When I got here, I thought I’d found it—apartment heaven, if such a heaven exists—a senior residence in west Philadelphia with a dining hall, an auditorium for game nights and dances and a peaceful apartment for me. A short honeymoon that was.
In truth, the building is old and huge. Long in disrepair, it came under new management in 2023, after which things broke faster than they were fixed. Rain got into rooms and mold took hold, making people sick. In summer, the ACs gave out, in winter, the heat and hot water. There were days I heated water on the stove to wash myself, and others when I bundled for warmth. Honestly, there were days I’d wake and wonder, Where exactly is the benefit in all of this? Conditions worsened day by day, but day by day I chose to strengthen my resolve.
Since the start of my Buddhist practice, in 1982, I’ve chanted to show proof of faith to friends and family, my children in particular. In time, they too took faith and are practicing now. I credit the spirit of my prayer, which I conclude, morning and evening with Nichiren Daishonin’s counsel:
Although I and my disciples may encounter various difficulties, if we do not harbor doubts in our hearts, we will as a matter of course attain Buddhahood. Do not have doubts simply because heaven does not lend you protection. Do not be discouraged because you do not enjoy an easy and secure existence in this life. This is what I have taught my disciples morning and evening, and yet they begin to harbor doubts and abandon their faith. Foolish men are likely to forget the promises they have made when the crucial moment comes. (“The Opening of the Eyes,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 283)
My crucial moment, I felt, was fast approaching—in fact, it was already upon me. Through lionlike daimoku, I realized that if I did not take a stand, no one would. I formed a tenant’s council to bring the residents together.
Marguerite with her son, Derek, and daughter, Tamika, in Sacramento, Calif., December 2017.
Something to know: I volunteer weekly at a local TV news station, taking calls from folks about things they’ve bought that broke down—a fridge or stove, maybe—that they’re having trouble getting fixed or reimbursed. In any case, last year the station held a luncheon for the volunteers, where we all got to talking. One woman mentioned that she lived in a rundown building, and I told her so was I. The reporter beside her leaned forward: “Really?” So I told her how it was.
Days later, I got a call from one of the reporters asking could he come by and would I show him around. “Just me,” he promised, “in a little car with a little camera.” So I told him alright he could.
Touring the building, I could see he was appalled. Then we sat and filmed our interview, which aired the same week. This caused a stir among my neighbors, some of whom were scared, but most of whom were pleased and even proud, playing starstruck and teasing me for autographs. Though I didn’t know it yet, the news piece was causing a stir outside our building, too.
Things began moving quickly: we acquired a free attorney who recommended us to a tenants advocacy group consisting of a handful of passionate young people. With their encouragement, residents who’d silently endured injustice began speaking up. Perhaps because I’m tenants council president, one young man from the group stuck by me, and as we went around flyering the halls, my instincts told me: Marguerite, share Buddhism with him! I did and discovered a very nice thing: What he says he’ll do, he does. He came to Soka 2030 and began chanting and studying, first with me, then on his own. I prayed more deeply than ever to show actual proof amid chaos.
Wherever I went, my prayer kept me smiling. Besides, I had things to look forward to—twice a week Pokeno in the activity rooms and Friday night Oldies But Goodies in the auditorium. One lady, Grace, is 97 years old, loves B.B. King and always asks for him. And when the DJ plays B.B., she gets out there and does her thing, a dance we call the Mrs. Gracie. And I’d go around taking the hands of those who couldn’t get on their feet, dancing with them where they sat. Despite everything, we all looked forward to this.
Court proceedings began around springtime, and it became clear to the judge that basic standards were being neglected. Yet each time we went to court, we came home, not to improvement but retaliation. The mailroom was the first to be locked, latched with a keypad and its hours reduced. The washer rooms followed, and then everything at once: the side rooms, auditorium, cafeteria—locked. No more Pokeno, no more dancing. At least, that’s what we were expected to accept.
To my daily prayers I added another passage of the Daishonin’s: “Employ the strategy of the Lotus Sutra before any other. … A coward cannot have any of his prayers answered” (“The Strategy of the Lotus Sutra,” WND-1, 1001).
We moved Pokeno to the lobby and kept playing, only to find it cleared the following week of tables and chairs. I took one look and declared that we were going to a place called Lowe’s, and we piled in my car and came back with a little foldout table we set in the lobby and circled around, each on a chair we’d fetched from our rooms. I was determined to show to everyone—management and neighbors alike—that we were not intimidated, and we would have our fun.
In August, the case was settled and the building bought by the city. As such, I had the opportunity to speak to the city council. I chanted fiercely beforehand, thinking of my friends and asking myself, What would Ikeda Sensei say? When it came time for me to speak, I just spoke from my heart: “Seniors are precious, and we and others put you in those seats.” I didn’t know what to expect, but certainly not applause. But there it was, a standing ovation, everyone on their feet.
Today, we have new and respectful management. They’re renovating top-to-bottom. I’ll need to move—we all will, and though we’ll keep in touch, it won’t be the same.
I’m excited, though, looking to the future, to the youth. Speaking of which, the young man I mentioned is still studying, still chanting! And Grace turns 98 years young this month. We’re having the DJ back to celebrate. High time we had ourselves a dance—you really can’t be afraid while dancing. Not when B.B. plays and you’re with your friends and Grace is doing the Ms. Gracie.
Throughout 2025, the World Tribune is featuring on the cover historical acts by people and countries that shifted public sentiment and even thawed tensions between nations. We focus here on the power of one person to give countless others hope.
In a now-beloved passage, Nichiren Daishonin wrote, “Those who believe in the Lotus Sutra are as if in winter, but winter always turns to spring” (“Winter Always Turns to Spring,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 536). The cherry tree, with its profusion of blush-tinted petals each spring, became a powerful symbol of friendship when the mayor of Tokyo gifted 3,000 such trees to Washington, D.C., in March 1912.
The first were planted along the Tidal Basin by First Lady Helen Taft and the wife of the Japanese ambassador as a symbol of friendship between the U.S. and Japan. More than a century later, their iconic imagery near the U.S. Capitol serves as a testament to effective cultural diplomacy.
Some of the relationship’s highlights:
• 1912: Japan gifts the U.S. 3,000 cherry trees, which are planted along the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. • 1935: The First Official Cherry Blossom Festival is held in Washington, D.C. While informal events were held throughout the years, this marked the first federally recognized event. • 1940: During World War II, the festival was suspended and some trees were vandalized. • 1952: Following the war, Japan gifted additional trees to replace those lost over the years, reinforcing the diplomatic goodwill between the two countries. • 1965: Japan sends 3,800 trees to help replenish the Tidal Basin’s iconic cherry blossoms. • 1981: Cuttings from the original 1912 trees were sent to Japan to restore cherry trees lost in a flood, further enforcing cultural ties. • 2012: a 100th-anniversary celebration is held in Washington, D.C., including diplomatic engagements. Japan gifts the U.S. 3,000 dogwood trees as a gesture of ongoing friendship.
Today, the cherry blossoms draw visitors from around the world, and the national festival includes diverse cultural performances, trade partnerships and diplomatic participation from both countries, continuing to serve as a soft power tool, highlighting cooperation in the face of global challenges.
We can also see cherry blossoms as a metaphor for Buddhist practice. As Sensei writes: “We must not avoid the trials of winter. If we have the courage to face winter’s challenges, then we can advance boundlessly toward the wonderful springtime of attaining Buddhahood and achieving kosen-rufu” (Learning From the Writings: The Hope-filled Teachings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 107).
One of English literature’s most enduring tales of friendship is about a spider and a pig. In Charlotte’s Web, Wilbur, a young pig, the runt of the litter, is saved by a kindhearted girl, only to be eventually shipped off to a farmhouse for slaughter.
There, Wilbur befriends Charlotte, a wise and compassionate gray spider, who weaves a plan, so to speak, to save her friend, ultimately at the cost of her life.
“Why did you do all this for me?” Wilbur asks Charlotte as she nears the end. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.”
“You have been my friend,” Charlotte responds. “That in itself is a tremendous thing.”
Friendship is a fundamental aspect of being human. Yet nowadays, there seem to be fewer opportunities for deeper connection, a dearth felt most acutely by youth, who typically learn key life skills through friendships that shape their self- identity and resilience.
Ikeda Sensei says in Discussions on Youth about the importance of friendship:
There’s a Mongolian proverb “A hundred friends are more precious than a hundred pieces of gold.” People who have friends are rich. Quite often, the encouragement and influence of friends spur us toward self-improvement. We are inspired to lead fulfilling lives and to create a better world—to work together with our friends toward that goal. (p. 316)
In this month’s feature, we explore examples in literature of friendship and how they resonate with the Buddhist principles that teach us how to become human in the fullest sense of the word.
‘My friends have made the story of my life’
Helen Keller utters these words in her autobiography, which details her journey from isolation (having lost her sight and hearing while young) to one of learning, communication and then advocacy. She writes: “My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by deprivation.”[1]
One of the friends of which she speaks is Anne Sullivan, a young teacher who, through incredible patience, perseverance and ingenuity, teaches Helen to read, write and speak. Ms. Sullivan goes so far as to accompany Helen to Radcliffe College, where she helps her student navigate the world to an eventual career in activism and public speaking.
In one early episode, Ms. Sullivan encourages her student to climb a tree. At first, Helen feels a deep sense of freedom and connection to nature. But as a sudden thunderstorm strikes, the branches lashing about her, she feels panic and isolation. At that crucial moment, Ms. Sullivan comes to her rescue and guides her to safety.
Nichiren Daishonin writes extensively about the importance of “good friends” in Buddhism, who help us strengthen our faith and character, especially in turbulent times.
In one letter, he tells his disciple:
When a tree has been transplanted, though fierce winds may blow, it will not topple if it has a firm stake to hold it up. But even a tree that has grown up in place may fall over if its roots are weak. Even a feeble person will not stumble if those supporting him are strong, but a person of considerable strength, when alone, may fall down on an uneven path. (“Three Tripitaka Masters Pray for Rain,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 598)
Even those who think of themselves as strong need support in life from time to time. In the same letter, he writes: “How far can our own wisdom take us? If we have even enough wisdom to distinguish hot from cold, we should seek out a good friend” (WND-1, 598).
Good friends pick us up and encourage us to keep moving forward when things get tough. They point out our potential when we doubt ourselves and challenge us when we are veering off track. A good friend in Buddhism leads us back to the Gohonzon, the writings of Nichiren Daishonin and Sensei’s encouragement, through which we can overcome anything. Such friendships aren’t transactional; they’re transformational.
‘I run to save my friend, who waits in my stead’[2]
Osamu Dazai’s short story Run, Melos!, is a tale that revolves around the themes of friendship, loyalty and trust as well as selfless dedication to others.
In this story, a cruel and tyrannical king executes many people. The young shepherd Melos rises up against him and is apprehended and sentenced to death. Before his execution, he requests to return to his village to attend his younger sister’s wedding.
The king demands a hostage to remain in his place. Melos’ friend Selinuntius volunteers. Melos promises to return before sunset three days later. After the wedding, his return is blocked by a raging flood and bandits.
As sunset approaches on the third day, Melos gives in to exhaustion and starts to waver. Thinking of his friend, he rallies. “Someone waits for me,” he thinks. “I must prove worthy of his trust.”
He spurs himself on, arriving just in time to save his friend from execution. This friendship restores the king’s faith in human beings, and he spares both young men.
Sensei wrote about the bond between Melos and Selinuntius in The New Human Revolution:
Melos would have kept running to save Selinuntius even if, at the execution ground, Selinuntius had lost faith and denounced him. And even if Melos had decided to flee for his life, Selinuntius would have stood by him, praising his loyalty and assuming he had been killed somewhere at the king’s behest. …
The vow we make with a friend inspires us to stand alone and live up to our beliefs. When both do so, the most beautiful drama of friendship unfolds. (NHR-28, p. 93)
So said Robert Louis Stevenson who greatly valued friendship. One of his books, Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, memorialized his dear friend, an engineer, professor and writer whose life was cut short by illness at age 52.
Although Stevenson is best known for his adventure novels Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this profoundly personal account emphasizes the power of friendship to transcend time and even death.
In the book, Stevenson describes their evenings together, engaged in animated discussions about literature, philosophy, science and life. Although their professions differed, he described their friendship as built on mutual curiosity, respect and a shared love for intellectual exploration.
Writing affectionately of his friend, Stevenson recalled, “There was something in Fleeming’s talk that touched the imagination; he seemed to live in and to communicate a higher sphere of thought.”[4]
Our friends can help us open up to new ways of thinking and being. As noted in Sensei’s words earlier, “Human beings only exist fully amid their relationships between one another.”
In the Buddhist canon, there’s a well-known exchange between Shakyamuni and his disciple Ananda, who asks him if having good friends and growing with them helps one attain half the Buddha way. Shakyamuni replied that, in fact, “having good friends and advancing together with them is not half the Buddha way but all the Buddha way” (The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 3, revised edition, p. 106).
What is the Buddha way? It is to continue bringing forth our inherent Buddhahood and expressing it through cultivating our humanity. The SGI is a gathering of individuals with this shared purpose.
Sensei writes: “Our organization exists to mobilize the spirit of human goodness—people’s desire to help and benefit others—and use it to create great value. You might say that the Soka Gakkai is a body or organism that took form and came to life specifically to bring together the basic goodness of people’s hearts, to further develop that goodness and strengthen it. Without the organization, there would be no cohesion or order to our efforts” (The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 3, revised edition, p. 106).
Gathering of Truly good friends.
The Soka Gakkai is a gathering of truly good friends, a harmonious realm in which individuals support and encourage one another as equals as we strive to do our human revolution and transform our lives and society.
Sensei defined supporting others as the practice of a bodhisattva and said that doing so actually heals our lives:
There are countless people in the world whose hearts have been wounded in some way. We need to extend a healing hand to such individuals. Through such efforts, we in fact heal ourselves.
When beset by some misfortune, people tend to think that no one could possibly be as unhappy or unlucky as they are. They feel sorry for themselves and become blind to everything but their own situation. They wallow in their suffering, feeling dissatisfied and hopeless, which only saps their life force further.
At such times, what gives someone the strength to go on living? It seems to me that it is human bonds—the desire to live for the sake of others. As long as we are wrapped up in ourselves, there is no happiness. When we courageously take action for others, the wellspring of our own life is replenished.
When we look after and care for others—that is, help others draw forth their life force—our own life force increases. When we help people expand their state of life, our state of life also expands. That is the wonderful thing about the bodhisattva way. The practice for benefiting others is one and the same with the practice for benefiting ourselves. (The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 1, revised edition, pp. 229–30)
Kosen-rufu and our peace movement is not just the narrow goal of developing our Buddhist organization. Kosen-rufu is a movement by which we come together in a united effort to enable all people to reveal their inherent potential.
In a world where individualism often takes precedence and there is a strong tendency to avoid direct interaction with others, cultivating good friendships and being a part of a network of good friends can feel counter to the times. But by having the courage to engage with others, in good times and bad, we can build a network of good friends that serves as a light of hope for the future.
The following experiences by Ben Lawrence (p. 19) and Liberty Lee (p. 21) highlight the profound impact that friendships and the SGI community have had on their lives. Ben and Liberty speak on the support given to them at crucial times and how it has helped them become a true friend to others.
The Circle of Buddhism
Ben Lawrence / Portland
Living Buddhism:Hi Ben! We heard you are a third generation SGI member but started practicing on your own about four years ago. What was the catalyst for that?
Ben Lawrence: I was at a low point in my life. Just five years ago, I was homeless, bouncing between friends’ couches, park benches and street corners. My days and nights entailed doing drugs and drinking. It was my escape from life. On the surface, I had an “I got this. I don’t care” attitude. But inside I was angry at the world, which made me bitter and lost.
What ended up happening?
Ben: I’m sure my mom was always chanting for me. In fact, she was always checking on me, bringing me food when I had no money to pay for it. She encouraged me to chant but knowing that I would often get mad when she did, she didn’t push it. She was probably the only person who could see behind the mask I put on.
One day, I stumbled across a book at my grandparent’s home by Daisaku Ikeda. It was as though the book were written specifically for me. Ikeda Sensei articulated things so perfectly—things that aligned with what I already thought. It became clear to me that something important was missing in my life, something that could help me stay motivated and unlock my potential. I began chanting and felt its power.
When I was 19, the district young men’s leader, who had just moved to Portland from Japan, started calling me. And he wouldn’t stop. I wouldn’t pick up his call, and I would ignore him for weeks. He’d send me quotes from Ikeda Sensei and he would invite me to meetings. This went on for months. I was like, Why is this guy from Japan calling me all the time. I don’t even know him. But after several months, I gave in.
His spirit touched me deeply. It took courage for me to go to that first meeting with him, but I’m sure it also took courage for him to keep calling and texting me when I didn’t respond.
That’s incredible. What’s your relationship with him like now?
Ben: Now we do visits together, and I thank him all the time for never giving up and bringing me into this. I consider him a great friend. Really, the only way I can repay him is by taking on his spirit, Sensei’s spirit, and fostering others.
The other day I was telling him how difficult it had been to chant at my place because I had a friend staying over. He said: “I’ll stay up until you get off at 1 a.m. Come chant at my house. You just got to be a little quiet.” He has to get up at 6 a.m. but he has the heart and capacity to offer that to me. He really wants me to succeed, and I try to have that same heart to support others. Not just him, but I feel all SGI members have my back.
You know, the SGI community provides a support system that is made up of strong bonds. Those strong bonds make you want to be a better person at the end of the day. And you don’t have to focus just on yourself to become a better person. Supporting others brings so much light into your life.
It takes courage to be so vulnerable and open. Do you remember how you learned to be that way?
Ben: My discussion meetings provided that space for me to talk. I think it was as simple as hearing other people be vulnerable and feeling the courage to be the same. Because it is hard to initiate that, but that’s what’s so great about having districts with such a wide variety of ages and experiences.
I remember at one meeting, sitting in a circle, keeping my head down, not wanting to talk. And then someone says something so emotional. And then another person starts crying and then, all of a sudden, someone’s got a box of tissues and they’re handing tissues out. And then someone says something, and I’m like, Oh, I also feel that way. And now I have something bubbling inside that wants to come out. I get it off my chest and all of a sudden everyone’s clapping and I’m just like, Wow, that felt so good. And then I do it again, and I become more and more courageous.
The beauty of it is, it doesn’t end there. When you begin to open up in that way, to develop some confidence and self-worth, you start opening up to people that you meet at a bar or on a park bench. And then you find yourself sharing Buddhism with them. Then they start coming to meetings and then they feel empowered to be open and vulnerable.
That’s the circle of Buddhism. Seeking encouragement from others, finding courage within yourself, doing your best to give that encouragement to someone else and watching them bloom into their Buddha nature. I love seeing that happen—people unfolding petal by petal.
Ben and his friends hang out at an informal SGI-USA youth gathering in the summer, Portland, Oregon, 2024.
What do you think the SGI community has given you?
Ben: I think it’s self-worth and courage. When I was isolated from people who cared about me, I felt no one cared. Then, I started not to care. In terms of my goals and dreams, I didn’t want to strive for them because I had a lot of fear. It was easy to be afraid of failing when I didn’t have people supporting me. But to be a part of a community of people who seek to move forward in their lives, to better themselves and help others—that’s the beauty of the SGI community. You are not fighting alone. You have people who have your back at every moment.
How has your life changed in the last four years?
Ben: When I started chanting, the anger and bitterness I had felt disappeared. I had dropped out of high school at 17, so the first thing I did was get my GED. This allowed me to start classes at Portland Community College and start on a path that I never expected—to one day become a firefighter and then go to med school. I was able to obtain my EMT license from the state and now I work for the county as an EMT. I couldn’t be happier. I also have a great relationship with my father.
Now as a young men’s leader, I strive to be there for others like my SGI friends were there for me. I enjoy having dialogues with my friends about Buddhism, and many have attended meetings over the years.
It hasn’t been an easy road for me. In the beginning, there were steep ups and downs of getting really excited about chanting, then reverting to my old ways because I didn’t want to face my fears. But I’ve learned, with the help of my friends, to continue practicing when I feel down. It takes courage to do so—to chant, to study, to go to meetings when I feel like nothing is working, but that’s how I’ve built my capacity as a person who can live up to my potential and be there for others.
From This Moment Forward
Liberty Lee / Los Angeles
Living Buddhism: Liberty, thank you for talking with us today. Your mother is a Buddhist and you grew up in the SGI community. What was that experience like?
Liberty Lee: My mother started practicing before I was born. She was introduced to Buddhism by two of her co-workers. My mom can be stubborn but somehow, they convinced her to start chanting. I am so grateful because it is one of the most beautiful things that my mom has brought into my life.
I was adopted. My parents brought me to LA when I was 9 months, and all of my SGI aunties welcomed me at the airport. They are really my family, always so supportive. No matter what I did, what grades I got in school, whatever sports I played or career I decided to pursue, they were always there, chanting for me, listening to me, supporting me.
When did you decide to chant on your own?
Liberty: I think it was when I started connecting with the young women’s leaders who were my age. We became friends and I wanted to attend activities because of them. Also, I had decided to start working for my dad, which was very challenging for me. It was one of the first things I started consistently chanting about. Of course, through chanting, I’ve transformed my relationship with him.
Did you find it easy to open up to your new friends in the SGI?
Liberty: I don’t like burdening other people with my problems, so I found it difficult to share what I was going through. It’s something I’ve struggled with my whole life. I’m usually the one supporting others, so it is uncomfortable for me to be supported.
When I think about a lot of my friends, I realized that they don’t actually know very much about me. So I challenged myself last year to open myself up more. I think the recent fires facilitated me opening my heart and truly accepting others’ support.
Your family had to evacuate during the Palisades fire. Can you tell us more about that?
Liberty: My family moved to the Pacific Palisades when I was 10, so that community is basically all I’ve known. On January 7, my mom stepped outside and saw flames at the top of our hill. The house where my best friend used to live was also on fire.
What did you do?
Liberty: With no hesitation, I told my parents they needed to grab the Gohonzon, their medications and other important items and we were getting out. In that moment, you really realize how much material things don’t matter in life.
They went inside to grab their essentials and we were out of there in 10 minutes. We each took our own car to get out. We got the emergency alert once we had already left our home.
I live almost two miles from Sunset Boulevard, which is the only way out. The drive to get to Sunset is usually two minutes. That day, we sat in traffic for about three hours.
Going down the hill through the canyon, I could see that the fire had split. The flames were blazing on top of both hills. I was chanting the entire time that the fire didn’t come down the hill because if it did, we would have had no other choice but to abandon our cars and run.
While in the car, I got a call from the recently appointed region young women’s leader. I don’t think I had ever had a full conversation with her before then. She had just moved to the area, and we had only done Byakuren together a couple of times.
What moved me the most is that she stayed on the phone with me for two hours. At one point I was really panicking, wondering if we would get out, whether I would have to get out of my car and walk down the hill if the smoke got closer, whether I would survive the smoke inhalation if I did. She was there for me and reassured me over and over that everything would be OK.
On that drive, many other SGI members also called to check on me. They were the first people to contact me. People were checking maps, finding the fastest way for me to get out of the Palisades. Words can’t describe how thankful I am to have this community.
When I got out of the area, I drove to the SGI-USA center, which opened as a relief site within hours of the fire starting. There were several families there who had to evacuate. It was comforting to be there together with everyone—people who were going through the same thing.
That must have been very frightening. Have you been back to the Palisades since?
Liberty: I went back a couple weeks after the fire. It made it very real, to see it with my own eyes. It was all gone. My house, almost miraculously, is still standing. All of the houses across the street and behind us are all gone, but our house and a few next to us are still standing. Of course it isn’t inhabitable right now, but we are extremely lucky. The entire community is devastated, but in some ways, I feel that my real community was strengthened—the bonds of friendships that I have with the members of the SGI.
For a week and a half following the fire, I was going to the Buddhist center almost every day. My friends in the youth division met me there and stayed with me until the center closed at 8:30 every night. Some of my friends even took time off from work to be there for me.
Liberty and her friends at the SGI-USA Santa Monica Buddhist Center after the Palisades fire, January 2025.
There is a long road to recovery for your community. What are you taking away from this?
Liberty: Members in the SGI, people I’ve never talked to in my life, people who I’ve know my entire life, came together to support on a whole different level at this crucial time. It really solidified how much I value this organization and how much I value this community.
I also gained perspective on material things. They don’t matter much. The most important thing in life is friendship and the ties I have to others.
Any parting thoughts and determinations?
Liberty: On my mirror at home, I have a note that reminds me that everything is from this moment forward, a concept that I learned in Buddhism. As a child, I had the tendency to dwell on things that happened in the past, wondering how I could fix or change it.
Because of my Buddhist practice, I’m able to ask myself what I can do from this moment. What do I value? How am I going to make the world a better place? I think that it all starts with my family, my friends, my community and being a global citizen. I want to be an even stronger pillar of support for those around me.
I snapped to attention at the sound of my name, giving way to my classmate’s bewildered face. The clock above her read 3:15, a two-hour gain from the last time I’d looked, only a moment ago.
“Danny, you good?”
I blinked at my computer and my text cursor blinked back, standing where I’d left it in the middle of an unfinished sentence. “No, not really.”
My junior year at the University of Michigan had begun wonderfully, with a list of goals I’d tackled right off the bat. Having taken on an apprenticeship, club leadership and a course load twice the recommended norm, I was confident I’d accomplish everything, graduate early and enter the working world. My confidence lasted a week.
By February I was overwhelmed, and by March, paralyzed by the growing mountain of assignments. For me, the last straw was the news that a severe head trauma had put my aunt in a permanent coma. Suddenly, I could no longer do what I always had when I and the world were at odds—I could no longer pretend to be “all good.”
The first person I ever shared my true self with was the co-president of UM’s SGI campus club. I felt comfortable with him and knew he wouldn’t judge, but it wasn’t something I felt I could openly share—that I was gay. For the past three years, I’d dated someone in secret. Living a secret life, having a secret self, presenting one person to the world while being another was more emotionally draining than I knew. Hiding the exhaustion, too, required enormous energy.
It is my pride to have inherited a stoic strength from both my parents. Salespeople by trade, they never showed a trace of exhaustion outside the home; it would have been bad, of course, for business. But I may have learned, too, to smile through all things, at all times, in all places. It was no small thing for me to turn to my classmate the day she snapped me out of my trance to tell her, as I rarely told anyone, that I was not at all “all good.” I told her about my aunt and my being overwhelmed, and she, in turn, shared her own struggles. Before I knew it, we were discussing Buddhism—I’d brought it up somehow—the first time in a long time that I’d discussed my faith with anyone outside the SGI. It was, for me, an early indication that I did not have to pretend to make others happy. In fact, pretending would only bring us both unhappiness. I took this realization to the Gohonzon.
Everything, at every moment, it seemed, was closing in. Ahead of me, deadlines barreled down, and with them my prospects for work. That summer would be my last before graduation, and so my last crack at an internship before entering the working world. Without one, my chances of landing visa-granting work grew slim. And then it seemed that they’d been dashed altogether when I received an email informing me I stood accused of plagiarism. A mistake, I knew, but one that scared me badly.
While chanting, these words from Ikeda Sensei came to mind and snapped me from my resignation: “Earnest chanting is the wellspring for the energy to challenge these things” (The New Human Revolution, vol. 1, revised edition, p. 268).
The word earnest stuck out. Especially since the way I’d been praying could only be described as desperate. I shifted my prayer from a plea to a determination and, less than a month from internship deadlines, submitted applications with the same intensity with which I’d begun to pray, sending out a dozen, a hundred, 200 applications. All told, I sent out 900. And then… nothing. Days and weeks went by without a word from anyone. And then, on March 7, a major company accepted my application. I was moving full steam ahead, confidently along a path that stretched clear and wide before me. In fact, by June, when the plagiarism charge was dropped at last, I’d nearly forgotten it altogether. I was struggling, yes, but with purpose—the way I’d guess a caterpillar feels, on its way to becoming a butterfly.
Danny at a University of Michigan SGI campus club meeting, Jan. 30, 2025.
Then, in October, I got my heart broken. I’d changed, my partner told me and left. And it felt like a part of me left with him—the part I’d kept a secret from the world and that I’d never had to hide from him. For two months straight, I drifted, further and further from my friends in faith, bar-hopping with buddies, wondering why I was in the States and whether I should be at all. It was my young men’s leader who got me to commit to that November’s young men’s conference at the Florida Nature and Culture Center. The guidance I got there was crucial.
It was past 10 on Sunday night when I sat down with someone and laid it all out—my bitter heartbreak and the doubts that came with it. He was blunt. His exact words: “Sounds like you’ve completely forgotten your mission.”
That Monday, before stepping onto my plane bound for Michigan, I texted a senior in faith, asking to set up a rhythm of weekly morning chanting, at either his place or mine. His response was swift: “Of course.”
Getting back into a steady rhythm of morning daimoku began to shift something within my life. My prayer was beginning to flow from a different place—from a sense of mission to create my own happiness. I wanted to be happy, deserved to be happy, needed to be happy, if I was to support anyone in doing the same. And that meant not denying how I truly felt and who I truly was. This kind of prayer gave rise to greater and greater energy—energy that I did not know I had.
That week, I scheduled a visit with a young man in my chapter, my first in over a year. We chanted together, studied the Living Buddhism and discussed what he was challenging—friendships and academics. It was quite ordinary but astonishingly beneficial. Afterward, I felt better than I had in months.
My own troubles seemed almost to resolve themselves. I got focused and began hammering out my schoolwork, one assignment at a time. I fully supported my professor in my apprenticeship, co-authoring an academic paper with her, and got back on track to graduate early, by May.
What’s more, I’ve taken on Central Territory Student Division leadership while taking the lead in UM’s SGI campus club. I’m determined to see out its growth as an example to clubs across Central Territory, the country and the world. Personally, my goal is to lead by example, to show young people—students, in particular—that a prayer to fulfill one’s mission is a prayer to become happy, to win just as you are, because, in fact, it’s the only way to win.
Summer brings a steady stream of tourists to Belfast and, so, a great many mouths to feed. What I did not expect was the river—no, the torrent—of tourism that visited our little seaside town last summer, swamping my tiny restaurant with demands for soup.
I began Daily Soup in 2014, after requests for soups I’d been making friends from home swiftly outgrew my kitchen’s capacity. When needed, I tended to hire women like me—middle-aged, experienced. We understood one another; we were chummy. But in 2023, themed the “Year of Youth and Triumph” in the SGI, I decided things would be different. I made a personal resolution to double my business, led with a prayer, or rather, a vow, to raise capable youth in every area of my life, my restaurant included.
As summer approached and demand grew, my prayer became tinged with desperation—I wasn’t just determined to raise youth—I needed them! And I realized that I was overlooking the youth right in front of my eyes.
My daughter’s boyfriend, Ben, had, at 16, never before held a job. Lumbering, somber, with speech patterns belonging to the turn of the century, he was unlike any hire I’d ever made. Had the need not been so urgent and my prayer so strong, I might not have taken the leap, but in June, I did and was blown away—he’s a rock star on the register.
But it wasn’t nearly enough—July saw the answer of my prayers: a doubling of customers. Desperately, I reached out to friends for leads. One recommended her son, Jack. Sensitive, artistic, he came anxious to our interview. He’d recently dropped out of college, he told me, and was figuring out what he wanted to do. As we got to work in the kitchen, we both discovered that, for the moment, this was it—he loved the work! A few days later, I mentioned a feeling I get sometimes—of having met someone before, not just in passing somewhere in Belfast, but elsewhere, in another lifetime. The notion piqued his curiosity. We got to talking about Buddhism, and he jumped at an invitation to our August discussion meeting. There he made another discovery: He likes chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
About Maine: It has the oldest demographic of any state in the country. Its SGI family reflects this. Time and again, youth have emerged but time and again have moved away or graduated from the youth division. It was not only me who began 2023 chanting lion’s-roar daimoku for youth to emerge in our state—it was every SGI Mainer I knew. That year, I hired one young person after another—eight in total—young people who brought an energy and passion that my restaurant had never known.
Nov. 18, Soka Gakkai Day, has a personal significance for me. It happens to be the day I moved to Maine in 1998, and also the day, in 2013, I signed the lease on my restaurant. With great appreciation for my 25 years in Maine, I made a strong determination to bring five guests (mostly youth) to my district’s Nov. 18 celebration. I did lots of visits and made arrangements for the big commemorative meeting at my house. I invited everyone I knew. So when Jack and other youth from the restaurant said they couldn’t make it, I was crushed. Who would come? During the pandemic, I had invited a young person, a former schoolmate of my eldest child, to several Zoom meetings. Her struggles reminded me of the struggles of one of my own children. I’d reached out to her then because I felt I could be someone who could support her. But she, too, said she couldn’t come, and I felt dejected that my nearly yearlong campaign to draw youth to our organization seemed to be failing. But defeat is not the hallmark of youth; hope is. This was my mentor’s firm conviction, and I held onto it fiercely.
Recalling that a youthful Maine begins with me, my daimoku became fiercer, my determination greater, in the days leading up to the meeting.
Three days out, I got a Facebook message from a teller at my bank, someone I didn’t know well, asking if my restaurant was hiring. She hated the stuffiness of the bank, she said, had quit the job and longed to work for someone with positive energy like me. Regrettably—maybe a little ironically—winter is the slow season for Daily Soup. I wasn’t hiring, I told her, but would she like to come to a Buddhist meeting? Yes, she said, she would!
Photo Courtesy of Courtney Sanders. At her local district meeting with four youth guests in attendance, Nov. 18, 2023.
On Nov. 18, four youth attended—my former bank teller, my eldest’s childhood friend (she made it after all!), a young woman invited by another member and my daughter, who stuck around, I think, because she wasn’t the only young person! Personally, I received the news of Ikeda Sensei’s passing the morning of. While for us longtime members the meeting was a place to process his passing, it was also a gathering full of laughter and joy. All our guests loved it. My former bank teller felt a deep sense of family and community that was missing in her life. The other member’s guest admitted she’d felt skeptical but was amazed at how great she felt afterward and wanted to keep coming. My eldest’s childhood friend kept saying, “I’m soooo glad I came!”
We kicked off the Year of Fresh Departure for a Youthful Soka Gakkai Worldwide with eight youth in attendance at our New Year’s gongyo. And just a few weeks later, at our chapter kickoff, Jack received the Gohonzon! He and two other young people have been joining me every Wednesday morning for daimoku. Belfast isn’t the only place experiencing this kind of growth—youth are appearing in districts all across the state.
Our Maine Chapter team chants an hour of united daimoku each week from our homes for an explosion of young people to appear in our chapter. We are all chanting earnestly—our chapter team, our district leaders, our group leaders and our very strong Many Treasures members—to draw forth young Bodhisattvas of the Earth from the universe, who will practice strongly, achieve all their dreams and contribute to kosen-rufu in Maine.
My heart is with them and grows more youthful by the day.
In 2001, my son crossed Tacoma Narrows Bridge and drove into Spanaway, where our friend lay dying.
“She’s in and out,” he warned me, but I urged him on.
“That’s all right, that’s just fine. Put me to her ear. She’ll hear me.”
Chanting in her ear through my son’s cellphone, I reflected on the debt of gratitude I owed her, the person who introduced me to Buddhism, with whom I could discuss anything. One year earlier, she’d called to tell me she’d been diagnosed with lung cancer. I remembered what she’d told me at that crucial time.
“I’ll be alright,” she’d said. “And even if I’m not, still, I’ll be alright. Even if I have to lie down to chant, even if I can only chant in my heart, that’s what I’ll do. Know that’s what I’ll do.” She wasn’t afraid—not of cancer, not of death, not of anything.
“Thank you,” I told my son when I was done. “Of course,” he said. Somehow, I was unprepared for his call the following morning, bearing the news that she’d passed away. I lost the main person I’d once called on for everything and anything.
It was her that I called in 2000 with something like a confession. Long ago, my husband nicknamed me “the clerk”—for my work balancing ledgers. The only problem was I wasn’t doing so at home. I was spending almost as much as we were bringing in, taking out lines of credit to shore up funds for payments on other lines of credit. “Robbing Peter to pay Paul,” as Christine put it when she found out.
“I don’t know what—” I began, but she cut me off.
“Yes you do,” she said. “Diann, you know what to do. You go to the Gohonzon and have an honest conversation. Ain’t nobody gonna know what’s said—that’s between you and the Gohonzon. The answer will come.”
By this time, she’d received her diagnosis. But she spoke with confidence and drew me closer to my empowerment, something she did for many others as well. Her strength came from the vow she shared with our mentor, to endlessly point oneself and others to the path of human revolution. In this case, the path was clear: I had to have an honest conversation with my husband. But walking that path was another matter. Days passed, then weeks, months and years. Christine passed and I was shaken to my core. I was left with her words: “You know what to do.”
Nearing retirement, Robert and I moved to Birmingham, Alabama, in 2002. More than anywhere I’d been, I found that courage was needed to do shakubuku in Alabama, where churches rub shoulders on every street corner. Here, you’ve got to summon your courage with strong daimoku. Each time I shared Buddhism with someone, I felt my heart expand. But something else was happening at the very same time—our savings were dwindling. Being retired, we no longer had an income to balance my spending habits. Quickly, things got bad, then worse. The time had come for me to put the courage I’d developed to the test. One morning, in 2010, after a vigorous morning gongyo, I turned to Robert and said, “There’s something you’ve got to know.”
Long ago, I nicknamed Robert “my rock.” If I need to do a home visit, I just say the word and he’ll drive me, waiting patiently in the car with a copy of the World Tribune or the local newspaper. My rock. He wasn’t shaken by the news. “Wow,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know.”
Diann and her husband, Robert, January 2024. Photos by Clay Carroll.
We sat down and read together something I’d found in The New Human Revolution—Ikeda Sensei’s response to a young woman whose father’s business had gone bankrupt twice. Sensei encouraged her:
I see. That must have been very difficult for you too. But the suffering you’ve experienced has made you into a person who can understand the suffering of others. It’s a shame that the family business went bankrupt, but that happens frequently in our world. The important thing is not to go bankrupt as a person. Never be defeated (The New Human Revolution, vol. 25, p. 224).
We agreed that tackling this together would be a new phase for our human revolution. We declared bankruptcy on the debt owed and made our way out of our predicament. I changed my spending habits and we’ve since accumulated greater financial fortune than ever. But the greatest fortune I gained was courage.
There are days—cold days, in particular—when I’d rather stay inside and nap. Days like these are trouble for my knees, but I wake up and chant strong daimoku and remember that I have a mission in Alabama. Somewhere someone is waiting to hear about Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. I rub my knees and bundle up and set out to find them.
Sometimes it’s a young person at the grocery store, but sometimes it’s a long-time member and old friend. Last year, I was appointed the Many Treasures Group region representative and have since been going out to visit our pioneers. The Alabama-Florida Panhandle is vast and I’m not always able to go in person, in which case, I call. Whether by car or by phone, I go as a friend to talk and listen. If there’s something they want me to hear, I’ll hear it. We chant and, if in-person, sit down over tea to read Sensei’s encouragement. Each time I share Buddhism, with old friends or new, I feel my heart expand. Even if we’re a hundred miles apart, our voices draw us near—near to each other and our vow to awaken ourselves and others to unshakable happiness.
Q: What advice would you give the youth?
Diann Oden: Never give up on your dreams. Live your lives such that you can say at the end, “I have no regrets.”
byKronskie Dickenson-Foster Antigua, Antigua and Barbuda
To young people, I say: No matter how fine a suit may seem, if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit! Don’t go squeezing into a suit like that, telling yourself it looks all right; in the end, you won’t be able to breathe. I’m talking, of course, about relationships.
I found myself bound up in just such a fit in 2016. After three years and a thousand lies in the mirror, I didn’t have breath enough to tell one more. I was with a man who vented his anger on me and my children. I summoned the courage to end a bad situation and began building from the foundation, because the foundation was all that was left.
I brought to the Gohonzon a basic question: What do I value to my core? And the answer was: My faith and my children.
It took some time to give voice to the prayer that followed—it came on its own time—but some months later, there it was: I want a partner who supports my faith and loves children. When this person did show up, it was on the heels of a hurricane.
Antiguan weathermen are true professionals, calmly reporting Earth’s most alarming facts. But the fact of Irma, a Category 5 hurricane, barreling toward our sister island, Barbuda, rattled the cool of even our most veteran reporters. No one knew what to expect.
Irma made landfall on Sept. 6, 2017, in Barbuda, causing catastrophic damage. In its wake, I got a call from the region men’s leader, Louis, from his home in Miami. He was trying to get hold of the Antigua District men’s leader. We talked briefly, and I assured him I was all right and updated him on the status of the members I’d made contact with. He thanked me earnestly and then we hung up. And then I sat there awhile with this feeling—I wasn’t sure quite what—but a feeling that seemed worth chanting about. So I sat down to do just that, and continued in the following days as Irma carried on toward Miami.
I was chanting when Irma struck Miami, and thought to myself: Check and see that Louis is OK! As it happens, a tree had fallen in his backyard, downing his power line; he was in his truck, charging his phone to check in on the members.
Over the following months, we got to speaking and I discovered that he had always wanted to be a father. We talked and talked and then began to visit each other. The children liked him and he them. We talked some more and then, in August of 2018, we married. Louis moved to Antigua the following month, into our little home—a tight fit, but it felt just right.
Centering on my faith and my children, I began to sense a shift within my life. I’d been the Antigua District women’s leader since 2009, and my focus had been on the women’s members. But my prayer was focused now more on the future—my own future as well as those of my children and the youth of Antigua. In 2019, I began to get more involved with these youth, discussing their hopes and their worries. Some seek camaraderie in gangs, others find relief in drugs. This is what I’ve understood speaking with them. And in these conversations, I’ve realized that less talk and more proof is the way.
Photo courtesy of Kronskie Dickenson-Foster.
One young woman just refused to give chanting a shot. For over a year I encouraged her to write out her goals and try it. She wouldn’t. She thought I was peddling some magic spell.
“This won’t work,” she’d say. And of her dreams, “They won’t happen.”
“Yes it will! Yes they can!” I’d say. But I realized I needed to show actual proof—my words weren’t getting through.
I haven’t mentioned it, but I run my own dental clinic. Teeth, I love. Business, I hate. Fortunately for me, Louis has a background in business! When Louis arrived, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work. As a result, we started bringing in many more clients. As the business grew, so did our dreams for kosen-rufu in Antigua.
Our home could seat 10 for a discussion meeting, but we wanted to host more. As a family, we listed out the features of our dream home. We wanted a veranda overlooking the ocean and a “daimoku room” seating 25. We started house hunting in May. Our realtor took us from house to house. Quietly, I chanted fierce daimoku to banish any hint of compromise from my heart. Ours would be a kosen-rufu home to inspire others to strive toward their dreams. Rounding the corner of a hill, that home, with its seaside veranda, came into view.
Walking from room to room, my heart hummed with certainty: This is it!
Clinching the house proved a battle, but that’s a story for another time. I showed photos of the house to the young woman I mentioned, who was amazed. And what do you know, the next time I called, she’d made her own list and started chanting in earnest. She received the Gohonzon last November and joined us at our home, where we hosted Antigua’s New Year’s gongyo meeting.
More and more, I want to discuss Buddhism with the youth. My dental clinic is just down the street from a high school, which gets out at 1 p.m., on my Thursday lunch hour. It’s a sight to behold, those kids and their freedom. Sometimes a fight breaks out and kids rush in with their phones outstretched. I’ve started taking my Thursday lunch a little early to beat the rush. When the bell rings and the school doors burst open and those kids come tumbling out, I’ll be out front of my clinic, greeting and talking with any that I can. Whether they are just in need of a sympathetic ear or have a dream they feel is beyond their reach, to each of them, I say: “Don’t compromise! Please want the very best for yourself!” My hopes and dreams are with them, and I know that with Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and Ikeda Sensei’s encouragement, the future is bright for Antigua.
Living Buddhism: Thank you for speaking with us today, Yoko. You credit your mother and grandmother as two of your greatest role models. Tell us about them.
Yoko Ambulo: Thank you. Yes, two of the strongest people I’ve ever known—the type to point to the heavens and declare of whatever’s up there—hailstorms, hurricanes, buckets of rain: “Mira, Yoko, esta es su responsibilidad.” This is your responsibility. This is the word they always used—responsibility. Never, this is your fault or your problem. What they meant was that if I was experiencing something, then who else but Yoko could take ownership of that experience? It was up to me, they believed, to respond in a way that would create value.
And you?
Yoko: I’d say I believed that too, yes, but with the caveat that I believed it with their help.
How many times I’ve come up against challenges that felt beyond my abilities to tackle. And how many times they spurred me on, saying: “Don’t give up now! Go to the Gohonzon! Chant daimoku!”
Can you give an example?
Yoko: I never thought I had any issues with confidence—ask anyone who knew me growing up. But just because something is not apparent doesn’t mean it isn’t dormant in your life, waiting to be activated by external conditions.
In 2011, at 27, I took on young women’s leadership for Chicago Zone, and this responsibility stirred up an enormous amount of self-doubt. Suddenly, the question Can I lead? was at the forefront of my mind. And the answer that came roaring from the depths of my life, hidden from me until then, was a resounding No!
At work, as on my Byakuren shifts, I began to feel that everything was beyond me. And my environment reflected my total lack of confidence. Overnight, the training courses I led at work became battle zones: trainees bursting out in disruptive laughter, snide remarks or flat-out confrontations. I began bringing multiple changes of clothes wherever I went, brushing my teeth and hair throughout the day, pestering my mom and grandma for assurances that I looked and sounded all right. “Si, Yoko!” they’d say together, exasperated, surprised, I think, that such profound disbelief had been residing in my life.
The turning point was a dinner in 2012 with peers. I remember hearing laughter from a nearby table and, without evidence, concluded it was directed at me. Stepping outside, I pulled out my phone and dialed my mother, ready to tell her yet again that I was giving up—on leadership, on my job, on everything; I wasn’t up to the task. The phone rang once, twice… on the third, a scene flashed in my mind from The New Human Revolution, which I’d been studying with the young women of Chicago Zone. In it, Ikeda Sensei gives guidance to a newly appointed women’s leader who suspects she’s being disparaged by other, more seasoned leaders.
Now is the time for you to greatly expand your state of life and begin your real struggle for kosen-rufu. Please challenge every difficulty earnestly and try to embrace everyone around you warmly. Laugh off any unpleasantness you encounter and forge ahead boldly, with confidence, joy and optimism. …
All your painstaking efforts for kosen-rufu will become your precious treasures. Therefore, try to work as hard as you can in the organization. When you feel it’s too much—that you can’t go any further—it’s important to press on joyfully, with the conviction that “because of this, I could change another part of my karma” or “I’ve just expiated the negative effects of one more past cause.” (The New Human Revolution, vol. 2, revised edition, pp. 172–73)
Something like outrage came over me then. What would my mentor say of my brittle spirit? I wondered. When my mother answered, she was hit by a flood of Spanglish.
“No puedo seguir asi!” I burst out. “I have no confidence! It’s ridiculous! I have to change!”
“Yoko,” she said, and I could hear her smile on the other end of the line. “I’m so happy for you. Este es tu momento.” This is your moment.
How did things change from that moment on?
Yoko: I’ll be honest, it took time for this guidance to make its way from my head to my heart. It seemed 10,000 miles lay between the two. From that day on, though, whenever someone laughed at me at work, I’d remind myself of Sensei’s guidance, determine to do my best and be second to none in responding with respect. It took over a year, but with much daimoku, Sensei’s “laugh-it-off guidance” made its way to my heart and, eventually, into my workplace. It was no “fake-it-till-you-make-it” strategy. My smile, my laugh, when they came, were real and, being so, had real power to transform my environment.
By the time I moved on from that job in 2015, colleagues I’d once seen as adversaries had become fierce allies. I’d become capable, yes, but most importantly, I’d solidified faith in my ability to, as Sensei says, “change any suffering or hardship into a source of joy, regarding it as a means for forging and developing our lives” (The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 2, revised edition, p. 44).
Sounds like a rock-solid foundation.
Yoko: I certainly thought so. And yet it was shaken to the core in October 2019, when my mother, Kathy, died of a heart attack. I was in the midst of planning SGI activities when I got the call.
I remember vowing, immediately after her passing, to live my life in such a way that would make her happy. And I remember sharing with others my determination to transform even this suffering into a source of benefit for myself and those around me.
In the days and months following her transition, however, I felt the earth opening beneath my feet, and I feared I might be swallowed up by hopelessness. At times I felt fine, and at others, not at all. It even crossed my mind to give up, to follow my mother—that life wasn’t worth living without her.
The thing was, though, because I was so involved in the SGI, I always had something to do, some responsibility to act on—someone to encourage, a meeting to support, a study presentation to bring together. More deeply than ever, I sensed the profundity of SGI activities—that each presents a precious opportunity to do human revolution. In my case, activities became the battleground to confront and transform the despair that had come roaring up from the depths of my life.
Yoko with her mother, Kathy, and grandmother, Doralina, in Chicago, 2018.
What did this process look like?
Yoko: The grief came in waves. Six months after my mother’s passing, I was working from home, alone in pandemic isolation. My grandma had traveled to Panama to visit family, just before the coronavirus pandemic, and was effectively stuck there, thousands of miles away.
I remember a stretch of afternoons spent wallowing in my apartment, memories of my mother rolling over me in waves as I paced the room, slumped on the sofa, thumbed through the pages of the same book, set it down and cried. One afternoon, mid-cry, I thought to myself suddenly: How is my mother doing right now? How can I connect with her life?
I bolted upright on the sofa and cried: “All right, Nichiren Daishonin! What do you have to say about death!” and made a beeline for my copy of The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin and ran a searching finger down the table of contents for the words “death” and “deceased.”
I came across one, titled “On Offerings for Deceased Ancestors.” In it, the Daishonin discusses the attempts of the sage Maudgalyayana to relieve the sufferings of his deceased mother. He tries everything under the sun before banking on the Lotus Sutra. As soon as he does, though, he quickly attains Buddhahood, and because of the profound karmic bond shared between parent and child, his mother does, too (see The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, pp. 817–22).
Pacing, wallowing, skimming through books… this was all fine and natural, but I can’t say it was doing me any good, and, according to Nichiren, it wasn’t helping my mother, either. The Daishonin was clear: If I wanted to ensure my mother’s happiness, I had to win over my despair; I had to become happy myself.
Since her passing, I’d sought with growing intensity the Buddhist view of life and death. Yet, for all that, an understanding hadn’t made its way from my head to my heart. After reading this letter, I realized, Wherever she is, however near or far, I can reach her with my daimoku. I sat myself in front of the Gohonzon and chanted to do just that.
As I did so, I remembered her indomitable spirit, undefeated by anything. I remembered my grandma’s words after her passing: “Your mother fulfilled her mission, Yoko. No one can escape death; it’s a natural part of life. The important thing is to carry on her spirit, to keep sharing Nam-myoho-renge-kyo no matter what.”
Chanting in my apartment, I decided that I would live my life to the fullest, take great care of myself and share this Buddhism as naturally as inhaling and exhaling, never letting an opportunity pass. In the following years, I lost nearly 100 pounds, moved into my own place, established myself in an entirely new and exciting career in the field of education, traveled the world with my family (determining to come together yearly no matter what, in honor of my mother and her love of travel), and shared the practice more freely than ever, with widows, with mothers who’d lost their sons, with sons who’d lost their mothers. With all of them I expressed my confidence that Nam-myoho-renge-kyo can reach the lives of the people we’ve lost—that in fact, we haven’t lost them but are living together with them, traveling side by side.
Beautiful. How did you respond to Sensei’s passing?
I was shocked but not for long; this time around, there was no wallowing. Immediately, I asked myself: What are the promises I’ve made to my mentor? I felt a sense of intense determination and acceleration—an urgency to respond as a disciple like never before.
Now when I see someone suffering, I hear my mother urging me, This is your moment. And encouraging someone, chanting with someone, fighting alongside someone to do our human revolution together, I know in my heart, My mentor is happy.
As much laughter and love as there was in my childhood, there was also a great deal of pain. My father left our family when I was 6. My mother, a true punk rocker, actress and singer, raised me and my sister on her own as best as she could for as long as she could afford it, but she was unable to protect me from abuse by another family member soon after my father left. The abuse eventually ended, but left scars that only deepened with time. I brought them with me to Denver, where I moved at 10 to live with my father.
In 2009, at 19, a bad breakup brought my depression to new lows. After a blowout fight with my father ended in police intervention, I left home to stay on a friend’s couch. There, I decided I’d had enough. I bought 100 extra-strength Tylenols, swallowed them and waited.
I wrestled with my decision, a difficult one for me, Christopher Robin, named after that great friend of the animal kingdom—of Tigger, Piglet and Winnie the Pooh. I’d cherished a dream of world peace since childhood, for all the earth’s creatures to get along. But this dream felt impossibly distant and vague. It seemed to me that the best thing I could do for the world was take myself out of it.
Somehow, I hoped, this would set off a positive chain reaction that would make the world a better place. But as I lay dying, I suddenly realized there was no logic in that. It made more sense to live doing my best to create happiness, rather than hoping my suicide would get others to do what I myself had given up on. I decided to call 911. In the emergency room, I reflected on the dreams I’d given up on. There were eight in total: 1) Write my own musical; 2) make my own film; 3) become a professional stage and film actor; 4) become a teacher; 5) meet the love of my life; 6) own a house; 7) earn a college degree; 8) start a family.
Six years later, however, I’d made no progress on any of my dreams and was self-medicating with marijuana to cope with intense anxiety and depression. I was engaged and privately hoping for marriage to bring me the happiness I hadn’t found.
It was my father who brought me to my first Buddhist meeting. Someone at work had extended the invitation. “Not really my thing,” he told me, “but sounds like something you’d be into.”
I remember walking into the Denver Culture Center, the door held open by a smiling young man in a shirt and tie, into the most diverse room of people I’d ever seen. They were talking, laughing. I thought, I want to feel as happy as they look.
I chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo daily for the next 90 days and began to feel what I hadn’t in a long time: purpose and joy. I began to ask myself again, What do I want to accomplish?
In fall 2015, I left Denver to move in with my fiancée in Chicago. I hadn’t been there three days, however, when I discovered she’d betrayed my trust. Every day that followed, my heart seesawed between two options: stay and work it out or leave and move on. Oddly, when I opened up to one of the young men’s leaders there, he encouraged me, saying: “Oh, you’re trying to change your karma! In that case, let’s do Soka Group together!”
Chanting and taking action for others helped me get out of my own head. For the first time, I centered my life on the Gohonzon, Buddhist study and SGI activities. As I did, I began to see my life clearly. I held grudges—against my fiancée, sister, mother and father. I realized these grudges stemmed from my deep-rooted disbelief in others’ capacity to change. But as I supported SGI meetings in the Soka Group, I grew and saw others develop, too. I soon let go of my grudges and the expectation—hidden from me until then—that someone else would fulfill me. This freed up an immense amount of energy, which I directed toward what I truly wanted.
In spring 2016, I returned to Colorado, found a good-paying job and became indispensable there. I also enrolled in the Denver Center of Performing Arts where I honed my craft as an actor for the next three years. I also sponsored 10 friends in receiving the Gohonzon.
In 2019, I read the following from Ikeda Sensei:
People’s desires are limitless. There is the basic desire to live. There is also the instinctual desire for food, the materialistic desire for possessions and the psychological desire to be noticed. … We could not live without desires. Often, desires generate the energy that enables us to move forward and improve ourselves. … The key question, therefore, is how we direct our desires. (daisakuikeda.org)
I still had many goals—eight in particular—that I’d yet to fulfill. As ever, I knew the most immediate path to personal breakthroughs lay in building fortune by practicing for others. I did as many Gajokai shifts as I possibly could, and from there, things began to unfold swiftly and naturally.
I met Maggy, the love of my life, in December 2019, in the first play I ever acted in. She and I then wrote and produced our own movie musical, which won an honorable mention from the New York Movie Awards. Soon after, I was cast in an independent film, which played on the big screen. On Oct. 2, World Peace Day, 2021, I married Maggy, and the following year became a teaching artist at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Maggy and I bought a home in August 2022. Our daughter, Aeris, was born healthy last April. This past December, I graduated from the Community College of Denver with an associate of arts degree in philosophy.
Photo by Alex Segall
In other words, in my nine years of faith, I have made every single one of the dreams on my list come true. We have many more dreams, Maggy and I, and we’re moving toward them day by day, with morning and evening gongyo as the central rhythm of our lives. Our prayers today are determinations: to strive toward our dreams each day, to grow together with those around us, to live long enough to see our daughter grow old and to live based on a vow to make the impossible possible.
Don got lucky. I’d gotten all prettied up in the mirror, all dressed to go out when, last minute, my friend called to cancel. So I was bummed out sitting at home by the telephone, when it rang again. I picked it up thinking my friend had changed her mind. Instead it was Don, who I knew from SGI activities.
We went dancing and I found him to be a beautiful, funny person. We married within the year, and anyone would tell you ours was a happy, easygoing marriage.
We worked hard, though—me for a bank, Don for the Navy as a nuclear submariner, a truly difficult job. While doing so, he got his college degree, something I insisted on. Everyone in my family had one and it was unthinkable that my husband would not.
In 1993, Don left the Navy after over a decade of service. The transition to civilian life proved a challenge and finding a job the biggest challenge of all. Our son was 4 at the time. My bank job was great, but it wouldn’t keep us afloat forever. I began to hound Don, whose stress mounted. One night that summer, he snapped.
I woke alone in bed, confused. I could hear Don’s voice in the living room. The bed stand clock read 3 a.m. I got up and shuffled out to find him speaking excitedly into the phone.
“Don, who are you talking to?”
But he was in his own world and didn’t answer. In my half-sleep, I made my way back to bed, thinking, Odd. I didn’t know it then, but this was the second sleepless night he’d spent on the phone dialing anyone who’d answer. Over the next five nights, his calls grew more frantic. On the morning of the fifth, I found him squinting in the bathroom mirror, beet red, railing against the government.
This cannot be real, I remember thinking. This cannot be my husband.
With some help, I got him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with manic depression. I went straight to the SGI-USA Hawaii Culture Center seeking guidance. There, I told a senior in faith that my husband had lost his mind. She then explained the situation from the Buddhist perspective, reading from Ikeda Sensei’s “Clear Mirror” guidance, which he presented to the SGI-USA women on Feb. 27, 1990:
The Gohonzon is the clearest of all mirrors that reflects the entire universe exactly as it is. When you chant to the Gohonzon, you can perceive the true aspect of your life and tap the inexhaustible life force of Buddhahood. …
In short, the environment that you find yourself in … is the product of your own life. Most people, however, fail to understand this and tend to blame others for their troubles. (My Dear Friends in America, fourth edition, pp. 101–04)
“All of this,” she said, “is your own reflection. Your husband is reflecting parts of you that you cannot see. For example, if you want to see the back of your head, you need another mirror. Your husband is that other mirror, showing you the aspects of yourself that you cannot see.”
“No,” I protested. “He’s the one who’s sick. He’s the one who needs to change.”
“Someone who’s mentally ill doesn’t know that they’re sick,” she said. “However, you can chant for him to get better.”
Don was in the hospital another two weeks, during which I chanted lots of daimoku, but in total denial. How could this be a reflection of my life?
When he did come home, he was numb, on a cocktail of 20 pills. He’d try to join me for gongyo but couldn’t sit still. Every morning the same thing, and I was feeling defeated.
Two weeks passed, then three, then four. Two months passed, and he’d shown no signs of improvement. It was around this time that it dawned on me that I had to chant with conviction in the guidance I’d been given. I went back to it, resolved to ingrain every word in the depths of my life. From there, I began chanting with the prayer to take full responsibility for the happiness of my family. As I did so, I began to reflect on parts of myself that I rarely looked at, that few people, in fact, ever saw. While easygoing in public, I realized I could be very demanding at home, insisting on things for appearances’ sake. That my husband get a degree, for instance, or a government job. My frustrated prayer became a determined one: Don will become even more beautiful than ever; again, we will be best friends.
When I saw him in the mornings, I didn’t throw up my hands. I told him brightly: “Don’t worry about gongyo today. Don’t worry about a thing! I’ll chant for the two of us.”
Right after this change of heart, Don began to improve and reduce his medication. Within the year, his doctor cleared him to work part-time at a junk car lot, a job I would have once thought embarrassing. But all I felt was happiness and pride in him for challenging himself. By that summer, he’d landed a full-time job, followed soon after by a good government job, where he’s been ever since.
The tendency to stake my happiness on superficial things like a college degree or a high-paying job didn’t leave me after Don’s recovery. It has resurfaced many times and in as many ways as you can imagine—in motherhood, in my career, in my personal life. But every time, I’ve asked myself the question with which Sensei begins his “Clear Mirror” guidance: “What is the purpose of life?” and remind myself of his answer: Absolute happiness.
What is a college degree or a high-paying job? A nomination or a prize? Superficial joys vanish in the wind, but human revolution is eternal. Don and I have it all now: a wonderful house, comfortable retirement, a son in the U.S. Coast Guard. But I feel these have come—like metal to a magnet—by focusing my prayer on inner transformation. I’ll never forget the day I handed Don our experience I’d written up for a discussion meeting. He read through it, set it down and said, “Eileen, you’ve really changed. You saved my life.”
We’re best friends now. He’s even more beautiful than when we first met, something he says can be said for the both of us.
Q: What advice would you give the youth?
Eileen Reinholz: Basing yourself on Ikeda Sensei’s guidance is the sure path to victory. What I want most now is to share this truth with you young people, future leaders of society.
