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The Origins of Soka Gakkai and the Growth of Its Activities

The SGI owes its existence first and foremost to a pair of remarkable men, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871–1945) and Josei Toda (1900–1958), who became the first and second presidents of Soka Gakkai in Japan. In 1928, Makiguchi, a Japanese schoolteacher and philosopher of education, embraced Nichiren Buddhism and persuaded Toda, his friend and supporter in educational matters, to join him in conversion. Two years later, Makiguchi and Toda jointly founded the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai (Value-Creating Education Society), an organization imbued with the spirit of Nichiren Buddhism but dedicated to educational reform based on Makiguchi's pedagogical ideas. [18] The Society's inaugural act on November 18, 1930 was to publish Makiguchi's four-volume work, Soka kyoikugaku taikei (System of Value-Creating Pedagogy)—the expression of a lifetime of educational thought and practice.

In 1937, two notable changes occurred in the Society. The first took place when Makiguchi began to give more attention to the possibilities inherent in organized action and launched a new, more public phase of its growth. [19] The second change was in focus. He had initially regarded educational reform as the basis for social reform, but after 1937, he came to see religious reform as more important. [20] The organization's primary focus became the propagation of Nichiren's Buddhism as the basis for personal and societal reform.

In addition to the increasing confidence Makiguchi and Toda gained in their faith, the new focus of the Society was also influenced by the rise of militarism in Japanese social and political life in the 1930s:

From the late 1930s to early 1940s, as the organization grew to a membership of about 3,000 followers, the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai and Makiguchi in particular began to attract the attention of the state authorities. Makiguchi, with the support of other leaders in the Society, vigorously opposed the military government's efforts to impose the overall authority of state Shinto in religious and social affairs. For this he was disavowed by the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood, which chose to cooperate with the wartime regime. Makiguchi also denounced the Japanese war effort, calling it a national catastrophe. In 1943, Makiguchi, Toda, and the entire top leadership of the organization were arrested as "thought criminals," on charges of lèse-majesté and violating the Public Security Preservation law (Peace Preservation law). [22] Despite frequent interrogation and torture, Makiguchi refused to compromise his beliefs and died at the Tokyo Detention House in 1944 at the age of 73.

Most of the Society's remaining leadership recanted their faith to gain release from prison, but Toda did not. During his incarceration, profound spiritual experiences convinced him that Nichiren Buddhism was unassailable in terms of both doctrine and practice, and that he himself had a unique mission to spearhead a new movement of unprecedented scale. Rebuilding and expanding the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai as a means to that end became his ultimate goal. Released from prison in July 1945, bankrupt and with broken health, he nonetheless began almost immediately to reconstruct the organization. [23]

One of his first steps was to drop "Kyoiku" ("education") from the organization's name. It became simply Soka Gakkai (Value-Creating Society) and definitively shifted its focus from educational reform to the propagation of Nichiren Buddhism. Toda became the organization's second president in 1951. The Soka Gakkai's membership expanded rapidly in the following years and by 1957, the year before his death, Toda had led the organization from the few thousand members who gathered after the end of World War II to a membership of 750,000 households...an astounding growth of more than 250 times in a dozen years.

Daisaku Ikeda, Toda's leading disciple, was inaugurated as the third president of the Soka Gakkai in 1960 at age 32. He held this post until 1979, when he became honorary president of the Soka Gakkai in Japan. He became president of the Soka Gakkai International, formed in 1975 as an association linking the many national organizations around the world, and continues to serve in that capacity, communicating the spirit and practice of Nichiren Buddhism in modern terms.

Two notable trends have marked the era of Ikeda's leadership. The first is the continued growth of the organization, which currently numbers approximately 12 million individuals, with more than a million practicing in countries other than Japan. [24] Within a few months of his inauguration in 1960, Ikeda traveled abroad, something Toda had never been able to do. He formed the first overseas chapter in the United States, where a few immigrants, primarily the Japanese wives of American servicemen, were struggling to maintain their practice. Current membership in the United States is about 300,000. The large majority is non-Japanese; indeed, the ethnic makeup of the membership is highly diverse. As Clark Strand writes in the Winter 2003 issue of Tricycle: The Buddhist Quarterly: "Soka Gakkai has attracted real diversity among its membership, and no other American Buddhist group has...Racial diversity is in some sense the birthright of the Soka Gakkai because of its origins in the prophetic, socially engaged Buddhism of Nichiren, and ultimately because of the Lotus Sutra itself, which posits the fundamental equality of all beings." The organization has grown similarly in other countries.

The second notable trend under Ikeda's leadership has been the "opening up" of the organization—the development of working relationships worldwide with individuals and organizations on issues of global concern. This cooperation falls into three broad, overlapping categories: peace, culture and education.

Peace activities include the SGI's active involvement with the United Nations as a non-governmental organization; annual peace proposals by Ikeda submitted to the UN; peace education programs; inter-religious dialogues; fund-raising efforts in support of the UN's refugee relief and other humanitarian programs; anti-war and anti-nuclear weapon exhibits, petition drives and publications, usually cosponsored with like-minded organizations. [25]

Several affiliated institutions focusing on peace research, peace activities and inter-cultural dialogue have also been established. These include the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century (www.brc21.org), which promotes women's leadership for peace, supports education for global citizenship, and fosters community-building—locally and globally—through dialogue; the Institute of Oriental Philosophy, which works with university researchers on ways to apply Eastern, especially Buddhist philosophical approaches to contemporary problems; and the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research (www.toda.org), which promotes peace initiatives at national, regional and international levels by encouraging and proposing concrete strategies that can be translated into action, in areas such as human security, social justice and global citizenship.

In the cultural arena, the SGI sponsors international friendship exchanges as well as world peace and cultural festivals. In Japan, the Soka Gakkai, under the aegis of the Min-On Concert Association, regularly sponsors performance tours by world artists. The Tokyo Fuji Art Museum serves a similar function in the art world. In France, the Victor Hugo House of Literature holds a collection of some 1,900 items related to Hugo's life and work, including several articles that have been named as national treasures. On a more community-based level, activities in the United States include music, dance, and other creative presentations that serve to foster cross-cultural understanding and appreciation, including the International Committee of Artists for Peace (ICAP) which provides peace education through the performing arts.

Finally, in the area of education, we come full circle. Makiguchi's thoughts on education [26] are thriving in Japan in the Soka Schools system which extends from kindergarten to university-level education. Soka University of Japan currently has academic exchanges with over 70 colleges and universities around the world. Soka kindergartens have been established in Hong Kong and Singapore. Soka University of America (SUA), an independent, co-educational institution of higher education, consists of a graduate school in Calabasas, California, which offers a master's degree in second and foreign language education, and a liberal arts college in Aliso Viejo, which offers a bachelor's program in liberal arts with concentrations in the humanities, international studies and social and behavioral sciences.

SGI's educational activities focus on global concerns such as ecology and sustainable living, human rights and a culture of peace. [27] Whether exhibits or discussion forums, humanistic learning characterizes this aspect of the SGI's efforts.

There is a fourth area of activities, though only in Japan: political engagement. From 1955, during Toda's leadership, the Soka Gakkai fielded individual candidates for elective office on both the local and national levels. Later, under Ikeda's leadership, the Komei (literally, "clean government") coalition was organized. It became a full-fledged party, Komeito, in 1964. Given the Soka Gakkai's experience of religious persecution during World War II, Toda and Ikeda saw the need for such a political party to represent the marginalized voices of the general populace and raise the level of discourse in Japan's fledgling, postwar democratic system. Komeito formally separated from the Soka Gakkai in 1970. New Komeito is currently the third leading party in Japan and a member of the coalition government. The Soka Gakkai maintains its right to express an ethical stance on political issues.

18. For Makiguchi, the fundamental criterion for value-creation ("soka") was whether something adds or detracts from, advances or hinders the human condition. The ultimate goal of value-creating education is to foster people of character who strive for the greatest good—peace—and are committed to protecting life's dignity. Further information on Makiguchi and the other leaders of the Soka Gakkai can be found in Richard Wilson, "The Three Presidents," Seikyo Times November 1994: 18.
19. For further information on these events, see Dayle M. Bethel, Preface to Makiguchi the Value Creator (New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, Inc., 1994) 96.
20. Richard Wilson, 19.
21. Ibid.
22. For more information on the historical events surrounding this episode, see Tsuyoshi Nakano, "Religion and State," in Religion in Japanese Culture: Where Living Tradition Meets a Changing World, ed. Noriyoshi Tamaru and David Reid (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, 1996) 115–36.
23. Toda regarded General Douglas MacArthur as embodying the function of the Buddhist deity, Brahma, because he established religious freedom in Japan. See "The Thousand-mile Journey," in The Human Revolution, Volume 1:95 (New York: Weatherhill, 1972)
24. As of 2004, there are SGI members in 188 countries and territories around the world.
25. A fundamental impulse for these activities comes from Toda's 1957 declaration calling for the total abolition of nuclear weapons.
26. The philosophy of value constructed by Makiguchi underlies all of his pedagogical work. For a succinct discussion of its basic elements, see Bethel, Makiguchi, 49–57. A detailed elaboration of his theories can be found in Education for Creative Living: Ideas and Proposals of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, ed. Dayle M. Bethel and trans. Alfred Birnbaum (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1989).
27. For information on SGI exhibits and activities in the United States, contact the SGI-USA Communications Department, 606 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90401 or see (www.sgi-usa.org).