of death and devastation of an unprecedented magnitude. The number of confirmed fatalities exceeds 15,000, with around 7,500 more missing. Each victim was someone's father, mother, child, relative or friend—each was an irreplaceable individual.
As a Buddhist, I have been offering my earnest prayers for their peaceful repose, as well as for the health, safety and well-being of all those affected by the earthquake, and for the success of relief and reconstruction efforts.
The scale of the destruction is immense, with more than 110,000 people still living in shelters and temporary housing. There is a clear need to make official responses to the disaster more focused, speedy and effective.
My heart goes out to the huge numbers of people undergoing unspeakable difficulties.
The suffering of those whose loved ones and livelihoods were swept away has been compounded by uncertainties about the future, the seemingly unending problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the threat of economic recession, harmful rumors and many other obstacles to recovery.
But I believe we must not allow feelings of defeat to take root in our hearts. Dr. Ved P. Nanda, an expert on international law, sent a message of sympathy stating: “Now is the time to profoundly cultivate the security of the spirit, the inner strength that can overcome any threat.”
The Buddhist scriptures teach: “More valuable than treasures in a storehouse are treasures of the body and the treasures of the heart are the most valuable of all.” There are no greater treasures than the highest human qualities such as compassion, courage and hope. Not even tragic accident or disaster can destroy such treasures of the heart.
Even though the earthquake and tsunami was a cruel catastrophe that has left everyone stunned, I believe we can see three signs of hope.
The first is a sense of human solidarity. This can be seen both locally and internationally. We will never forget how the rest of the world offered Japan prompt and practical relief as soon as the disaster occurred. The gratitude of the Japanese people is heartfelt and immense.
Also, within the affected communities, a renewed and powerful spirit of cooperation is visible. When individuals stand up together in the face of a catastrophic challenge in this way, a dignified human community imbued with mutual care and support is born. No one should be left to suffer alone.
The second sign of hope is the indomitable courage of those affected by the earthquake. Words cannot express how deeply I have been moved by the selfless acts made for the sake of others by people who were themselves victims.
I was told of one woman from Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, who saved the lives of her neighbors. As the raging waters reached the second floor of her apartment building, she held onto an air-conditioning unit, meanwhile preventing a man carrying a baby from being swept away by pinning him against a wall with her back. With her free hand she then grabbed and held onto another man by the collar. She said she was determined not to let them go even if her arms were torn off.
There are thousands of such unsung heroes still working tirelessly for the reconstruction of their communities, undefeated by the heart-wrenching loss of families and friends, homes and belongings.
A Buddhist scripture states: “When we light a lantern for others, our own way forward is lit.” When one takes action for others, one's own suffering is transformed into the energy that can keep one moving forward; a light of hope illuminating a new tomorrow for oneself and others is kindled.
The third sign of hope is the passion and vigor of youth taking action.
A young man I know from Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, was swept up by the tsunami and escaped death by clinging to a pine tree above the freezing waters through the night. A plumber by occupation, he lost his shop and home.
But he refused to succumb to the crushing burden of hopelessness, assisting efforts to reestablish vital services throughout the city. Amid the ruins and on the site of his former home, he and his friends put up a huge sign that read “Don't give up, Ishinomaki!” made out of salvaged wood. The sign has become a symbol of the spirit of the people of Ishinomaki.
Young people are, by their very youth, the embodiment of hope. No matter how dark it is, the sun rises where young people take a stand.
The path toward full reconstruction will be long. But we will continue to move forward, inspired by the example of such courageous youth, joining forces with others exerting themselves for the recovery of the affected communities.
Each step, no matter how seemingly small, will help plant the seeds of hope and be counted among the treasures of the heart.
Labels: e. Words of mentor
A Piece of Mirror: Wartime Memories (Eng Version only)
I have a mirror. I always keep it with me. Actually, it’s nothing more than a piece of broken glass about the size of my palm. A piece of broken mirror, somewhat on the thick side, the kind you could probably find on any trash heap.
But to me, it’s anything but trash. When my mother married, she brought as part of her trousseau a mirror stand fitted with a very nice mirror. How many times it must have clearly reflected her face as a young bride! Twenty years later however, the mirror somehow got broken. My eldest brother Kiichi and I sorted over the fragments and picked out two of the larger ones to keep.
Not long after that the war broke out. My four elder brothers went off one by one to the front, some to fight in China, others in Southeast Asia. I felt very strong feelings of revulsion against the war effort. My four brothers, who were in the prime of life, ready to work and contribute to our family, were taken from us, each by a single piece of paper—the conscription notice.
I will never forget the disgust and anger with which Kiichi, on leave from China, described the inhuman atrocities he had seen committed there by the Japanese army. Japan was wrong, he said, and he felt deeply for the Chinese people. I developed a profound hatred for war, its cruelty, stupidity and waste.
Tragically, the Pacific War saw the savage rampage of Japanese nationalism across Asia. The Japanese became emissaries of hell, causing untold suffering and grief to both our Asian neighbors and the citizens of Japan. We must never forget the terrible cruelties we inflicted on the beautiful countries of Asia. I offer my sincere apologies for the untold misery caused by the Japanese military at that time.
My mother, her four oldest sons taken away from her, tried not to show her grief, but she seemed to age suddenly. Then the air raids on Tokyo began and soon they were a daily occurrence. I kept my piece of mirror with me always, sticking it carefully inside my shirt as I dodged my way through the firebombs that fell all around us.
The war had cast its shadow into every single corner of our lives. Finally, the end that we all knew was coming arrived. Defeat. On August 15, the war, which had been started and fought in the Emperor’s name, now ended with the Emperor’s voice on the radio, urging the Japanese people to “. . . bear the unbearable.” At seventeen, my heart was torn between hope and anxiety.
People just sat around in a daze. But then we realized that the skies were quiet for the first time in months. A sense of relief seemed to spread. That night we could turn on the lights at last. How bright! I thought—what a good thing peace is. We were all relieved, but no one dared come right out and say, “I’m glad we lost. Thank goodness the war’s over.”
My mother’s only wish, her only hope, was for the safe return of her sons. She was particularly worried about Kiichi. We hadn’t heard a word from him since he reported having left China for Southeast Asia. From time to time, mother would tell us that she had seen Kiichi in a dream, and that he had told her he would soon return.
Eventually, nearly two years after the war ended and after my other brothers had returned, one by one, we received notification that Kiichi had been killed in Burma. I thought at once of the piece of mirror I knew he carried in the breast pocket of his uniform. I could imagine him, during a lull in the fighting, taking it out and looking at his unshaven face in it, thinking longingly of his mother at home.
When my mother received the news of Kiichi’s death, she turned her back to us, shuddering with grief. This was the greatest loss, the deepest sadness she experienced in her life. I felt, in the depths of my being, the tragedy and waste of war. War, which brings such suffering to a mother who is guilty of no crime whatsoever, is an absolute evil.
War brings only suffering and misery to ordinary people, to families and mothers. It is always nameless and unknown people who suffer and moan amidst the mud and flames. In war, human life is used as a means to an end, an expendable commodity. It is said that it takes 20 years of peace to make a man, but only 20 seconds to destroy him. This is why we must always oppose war—neither engaging in it ourselves nor permitting others to do so. All rivalries and conflicts must be resolved, not through power, but with wisdom and through dialogue.
In the dark and troubled times after Japan’s defeat, I left home and moved into lodgings. The room was small, bare and ugly, but fortunately, I had my piece of broken mirror with me. Every morning before I went to work I would take it out and use it while I shaved and combed my hair.
In 1952, when I married, my wife brought along with her a brand-new mirror stand, and from then on I looked at my face in the new mirror. One day, I found my wife with the piece of old mirror in her hand and a puzzled look on her face. When I saw that the mirror was likely to end up in the trash basket if I didn’t speak up, I told my wife about the history attached to it. Somewhere she managed to find a neat little box of specially beautiful wood and she stored the piece of mirror away in it. The mirror is still safe in its box today.
The piece of broken mirror, whenever I look at it, seems to speak to me about those hard-to-describe days of my youth, about my mother’s prayers and the sad fate of my eldest brother, and it will continue to do so as long as I live.
But to me, it’s anything but trash. When my mother married, she brought as part of her trousseau a mirror stand fitted with a very nice mirror. How many times it must have clearly reflected her face as a young bride! Twenty years later however, the mirror somehow got broken. My eldest brother Kiichi and I sorted over the fragments and picked out two of the larger ones to keep.
Not long after that the war broke out. My four elder brothers went off one by one to the front, some to fight in China, others in Southeast Asia. I felt very strong feelings of revulsion against the war effort. My four brothers, who were in the prime of life, ready to work and contribute to our family, were taken from us, each by a single piece of paper—the conscription notice.
I will never forget the disgust and anger with which Kiichi, on leave from China, described the inhuman atrocities he had seen committed there by the Japanese army. Japan was wrong, he said, and he felt deeply for the Chinese people. I developed a profound hatred for war, its cruelty, stupidity and waste.
Tragically, the Pacific War saw the savage rampage of Japanese nationalism across Asia. The Japanese became emissaries of hell, causing untold suffering and grief to both our Asian neighbors and the citizens of Japan. We must never forget the terrible cruelties we inflicted on the beautiful countries of Asia. I offer my sincere apologies for the untold misery caused by the Japanese military at that time.
My mother, her four oldest sons taken away from her, tried not to show her grief, but she seemed to age suddenly. Then the air raids on Tokyo began and soon they were a daily occurrence. I kept my piece of mirror with me always, sticking it carefully inside my shirt as I dodged my way through the firebombs that fell all around us.
The war had cast its shadow into every single corner of our lives. Finally, the end that we all knew was coming arrived. Defeat. On August 15, the war, which had been started and fought in the Emperor’s name, now ended with the Emperor’s voice on the radio, urging the Japanese people to “. . . bear the unbearable.” At seventeen, my heart was torn between hope and anxiety.
People just sat around in a daze. But then we realized that the skies were quiet for the first time in months. A sense of relief seemed to spread. That night we could turn on the lights at last. How bright! I thought—what a good thing peace is. We were all relieved, but no one dared come right out and say, “I’m glad we lost. Thank goodness the war’s over.”
My mother’s only wish, her only hope, was for the safe return of her sons. She was particularly worried about Kiichi. We hadn’t heard a word from him since he reported having left China for Southeast Asia. From time to time, mother would tell us that she had seen Kiichi in a dream, and that he had told her he would soon return.
Eventually, nearly two years after the war ended and after my other brothers had returned, one by one, we received notification that Kiichi had been killed in Burma. I thought at once of the piece of mirror I knew he carried in the breast pocket of his uniform. I could imagine him, during a lull in the fighting, taking it out and looking at his unshaven face in it, thinking longingly of his mother at home.
When my mother received the news of Kiichi’s death, she turned her back to us, shuddering with grief. This was the greatest loss, the deepest sadness she experienced in her life. I felt, in the depths of my being, the tragedy and waste of war. War, which brings such suffering to a mother who is guilty of no crime whatsoever, is an absolute evil.
War brings only suffering and misery to ordinary people, to families and mothers. It is always nameless and unknown people who suffer and moan amidst the mud and flames. In war, human life is used as a means to an end, an expendable commodity. It is said that it takes 20 years of peace to make a man, but only 20 seconds to destroy him. This is why we must always oppose war—neither engaging in it ourselves nor permitting others to do so. All rivalries and conflicts must be resolved, not through power, but with wisdom and through dialogue.
In the dark and troubled times after Japan’s defeat, I left home and moved into lodgings. The room was small, bare and ugly, but fortunately, I had my piece of broken mirror with me. Every morning before I went to work I would take it out and use it while I shaved and combed my hair.
In 1952, when I married, my wife brought along with her a brand-new mirror stand, and from then on I looked at my face in the new mirror. One day, I found my wife with the piece of old mirror in her hand and a puzzled look on her face. When I saw that the mirror was likely to end up in the trash basket if I didn’t speak up, I told my wife about the history attached to it. Somewhere she managed to find a neat little box of specially beautiful wood and she stored the piece of mirror away in it. The mirror is still safe in its box today.
The piece of broken mirror, whenever I look at it, seems to speak to me about those hard-to-describe days of my youth, about my mother’s prayers and the sad fate of my eldest brother, and it will continue to do so as long as I live.
Labels: e. Words of mentor
The Teachers of My Childhood (Eng Version only)
When spring arrives, heaven and earth, towns and cities—everything—takes on a new brightness. The fresh faces of the students just starting school as the cherry blossoms burst into bloom are also bright and shining.
Although many people delight in the beautiful blossoms, few bother to consider the roots that make that blossoming possible. In life, our roots are largely formed by our first experience of education, the years we spend in elementary school.
I attended elementary school in Tokyo, a two-story wooden building surrounded by rice paddies. On frosty winter days, the water in the paddies sometimes froze. On such days, a rowdy band of children, we would stray off the road and, shouting “This way! This way!” cut through the paddies on our way to school. It was a tranquil, idyllic time.
But things were changing quickly. Japan was entering a dark, oppressive period in its history. The Manchurian Incident, which began Japan’s invasion of China, took place when I was three. When I was four, there was an abortive coup d’état in which the prime minister was assassinated, and when I was five, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations. Young as we were, we didn’t understand what was going on in the world, but the rising waves of the troubled times reached even into our classrooms.
Another spring came around, and once more the season of cherry blossoms arrived. About this time, my father suffered an attack of debilitating rheumatism and became bedridden. We were forced to scale back our family business of seaweed processing; our lives grew harder day by day. My eldest brother had enjoyed good grades, but he was forced to quit school and go to work to contribute to the family finances.
In the third and fourth grades, my teacher was Mr. Takeuchi. He had just graduated from teachers college and was young and energetic. He placed a particularly heavy emphasis on physical education: “You can be as smart as you like, but if you don’t build a strong body when you’re young, you’ll be of no use to anyone as an adult. Health is important. Study is important. True education combines both.” This appears to have been his credo as a teacher.
I was on the short side and not very strong, so it was no easy thing to meet Mr. Takeuchi’s expectations. To this day, I am moved whenever I remember how keenly he encouraged me to develop my physical strength and become healthy. I also remember how he taught us about the meaning of the Olympics, explaining in detail how they were conducted. That was in 1936, the year the Berlin Olympics were held in Germany. Mr. Takeuchi stressed the importance of holding the Olympics on a grand scale every four years as a means of promoting world peace.
He clearly hated war. In the depths of his heart I think that he strongly opposed the militaristic trend of the times, believing in the importance of peace and encouraging children to grow into fine individuals with a true love of peace.
In Japan, people who tend and care for cherry trees are called sakuramori, a word that implies a sense of careful stewardship. The care they extend expresses faith in the power of life as it grows and develops into the future. They observe the trees’ growth in great detail but allow them to develop freely. For example, if we stake a tree from the very beginning, the tree will rely on the stakes for support and not grow strong on its own.
The roots are especially important. One expert on trees says that the spread of the crown of a cherry tree is mirrored almost exactly by the spread of its roots below ground. If we water the tree only around the base of the trunk, the tree will become “lazy” and not bother to spread its roots far in search of water.
For people, “roots” correspond to the tenacity of our spirit, our refusal to give up. Once a tree has taken firm root, it can survive even on a rocky mountain face buffeted by powerful winds.
Trees are living things. Every cherry tree is unique. That is why there is no manual that can tell us how to grow a cherry tree. The only way to succeed is to learn the particular tree’s character, and warmly care for it.
Each child is also unique. Each has a distinct way of flowering that is his or hers alone. To raise a tree or to foster people, we need a patient faith in their potential to flourish. To the precise degree that we care for and have faith in children, they will extend and spread their roots. And it is this that will give them the strength to survive and make their way successfully through life.
Stewardship expresses a spirit of awe and respect for the potential for limitless growth. I believe that such awe and respect for children should be the foundation of education.
My father’s rheumatism was improving, but with my three brothers conscripted into military service we were short of help and our family finances worsened. When I was a fifth grader, we had to sell our house and move to a smaller one in the same area.
Hoping to do what I could to help my family, I got a job delivering newspapers. I woke up each morning while it was still dark and helped out with the seaweed production. When I finished, I delivered my papers and then went to school. After returning from school, I helped with the family business again, pulling the dried sheets of nori seaweed off the racks. Then I delivered the evening paper. At night there was the work of cleaning the seaweed, removing any impurities. I look back now on those busy days with fondness.
When I was in sixth grade, we took a school trip to Kansai. It was my first trip away from home, and I was very excited. My mother had given me some pocket money, which she had somehow managed to scrape together. I used it to treat my friends, and at the end of the first day it was almost gone. My teacher, Mr. Hiyama, must have been watching me the whole time, because he called to me as I was going up the stairs of the inn where we were staying and said, “Your elder brothers are all away at the war. You have to buy your parents a souvenir from your trip.”
I was crushed; of course he was right. My mother’s face appeared before my eyes. Smiling, Mr. Hiyama called me downstairs. He placed some money in my palm and closed my fingers around it. At that time, the two bills were a considerable sum. I breathed a sigh of relief. When I returned home and gave my mother her gift, I told her what had happened. “You must never forget Mr. Hiyama,” she said with a gentle smile.
I don’t feel that he was giving me special treatment. He cared for us all equally, looking deep into our hearts, aware of the family situations. I will never forget the warm affection with which he looked at each of us during our graduation ceremony, large tears running down his cheeks.
In 1940, I graduated from elementary school and entered junior high school. My teacher for the next two years was Mr. Okabe, whom we called “Mr. Buccaneer.”
He used to make us laugh by telling us that in a past life he must have been the leader of a pirate crew sailing the Inland Sea, which was near his hometown. He was tall with jet-black hair and a handsome, intelligent face. There were some 40 boys in our class—no girls. Mr. Okabe often encouraged me to exercise to strengthen myself physically. He loved sumo wrestling, and taught us various sumo techniques. Even though I was small, I did my best. At first glance, Mr. Okabe appeared very intimidating, but I never felt afraid of him. It may have been because I was rather shy, but I can’t remember him ever scolding me. Once, one of the students in our class was hit by another teacher. When Mr. Okabe heard about it he charged into the staff room shouting, “Which one of you hit one of my students?!” He had a very strong sense of right and wrong. He may have seemed gruff on the outside, but we all felt his concern and affection.
When I was in my second year of junior high, its name was changed to Haginaka National People’s School. This was mandated by a law filled with militaristic overtones that sought to turn children into soldiers. The gymnasiums of many schools were converted into martial arts training halls. Japan was sliding down the slope from war with China into the even more disastrous Pacific War. In their arrogance and stupidity, the leaders of the day had no thought for the welfare of ordinary citizens. They were driving the nation into the abyss of war with a mix of threats and well-crafted slogans.
Education has a truly astonishing power to cast a spell over the innocent hearts of children. Many of the students in my class at the new “national people’s school” applied to enlist as soldiers or as civilian colonists on the Chinese mainland. They did this because it seemed to be the highest expression of patriotism: to be a pioneering hero of the new era. I, too, wanted to become a student pilot in the navy after I graduated. Although I was concerned about my family and how they would fare without me, I secretly sent in an application.
I wasn’t there when a representative of the navy visited my home. My father sent the man away saying: “My three eldest sons are all in the army. The fourth will be going soon. Do you really plan to take away my fifth as well? No more. That’s enough!”
When I got home, my father berated me fiercely. I was never so harshly scolded before or after. It gave me a glimpse of my father’s true feelings, which he usually kept to himself.
After graduating, I went to work at the Niigata Steelworks. The war situation had worsened and there was an intensifying sense of impending defeat. In 1945, the last year of the war, air raids on Tokyo started on New Year’s Day. Our days were filled with war and air raids. Even so, when spring arrived, the cherry trees began blossoming, honest and true to their nature as always.
On the night of April 15, when the cherry petals were starting to fall, southern Tokyo was attacked in a massive air raid. The anguished sound of the air-raid sirens wailed and mighty B-29s appeared like majestic conquerors, flying steady and low across the sky. The staccato of the strafing from American fighters combined with people’s screams. Incendiary bombs fell like a heavy rain. Tongues of flame leapt up here and there, burning madly. Parents were separated from small children. Sons and daughters struggled in vain to save elderly parents. All those caught up in this hellish nightmare of death and destruction were filled with searing anguish. Even now, it brings immense pain to write of that night.
When the sun rose the next morning, the entire area where I lived had been burned to the ground. Both my beloved elementary school and the so-called national people’s school had been razed.
Around this time I found myself walking alone, lost in thought. The war dragged on. What would happen to Japan? What would become of my family? How would I live my life? I could not envision a future. Eventually, I found myself in a small section of town that hadn’t burned. A little group of cherry trees was in fragrant bloom. It was like a quiet and peaceful dream. In the vast expanse of burnt-out gray, the beautiful colors of the cherry trees glowed like a torch. In the midst of so much death, here was the light of shining life.
In those days, even cherry trees were made into symbols of death. The Japanese people were told to be like cherry blossoms, to scatter courageously in the wind without a whisper of regret. But the cherry trees before me clearly rejected such perversion and spoke to me—powerfully, sublimely—of life. They were overflowing with hope.
“Live! Live fully and deeply! Never cease living! Outlive the winter and let your own unique nature bloom,” they said to me.
I have never forgotten the beloved teachers of my youth. I have stayed in touch with a number of them to this day. Mr. Okabe once wrote to me, exhorting me to live strongly and tenaciously in the face of all obstacles. In another letter he encouraged me, saying: “The taller a tree grows, the harder the wind blows against it; please endure the wind and snow.”
I was able to have a reunion with Mr. Hiyama in Tochigi in 1973. He and his wife had traveled an hour and a half by bus to see me. I hadn’t seen him for more than 30 years, but he still had the aura of a great educator who had made a fine job of raising many children. “You don’t seem to have any time to rest,” he said. “Be careful not to harm your health.” His gaze was just as warm and caring as it had been on that school trip long ago.
Sitting in front of him, I felt as if I had returned to my elementary school days. To a student, your teacher is always your teacher, and to a teacher, your students are always your students. How wonderful it is to have a true teacher! It is easy to encounter a teacher who imparts knowledge, but hard to encounter one who teaches you how to live.
There are many people who love cherries and other flowering trees, but few who truly appreciate the efforts of those who work behind the scenes to keep the trees alive and healthy. The life of an educator is also far from glamorous. Teaching is inconspicuous work that doesn’t get much attention. But it is precisely because of such teachers dedicated to fostering the future that the next generation of children can grow up straight and strong. In those dark days, when the power of ultranationalist authorities pressed down so heavily on Japanese society, my teachers held up for their students the great light of humanity.
If being blessed with good teachers is one of life’s joys, there can be no one happier than I.
Although many people delight in the beautiful blossoms, few bother to consider the roots that make that blossoming possible. In life, our roots are largely formed by our first experience of education, the years we spend in elementary school.
I attended elementary school in Tokyo, a two-story wooden building surrounded by rice paddies. On frosty winter days, the water in the paddies sometimes froze. On such days, a rowdy band of children, we would stray off the road and, shouting “This way! This way!” cut through the paddies on our way to school. It was a tranquil, idyllic time.
But things were changing quickly. Japan was entering a dark, oppressive period in its history. The Manchurian Incident, which began Japan’s invasion of China, took place when I was three. When I was four, there was an abortive coup d’état in which the prime minister was assassinated, and when I was five, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations. Young as we were, we didn’t understand what was going on in the world, but the rising waves of the troubled times reached even into our classrooms.
Another spring came around, and once more the season of cherry blossoms arrived. About this time, my father suffered an attack of debilitating rheumatism and became bedridden. We were forced to scale back our family business of seaweed processing; our lives grew harder day by day. My eldest brother had enjoyed good grades, but he was forced to quit school and go to work to contribute to the family finances.
In the third and fourth grades, my teacher was Mr. Takeuchi. He had just graduated from teachers college and was young and energetic. He placed a particularly heavy emphasis on physical education: “You can be as smart as you like, but if you don’t build a strong body when you’re young, you’ll be of no use to anyone as an adult. Health is important. Study is important. True education combines both.” This appears to have been his credo as a teacher.
I was on the short side and not very strong, so it was no easy thing to meet Mr. Takeuchi’s expectations. To this day, I am moved whenever I remember how keenly he encouraged me to develop my physical strength and become healthy. I also remember how he taught us about the meaning of the Olympics, explaining in detail how they were conducted. That was in 1936, the year the Berlin Olympics were held in Germany. Mr. Takeuchi stressed the importance of holding the Olympics on a grand scale every four years as a means of promoting world peace.
He clearly hated war. In the depths of his heart I think that he strongly opposed the militaristic trend of the times, believing in the importance of peace and encouraging children to grow into fine individuals with a true love of peace.
In Japan, people who tend and care for cherry trees are called sakuramori, a word that implies a sense of careful stewardship. The care they extend expresses faith in the power of life as it grows and develops into the future. They observe the trees’ growth in great detail but allow them to develop freely. For example, if we stake a tree from the very beginning, the tree will rely on the stakes for support and not grow strong on its own.
The roots are especially important. One expert on trees says that the spread of the crown of a cherry tree is mirrored almost exactly by the spread of its roots below ground. If we water the tree only around the base of the trunk, the tree will become “lazy” and not bother to spread its roots far in search of water.
For people, “roots” correspond to the tenacity of our spirit, our refusal to give up. Once a tree has taken firm root, it can survive even on a rocky mountain face buffeted by powerful winds.
Trees are living things. Every cherry tree is unique. That is why there is no manual that can tell us how to grow a cherry tree. The only way to succeed is to learn the particular tree’s character, and warmly care for it.
Each child is also unique. Each has a distinct way of flowering that is his or hers alone. To raise a tree or to foster people, we need a patient faith in their potential to flourish. To the precise degree that we care for and have faith in children, they will extend and spread their roots. And it is this that will give them the strength to survive and make their way successfully through life.
Stewardship expresses a spirit of awe and respect for the potential for limitless growth. I believe that such awe and respect for children should be the foundation of education.
My father’s rheumatism was improving, but with my three brothers conscripted into military service we were short of help and our family finances worsened. When I was a fifth grader, we had to sell our house and move to a smaller one in the same area.
Hoping to do what I could to help my family, I got a job delivering newspapers. I woke up each morning while it was still dark and helped out with the seaweed production. When I finished, I delivered my papers and then went to school. After returning from school, I helped with the family business again, pulling the dried sheets of nori seaweed off the racks. Then I delivered the evening paper. At night there was the work of cleaning the seaweed, removing any impurities. I look back now on those busy days with fondness.
When I was in sixth grade, we took a school trip to Kansai. It was my first trip away from home, and I was very excited. My mother had given me some pocket money, which she had somehow managed to scrape together. I used it to treat my friends, and at the end of the first day it was almost gone. My teacher, Mr. Hiyama, must have been watching me the whole time, because he called to me as I was going up the stairs of the inn where we were staying and said, “Your elder brothers are all away at the war. You have to buy your parents a souvenir from your trip.”
I was crushed; of course he was right. My mother’s face appeared before my eyes. Smiling, Mr. Hiyama called me downstairs. He placed some money in my palm and closed my fingers around it. At that time, the two bills were a considerable sum. I breathed a sigh of relief. When I returned home and gave my mother her gift, I told her what had happened. “You must never forget Mr. Hiyama,” she said with a gentle smile.
I don’t feel that he was giving me special treatment. He cared for us all equally, looking deep into our hearts, aware of the family situations. I will never forget the warm affection with which he looked at each of us during our graduation ceremony, large tears running down his cheeks.
In 1940, I graduated from elementary school and entered junior high school. My teacher for the next two years was Mr. Okabe, whom we called “Mr. Buccaneer.”
He used to make us laugh by telling us that in a past life he must have been the leader of a pirate crew sailing the Inland Sea, which was near his hometown. He was tall with jet-black hair and a handsome, intelligent face. There were some 40 boys in our class—no girls. Mr. Okabe often encouraged me to exercise to strengthen myself physically. He loved sumo wrestling, and taught us various sumo techniques. Even though I was small, I did my best. At first glance, Mr. Okabe appeared very intimidating, but I never felt afraid of him. It may have been because I was rather shy, but I can’t remember him ever scolding me. Once, one of the students in our class was hit by another teacher. When Mr. Okabe heard about it he charged into the staff room shouting, “Which one of you hit one of my students?!” He had a very strong sense of right and wrong. He may have seemed gruff on the outside, but we all felt his concern and affection.
When I was in my second year of junior high, its name was changed to Haginaka National People’s School. This was mandated by a law filled with militaristic overtones that sought to turn children into soldiers. The gymnasiums of many schools were converted into martial arts training halls. Japan was sliding down the slope from war with China into the even more disastrous Pacific War. In their arrogance and stupidity, the leaders of the day had no thought for the welfare of ordinary citizens. They were driving the nation into the abyss of war with a mix of threats and well-crafted slogans.
Education has a truly astonishing power to cast a spell over the innocent hearts of children. Many of the students in my class at the new “national people’s school” applied to enlist as soldiers or as civilian colonists on the Chinese mainland. They did this because it seemed to be the highest expression of patriotism: to be a pioneering hero of the new era. I, too, wanted to become a student pilot in the navy after I graduated. Although I was concerned about my family and how they would fare without me, I secretly sent in an application.
I wasn’t there when a representative of the navy visited my home. My father sent the man away saying: “My three eldest sons are all in the army. The fourth will be going soon. Do you really plan to take away my fifth as well? No more. That’s enough!”
When I got home, my father berated me fiercely. I was never so harshly scolded before or after. It gave me a glimpse of my father’s true feelings, which he usually kept to himself.
After graduating, I went to work at the Niigata Steelworks. The war situation had worsened and there was an intensifying sense of impending defeat. In 1945, the last year of the war, air raids on Tokyo started on New Year’s Day. Our days were filled with war and air raids. Even so, when spring arrived, the cherry trees began blossoming, honest and true to their nature as always.
On the night of April 15, when the cherry petals were starting to fall, southern Tokyo was attacked in a massive air raid. The anguished sound of the air-raid sirens wailed and mighty B-29s appeared like majestic conquerors, flying steady and low across the sky. The staccato of the strafing from American fighters combined with people’s screams. Incendiary bombs fell like a heavy rain. Tongues of flame leapt up here and there, burning madly. Parents were separated from small children. Sons and daughters struggled in vain to save elderly parents. All those caught up in this hellish nightmare of death and destruction were filled with searing anguish. Even now, it brings immense pain to write of that night.
When the sun rose the next morning, the entire area where I lived had been burned to the ground. Both my beloved elementary school and the so-called national people’s school had been razed.
Around this time I found myself walking alone, lost in thought. The war dragged on. What would happen to Japan? What would become of my family? How would I live my life? I could not envision a future. Eventually, I found myself in a small section of town that hadn’t burned. A little group of cherry trees was in fragrant bloom. It was like a quiet and peaceful dream. In the vast expanse of burnt-out gray, the beautiful colors of the cherry trees glowed like a torch. In the midst of so much death, here was the light of shining life.
In those days, even cherry trees were made into symbols of death. The Japanese people were told to be like cherry blossoms, to scatter courageously in the wind without a whisper of regret. But the cherry trees before me clearly rejected such perversion and spoke to me—powerfully, sublimely—of life. They were overflowing with hope.
“Live! Live fully and deeply! Never cease living! Outlive the winter and let your own unique nature bloom,” they said to me.
I have never forgotten the beloved teachers of my youth. I have stayed in touch with a number of them to this day. Mr. Okabe once wrote to me, exhorting me to live strongly and tenaciously in the face of all obstacles. In another letter he encouraged me, saying: “The taller a tree grows, the harder the wind blows against it; please endure the wind and snow.”
I was able to have a reunion with Mr. Hiyama in Tochigi in 1973. He and his wife had traveled an hour and a half by bus to see me. I hadn’t seen him for more than 30 years, but he still had the aura of a great educator who had made a fine job of raising many children. “You don’t seem to have any time to rest,” he said. “Be careful not to harm your health.” His gaze was just as warm and caring as it had been on that school trip long ago.
Sitting in front of him, I felt as if I had returned to my elementary school days. To a student, your teacher is always your teacher, and to a teacher, your students are always your students. How wonderful it is to have a true teacher! It is easy to encounter a teacher who imparts knowledge, but hard to encounter one who teaches you how to live.
There are many people who love cherries and other flowering trees, but few who truly appreciate the efforts of those who work behind the scenes to keep the trees alive and healthy. The life of an educator is also far from glamorous. Teaching is inconspicuous work that doesn’t get much attention. But it is precisely because of such teachers dedicated to fostering the future that the next generation of children can grow up straight and strong. In those dark days, when the power of ultranationalist authorities pressed down so heavily on Japanese society, my teachers held up for their students the great light of humanity.
If being blessed with good teachers is one of life’s joys, there can be no one happier than I.
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Friday, December 30, 2011
The Spirit of Reverence for Life (Eng Version only)
Dr. Wangari Maathai is traveling around the world urging the importance of protecting our natural environment with the rallying cry mottainai. Why has this Japanese word—which means, “What a waste!”—so captured Dr. Maathai’s imagination? The moment I saw her beaming smile at our meeting in 2005, I understood immediately: because Wangari is also known as the mother of the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots effort to plant trees in many African countries. In the past 30 years, poor women in the countryside have joined Wangari in planting more than 30 million trees across Africa. They are women who must rise early in the morning and walk many miles each day, their infant children strapped to their backs, in search of water and firewood. This movement to make their lives easier and at the same time protect the natural environment is indeed a movement of mothers, for mothers and by mothers.
It’s only to be expected that Wangari, who has led such a movement for decades, should be impressed by the wisdom of Japanese mothers as exemplified by their byword, mottainai.
For people of my generation, who lived through World War II, the word mottainai reminds us of our mothers. Any scrap of food left over from our dinner or its preparation was transformed by our mothers’ hardworking hands into a delicious home-cooked treat to fill the stomachs of her growing children. She pickled the leaves cut off the top of radishes, chopped vegetable peelings into a tasty side dish, and served us leftover grilled fish as our afternoon snack. Kids were proud to wear pants with patches their mothers had sewn on their knees. Mothers were masters of a science of nutrition based on love, a home economics based on thrift and ingenuity.
The spirit of loving care that precluded wasting anything was one of Japan’s most admirable virtues in those times, and it was intimately linked to a nurturing ethos of reverence for life and consideration for others. I’m sure I’m not alone in lamenting the loss of this spirit as one reason behind the loss of humanity so painfully evident in our world today.
My wife, who also experienced the privation of the war years, has always striven to be thrifty and economical in managing our household. She never wastes so much as a grain of rice, and any leftovers from dinner are certain to make a second appearance at another meal. Recycling is second nature to her, and she has always saved things like wrapping paper and ribbon for reuse.
These examples of everyday ingenuity and resourcefulness may seem slight or negligible, but mothers of the world have used this homespun wisdom and love as effective tools for sustaining their families and improving their lives.
Wangari also conceived of her Green Belt Movement out of compassion and concern for the future of her children and her homeland of Kenya. She applauds the noble, ordinary women who participate in the movement as “foresters without diplomas.” Their committed solidarity and steadfast efforts in their communities are not only preventing the desertification of Africa but also raising awareness of environmental issues in the minds of people the world over. Their service to humanity and the Earth far exceeds that of any national leader. In a speech given at our university, Wangari said that politicians inevitably try to take advantage of the people, and so it is vital for the people to prevent that by involving themselves in government. This is indeed true. I believe that democracy in the 21st century needs to be based upon learning from the wisdom of mothers, who are truly representatives of the people, and putting the wisdom of women to the fullest possible use.
My mother is also the starting point of my activities for peace. She remained brave and undaunted though four of her sons were taken away from her, one after another, to fight in World War II. But after the war, when she received the news that her eldest son had been killed in the fighting, she was heartbroken. I will never forget the sight of her pain and sorrow at that moment as long as I live.
The sorrow of one good-hearted mother is the sorrow of millions of mothers. War, which forces the mothers of the world into submission and subjects them to starvation and such bitter grief, must never be permitted, no matter what the circumstances.
Planting a tree is planting life; it is fostering the future, fostering peace—these are beliefs that Wangari and I found we shared at the deepest level when we met and talked.
“No matter how hopeless the situation seems,” she told me then, “the light of hope can shine."
It’s only to be expected that Wangari, who has led such a movement for decades, should be impressed by the wisdom of Japanese mothers as exemplified by their byword, mottainai.
For people of my generation, who lived through World War II, the word mottainai reminds us of our mothers. Any scrap of food left over from our dinner or its preparation was transformed by our mothers’ hardworking hands into a delicious home-cooked treat to fill the stomachs of her growing children. She pickled the leaves cut off the top of radishes, chopped vegetable peelings into a tasty side dish, and served us leftover grilled fish as our afternoon snack. Kids were proud to wear pants with patches their mothers had sewn on their knees. Mothers were masters of a science of nutrition based on love, a home economics based on thrift and ingenuity.
The spirit of loving care that precluded wasting anything was one of Japan’s most admirable virtues in those times, and it was intimately linked to a nurturing ethos of reverence for life and consideration for others. I’m sure I’m not alone in lamenting the loss of this spirit as one reason behind the loss of humanity so painfully evident in our world today.
My wife, who also experienced the privation of the war years, has always striven to be thrifty and economical in managing our household. She never wastes so much as a grain of rice, and any leftovers from dinner are certain to make a second appearance at another meal. Recycling is second nature to her, and she has always saved things like wrapping paper and ribbon for reuse.
These examples of everyday ingenuity and resourcefulness may seem slight or negligible, but mothers of the world have used this homespun wisdom and love as effective tools for sustaining their families and improving their lives.
Wangari also conceived of her Green Belt Movement out of compassion and concern for the future of her children and her homeland of Kenya. She applauds the noble, ordinary women who participate in the movement as “foresters without diplomas.” Their committed solidarity and steadfast efforts in their communities are not only preventing the desertification of Africa but also raising awareness of environmental issues in the minds of people the world over. Their service to humanity and the Earth far exceeds that of any national leader. In a speech given at our university, Wangari said that politicians inevitably try to take advantage of the people, and so it is vital for the people to prevent that by involving themselves in government. This is indeed true. I believe that democracy in the 21st century needs to be based upon learning from the wisdom of mothers, who are truly representatives of the people, and putting the wisdom of women to the fullest possible use.
My mother is also the starting point of my activities for peace. She remained brave and undaunted though four of her sons were taken away from her, one after another, to fight in World War II. But after the war, when she received the news that her eldest son had been killed in the fighting, she was heartbroken. I will never forget the sight of her pain and sorrow at that moment as long as I live.
The sorrow of one good-hearted mother is the sorrow of millions of mothers. War, which forces the mothers of the world into submission and subjects them to starvation and such bitter grief, must never be permitted, no matter what the circumstances.
Planting a tree is planting life; it is fostering the future, fostering peace—these are beliefs that Wangari and I found we shared at the deepest level when we met and talked.
“No matter how hopeless the situation seems,” she told me then, “the light of hope can shine."
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Thursday, September 29, 2011
My mother (Eng version only)
My Mother
by Daisaku Ikeda
My mother was an ordinary Japanese woman like many other women born in the late nineteenth century. She devoted herself to her somewhat difficult husband, and raised eight children, seven boys and one girl. I was the fifth son. There were also two adopted children, making a total of ten. Her life was by no means an easy one. My father, who died in 1956, was so hardheaded and obstinate that he was known among his relatives and neighbors as “Old Diehard.” I know my mother must have needed enormous patience to stick with him until the end of his life.
Mother also helped with the family seaweed business. Producing seaweed takes a fearful amount of time and hard work. During the harvest season she went out every day in a small boat during the early hours of the morning, dipping her hands into the freezing saltwater to reach the seaweed—her hands were always sore and chapped. On top of that she had the cooking to do and the children to look after. Still, she always kept the house clean, dusting throughout, sweeping and finishing by carefully wiping each tatami (rush) mat with a cloth. She often carried a baby on her back as she washed clothes by hand, or patched up our clothes late into the night.
I never saw her take a break or a nap once. I assume that she was too busy to even stop and think about what she lived for. But she excelled as a homemaker. She couldn’t possibly have done the huge amount of housework she did and keep us fed and neatly dressed if she hadn’t been well-organized and methodical. She was so efficient it was almost artistic. There was no movement wasted, and nothing was put in a certain place without meaning and purpose. She was not exceptional in any way, but I consider my mother to have been a great woman.
Life was hard for women in those days. Men dominated society, allowing women few opportunities and choices. However, my mother drew on her inner strength and endlessly gave for the sake of her family in an extremely tough environment. She used to call us “the champions of poverty,” and she always stayed cheerful, never complaining. Whatever I was going through, her presence gave me great hope and courage.
My mother’s words are permanently engraved on my heart. At times they seem to shine like the light from a diamond. I can still feel her warm and caring voice within me—it heals me mentally and physically. It encourages me to do the right thing and helps me determine what is right or wrong. The words that I remember most are not extraordinary. “Don’t do anything that causes others trouble,” and “Don’t tell lies.” When we began school she added, “Once you decide to do something, take responsibility for it and carry it out yourself.”
I also learned from her actions. In spite of the large number of children she had to cope with, in everything, from the dividing up of food to the settling of quarrels, she showed fairness and impartiality. She was in fact a highly skilled judge and arbitrator.
One incident that showed me her great inner strength took place during the war. In March 1945, as the bombing of Tokyo intensified, we were ordered to evacuate the house in which I had grown up. The house had to be torn down to make a fire break. Just as we had managed to move all the family belongings into my aunt’s house and were ready to move ourselves, an air raid targeted her neighborhood. Flames shot up all around us. My aunt’s home took a direct hit and burnt to the ground. The only thing my younger brother and I managed to pull from the flames was an old trunk. In the hazy light of the next morning, we opened this trunk, our sole remaining possession.
Inside was a single umbrella and some of the large decorative dolls usually displayed in Japan on the day of the Girls Festival, March 3. Of all the useless things to survive the flames! We moaned in disappointment. Even though she must have shared our deep frustration, my mother refused to give in to it. “I’m sure that we will come to live in the kind of home where we can display these dolls properly. I’m certain of it . . .” Her words provoked a smile, then laughter. In that laughter we found hope.
Another wartime incident is engraved in my memory: I remember watching an American B-29 being shot down by antiaircraft fire. I stood transfixed, as the young pilot parachuted to the ground. I later heard that he was attacked by some people in the crowd that had gathered, before being dragged away by the military police. When I told my mother about this, she replied with genuine feeling, “How terrible. His mother must be so very worried about him.” It was irrelevant to her whether the pilot was an enemy or not. Her response impressed me greatly.
My mother was a very ordinary person who seemed content to live a quiet life in her own small corner of the world. And yet, from the plain, unassuming way she lived, I learned many important things about life. From her example, I strongly feel that there is no reason for a mother to feel at a disadvantage or think badly of herself just because she doesn’t have a high level of education. A woman who tries to learn from everything and has the confidence to fully use the wisdom she gains in her daily life will give an irreplaceable example to her children.
My mother was able to say to me, just a week before she died, “I have won in life.” How many people can say that with confidence?
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Raising Children (Eng version only)
Raising Children
by Daisaku Ikeda
I love to see the growth of young people, as they are straight and true, and full of promise. Their whole lives lie ahead of them. And it is they who are entrusted with the future. That’s why I take them very seriously.
I feel that “treasures of the heart” are the greatest possible gift from parents to their children. Some parents may wish to guarantee their children’s happiness by giving them material wealth. Yet, no matter how wealthy they are, without good health and physical strength, children will not be able to lead truly happy lives. And above all, I believe that it is the “treasures of the heart”—inner qualities such as spiritual strength, character and humanity—that will ensure the true happiness of a child.
I see childraising as a process of leading a young adult to develop the strength to stand and walk on his own feet. Every time I meet a child, I always offer my respect to him or her as an independent person. A child is an individual with a distinct personality, and even the bond between parent and child is ultimately a relationship between two individuals.
Some children are very considerate and always deep in thought. Others may be looking for someone to fight with. One child cannot resist scribbling on everything in sight. Another is always running to the kitchen for something to eat. There are a thousand different character types and each has different interests. Parents can try to anticipate the different directions in which a child’s individuality might lead them and then do everything possible to provide the environment best suited for their development.
Children are very sensitive; I always feel it is unkind to make comparisons among them. Buddhism teaches that just as cherry blossoms are cherry blossoms, and plum blossoms are plum blossoms, each person has a totally unique character. Children need to each grow at their own rate and in a way that is true to themselves.
Nothing encourages the growth of children more than knowing they are understood and trusted by their parents, as a story about the great French writer and poet Victor Hugo illustrates. The man who lived next door to the young Hugo’s family had a huge apple tree, and he decided to build a fence around it so that children couldn’t pick the apples. Hugo’s mother told him, “If you’re building that fence to keep my son away, you needn’t bother.” The man continued to watch, but the boy never came near the tree. I am impressed that Hugo’s mother knew her son’s character so well.
In order for a child to develop an independent self, it may be necessary at times to discipline him, while at other times the child needs to follow his own way.
I don’t think children are weak and fragile from the beginning. I believe that even a newborn baby possesses vast untapped potential. I’ve heard that a baby, even without any swimming lessons, can instinctively swim when put in water. Perhaps it is parents’ overprotectiveness that actually suppresses the potential of a child, making him or her feeble to the point where the child loses the once-possessed skill and strength needed to swim in the vast ocean called “life.”
Fearing their child may become wet from a small wave, some parents would make sure that she will not even go near the water, and others may try to shield and protect her by getting wet themselves. Imagine how shocked and helpless such a child may become when suddenly thrown into the vast ocean. What will happen to her after she grows up and is swept away by the crushing waves of life and finds that no one is there to intervene on her behalf?
Parenting, to me, means helping a child to develop his or her own strength to strive, to challenge and to live. “If you love your child, help him stand on his own feet and send him off on a journey of learning,” was a concept popular in old Japan. This is how parents back then educated their children. If the ability to face life’s difficulties is made the focus of their upbringing, there is no need to worry whether or not one’s children will handle their lives well.
Sadly, however, some parents try to use their children as a means to give expression to their own vanity and pride, trying to force them into some preconceived mold they consider desirable. This is not a pretty sight, and they run a grave risk of destroying the individuality of their child entirely. If a parent thinks not of the child’s dreams but of his or her own, the result will be something as artificial as the dwarfed trees in a bonsai arrangement.
I feel it is crucial that parents understand the way children’s minds work. When he asks the all-important question, “Why?” and is scolded, or a nonsensical answer is made up to quiet him, a child’s purity of spirit will be sullied.
One of the most crucial aspects of childraising is how to answer this frequent question. In the beginning children expect their parents to teach them about everything. However, rather than responding immediately, maybe the mother or father can take the time to work out together with the child what the answer might be. This can help cultivate the child’s power of reasoning.
If parents can raise their children in a way that discourages self-absorption and fosters open-mindedness, such openness of spirit will naturally develop into a warmheartedness directed toward others, toward nature and toward the universe. And with such young people in it, I am confident that the world will become a better place.
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Cause and Effect (Eng version only)
Cause and Effect
by Daisaku Ikeda
As life undergoes the eternal repetitions of birth and death, it expands in a free and dynamic fashion, always charged with limitless potential for self-improvement. This view of eternal life accords with the Buddhist philosophy of causality.
Living organisms eternally go back and forth between life and death, which
are themselves but two phases of existence. The causes formed by a person in the present become manifest as effects in the future.
If people apply this simple law to their lives, it is possible for them to develop a constructive, hopeful attitude toward their daily activities and to recognize the true value of life in this present world. The future does not exist apart from the present, nor will it remain fixed in a single plane.
What and how we will be in the future depends on what we do now. Every single act and thought plays a role in shaping our existence, in both life and death. The law of causality permeates and molds the great eternal flow of cosmic life.
What, then, are the practical implications of this philosophy? How should it affect our conduct and our outlook?
In the first place it provides us with the courage to challenge both life and death. It enables us to see death not as some terrifying unknown but as a normal phase of existence that alternates with life in an eternal cycle.
Second, it teaches us to treasure the life we are now living and to try to make it as worthwhile as possible. If we believe in our hearts our present behavior creates and determines our future existences, we will strive to cultivate ourselves and make the most of what each day offers.
Third, it teaches us that the only way to fulfill the potential of the human race is to live just, kind, benevolent and compassionate lives. We are helped by being aware that each activity in which we engage can be the source of growth and self-reformation. It is comforting to know that the seeds of good fortune we amass by means of our conduct are undiminished by death, integral with life itself and enhance our eternal self.
Finally, this way of thinking enables us to control and subdue our instinctive desires, redirecting them in such a way as to elevate our state of being. We learn to avoid the pitfalls of hedonism and pessimism, to find joy and truth in compassion rather than in an ephemeral hope for rebirth in some other world.
Labels: e. Words of mentor
The Power of Words (Eng version only)
The Power of Words
by Daisaku Ikeda
I have vivid memories of encounters with people whose voices or words have moved me over the years. One which springs to mind happened during a visit to the Guilin region of China, a beautiful land of craggy mountains, mists and rivers.
Walking along, we met two young girls, no older than 15 or 16, selling medicinal herbs near a river. They carried a large basket filled with herbs, inviting passersby to buy their goods with vibrant voices.
“Ni hao!” [Hello] I called to them. “Ni hao!” They smiled back: “We offer every kind of medicine: choose the one you want.”
I smiled at their high spirits and asked, “Do you have anything to make me smarter?” They seemed taken aback, but only for an instant. “I’m sorry,” one of them replied in a clear, firm voice, “We just sold out of that one.”
Our group burst into laughter at this witty reply, and we felt as warm inside as if a gentle spring breeze had touched us. As a Chinese saying puts it, “Even a single word uttered out of goodness can warm the heart in the bitterest winter.”
I fondly recall that my wife and I ended up buying some herbs as souvenirs, and I sometimes wonder how the girls and their families are doing.
I believe that sincere one-to-one conversation can soften and melt even hearts that are completely frozen. By talking with someone face-to-face, you can actually change that person’s life and your own.
Today we live in the midst of a flood of soulless information. And the more we rely on one-way communication, like radio or TV, or static and unmoving words in print, the more I feel the need to stress the value of the sound of the human voice: The simple but precious interaction of voice and voice, person and person; the exchange of life with life.
In a face-to-face conversation, the listener can ask questions or disagree, and this in turn may make the speaker rethink his or her own views. The process is dynamic and multifaceted, creating mutual joy and understanding.
For myself, I love talking with a wide range of people from all over the world. I always learn something new and I find it inspiring to be exposed to different ways of thinking. This is a kind of spiritual nutrition for me.
My experience is that no matter how strong the initial uncertainty, or even hostility another person may feel toward you, if you approach them with complete sincerity and speak the truth, they will invariably respond in kind.
Face-to-face conversation may seem like something very ordinary, but it is in fact the most powerful tool for positive change we possess. We can exchange ideas on a very human, personal level, with a basis of respect and faith in each other’s essential goodness. Everyone involved is equal; there is neither superior or inferior.
The French thinker Montaigne loved discussion, and he always kept an open mind, saying, “No proposition astounds me, no belief offends me, however much opposed it may be to my own. Contradictions of opinion only arouse and exercise my mind.” To him, dialogue was the search for truth, and he claimed that he welcomed and embraced the truth, in whoever’s hands he found it.
As we have two ears and one mouth, maybe we should listen twice as much as we speak. Certainly if we are self-righteous or prejudiced, no one will approach us with an open heart.
Sometimes our attempts to start a discussion or talk things over may be slighted or ignored. Then we should remember that rejection and disappointment are inevitable in life, and just keep on trying. Maintaining dialogue takes great patience and perseverance. We need to develop a strong sense of self, so that although we can clearly see the emotions of the other person, we keep on calmly and steadily “rowing” closer to their heart.
The biggest obstacle to successful dialogue is usually excessive attachment to one’s own point of view. For instance, a rift between a parent and child will not be easily healed as long as the parent only sees things as a parent, and the child only from his or her own viewpoint.
In a genuine discussion, it is best if we can see any confrontations that arise as just another form of our connectedness. If both parent and child can see themselves as sharing common ground—making up a family together—things can take a surprisingly easy turn for the better. The deeper the common feeling that binds us, the more we can embrace those who differ from us and ensure that dialogue will lead to a fruitful outcome.
Whether the problem is that of a single family, or international in scope, if those involved can view things from a higher perspective, with a sense of shared purpose, the gears of dialogue will always start to turn in a positive direction.
If more people were to pursue dialogue in an equally broad-minded and persistent manner, I am sure that the inevitable conflicts of human life would find easier resolution. Prejudice would give way to understanding, and war to peace. Genuine dialogue results in the transformation of opposing viewpoints, changing them from wedges that drive people apart into bridges that link them together.
Labels: e. Words of mentor
The Creative Spirit (Eng version only)
The Creative Spirit
by Daisaku Ikeda
The times when I have most intensely felt and experienced the inner reality of creation have been those times when I have thrown myself wholeheartedly into a task, when I have carried through with that task to the very end. At such times, I experience a dramatically expanded sense of self. I can almost hear the joyous yell of victory issuing from the depths of my being.
This sense of fulfillment and joy is the crystallization of all the effort—each drop of sweat, each tear—expended to reach that moment. Life’s inherent creativity, its dynamic vitality, is brought to the surface only through the strenuous exertions of a life of consistent action.
Such a way of life will meet with storms and heavy rains, times of seeming defeat. But the creative essence of life is never crushed or vanquished by such things. It is sustained by knowledge of the brilliant rainbow whose bright arch will eventually stretch across the inner expanse of your being.
Indulgence and indolence produce nothing creative. Complaints and evasions reflect a cowardly spirit; they corrupt and undermine life’s natural creative thrust. When life is denuded of the will to struggle creatively, it sinks into a state of hellish destructiveness directed at all that lives.
Never for an instant forget the effort to renew your life, to build yourself anew. Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway of life itself. This is not an easy task. Indeed, it may be the most severely challenging struggle there is. For opening the door to your own life is in the end more difficult than opening the door to all the mysteries of the universe.
But to do so is to vindicate your existence as human beings. Even more, it is the mode of existence that is authentically attuned to the innermost truths of life itself; it makes us worthy of the gift of life.
There is no way of life more desolate or more pitiful than one of ignorance of the fundamental joy that issues from the struggle to generate and regenerate one’s own life from within. To be human is much more than the mere biological facts of standing erect and exercising reason and intelligence. The full and genuine meaning of our humanity is found in tapping the creative fonts of life itself.
The struggle to create new life from within is a truly wonderful thing. There is found the brilliant wisdom that guides and directs the workings of reason; the light of insight that penetrates the farthest reaches of the universe; the undaunted will to see justice done that meets and challenges all the assaults of evil; the spirit of unbounded care that embraces all who suffer. When these are fused with that energy of compassion that pours forth from the deepest sources of cosmic life, an ecstatic rhythm arises to color the lives of all people.
As you meet various trials and difficulties, thus polishing all the many facets of the jewel which is life, you will learn to walk that supreme pathway of humanity. Of this, I am confident, and I am confident too that those who embrace life’s native creativity now stand and will continue to stand in the vanguard of history. Bringing the creativity of life to its fullest flowering is the work of human revolution. Carrying out this kind of human revolution is your mission now as it will be throughout your lives.
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Human Revolution (Eng version only)
Human Revolution
by Daisaku Ikeda
Life is about expressing and developing our individuality as fully as possible—it is about self-realization. This process is what I call “human revolution.”
There are many kinds of revolutions—political, economic, industrial, scientific, artistic and so on. But no matter how external factors change, the world will never get better as long as people remain selfish and apathetic. As John F. Kennedy said, in 1963, “Our problems are man-made—therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants.”
An inner change for the better in a single person is the essential first turn of the wheel in the process of making the human race stronger and wiser. This “human revolution” is, I believe, the most fundamental and most vital of all revolutions. This kind of revolution—an inner process of self-reformation—is completely bloodless and peaceful. In it everyone wins and there are no victims.
Life is a struggle with ourselves; it is a tug-of-war between moving forward and slipping backward, between happiness and misery. We are changing constantly, but the real issue is whether we change for the better or the worse, whether or not we succeed in enlarging our narrow, self-centered focus to take a broader view.
If we just allow ourselves to be ruled by force of habit, the way we’ve always reacted to a given situation, we will be drawn down the path of least resistance and stop growing as a person.
But if we succeed in challenging ourselves on a fundamental level, we can change from being a person who is buffeted about by the environment or the people around us, becoming someone who can positively influence our situation and surroundings. We actually create the unique shape of our lives by the infinite choices we make each day.
True individuality and character never come to full flower without hard work. I feel it is a mistake to think that who you are right now represents all you are capable of. If you passively decide, “I’m a quiet person, so I’ll just go through life being quiet,” you won’t ever fully realize your unique potential. Without having to change your character completely, you can become a person who, while still basically quiet, will say the right thing at the right time with real conviction. In the same way, a negative tendency toward impatience can be developed into a useful knack for getting things done quickly and efficiently.
But nothing is more immediate, or more difficult, than to confront and transform ourselves. It is always tempting to decide, “That’s just the kind of person I am.” And unless we challenge this tendency early in life, it will become stronger with age. But the effort is worthwhile in the end, as I believe that nothing produces deeper satisfaction than successfully challenging our own weaknesses. As the Russian author Tolstoy wrote, “Supreme happiness is to find that you are a better person at the end of the year than you were at the beginning.”
Human revolution is not something extraordinary, or divorced from our daily lives. It often begins in a small way. Take a man who thinks only of himself, his family and friends. Then, one day, he makes a move to break out of these narrow confines just a little, going out of his way to help a suffering neighbor. This is the start of his human revolution. But this process of human revolution cannot be undertaken alone. It is through our interactions with others that we polish our lives and grow as human beings.
By taking action for, and being positively engaged with others, we become better and more disciplined people. But this doesn’t mean making others happy while ignoring ourselves or our own happiness. The happiness we create as individuals, and the strong bonds we create with each other, result in the happiness of all humankind.
Transforming our own lives at the most fundamental level actually holds the key to changing society. A deep change in our outlook, the inner reality of our life, produces changes in the external workings of our life, in other people, and our community.
I firmly believe that a great human revolution in just a single individual can help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and enable a change in all humankind.
The life of Mahatma Gandhi illustrates this point. As a boy he was painfully shy. He was always worried people would make fun of him. Even after passing his exams as a lawyer, he was still timid. When he rose to present the opening arguments in his first court case, his mind went blank from nerves and he had to leave the courtroom.
But a turning point occurred when he was in South Africa, where Indian residents faced severe discrimination. Gandhi was riding in a first-class carriage on a train, when he was ordered to move to the freight car. He refused, and was eventually forced off the train. In the waiting area at the station, Gandhi stayed awake all night, debating whether he should return to India or endure the hardship of taking a stand and fighting for human rights. He finally realized that it would be cowardice to run from his fears and disregard the needs of people who were being discriminated against as he had been.
From that moment, Gandhi squarely faced and challenged his timid nature, determined to challenge injustice. And his inner change sparked one of the greatest developments of the twentieth century—the movement for social change through nonviolence.
Every single person has tremendous potential that is largely untapped. Through the hard work of our human revolution, this potential can be revealed and we can establish an independent, unconquerable sense of self. We can deal creatively with any situation that life has to offer. This open-ended process enables us to keep growing and developing throughout our lives, and beyond. We will never meet a deadlock on our eternal journey of self-realization.
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Pioneer
As a leader one must take lead to make a breakthrough. Standing at the vanguard, facing great storms of adversity is inevitable; in spite of everything we’d still confront adversities. To be able to resolutely overcome adversities opening up ones path are the qualities of a leader.
- Mr. Ikeda -
As Junior Division PIC, besides taking up multiple roles and responsibilities in our organisation, we are constantly playing different roles, confronting different problems and dealing with various pressures regardless at home, with friends or at work. At times we may even carry our problems to Junior Division meetings where we’d try hard not to get distracted by the problem and try our best to provide a joyful meeting for the children. As a matter of fact, it isn’t easy to do so. So in this guidance Mr. Ikeda’s precisely teaches us the responsibilities as a leader.
Leaders are likened to pioneers; whilst successive generations also play very important roles in their struggles. Leaders must take lead to wage through all struggles, however if they flinch to timidity, the whole army will be affected and they couldn’t discern whether they are confronting their enemies heads on or are surrendering. Furthermore, they are the first group to face death and that no matter what happens, they are the ones who will protect their fellow incoming alliances at war. As the vanguard, courage is essential whereas wisdom and knowledge cannot be disregarded. If the people at the vanguard carry a stiff mentality and dash ahead recklessly without putting the rest of the troop’s safety into consideration, ultimately they will surely end in defeat.
China’s former premier Zhou En Lai once said: ‘Under severe conditions or situations, we are more able to reveal our virtues and strengthen ourselves. We do not seek to develop in a comfortable zone. It is because everyone would wish to go there and anyone could survive there. First of all, we must first strive and expand in adverse areas.’ At times, we may even think: if only our district’s Junior Division activities, children and PICs can be as happy and grow in the same way as the other district, that’ll be truly great! However, we’ve overlooked all the struggles and effort that particular district have put into their current success; and it is also something which we have yet experience. Hence, as opposed to the guidance above, we who are currently living under a difficult situation will become even more disorganized and slack as a result of seeking to live comfortably.
The one thing which we could change is our outlook. If we make a resolve now, regardless what we may face, we shouldn’t be discouraged and strive again and again with courage, patience and persevere until we gain victory. Mr. Ikeda said: ‘Youths, no matter what storm of tribulation appears, resolutely protect Soka’s mentor and disciple spirit!’
Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1591) of the House of Habsburg once said in a battlefield combat: ‘What is courage? Let me be your role model and show you!’ (that was his last ride in his middle age). Even though he was a person of high ranks, he never regarded himself as a superior and instead became a courageous role model to his army and fought the war with them. Our respected mentor – SGI President Mr. Ikeda is also like him.
During the struggles in Kamata with selfless determination striving all out, Mr. Ikeda eventually managed to achieve unprecedented ultimate victory. He carried the resolve not to miss a single group and visited every chapter at every corner of the country whilst chanting that everyone will be able to experience benefits and good fortune. His actions showed us the example and role model of ‘meeting with people of every corner in the country’ as a pioneer at the vanguard. Instructing people from high above isn’t Mr. Ikeda’s approach in doing things. He is always the first person to take the initiative as the leader of our propagation movement to strive together with his comrade day in day out. This is indeed a very worthy example for us to learn from.
The history of Kamata isn’t something of the past but an obstacle which we must breakthrough at ‘present’! Now is the time to repay our SGI president and be united to strive for kosen rufu! Placing utmost faith in Junior Divisions development not only can promote the progress of Malaysia’s kosen rufu, furthermore, it also fosters our country’s exceptional Junior Divisions, thus enabling our Malaysian society to blossom beautiful flowers of harmonious friendship!
- Mr. Ikeda -
As Junior Division PIC, besides taking up multiple roles and responsibilities in our organisation, we are constantly playing different roles, confronting different problems and dealing with various pressures regardless at home, with friends or at work. At times we may even carry our problems to Junior Division meetings where we’d try hard not to get distracted by the problem and try our best to provide a joyful meeting for the children. As a matter of fact, it isn’t easy to do so. So in this guidance Mr. Ikeda’s precisely teaches us the responsibilities as a leader.
Leaders are likened to pioneers; whilst successive generations also play very important roles in their struggles. Leaders must take lead to wage through all struggles, however if they flinch to timidity, the whole army will be affected and they couldn’t discern whether they are confronting their enemies heads on or are surrendering. Furthermore, they are the first group to face death and that no matter what happens, they are the ones who will protect their fellow incoming alliances at war. As the vanguard, courage is essential whereas wisdom and knowledge cannot be disregarded. If the people at the vanguard carry a stiff mentality and dash ahead recklessly without putting the rest of the troop’s safety into consideration, ultimately they will surely end in defeat.
China’s former premier Zhou En Lai once said: ‘Under severe conditions or situations, we are more able to reveal our virtues and strengthen ourselves. We do not seek to develop in a comfortable zone. It is because everyone would wish to go there and anyone could survive there. First of all, we must first strive and expand in adverse areas.’ At times, we may even think: if only our district’s Junior Division activities, children and PICs can be as happy and grow in the same way as the other district, that’ll be truly great! However, we’ve overlooked all the struggles and effort that particular district have put into their current success; and it is also something which we have yet experience. Hence, as opposed to the guidance above, we who are currently living under a difficult situation will become even more disorganized and slack as a result of seeking to live comfortably.
The one thing which we could change is our outlook. If we make a resolve now, regardless what we may face, we shouldn’t be discouraged and strive again and again with courage, patience and persevere until we gain victory. Mr. Ikeda said: ‘Youths, no matter what storm of tribulation appears, resolutely protect Soka’s mentor and disciple spirit!’
Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1591) of the House of Habsburg once said in a battlefield combat: ‘What is courage? Let me be your role model and show you!’ (that was his last ride in his middle age). Even though he was a person of high ranks, he never regarded himself as a superior and instead became a courageous role model to his army and fought the war with them. Our respected mentor – SGI President Mr. Ikeda is also like him.
During the struggles in Kamata with selfless determination striving all out, Mr. Ikeda eventually managed to achieve unprecedented ultimate victory. He carried the resolve not to miss a single group and visited every chapter at every corner of the country whilst chanting that everyone will be able to experience benefits and good fortune. His actions showed us the example and role model of ‘meeting with people of every corner in the country’ as a pioneer at the vanguard. Instructing people from high above isn’t Mr. Ikeda’s approach in doing things. He is always the first person to take the initiative as the leader of our propagation movement to strive together with his comrade day in day out. This is indeed a very worthy example for us to learn from.
The history of Kamata isn’t something of the past but an obstacle which we must breakthrough at ‘present’! Now is the time to repay our SGI president and be united to strive for kosen rufu! Placing utmost faith in Junior Divisions development not only can promote the progress of Malaysia’s kosen rufu, furthermore, it also fosters our country’s exceptional Junior Divisions, thus enabling our Malaysian society to blossom beautiful flowers of harmonious friendship!
Labels: e. Words of mentor
Our Mentor and Disciple Hall
Josei Toda concluded that ‘constructing facilities that could forever preserve, perpetuate & communicate the spirit of his mentor was necessary in order to ensure the eternal survival of the Soka Gakkai.’
What is worth being happy is that Malaysia is the world’s’ fourth country to have the Mentor and Disciple Hall. In fact, what is the purpose of the establishment of the Mentor and Disciple Hall? Our mentor pointed it out one by one in ‘New Human Revolution - Bold Struggle’. He explained that the compassionate individuals who have always been offering us encouragement and dedicating their lives to kosen rufu for the sake of our happiness are our three successive presidents; in which their victorious lives evidently showed us actual proofs derived from practicing our great Buddhism. Hence, viewing our mentors’ belongings and pictures are the best opportunities enabling us to connect and yearn for our mentor and also feeling as though they are just right here with us. And at that moment, we could also reach our mentors’ life condition; igniting our flame within to strive together with them. All items displayed are the evidences of the great struggles of our mentor.
Besides cherishing the memories of our three successive presidents, at the same time, we should once again bring about the sense of appreciation whilst developing understanding, respect and resolve. Besides coming into contact with our mentors’ photographs, listening or watching our mentors’ videos, we can awaken and flourish our innermost vast potential through admiring and following in the footsteps of their victorious struggles. Upon listening to our mentors’ roar of the lion, not only our environment and surrounding changes, even the people who heard it could sense our mentors’ aspirations towards us and subsequently renew and deepen our resolve and determination.
On 8th September 1957 at Mitsuzawa Stadium where the fourth Youth Festival is held, the binoculars Mr. Toda used at that time inspires Mr. Ikeda to renew his determination. On that day, Mr. Toda made his ‘first will’ of calling for the abolishment of nuclear weapons. In order to realize Mr. Toda’s thoughts on peace to realize a society of peaceful co-existence as the common aim of humanity, Mr. Ikeda presents Peace Proposal annually on every 26th January to United Nations realizing our mentors’ wish and aspirations one step at a time.
The Mentor and Disciple Hall is a realistic way for us to grasp the mentor and disciple spirit and realize the path of mentor and disciple. The foundation of the Mentor and Disciple Hall is the relationship between the mentor and disciples and it is indeed the bond of mentor and disciple that ensures eternal flow of Buddhism. People are able to let go of their obstinacy and attain happiness following the path of mentor and disciple. How is that so? Life is a process of endless struggles of problem solving and overcoming difficulties, whereas we ordinary people are easily defeated by our own problems where one would feel that their capabilities are limited and that they can never achieve a breakthrough; viewing all the problems they confront as a dead end without any turning point towards victory. However, with a true mentor in life, regardless what happens, we’d realize that we are indeed the unsurpassed precious Buddha’s disciples in which all problems we face will only be a stepping stones to mould us to be a stronger and happier individual. One example would be Mr. Ikeda’s victorious actual proofs.
At times we may face interpersonal relationship problems or feel that our work place and colleagues are horrible and we’d wish to escape from everything. Why isn’t Mr. Ikeda so? When Mr. Ikeda was attacked verbally and forced to step down, doesn’t he feel dejected or disheartened? All he thought about was who would be the one to protect the organization’s sincere members at the end? Hence, for that reason he was never defeated by the problems he face, instead he resolved to step out into the grand stage of the world and Hawaii was the first country he visited to embark on worldwide kosen rufu. Furthermore, Mr. Ikeda’s health was very frail and he often falls sick when he was young, even the doctor said that he cannot live beyond 30 years of age but at present, he is a healthy elderly nearing 82 years of age. The young Daisaku Ikeda never gives up even though he has to shoulder numerous responsibilities in which he industriously runs the publishing business where at the end, not only he settled all debts but also helped the company to earn profits. He once asked Mr. Toda, what should one equip himself with to speak to the world’s foremost individuals? Mr. Toda then replied him saying that one’s temperament, knowledge, firm philosophy and character is indispensable. Since then, Mr. Ikeda upholds the belief that dialogue is the key towards constructing peace and thus visited 54 countries implementing non violence as well as conducted dialogue over 1600 times with numerous world leaders and scholars. The year 2010 is Mr. Ikeda’s 50th anniversary being inaugurated as president and the problems Mr. Ikeda confronted all those years never daunted him, hence should we even think about giving up or be disheartened? If we make a resolve and earnestly chant to Gohonzon evaluating our own capabilities and what once seemed impossible and courageously strive all out to confront our obstacles, impossible can miraculously become possible.
The song ‘Dainanko’ can be heard in one of the rooms in Mentor Disciple Hall at Shikoku Japan as well as the display of a sculpture of a slightly slanted boat with a pitch dark cultural centre on the shore and as well as a sculpture of Mr. Ikeda holding a torch light in the building. Every time when the members see this sculpture, they will think about the situation back then. It was on the 24th April when Mr. Ikeda was forced to step down and forbidden to give any guidance. At that time, Shikoku members travelled by boat to meet Mr. Ikeda at the centre and Mr. Ikeda played that song in which soon after he named the song ‘Dainanko’. At their departure, Mr. Ikeda was standing on the top floor of the centre holding a torch light bidding them farewell. Everyone on the boat went up to the front of the boat and waved goodbye to him. This incident truly touched everyone regardless whether they are Youth Division, Men or Women Division etching their determination to do their utmost and earnestly strive alongside Mr. Ikeda.
Hence, we shouldn’t visit Mentor Disciple Hall with the same attitude like visiting a museum because this is dissimilar. The Mentor and Disciple Hall is a centre truly perpetuating the spirit of mentor and disciple in which we should carry the attitude that ‘Ikeda Sensei is waiting for me’ upon every visit to the Hall. Every encounter can bring out ones resolve and how to put it into action whilst at the same time encourage others to strive together. To live a life dedicated for the sake of kosen rufu is Soka’s true mentor and disciple spirit. Soka Gakkai will eternally perpetuate such mentor and disciple spirit.
In New Human Revolution – Bold Struggle, it mentioned that Tsunesaburo Mackiguchi and Josei Toda’s memorial tablet is situated in a small room at Mie Prefecture’s Memorial Hall. Chanting daimoku in that room transcends the bonds and interconnectedness of the oneness of mentor and disciple spirit of three lifetimes. This is something we could accomplish everyday. Our morning gongyo is a prayer of resolve in which we vow to contribute our lives for the sake of kosen rufu with our mentor. Evening gongyo is the prayer to express appreciation of encountering this Great Buddhism as well as and gratitude towards our great mentors. Because of our three successive presidents, we are able to encounter this great Buddhism, Gohonzon and study gosho. Consequently, we became aware of our profound mission as Boddhisattva of the Earth walking on the path of absolute happiness.
A soulful mentor can radiate peoples’ life; fearless of the dark that even in the darkness of despair, one still brims with the brilliant rays of hope and courage. Ultimately, the mentor and disciple hall is established for us and built for the sake of Malaysia’s kosen rufu. Attributable to the existence of the Mentor and Disciple Hall, we are able to understand the greatness of our mentor and perhaps enable the people around us to come to know our mentor. For that reason, let us all chant together for the smooth completion of the interior works of the Mentor and Disciple Hall as well as the absolute success for the opening ceremony on 5th December. The Mentor and Disciple Hall is just a solid structure and no matter how good it is constructed, without everyone’s efforts, we won’t be able to achieve success and victory. All of us are the protagonists of the mentor and disciple spirit and may us all start with our family members and friends! But first of all, we must feel Mr. Ikeda’s spirit and heart contents and share with them and then visit the Mentor and Disciple Hall together with them. This is the first step towards victory!
What is worth being happy is that Malaysia is the world’s’ fourth country to have the Mentor and Disciple Hall. In fact, what is the purpose of the establishment of the Mentor and Disciple Hall? Our mentor pointed it out one by one in ‘New Human Revolution - Bold Struggle’. He explained that the compassionate individuals who have always been offering us encouragement and dedicating their lives to kosen rufu for the sake of our happiness are our three successive presidents; in which their victorious lives evidently showed us actual proofs derived from practicing our great Buddhism. Hence, viewing our mentors’ belongings and pictures are the best opportunities enabling us to connect and yearn for our mentor and also feeling as though they are just right here with us. And at that moment, we could also reach our mentors’ life condition; igniting our flame within to strive together with them. All items displayed are the evidences of the great struggles of our mentor.
Besides cherishing the memories of our three successive presidents, at the same time, we should once again bring about the sense of appreciation whilst developing understanding, respect and resolve. Besides coming into contact with our mentors’ photographs, listening or watching our mentors’ videos, we can awaken and flourish our innermost vast potential through admiring and following in the footsteps of their victorious struggles. Upon listening to our mentors’ roar of the lion, not only our environment and surrounding changes, even the people who heard it could sense our mentors’ aspirations towards us and subsequently renew and deepen our resolve and determination.
On 8th September 1957 at Mitsuzawa Stadium where the fourth Youth Festival is held, the binoculars Mr. Toda used at that time inspires Mr. Ikeda to renew his determination. On that day, Mr. Toda made his ‘first will’ of calling for the abolishment of nuclear weapons. In order to realize Mr. Toda’s thoughts on peace to realize a society of peaceful co-existence as the common aim of humanity, Mr. Ikeda presents Peace Proposal annually on every 26th January to United Nations realizing our mentors’ wish and aspirations one step at a time.
The Mentor and Disciple Hall is a realistic way for us to grasp the mentor and disciple spirit and realize the path of mentor and disciple. The foundation of the Mentor and Disciple Hall is the relationship between the mentor and disciples and it is indeed the bond of mentor and disciple that ensures eternal flow of Buddhism. People are able to let go of their obstinacy and attain happiness following the path of mentor and disciple. How is that so? Life is a process of endless struggles of problem solving and overcoming difficulties, whereas we ordinary people are easily defeated by our own problems where one would feel that their capabilities are limited and that they can never achieve a breakthrough; viewing all the problems they confront as a dead end without any turning point towards victory. However, with a true mentor in life, regardless what happens, we’d realize that we are indeed the unsurpassed precious Buddha’s disciples in which all problems we face will only be a stepping stones to mould us to be a stronger and happier individual. One example would be Mr. Ikeda’s victorious actual proofs.
At times we may face interpersonal relationship problems or feel that our work place and colleagues are horrible and we’d wish to escape from everything. Why isn’t Mr. Ikeda so? When Mr. Ikeda was attacked verbally and forced to step down, doesn’t he feel dejected or disheartened? All he thought about was who would be the one to protect the organization’s sincere members at the end? Hence, for that reason he was never defeated by the problems he face, instead he resolved to step out into the grand stage of the world and Hawaii was the first country he visited to embark on worldwide kosen rufu. Furthermore, Mr. Ikeda’s health was very frail and he often falls sick when he was young, even the doctor said that he cannot live beyond 30 years of age but at present, he is a healthy elderly nearing 82 years of age. The young Daisaku Ikeda never gives up even though he has to shoulder numerous responsibilities in which he industriously runs the publishing business where at the end, not only he settled all debts but also helped the company to earn profits. He once asked Mr. Toda, what should one equip himself with to speak to the world’s foremost individuals? Mr. Toda then replied him saying that one’s temperament, knowledge, firm philosophy and character is indispensable. Since then, Mr. Ikeda upholds the belief that dialogue is the key towards constructing peace and thus visited 54 countries implementing non violence as well as conducted dialogue over 1600 times with numerous world leaders and scholars. The year 2010 is Mr. Ikeda’s 50th anniversary being inaugurated as president and the problems Mr. Ikeda confronted all those years never daunted him, hence should we even think about giving up or be disheartened? If we make a resolve and earnestly chant to Gohonzon evaluating our own capabilities and what once seemed impossible and courageously strive all out to confront our obstacles, impossible can miraculously become possible.
The song ‘Dainanko’ can be heard in one of the rooms in Mentor Disciple Hall at Shikoku Japan as well as the display of a sculpture of a slightly slanted boat with a pitch dark cultural centre on the shore and as well as a sculpture of Mr. Ikeda holding a torch light in the building. Every time when the members see this sculpture, they will think about the situation back then. It was on the 24th April when Mr. Ikeda was forced to step down and forbidden to give any guidance. At that time, Shikoku members travelled by boat to meet Mr. Ikeda at the centre and Mr. Ikeda played that song in which soon after he named the song ‘Dainanko’. At their departure, Mr. Ikeda was standing on the top floor of the centre holding a torch light bidding them farewell. Everyone on the boat went up to the front of the boat and waved goodbye to him. This incident truly touched everyone regardless whether they are Youth Division, Men or Women Division etching their determination to do their utmost and earnestly strive alongside Mr. Ikeda.
Hence, we shouldn’t visit Mentor Disciple Hall with the same attitude like visiting a museum because this is dissimilar. The Mentor and Disciple Hall is a centre truly perpetuating the spirit of mentor and disciple in which we should carry the attitude that ‘Ikeda Sensei is waiting for me’ upon every visit to the Hall. Every encounter can bring out ones resolve and how to put it into action whilst at the same time encourage others to strive together. To live a life dedicated for the sake of kosen rufu is Soka’s true mentor and disciple spirit. Soka Gakkai will eternally perpetuate such mentor and disciple spirit.
In New Human Revolution – Bold Struggle, it mentioned that Tsunesaburo Mackiguchi and Josei Toda’s memorial tablet is situated in a small room at Mie Prefecture’s Memorial Hall. Chanting daimoku in that room transcends the bonds and interconnectedness of the oneness of mentor and disciple spirit of three lifetimes. This is something we could accomplish everyday. Our morning gongyo is a prayer of resolve in which we vow to contribute our lives for the sake of kosen rufu with our mentor. Evening gongyo is the prayer to express appreciation of encountering this Great Buddhism as well as and gratitude towards our great mentors. Because of our three successive presidents, we are able to encounter this great Buddhism, Gohonzon and study gosho. Consequently, we became aware of our profound mission as Boddhisattva of the Earth walking on the path of absolute happiness.
A soulful mentor can radiate peoples’ life; fearless of the dark that even in the darkness of despair, one still brims with the brilliant rays of hope and courage. Ultimately, the mentor and disciple hall is established for us and built for the sake of Malaysia’s kosen rufu. Attributable to the existence of the Mentor and Disciple Hall, we are able to understand the greatness of our mentor and perhaps enable the people around us to come to know our mentor. For that reason, let us all chant together for the smooth completion of the interior works of the Mentor and Disciple Hall as well as the absolute success for the opening ceremony on 5th December. The Mentor and Disciple Hall is just a solid structure and no matter how good it is constructed, without everyone’s efforts, we won’t be able to achieve success and victory. All of us are the protagonists of the mentor and disciple spirit and may us all start with our family members and friends! But first of all, we must feel Mr. Ikeda’s spirit and heart contents and share with them and then visit the Mentor and Disciple Hall together with them. This is the first step towards victory!
Labels: e. Words of mentor
English Materials
中文资料
