The problem was time—not enough in the day. Between work, motherhood, SGI leadership and so much more, I felt myself stretched, like a rubber band, in ten different directions, each demanding daily another inch. Amid my jam-packed schedule, I squeezed in morning and evening gongyo, my mind skipping nervously ahead, fretting over the day’s many to-dos—a distracted, slightly frantic prayer, a gongyo that was almost just another box to check.
If I was suffering, though, it was my well-kept secret. No one knew I was reaching my limit. No one, that is, but my husband.
We were having our usual, somewhat chaotic dinner with our two children, when he told me. I don’t remember my exact words, or what prompted them, but I remember that they were biting. He stopped what he was doing to look me in the eye and say, without a trace of bitterness, “You’ve changed.”
He’d seen what I’d hoped was hidden: the negativity eating away at my life. Painful as it was to admit, I’d felt it for some time—powerfully enough to have registered for that summer’s Women’s Division Conference at the Florida Nature and Culture Center (FNCC) months in advance. Unlike other “spiritual retreats,” the FNCC is the place to make a spiritual advance.
After that dinner, my eldest began playing with his toy cars. “Vroom!” he said, shoving a turquoise one to my feet. I sat down and pushed it back. “Vroom!” I said. But my heart wasn’t in it. My mind was on a mountain of legal work. I knew as much, and as the weeks passed, a berating inner voice grew louder: You’re not doing enough as a wife, mother, chapter leader. All these roles were indispensable, and yet day by day the feeling grew that I couldn’t do it all without sacrificing something.
Three weeks ahead of the conference, my employer posted a job listing that took me aback. Never in my career had I seen such a listing—seeking candidates with highly untraditional backgrounds for a senior attorney position. The background sought corresponded strongly, in fact, with my own. A word—actually a Japanese character—flashed in my mind. It was the character for “justice,” from a poem by Ikeda Sensei that I’d read in my youth, as an exchange student to Soka University in Japan. Laboring over the original Japanese, I’d wrestled with one word in particular before it leaped from the page, full of meaning. Justice.
Raised in the SGI, I’d grasped at an early age that Buddhism and human rights are deeply related. Reading that poem, I vowed in my heart to accomplish a childhood dream: to advance kosen-rufu in America and become an attorney supporting the advancement of human rights.
Reading the listing, I understood two things at once: 1) The job, if I got it, would entail even greater responsibility than the one I already had; and 2) it presented the long-awaited opportunity for me to fulfill my youthful vow to my mentor.
Joyfully, I submitted my application and was scheduled for an interview to take place just a few days after the FNCC conference.
At the FNCC, one session in particular felt personally addressed to me. Titled “The True Meaning of Balance,” it was full of revelations, first among them that I was not alone among working mothers who’d struggled throughout the pandemic to balance their lives. The answer, as the session testified, lay in chanting abundant, quality daimoku.
Sensei says: “[Josei] Toda said with great conviction: ‘[The benefit of the Gohonzon] is that it supercharges our life force.’ …
“When you are suffering, chant daimoku. When you are stuck, chant daimoku. If you do, life force and courage will emerge, and you will be able to change your situation. Our Buddhist practice is the engine for victory in all things” (The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 1, revised edition, p. 255).
Sensei explains that when our life state is low, encountering even small challenges makes us feel powerless. But from a high life condition, even large obstacles, appear to us as opportunities to grow.
The key to a winning life is life force. And this life force flows from chanting daimoku to the Gohonzon. And not distracted, penciled-into-the-calendar-margins daimoku, but strong daimoku, full of praise for the vast capacity of our lives. How did Sensei accomplish all that he did? Intellectually, I’d understood that he was always 100% in the present moment. But I’d never experienced what this might feel like for myself.
After that session, for the first time in years, I faced the Gohonzon and gave myself the license to chant abundant, uninterrupted daimoku. I brought a question: How do I engrave what I heard today in my life? But I already had the answer—I was already doing it. By the end of that daimoku session, I was full of conviction, determined to bring Sensei’s heart to all that I did. To work, to motherhood, to the members of my chapter, I would give my 100%, without sacrificing anything. And I resolved to do this based on daimoku.
Upon returning home, I reentered the intensive rhythm of my daily life. But now, I discovered something incredible: Just as time flies when chanting fully focused daimoku, the time that follows slows down. Instead of parsing myself out into frantic thirds or fourths between responsibilities, I found I could give 100% of myself to each person, each responsibility, and have time left over. What’s more, all my interactions felt far more meaningful.
I did my interview, without any doubts as to whether I could take on the job. I even referenced my Buddhist practice as my driving reason for wanting to work where human rights are advanced. Even more joyfully, I accepted the position when it was offered a few weeks later.
These days, I begin with daimoku— abundant, appreciative daimoku that expands my state of life.
Recently, at the end of one particularly long day of work and SGI activities, my son held out his little turquoise car with an inviting “Vroom!”
“Vroom!” I answered, and took it up and ran, laughing with him round and round the house until breathless, laid out on the floor, exhausted, happy. These days, I share my secrets: The key to winning in the moment—life force. The key to life force—daimoku!
Born and raised in a large family in Delhi, I’d not taken so much as a meal alone until I moved to America, where suddenly, most all my meals were had alone.
I spoke to my husband for the first time in April 2019 over the phone, and that winter, we married. An arranged marriage, we knew very little of each other and did not know how to be together. Nonetheless, by year’s end, there we were, married and living together in Chicago where my husband worked.
He worked long days, from early morning until late afternoon, something I’d known before we married but had somehow not really understood. That I’d be alone most of the day, most every day, had never occurred to me. The hours he worked, I slept, deep into the day, and then walked, losing myself on the gorgeous streets of downtown Chicago, alone and totally miserable.
For the first time since childhood, when my parents had joined the SGI, I wasn’t chanting. Or at least, very little, and not studying at all. Somehow, I could hardly bring myself to the Gohonzon. Nor did I reach out to get connected to local SGI activities. My mental health was poor and in such a state, I blamed the closest person—my husband— for my unhappiness. He himself was battling intense anxiety, afflicting him since boyhood and dialed to ten by our marriage, but appeared in my mind only as unfeeling, inattentive to my needs. It never occurred to me to take some action of my own to improve things.
It took me months before I decided to use one of my city walks to visit the one building I hadn’t yet seen—the Chicago Culture Center. There, I got connected at last. A young women’s leader reached out to me and we began to talk, chant and study together. I’d tell her all the ways my husband was failing to meet my needs, all the ways he needed to change. She shared the following from Ikeda Sensei on what Buddhism terms “fundamental ignorance.”
This devilish nature or negativity gives rise to the desire to control others or even take others’ lives and causes destruction and war. To conquer [it], we need to bring forth our inherent Dharma nature, or fundamental nature of enlightenment, which exists along with our fundamental darkness. (The Teachings for Victory, vol. 1, p. 71)
It made me reflect: Was I trying to control my husband, making demands he couldn’t fulfill?
In February 2020, we moved to Washington State for my husband’s work. One month later, the pandemic hit.
SGI activities—held over Zoom—were crucial to me at this time. In August, during one call, we studied a passage from The New Human Revolution, in which a woman seeks guidance from Sensei about her struggling marriage. He tells her:
Whether you leave your husband and go back to Japan is something that you must decide for yourself. However, as you already know, happiness will not necessarily be waiting for you there. Unless you change your karma, your problems will follow you wherever you go. (NHR-1, revised edition, 43)
I thought to myself, If I leave without making a real effort in faith, I’ll only suffer from this karma again. I want to transform this karma now with my husband and then make my decision.
In the months that followed, difficulties arose. The depression and anxiety I’d been struggling with since arriving to the U.S. became acute and gave rise to what the doctors termed “psychosomatic pains”—pains induced by severe mental stress that landed me in the hospital numerous times. That winter, COVID’s Delta variant spread like wildfire through India, taking the lives of thousands, my uncle among them.
At this point, my husband and I were living as housemates. I didn’t want to see him, could hardly stand to be around him. I wanted to go home, to my family, to India.
In December, I booked a flight for Delhi. My husband asked me if I’d be coming back.
“I don’t think so,” I told him.
“Wherever you go, I want you to be happy,” he said.
Those words, which he’d repeat at the airport, infuriated me. They were proof he was not the callous, unfeeling person I’d constructed in my mind—the rightful object of all my frustration. I didn’t want to see him as something other than a reason to leave, go home, run from my karma. Of course, I didn’t recognize this as I stormed toward the terminal.
Years earlier, I’d made a list of qualities I wanted to find in a partner. Topping it was kindness. Upon arriving home in India, I thought about that list and my husband. I turned over in my mind our Washington apartment, the site of so much misery. I saw myself in the living room, sleeping or crying on the couch. And I saw him shut up in the bedroom, coming out only to make food for the two of us and wash the dishes, making himself scarce as possible, before returning to his room and quietly shutting the door.
Was this really so callous? Actually, hadn’t I asked him to leave me alone? Hadn’t I told him I didn’t want to see him? How could I be bewildered, then, after shutting him out of my life, when he had trouble tracking my changing moods? Chanting with family in Delhi, I saw that it really was, and always had been, up to me to see my husband for the person he was—a kind person. It really was up to me to change.
Bhavini and her husband, Rohit, in Port Angeles, Wash., September 2022. Photo Courtesy of Bhavini Gupta.
I returned to the States in May, resolved for the first time in years that my human revolution was the key to my happy marriage. Upon returning home, I continued to chant with this resolve. We’d still have our differences and arguments, but these no longer stirred me up. What was essential to me was already there. All the rest was just noise. Curiously, as I accepted my husband just as he was, he began to change. The anxiety that had troubled him since boyhood began to visibly subside. We began taking long walks and drives together, having long talks in which the walls between us came tumbling down.
Ahead of a trip we took to India last November, during which we received news his company was conducting mass layoffs, he was able to handle this high-stress situation with great composure, with almost no apparent anxiety. The two of us were firmly grounded, unshaken.
Two years ago, I was ready to leave my husband. Today, we’ve bought a home together—a testament to the human revolution we’ve done and to our commitment to doing much, much more, together.
Living Buddhism: You left home at 17 to make a life for yourself in New York. What drew you at such a young age from Charleston, South Carolina, to the Big Apple?
Blane Charles: In fact, I was drawn back—I was born in Brooklyn. My family moved to Charleston when I was 10. New York for me has always been home. As a young person, I saw it as the place I could discover, or rediscover, myself—the self that had been shunned and buried underground. There simply wasn’t anything for me at home in Charleston. I’d have left earlier if I could have. Raised in a hardline, isolationist religious community, there were parts of me that were not welcome.
At 13, I came out as gay to my parents and the elders of my religious community and was, to use their word—excommunicated, though shunned might be a better word. I was not forced to leave, but suddenly, no one spoke to me. Overnight, friends, family—everyone—turned their backs to me. I was invisible. While others gathered for communal meals, I ate alone in my room. This was the official policy of the elders. I could reenter the fold of community life but only if I recanted what I’d said about myself. But what I’d said was the truth; I couldn’t recant who I was.
Part of me wanted to, though. Soon after the elders declared my excommunication, I attempted suicide. Luckily, I lived on, long enough to make it to high school. Public high school exposed me to a wider array of perspectives than I’d ever encountered. School became my escape, the place where I could thrive. I stayed there as long as I could, in after-school programs, extracurriculars, sports, writing contests—everything and anything. But at some point, I’d always return home to silence, shame and invisibility.
As soon as I was able to, I left. At 17, I moved back to New York, to make there whatever life I could.
Simply moving to New York, however, was not the silver bullet to my suffering I’d expected it to be. I’d left a stifling existence behind in Charleston, but I hadn’t left behind my suffering. What’s more, there was plenty of suffering to be found in the city.
In New York, I chased drugs, parties, and fashion—anything that might offer even temporary relief from what was, by all measures, a suicidal existence. I did not care if I died, and I lived that way. In 1981, a little over a year after arriving in New York, I made another attempt on my life. I was saved by a health care provider serving the needs of New York’s LGBTQ+ population. Again, I survived. For me, it was a wake-up call; I sensed for the first time that I might be alive for a reason.
You lived long enough to meet Buddhism.
Blane: Yes—I met Calvin and Liz-Anne while I was working at an ice cream parlor. Every time they came in, they were radiant, glowing.
What are they on? I’d wonder. The only thing I could think of that might make people feel as good as they seemed to feel was a pill—some kind of drug. One day, when I was feeling particularly crappy (I think I’d just been dumped), I simply couldn’t keep the question to myself. I asked them, “What are you two on?” That’s when they told me they were Nichiren Buddhists. They chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and I was welcome to come over sometime to give it a try.
I was at rock bottom. They were bright, vibrant, and I just grabbed ahold of them like: Pull me out of this muck!
We got into a rhythm. I’d wake up around 6:30 and catch the train to them. We’d chant an hour and then study Buddhism over coffee.
Do you remember anything in particular that struck you in your morning studies?
Blane: I do. It was a little over a month into our morning routine when we sat down to study a Buddhist concept I’d never heard of called “voluntarily assuming the appropriate karma” or “changing karma into mission.”
According to these principles, everything I’d been through, I’d been through for a reason. And the reason was that I’d made a promise—a vow, rather—in the infinitely remote past, to take on all these hardships. Why the hell would I have done that? I remember thinking. But as we read on, I came to grasp the reason for that as well: I’d taken on these challenges in order to overcome them—to demonstrate to innumerable others that there is no karma that cannot be overcome, no hardship that cannot be transformed into a source of immense value.
Now that turned my worldview upside down. I was not a victim—I was the protagonist of the life I had willingly chosen for myself, with a mission to transform my karma for my own happiness and that of others. Had someone told me this a month earlier, I think I’d have gotten into a brawl with them. But having been chanting daily, my heart was open; I was able to fully embrace and celebrate this idea.
I’d made a promise—a vow, rather—in the infinitely remote past, to take on all these hardships. I pursued and secured work in which I was highly visible, in which the parts of myself that had been shunned were celebrated.
Tell us a little more about your work in fashion and why it’s so important to you.
Blane: Sure. Remember, these were the ’80s, a decade that saw the AIDS epidemic sweep the country, taking the lives of over 100,000 Americans. Among them were my friends and partners. To lose so many loved ones was unspeakably painful. My friends died in isolation from all but their immediate families, ashamed of having lost their physical strength and beauty, ashamed of what was happening to them.
Fashion, which I had once used to mask my pain with an outward show of glamour, became a way to impart the sense of joy and pride I was cultivating within my life. In a community experiencing heightened levels of trauma, I also witnessed a divisiveness. But my Buddha wisdom helped bring everyone together. I was able to respect and unite a diverse group of highly opinionated people. I began taking center stage in other areas of my life as well, becoming increasingly involved in runways and fashion shows aimed at sending messages of empowerment and pride to the marginalized LGBTQ+ community. I involved myself in organizing with movements, which drew attention to the plight of the queer community and demanded actions to safeguard the dignity of the lives of its members.
How did your efforts develop from there?
Blane: From 1990 to 2000, I traveled Europe as a model and a dancer, chanting all the while. It was a deeply healing experience for me. At the turn of the decade, however, I could no longer ignore an inner voice that had been growing in volume. It said: So, you’ve been healing. That’s wonderful, but what are you going to do? I had a growing sense that healing any further would not take place in Europe, far away from home.
I made it back to New York just in time for the Pride Parade. I have to say I was astonished to see SGI members show up in force to march with their own float. To me, it felt like a true homecoming, the one I’d been looking for when I first came back to New York, at 17. For the first time, I dove headfirst into SGI activities. As it happened, my apartment was just two blocks away from the SGI-USA New York Culture Center. I made that apartment a castle of kosen-rufu, hosting SGI activities there regularly.
By which you mean raising people up out of their suffering and into empowerment!
Blane: Yes! I felt then as I do now, that young people deserve to know about Ikeda Sensei, deserve to know about a non-bureaucratic, open and nurturing religious movement striving to embrace and uplift everyone without exception. I want others to experience what it feels like to be motivated not by shame or guilt but by a wonderful teacher and teaching, by positive, like-minded friends.
You mentioned “changing karma into mission.” What’s another Buddhist concept that has resonated with you?
Blane: One that I learned at the outset of my practice is less of a concept and more of a mentality. It’s called “making the impossible possible.” One thing that I felt was certainly impossible was reuniting with my family back in Charleston. The ruling by the elders still held; I was not to be engaged with in any way until I recanted who I was. For so much of my life, I blamed my family for the pain that I’d experienced during and after childhood. So, I began a sustained campaign to chant for my family’s happiness.
In 2006, my mother reached out to me, wanting to reconnect. Had I not been chanting so intensively for her happiness, I might have turned it down. I chose to reconnect, and it was an incredible experience. I was able to let go of much of the hurt I’d grown up with.
That same year, I launched my own personal business, which focuses on interior design and fashion. In the work I do, I’ve found what an underrated skill listening is. I had one client whose mother had recently passed away. She’d gained weight and was struggling to keep her house. She didn’t feel good about herself or her life at all. It was 20 years ago when we first met, and she’s still with me today. The reason, she says, is that I celebrated her and made her feel good at the point of life she was at when we met.
Amazing! How are things today?
Blane: Today, fashion is not something I use to mask my pain but something I use to fortify myself and others.
And this year alone, I’ve planted over 2,000 seeds (meaning telling people about Nam-myoho-renge-kyo)! “What is your dream?” I like to ask people. Then, I’ll often write down what they share on a slip of paper. “I’ll keep this and chant for you to realize this dream,” I tell them.
In 2019, I was asked to join the board of an organization, which provides sensitive, quality health care and related services targeted to New York’s LGBTQ+ communities. At first, it took me aback. Who, me? But that thought, I realized, was born out of an internalized voice of self-doubt. Yes, me—why not me? says my Buddha nature.
Years ago, there was one young man I remember in particular, perhaps because he reminded me so much of myself. He, too, was gay, and he, too, had been shunned by his family. We’d chant together, support activities together, study together. He was like my little brother. Together with other compassionate friends in faith, we raised him up.
There’s no judgment in this practice—all of us are doing our human revolution at our own pace. Because there’s no judgment, people are more determined to be a better version of themselves every day. Instead of being controlled by guilt, anger or shame, each person is inwardly motivated by a spirit of self-challenge. Helping another person—walking alongside them as they do their human revolution and awaken to their mission—is a deeply gratifying experience for me. This is what it means, I realized, to change karma into mission. I take that same spirit into all the work that I do with others—in interior design, in fashion, in the SGI, in everything.
On November 23, 2023, a Soka Gakkai Memorial Service for Daisaku Ikeda, Honorary President of Soka Gakkai and President of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), was conducted from 1:30 p.m. at the Toda Memorial Auditorium in Sugamo, Tokyo. The service was broadcast live to 1,000 venues throughout the 47 prefectures of Japan.
Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada, General Director Shigeo Hasegawa and national Women’s Division Leader Kimiko Nagaishi attended the service with other divisional and regional representatives from around the country.
President Harada led the recitation of portions of the Lotus Sutra and the chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to honor President Ikeda’s extraordinary contributions as a mentor and an eternal example of a life dedicated to kosen-rufu—creating a peaceful world and promoting understanding of the humanistic philosophy of Nichiren Buddhism.
Senior Vice President Hiromasa Ikeda then expressed his heartfelt gratitude as a representative of the Ikeda family for the messages of condolence received from throughout Japan and the world, and for the Soka Gakkai Memorial Service held for his father, the first of its kind since that held for second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda in 1958.
Ms. Nagaishi expressed her profound gratitude to President Ikeda and her determination to fulfill his wish for gardens of peace to flourish in every corner of the world.
President Harada noted that the date of printing of first president Tsunesaburo Makiguchi’s Soka Kyoikugaku Taikei (The System of Value-Creating Pedagogy) was given as November 15, 1930, and the book was subsequently published on November 18, Soka Gakkai Founding Day. He expressed deep emotion, reflecting on the passing of President Ikeda on such a significant date. He pledged to repay his debt of gratitude by working to build a world of peace and human dignity together with fellow members around the globe.
The memorial service concluded with a showing of a commemorative video featuring scenes from President Ikeda’s remarkable life of 95 years.
Memorial services in the United States will take place on Sunday. Please contact your local organization for more information.
Following the passing of SGI President Daisaku Ikeda on November 15, 2023, Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada and Senior Vice President Hiromasa Ikeda released a message. The video was recorded at the Three Founding Presidents Conference Room of the Hall of the Great Vow for Kosen-rufu on November 18, 2023, and includes a message from SGI Honorary Women’s Leader Kaneko Ikeda. The video is now available with subtitles in eight languages including English, Spanish, Chinese (traditional and simplified), French, Italian, Korean and Portuguese.
Please use the CC function on the video to change the subtitles to your respective language.
Daisaku Ikeda, Honorary President of the Soka Gakkai and President of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), passed away from natural causes at his residence in Shinjuku, Tokyo, on the evening of Nov. 15. He was 95. A funeral has been held with members of his immediate family; the time and date of commemorative services will be announced shortly.
Ikeda Sensei was born in Tokyo on Jan. 2, 1928. He was inaugurated as third president of the Soka Gakkai in 1960 and for almost two decades led the lay Buddhist movement in dynamic growth that also saw important international development. He became Soka Gakkai International (SGI) President in 1975 and Soka Gakkai Honorary President in 1979. He is survived by his wife, Kaneko, and his sons, Hiromasa and Takahiro.
bySue Wolk Hempstead, N.Y.
Frankly I was shocked when I heard about the wedding.
“Everyone was shocked,” my childhood friend assured me. “Everywhere, mouths popping open.”
They’d expected a Jewish ceremony, of course—that’s how the bride and most everybody in our hometown of Oceanside, New York, had been raised. But the vows had been Buddhist.
I blanched. How could she? I didn’t mean convert from Judaism; my own family was never particularly observant. No, how could she be mean and a Buddhist?
“Susan’s changed,” my friend implored for the thousandth time. “She really has, Sue; you ought to give her a chance.”
But in my mind, I couldn’t shake it, the feeling, the certainty: Once a bully, always a bully.
Middle school was a nightmare for me; I was different, a hippy, I guess. Come high school, I’d find a whole crowd like me, but in middle school, to be different was a misfortune, something to be pointed out and cured by relentless teasing.
They were a group of five—Susan, their leader—and they all lived on the same block. On the bus to school, they’d all pile in on the corner of Bayfield Blvd. That’s when the torture began.
“Help!” they might sing, “She needs somebody. Help! She needs anybody…”
A Beatles song of all things, gone to waste! They were creative, those girls, taunting me with the songs I loved, scrawling insults on the inside of the bus, inviting me to invented parties at empty homes, or coming over (don’t ask why I’d invite them) to throw my things, one after another, out my bedroom window.
I’d see them over the years, usually at some function at my friend’s. I’d go over in my mind the questions I wanted to pose. But every time, when I walked in the door and heard their laughter, my resolve melted, and I knew I didn’t have the strength to confront them.
I’d neither forgotten nor forgiven what they’d done. Maybe it sounds silly, but I carried resentment and anger for years. It led me to pursue a 40-year career in teaching special education, to uplift and protect children most vulnerable to bullying. And it sent me on a 50-year spiritual quest for answers. Why did you do it? I wanted to know. Why’d you feel the need to be so cruel? The real question, though, was, Why can’t I let it go?
To my mind, a Buddhist was a kind, gentle person. It was impossible to me that the girl, now woman, who’d tortured me could have become what my friend was saying she had. But the news of the Buddhist wedding intrigued me. It might prove to be all fluff, but it did suggest to me that Susan had found a practice she was committed to.
“All right, all right,” I told my friend when she invited me to join them for coffee. “I’ll join, I’ll join.”
The next morning, I walked around the block to my friend’s and knocked on the door. A moment later, Susan opened it. She shouted in delight and embraced me, asking after me and my grandkids. Reluctantly, I had to admit that it was as my friend had said—I could see it, could feel it: Susan had changed.
It was me who brought it up. What was this I’d heard about a Buddhist wedding?
Her eyes lit up and she said it was true; she’d been a Buddhist the past 45 years.
“What about you?” she wanted to know.
What about me? I didn’t know what to call the spiritual practices I’d tried over the years—yoga, meditation, a grand return to Judaism at the age of 50. It was a little of this, a little of that.
“I don’t know, really. But… I am looking for something. What’s Buddhism about?”
I had so many questions but didn’t want to hog the coffee date. We decided to talk again over the phone the following day.
Susan asked if I’d like to try chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Chanting it over the phone with her, I felt something opening up deep within my life, like something new was being born, like I was setting out on a new beginning.
Susan and I continued to talk, four or five times a week. As we did so, we became quite comfortable with each other, and as we chanted, a new prayer took shape in my heart. I began to chant for the courage to tell Susan how much I’d been hurt by the bullying, how much pain I’d carried with me ever since.
“Sue?” she said, when I told her, “Thank you for telling me this. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it.”
I must say, that felt so good. Good to know that she hadn’t forgotten, that she thought about it, too. Actually, she looked like she felt better, too—relieved that I’d brought it up at last. At the same time, it didn’t dramatically change anything. The change had already happened in my life and hers: Susan and I were friends. And I sensed—from her and many others in the SGI community—that ours was a friendship that wouldn’t waver.
Sue receives the Gohonzon, supported by her sponsor, Susan, Long Island, N.Y., June 2022. Photo courtesy of Sue Wolk.
Since beginning my Buddhist practice, friends and family have remarked on the difference. All my life, I couldn’t stand family gatherings, occasions that left me fuming, closeted up in my room, frustrated by the difference in our political views. Now, I don’t get so bothered. I can listen and, though I may not agree, am able to understand them better. “Sue,” they tell me, “you’ve changed. You used to get so angry.”
Nowadays, I’m always chanting, always studying from the World Tribune and Living Buddhism, always asking questions at our discussion meetings—there’s so much to learn! The Mystic Law, for instance. What is that, exactly?
“You’re always asking about this,” Susan observed one day. We’d studied it many times, but still it felt beyond my grasp. “The Mystic Law is all around,” she continued, “always at work, harmonizing, uplifting life. Right now, for instance, right here—who would have thought we’d meet again? Why have we? And as friends?”
We chant, study and laugh together. And there are times when we actually cry, astonished at how happy we’ve become. We’re going to the SGI-USA Florida Nature and Culture Center together in December, and all of us—Susan, her middle school friends and I—are vacationing together next summer.
I keep a pair of beautiful prayer beads Susan gave me. They are to me a reminder that people can change—people do change—that life is full of new beginnings.
Martin Gelbaum: Nobody at my first SGI meeting had a term for the symptoms described by the Vietnam veteran there. All he knew was that these symptoms, the ones he’d brought home from the front—sudden outbursts and hostile feelings—had completely vanished since practicing Nichiren Buddhism. Others shared their own “human revolutions,” personal stories of deep character transformation.
Just a few years earlier, both my parents had begun to talk of taking their lives. As their child, I felt their suffering as my own.
I didn’t know if Buddhist practice would work for me, but I determined to give it the old college try. I had two wishes at the outset of my practice (not yet strong, well-formed prayers)—to have a good path in life and to transform my miserable family situation. I was 19; the year, 1970.
Carla Gelbaum: My own mother, a child refugee of Nazi Germany, fled her homeland in 1939 to the U.S. with her mother and two siblings.
Because of those searing experiences, both my mother and I were quite wary of people—especially large, organized groups of people. As a result, we lived a rather isolated life. However, at the outset of my Buddhist practice, I began reading The Human Revolution, Ikeda Sensei’s account of the struggle of his mentor, Josei Toda, to rebuild the Soka Gakkai after World War II. Through his writing, I could sense their intense shared commitment to world peace and the happiness of all people. His example encouraged me to actively practice in my local district and participate in the young women’s Fife and Drum Corps.
My mother was among the first to notice positive changes in me—a greater degree of openness to others and a growing sense of hope—and decided to join as well. The more I engaged with the SGI, the more I read Sensei’s writings, the more I felt empowered to set big goals and live boldly. Recalling my dream of becoming an artist, I reapplied for my Bachelor of Arts and regained a full-tuition scholarship that I’d abandoned. Guidance from Sensei that I held dear at this time had to do with laying the foundations of a victorious life: “A solid foundation is essential in all things. No building or house can stand without a foundation. The same is true in life. And the time to construct that foundation is now, during your youth” (Discussions on Youth, p. 24).
Many “teachers” I’d encountered in the movements and groups I’d looked into seemed to be peddling an escape from reality or a shortcut through it. I was moved by Sensei’s compassion and intrigued by the realistic life philosophy of the SGI. In 1970, I had the opportunity to attend a youth training course in Japan, where I met Sensei. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they interact with others. While giving his full attention to the person in front of him, Sensei seemed to use every available moment to connect with as many people as possible. I will never forget one such moment, during which he presented a bouquet of flowers to a young woman standing in front of me. As he did so, he looked at me. In that moment, I felt he was looking right past the many self-criticisms I harbored and revealing to me my innate potential.
Looking back, this moment reminds me of Sensei’s famous “Clear Mirror” guidance, in which he encourages us to respect and revere the Buddha nature in each person (see My Dear Friends in America, third edition, pp. 92–103). That encounter convinced me: Sensei lives up to what he says and writes. I determined to continue practicing with the SGI and Sensei so that I, too, could develop such a strong and compassionate life! It also inspired me to renew my dream to become an artist, which I have pursued ever since, creating many works of art and participating in numerous exhibits and local artist groups.
Martin: I was similarly struck by the writings of Sensei and the history of the Soka Gakkai. Talk is cheap, you know. But when the Soka Gakkai’s three founding presidents talk about peace, they mean business. Founding President Tsunesaburo Makiguchi died in prison for his humanistic beliefs.
Over the years, I’ve continued to deepen my own understanding of what it means to live one’s life based on a shared pledge as mentor and disciple.
One supremely practical guidance I have tried to live by is from The New Human Revolution, vol. 1, which I read in 1993, amid the second priesthood issue. In it, Sensei speaks to a Japanese immigrant in Brazil who sincerely seeks guidance about his failing crops but clearly does not know how to farm in his new country. Sensei admonishes the farmer that Buddhism is a teaching of unsurpassed reason. Chanting alone is not enough—the farmer must study his trade, exercise his ingenuity and put in double the effort of those around him. Earnest daimoku based on a vow to advance kosen-rufu, Sensei says, is the wellspring to challenge these things.
Supremely practical, right?
We were raising two little kids at the time. My wife was doing her darndest as a zone women’s leader, a mother and an artist. My own salary barely covered the mortgage, but I gave my all at work and in my responsibilities as a region men’s leader to protect our local SGI organization. In the midst of such trials, the Nichiren Shoshu priests tried to rip apart our humanistic organization, fraudulently claiming that, without their blessing, it would be impossible for us ordinary, working people to attain enlightenment.
Buddhism, a religion of and for the people, teaches that great obstacles are in fact precious opportunities for growth. Both my beloved wife and I can say that every aspect of our lives—our parents, our children, our work and our marriage— benefited immensely because of our struggle alongside our fellow members and Sensei.
Also, by applying Sensei’s guidance about work, I was able to introduce, implement and even create many important software technologies at my job. With the results in, it’s clear: Sensei is right on the money when he says that a fighting spirit for kosen-rufu is the most important thing to attaining true happiness—and that even if one person can carry out faith, that will lead the whole family to happiness.
Even my parents, who never practiced this Buddhism themselves, became vastly happier as we continued our faith and practice! I’ll never forget how my father, in 2005, turned to my mother on his deathbed, clasping her hand in his, and said with deep emotion, “You’ve been my gal for 62 years.” Such a simple thing, but between two people who had attempted suicide, it spoke more eloquently to me than all the words in the world for the transformation we’d done as a family. It was the answer to the very wish I’d held since the start of my practice—a wish that had long since deepened into a heartfelt prayer—for their happiness. Sensei’s assurance that, “The bonds between parent and child …are very profound. … [and] the sincere prayers of their children … can lead them to attain Buddhahood” (The New Human Revolution, vol. 25, revised edition, p. 215) encourages us to win each day and thus bring happiness to our parents.
Carla: One of the most important lessons from my own mother and from my practice is that, because our time in this world is limited, we need to create the most value each day. My mother died of ovarian cancer in 1983. Even as the illness raged, however, her life condition grew stronger because of her strong Buddhist practice. Up until the last days of her life, she continued chanting and encouraging the very people who’d come to encourage her. Her mother, my grandmother, came from New York City to stay with her. She would read the Gosho to my mother, in particular, “The Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life.”
Martin: My wife’s mother was a strong person. Buddhism is not about becoming content. It’s not about just getting out of debt. It’s about turning a karmic debt, or poison, into medicine!
I, too, battled serious health challenges beginning in late 1999, when my heart started jumping around in my chest. As it turned out, I needed open-heart surgery in March of the following year. Then, in 2016 and 2019 as well, I was hospitalized for serious internal bleeding. While one does not generally look forward to a hospital visit, I must say I have wonderful memories of my wife reading to me at my bedside at the hospital. In particular, while I was hospitalized for internal bleeding and braving wave upon wave of nausea and pain, I asked her to read me “On Lessening One’s Karmic Retribution,” in which Nichiren Daishonin teaches that the hardships we encounter in our Buddhist practice allow us to purge ourselves of accumulated karma in order to bring forth the state of Buddhahood. Sensei says: “We don’t focus on our karma merely so that we may repay our karmic debt and bring our balance to zero. Rather, it is to convert our negative balance into a large positive balance. This is the principle of changing karma in Nichiren Buddhism” (August 2003 Living Buddhism, p. 44).
Reading this, I said to myself, Sign me up for the large positive balance!
It was just fabulous how accurately that described my situation! Just as Nichiren and Sensei promised, because I persevered in faith through those problems, I am vastly happier and healthier than ever. Emerging from the pain, I was struck more than ever by the smile that my wife shares with me many times a day, which is just a really good deal—a really good deal!
Carla and Martin with their son, Benjamin, and his wife, Tiffany, and their three grandchildren (l-r) Gavin, Mackenzie and Sydney in Reno, Nevada, September 2023.
Carla: We deeply love and appreciate our children, grandchildren and everyone in our family! It’s not a given that children will like their parents or want to communicate with them—but our children do! Not for all the money in the world can you buy a happy family. We’re determined to continue growing as people, bearing in mind Sensei’s words to the effect that if parents change a centimeter, their children will change a meter. We can see actual proof of this wisdom because our children and grandchildren are advancing so much in their lives.
Recently, we moved to Reno, Nevada, to be close to our son, daughter-in-law and our three grandchildren. The move itself was quite a feat—in less than three months, we packed and unpacked more than 45 years of married life in California and have embarked on a new and challenging adventure here in Reno. We feel certain that the families we transformed and the one we’re building together are the result of strong, united prayer and action based on the wisdom of Sensei and Nichiren Buddhism.
Q: What advice would you give the youth?
Martin: My two cents: Determine and vow to practice Nichiren Buddhism throughout your whole life no matter what, and always stand with Sensei and the SGI! And practice the guidance and teachings of Nichiren and Sensei—find even just one thing you really like from their writings and resolve “I’m going to practice and prove the truth of this throughout my life!”
Carla: Ditto what Marty said. I’d add, challenge a consistent daily practice and chant courageous daimoku! With that foundation, live a bold and happy life and contribute in your own unique way to your family, to your work and to the SGI, and advance together with your fellow members and Sensei. Do your best in this way and you’ll create wonderful results.
From October 30 to November 1, the World Youth Development Forum was held in Beijing under the theme “Youth Strength for Solidarity and Innovation: Striving Together for Sustainable Development.” Shuichi Minami, chair of the Soka Gakkai Youth Peace Committee in Japan, attended the three-day forum, which brought together some two thousand participants from 130 countries in person and online. The peace initiative “Soka Global Action 2030” by Soka Gakkai youth in Japan was selected as one of the “100 Excellence Actions for Global Youth Development.” An exhibition about the one hundred initiatives was on display at the forum.
byRodrigo Carvalhedo Redondo Beach, Calif.
I’d “discovered” I was gay in 2013, at 19, when a friend told me he liked me and asked if I felt the same. “No” was on the tip of my tongue, but it never came out.
“Do you feel the same?” Such a simple question, but it took me weeks to come up with the answer: yes.
I realized that all my life I’d been denying certain feelings. Growing up in Brazil, I’d heard, seen and sensed things that warned me it was not OK, or at least not preferable, to be gay. Several years after I “discovered” I was, I shared the news with some family. But the people I was closest to—my mother, father and grandmother—didn’t know, and I didn’t know how I could tell them.
In 2017, I left Brazil for Los Angeles to pursue a career in filmmaking. There, I met an animator whose work I admired very much. Discussing what he’d learned from his long career, he said: “I hope all of this is of use to you. But the thing I want to share with you, the one thing above all else that’s kept me going when things have gotten rough, is my Buddhist practice of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.”
I began chanting, studying Buddhism and engaging with the SGI community, which fully embraced me. As I did so, an idea began to take shape to create a film about my experience as a gay man split between two cultures, two identities. As I wrote and filmed, I felt a roller coaster of emotion—pain, anger, sadness, joy. They were my true feelings though, and I summoned the courage each day to allow myself to feel them. And I prayed each day for my happiness and for the happiness of my family.
Throughout, I felt I was building a bridge to my true self, walking it one step, one day at a time. My prayer for my parents was for them to walk that bridge with me with open hearts.
I visited family in Brazil in September 2022 with the plan to rent out a venue and give them a private screening.
I wanted my family’s experience of the film to be as big as the feelings contained in it.
“A theater?” my mother asked. “You rented out a theater?”
The day arrived. I’d been up the whole night dealing with technical issues. On little sleep, my mind raced: What will they think? How will they respond? When will they be here? This is happening, this is happening…
My phone lit up—a text from my mom: “We’re outside!” With my heart in my throat, I opened the theater and walked them to their seats.
“This is a story I wrote last year,” I told them, “but it’s been in the making for decades. It’s very personal. We made it with our hearts and hope you can watch it with your hearts.”
Then I left and pressed play.
The film is about 20 minutes. I watched it from the theater’s wing, by the swinging doors, out of sight of my parents.
I didn’t know all that they were feeling, but I heard them laugh at the parts where I’d cracked a joke and cry at the parts where I’d cried.
Rodrigo with his film crew and cast members in Manhattan Beach, Calif., 2022. Photo courtesy of Rodrigo Carvalhedo.
I’m both the film’s co-director and lead actor. The closing scene is a monologue, a direct, wholehearted address to the camera that begins, “Family is everything to me…” As the credits rolled, I walked out to them. They were crying, too, and I hugged them in turn, moving in from the aisle—first my grandma, then my mother and father. Through tears, they told me they loved me no matter what.
It was tender the last few days of the trip, but we didn’t talk much about the film. I knew they’d need time to process and respected that. A few days later, I flew back to the States.
Once home, things picked up again as normal. I continued to speak with my parents every day, about little things—everything under the sun—but no one once mentioned the film. Things had returned to normal, but they weren’t at all. I was living a double life again, only now, everyone knew.
I practiced Buddhism with the spirit that every cause I made for kosen-rufu was the training ground for my life, for a breakthrough in my family.
In winter 2022, I again visited my family. One day I told my father, “This film is the bridge I built for me and you to walk together. It is there, and it always will be.”
Back in LA, I threw myself with greater intensity into my Buddhist practice and my prayer for a harmonious family. I soon arrived at this wisdom: I could not make anyone cross the bridge I’d built. I could only fortify it and demonstrate each day the joy of walking it. Morning and evening, I walked that bridge to reach myself, my true self.
Rodrigo with his family in California, 2019. Photo courtesy of Rodrigo Carvalhedo.
A few weeks later, on a call with my mother, she unexpectedly crossed the bridge. As if it were the most normal thing in the world, she asked about my boyfriend. “He’s well,” I said. “You want to ask him?”
Since then, my father’s also spoken with him. My grandma, of a generation with a reputation for hard-line traditionalism, has been the most open. “I’m so happy,” she likes to say. “I’ve gained another grandson.”
In July, my film had its world premiere. My prayer has been, and continues to be, that it will lend courage to those young people torn between two realities, who feel they cannot reveal their true selves to the people they love most.
Many times I second-guessed myself, confronting waves of insecurities, fears of sharing the film with my family and the public. I learned so much about film and the film industry. But what has kept me going, above all, without a doubt is my Buddhist practice. Often now, I tell my friends how Buddhism is at the core of my journey of turning the poison of shame into the medicine of pride.
