In August 1972, I flew in to Los Angeles from Chicago to see my mother one last time. She was in a coma when I arrived and passed away three days later. I buried my mother, my best friend, the morning of the 21st, and that evening, coming back to my girlfriend’s house, where I was staying, her husband mentioned Nichiren Buddhism. I put to him the question I always put to religious people.
“According to you, why is the world so full of good people who suffer and scoundrels getting over like fat rats?”
Longevity—Shirley Curtwright in Chicago, August 2022. She attributes overcoming her health challenges to her Buddhist practice, studying Nichiren Daishonin’s writings and maintaining her hobbies.
He thought about this. “In Buddhism, life is eternal. In the ‘book’ of your eternal life, this lifetime is just one page. We can’t know all the causes that the scoundrels and sufferers made in past lives that have destined them to cheat or suffer in this one. However, Buddhism teaches that we can change our karma and our destinies by practicing Buddhism.”
I considered this. My mother, a deeply kind person, had died in the way the women in my family seemed destined to: young, of an illness. While I myself was healthy, it occurred to me that I, too, might soon follow in her footsteps. For years, I’d been batting back suicidal thoughts, an inner voice that said, Shirley, there’s no real win in life. No real reason to stick around. But then I’d think of my mother, of the pain and embarrassment my death would cause her, and I’d push those thoughts aside. Now, with her gone, I sensed how little stood in my way of going through with it. If Buddhism could help me transform in my lifetime the destiny of generations of women in my family, I figured I should at least give it a shot.
As soon as I got back to Chicago, I connected with the local SGI organization and with my chapter’s women’s leader. “I’ll give it my all for a year,” I told her. She took me at my word. For the rest of that year I was in her hip pocket, running around wherever she was, attending meetings, chanting lots of daimoku, studying Buddhism, inviting others to meetings. All of that was fantastic, until she started asking me to take care of the person I had invited.
“What do you mean I’ve got to take care of them?” I asked. “You said, ‘Invite them to a meeting!’ You didn’t say I’d have to take care of them!”
See, I didn’t really understand the mentor-disciple relationship, or why caring for others is at the heart of Buddhist practice. Nevertheless, as I took on responsibility to care for women struggling with similar problems as myself, I found that I understood more deeply the writings of Nichiren Daishonin and the guidance of Ikeda Sensei, not just intellectually but with my life. When someone called with a problem, I’d encourage them, go to them, spontaneously jump up and chant for them. If someone was in the hospital, well, I went to the hospital to see them; whatever was necessary. As I engraved Sensei’s guidance in my life, I began to notice my own tendencies more clearly. The tendency, for instance, to blame or judge others, without reflecting on what I needed to do to help.
Photo by Sandra Kozintseva.
Before and after I started my Buddhist practice, I considered myself a compassionate person, someone willing to listen to and consider others’ feelings. And, not to be too hard on myself, basically I was. But deep down, I’d be thinking of the person I was listening to, If only you’d do this or do that, you’d clear your life right up. As I began practicing Buddhism, I realized I was thinking these thoughts in Buddhist terms. Of a young woman struggling with something in her life, I might think: If only you’d keep a consistent morning and evening gongyo! Or, of a family member who was griping on about the same old problems: If only you’d just try this Buddhism!
But as I continued on in my practice, I realized that these thoughts were not compassionate but arrogant. Though I didn’t think I was judging, deep in my life, I was! Instead of taking responsibility, reflecting deeply, chanting daimoku to bring out from my own life the wisdom that I needed to help the person I was talking to, I was essentially telling myself, Well, you can only do so much for another person. As I began to dig, to chant daimoku with all-embracing compassion, I began to experience the true meaning of the mentor-disciple relationship: the joy of voluntarily taking on all obstacles to demonstrate the validity of the Buddha’s teaching. Changing my destiny, transforming my life and my environment, I realized, is no one’s job other than my own.
In 1997, at 63 years old, I had a stroke of the kind that ended my aunt’s life at 54. They told me I’d need three weeks to recover, but me, I was walking out in three days. In 2010, I had cancer, the very same that got my mother, but it went away with a small surgery, no chemo necessary. You best believe I had the whole room chanting before the surgery, and anyone so much as walking past the waiting room was hearing about Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
These days, my prayer is to dedicate my life unconditionally to kosen-rufu, joyfully fulfilling my vow; to not begrudge a moment of it; to be able to plant the seed of Buddhahood in the life of someone who is seeking the Gohonzon—because this practice has been the key to changing my destiny.
On September 5, the Ministry of the Interior of Taiwan conferred an award on Taiwan Soka Association (TSA) in recognition of their social contribution activities. The organization was one of a small number that were singled out from among 15,000 religious organizations in Taiwan. TSA has now received this award 20 consecutive times.
On September 4, commemorating the 65th anniversary of second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda’s September 8, 1957, Declaration Calling for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, the 31st Youth Summit on the Renunciation of War was held at the Kanagawa Culture Center in Yokohama. Youth and Future Division members from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Okinawa and other regions joined the event in person or online. President Ikeda sent a congratulatory message encouraging youth to pave a path for peace and humanity and protect the right to life of people everywhere. A video introducing the Soka Gakkai’s peace activities was shown, followed by the presentation of activity reports.
byChristina Moran El Paso, Texas
From the start, my older sister, Maria, was different. Fiercely independent, allergic to authority, she exasperated peers and teachers alike, unable and unwilling to “fit in,” like a puzzle piece that’s found its way into the wrong box.
“Look out for Maria, OK?” my mother asked me the first day of elementary school, though Maria was two years my senior and two grades ahead. I nodded. I was Maria’s matching piece, her best friend and confidant. While she wrestled with the wrong shape of the world around her, my own world took shape around Maria. Privately, I referred to myself as “the little-big sister,” the one who looked out for Maria, shared her hopes, dreams, worries, fears and, as we grew older, her secrets.
In 2008, I walked Maria to another bus, just us two this time, ages 15 and 17. Our parents had just divorced, and our family was falling to pieces. She was getting out of El Paso, her and her guitar, in search of whatever gentle, brave, ragtag brigade of poets and musicians still scoured the earth for the lost soul of the ’60s. She’d been born into the wrong era, she had decided. When she found that era she missed, she would belong, she would fit, and it would be beautiful.
“Don’t tell mom, OK?”
Slowly, the bus pulled out of the station, leaving a Maria-shaped hole in my world.
The Maria that left that day—pure, bright, innocent—would never be seen again. In her years of wandering, she did, indeed, find friends and beauty, but terrors, too, that battered her body and spirit. I fell into that hole she left behind and, separately, we fell prey to the same afflictions: drug addiction and abusive relationships. Eventually, I’d get clean and both of us would find healthier relationships, but Maria would struggle for the rest of her life with addiction.
Becoming whole—Christina with her sons (l-r) Orion and Leo, El Paso, Texas, August 2022. Photo by Jeanette Nevarez.
Fast forward 10 years, to the winter of 2018. Maria has moved back to El Paso and has, with help, cut her drinking considerably. I’ve been practicing SGI Nichiren Buddhism, rather casually, for six years, having been introduced to the practice through the mother and grandmother of my ex-husband. My life is stable—my world “fits.” I’ve cobbled together the markers of a happy life. I’m a mother, a wife, a college graduate and a pediatric home health nurse. I’m expecting my second son, Leo.
I worry a lot about Maria at this time. Though she’s gotten sober, it’s in sobriety that she struggles most against her inner demons.
But I’m not worried about her the night that she takes her life, on Jan. 12, 2019. We had met up and spoken late into the night, about what possibilities the future held. Then we said goodnight.
When I heard the news, the following morning, I screamed, kicked, sobbed and then the fight went out of me, and I went absolutely numb. I go into work the next day, and it’s as though nothing has changed. But it occurs to me, driving the long distances between my patients’ homes, that I usually listen to music. Now I drive for hours, day after day, in silence.
I’m not feeling anything, I realized. Five months later, on June 12, I gave birth to Leo and plunged into severe post-partum depression. For months, whole days and weeks were spent crying, consumed by the unprocessed grief of Maria’s suicide. In November, in the depths of misery, I thought, No person, god or deity can save me from this. And then, I had another thought: Never seek this Gohonzon outside yourself (“The Real Aspect of the Gohonzon,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 834). I’d read this years ago in one of Nichiren’s letters. The answers to life’s suffering, he says, lie within our own lives. I searched my shelf for books on Buddhism and picked up one whose title, Unlocking the Mysteries of Birth and Death, addressed my immediate concern. That book, by Daisaku Ikeda, upended my view of life and death. Previously, Maria, having died, was gone forever. But I felt hope for the first time since her death when I read Ikeda Sensei’s assurance that, though we may lose a loved one who has not practiced Nichiren Buddhism themselves, there is nothing to worry about. We pass on to them the benefits we have accumulated through our Buddhist practice (see pp. 89–90, 160–61).
Because I was alive, I could chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for Maria’s happiness. Living and practicing Buddhism in honor of Maria’s life became the purpose of mine.
Soon after I’d begun practicing this way, I dreamed of her.
In the dream, I sat facing the Gohonzon, chanting. I felt something brush my knees and looked down to see another pair of knees pressed against my own. When I looked up again, I was facing Maria.
She didn’t speak in the dream, but she had communicated all the same: This is where you need to be. This is where you’ll find me.
Photo by Jeanette Nevarez.
A strange and remarkable thing happened as I chanted in honor of Maria’s life: I began honoring my own. I began to engage with my environment differently, not deriving so much of my sense of value from my relationships with others, be they my children, husband or family, but rather, bringing my own sense of value to the relationships around me. I began to realize that I did not need to look outside my own life for some missing piece of self; I had the power to make myself whole. The discovery of this truth was the source of deep joy. And the experience of fulfillment after such profound suffering and loss proved a gift from my Buddhist practice and from Maria.
In March of 2020, I took on vice leadership for El Paso Chapter and made it my mission to meet with every young woman in it. Because I am open about my struggles as well as my victories, they believe me when I say that both of us are exactly where we need to be. In one’s own heart is where one finds belonging.
Never seek this Gohonzon outside yourself. The Gohonzon exists only within the mortal flesh of us ordinary people who embrace the Lotus Sutra and chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
–Nichiren Daishonin (“The Real Aspect of the Gohonzon,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 834)
Learning How to Live Fully
Danielle Foster-Smith • Des Moines, Iowa
I am currently the vice president and general counsel of a national trucking company based in Iowa. I have significant responsibilities, and I attribute all my success to my Buddhist practice and having a mentor in life, Daisaku Ikeda.
In 1985, soon after my mother passed away, my aunt introduced me to Buddhism. She immediately connected me to the handful of members who lived in Iowa at the time. I had previously dropped out of the University of Iowa because of the discrimination I experienced as an African American woman in the music department. I went from one dead-end job to the next, with no direction in life.
My greatest turning point in faith came in 1993 when I found myself in a toxic marriage. I chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo desperately for my husband to change, but as I studied Ikeda Sensei’s guidance, I realized that I needed to pray to transform something in my own life. Within days of shifting my prayer, he left. It was the greatest thing for me, and I was finally able to pursue the life that I wanted.
I went back to school and finished my undergraduate degree. Because I had experienced many injustices, including discrimination and abuse, I decided to go to law school and become an attorney who could represent people who needed a voice. Without Buddhism, I still may have become a lawyer, but I’m convinced that my motivations would have been far shallower. My Buddhist practice taught me to transform my negative experiences into a sense of mission to protect and support others.
Our Buddhist philosophy appeals to a higher self, and gives us practical advice on how to live. For example, Sensei’s guidance taught me how to be a good employee, transform human relationships, care for others, win over myself and become happy. Sensei doesn’t talk about these things in a way that’s unattainable. In other words, I don’t have to transform into a saint. As a regular human being, I can have these noble aspirations, because my mentor has walked this path already. Daisaku Ikeda is my mentor. I look at his life, I read his works and I see what he is saying. This is how I have developed courage, compassion and wisdom as an everyday person.
I am on the diversity, equity and inclusion council for both my employer and a nonprofit, where I serve on its board. In these spaces, I often talk about the Buddhist philosophy of humanism and fundamental equality. Heart-to-heart connections are developing, and I am extremely hopeful for the work we are doing. For some people, changing the world is an unattainable goal. But for Buddhists, it’s something we continually strive for. I know our circumstances can change because people can change.
One of my determinations is to continue to become a global citizen and help foster them in my spheres of influence. Furthermore, I want to contribute to Sensei’s vision of ensuring the advancement of education that awakens people to an awareness of human equality and dignity in society.
As the Iowa-Nebraska Region women’s leader, I will advance joyfully together with Sensei and the members, find and raise successors, and through our collective efforts, transform the heartland of America.
Building Trust in My Community
Kyler Nicholas • Canton, Michigan
Although I’ve lived in the same house for a decade, I’ve never attempted to get to know my neighbors.
The last time my family had any real contact with them was in 2012, when I threw a house party, and someone called the cops. My mom dragged me from doorstep to doorstep and forced me to apologize for disturbing their peace. Since then, I’ve avoided my neighbors, mostly out of shame.
When I encountered the SGI in 2016, I was aimless and, if I can be honest, mostly apathetic toward others. But Buddhism taught me that supporting others is the key to bringing meaning to my life. One thing I love about our discussion meetings is that, even though we are all Buddhist, we see and think differently. Even if we don’t necessarily see eye to eye on everything, every week we engage and create community. For me, attending my discussion meetings and taking leadership within the SGI-USA have been the best education on how to become a human being.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I began searching through the World Tribune for actionable guidance from Ikeda Sensei. I chanted seriously to demonstrate what it means to be a disciple.
While reading the August 7 World Tribune, I came upon an incredible article titled “We Are ‘Architects’ of a Harmonious Society.” In it, Sensei says: “Our ‘province’ refers to our immediate neighborhood—our neighbors, the people living next to us on both sides and across the street. Our neighborhood is the front line of kosen-rufu” (p. 8).
It became clear that I wasn’t showing any compassion to my neighbors out of fear that they would reject or judge me. I decided to knock on each door in my neighborhood and genuinely ask how my neighbors are doing.
The first family I spoke with was a couple who had just lost their son (in his 30s) to the coronavirus. I related my experience of losing my mother and shared how Buddhism imbued her death with meaning and dignity. The wife was very eager to hear about Buddhism, and they welcomed the idea of me visiting regularly to continue our dialogue.
This first dialogue was mind-blowing enough, but that was just the first of four families that I reached that day; all four encounters were warm exchanges. Within minutes, my neighbors were sharing their sufferings with me. I realized that each family in my immediate environment is suffering with something and in need of a good friend. Thanks to Sensei’s guidance, I broke through my apathy toward my neighborhood, and I am now building trust.
I began this journey as the neighbor with a delinquent reputation, but I’m determined to become the most trusted person in my community.
Polishing My Inner Diamond
Holly Perez • Metaire, Louisiana
In 2015, I wrote down a list of goals. The biggest thing on my list had to do with my custody battle. I was a first-time mom with a 6-month-old son when I decided to leave my husband. My mother, who was my sole source of support and guidance, started practicing Buddhism around that time. It was in these most challenging circumstances that she introduced me to the SGI.
After I received the Gohonzon, my seniors in faith began visiting me. They would urge me not to give up and to pray for my ex-husband’s happiness. I would cry after being told I should chant for the person I hated the most. It was the last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t feel that I had the strength to pray for him.
My friends in faith continued to encourage me. They shared that Buddhism is about changing our hearts and that, without experiencing an inner transformation, I wouldn’t change the situation in the least. They told me that praying for my ex-husband’s well-being would enable me to polish the diamond in my life. I still didn’t understand what they were saying, but finally, I hit a wall. Nothing was changing, so I started praying for my ex-husband’s happiness.
Slowly, I started feeling compassion for him. While I still harbored resentment, I realized he was a human being, and he was probably hurting, too. When all of the hate I had toward him dissipated, our relationship transformed completely.
Our custody battle lasted two years, but now we have 50-50 custody of our son, Grayson, and we are co-parenting him together. We even find ourselves laughing over the phone when he does something funny. It’s the type of relationship I never could have imagined having when I first started chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
Before, I was extremely judgmental of others. But Buddhism has taught me to have compassion for everyone. I’m so grateful for the support I received, and I am determined to give the same hope and courage to those around me.
Becoming a True Global Citizen
Kossivi Maglo • Queens, New York
Since 1960, Ikeda Sensei has worked tirelessly to promote Nichiren Buddhism around the world. That is why I encountered the SGI in Togo, West Africa, in 1999 at age 19. When I began practicing Buddhism, my seniors in faith told me that I could chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for anything. They told me that if I chanted and gave my all to support kosen-rufu, I would achieve all my dreams.
I dedicated myself to developing the organization in Togo as a vice national young men’s leader. During that time, members in Burkina Faso and Mali, which are Muslim countries, were traveling to Togo for SGI activities. However, due to their membership growth, they established their own districts by the time I left Africa. It was my greatest honor to work on behalf of Sensei to support the members there.
In 2011, I was given the opportunity to move to New York, where my mother was living. When I first arrived, it was hard to integrate into a new culture, and I was teased at work for not knowing English. In sharp contrast, whenever I attended an SGI meeting, people patiently listened to me and never judged me for not speaking fluently in English. I immediately felt at home in the SGI, as if I had never left Togo.
I was given leadership responsibility soon after I arrived in the U.S. One of my greatest realizations through supporting the members in Togo and the U.S. is that people are people. Whatever language or cultural differences exist between us, all people suffer the same. As Sensei shares, we all share a common humanity.
I feel that I am a global citizen, not because I’ve lived in two countries, or speak more than one language, but because I belong to the SGI family and can deepen my humanity through Sensei’s guidance. I live each day focused on growth and self-improvement. As a region men’s leader in Brooklyn, I’m determined that all the men can break through their limitations and support our younger brothers in faith to become even more capable than us!
Upholding the Dignity of Life
Natasha Red • Seattle
I’m a mobile crisis team case manager working with the vulnerable population of Seattle experiencing homelessness, mental health challenges and substance abuse. I work within a program designed to divert people from getting admitted to the hospital or being arrested by police. We have nurses, case managers and mental health professionals ready to provide services around the clock. With COVID-19, things have become increasingly challenging at work. We have less resources and support, but more people in need of our services. As a result, the morale at work was dwindling.
Every day when I chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, I pray to bring forth the same life condition as Ikeda Sensei. I then go in to work with a fresh face and energy, and with the belief that I can transform my environment into the “land of tranquil light.” I also pray to unite with my co-workers and empower them so that we can ensure the safety and protection of all our clients.
We deal with clients on a daily basis who are looked down on as second-class citizens. For example, a client, who was homeless and struggling with mental health issues, requested that she be taken to the hospital. When we arrived, the hospital staff member was visibly agitated and asked why she was there because she had seen her multiple times that week. The nurse kept asking me questions regarding her care. I advocated for her to be treated fairly and advised the nurse to have a conversation directly with her. For the client, knowing I was there to support gave her a sense of ease.
Through my practice, I have transformed my karma into my greatest mission. I’ve experienced mental health challenges and homelessness in my own life, and these experiences have become my greatest strength as they help me bring forth greater respect and compassion for those who I am serving at work.
For me, being a global citizen means recognizing my responsibility to deepen my humanity as I take action to fight for the dignity and respect of others on a daily basis. My determination is to never give up on the belief that we can change this world one person at a time.
Seeking Out Those Different From Me
Manny Freeman • East Orange, New Jersey
I attended my first SGI meeting in 2014 at the invitation of a friend. I remember walking into a room full of extremely diverse people, and I felt that this was the kind of world I wanted to see more often. It was the first indication that the SGI is an organization I could learn from and thrive in. I joined the following year in April 2015.
While I value diversity, before I practiced Buddhism, I had a tendency to cut people off. If your views didn’t align with the way that I saw the world, I didn’t feel the need to speak to you. However, through engaging with others at neighborhood discussion meetings, I learned to truly appreciate how each person offers a unique perspective, and these interactions have broadened my understanding of humanity. It feels like I am receiving the greatest education through the SGI on how to win in life.
Recently, an acquaintance of mine proclaimed her political views on Facebook, and shared that she had gotten death threats for her beliefs. While her political leanings were opposite mine, I thought that receiving death threats for having a different opinion was taking it too far.
I decided to engage in dialogue with her. It was the first time that I actively sought out a conversation with someone who held opposing views. We both shared our perspectives and listened to each other. The conversation ended in mutual respect and acknowledgment. Through listening to her, I started to understand her heart and learned why she feels the way she does.
After our conversation, I genuinely felt that this is what is missing in our country. If we can get to the place of having open dialogue and truly listening to one another based on mutual respect, world peace would advance at a much faster rate.
As human beings, we justify our disregard for life by grouping people together and choosing to remain divided. For me, being a global citizen means appreciating the vast dignity of every person’s life and building bridges of connection through heart-to-heart dialogue. I’m now determined that we will cultivate a world where every voice is heard and build a society where we can all thrive together.
Extending My Heart to All
Tibet Scherwitzl • Philadelphia
I remember my mother calling to tell me that she had found a spiritual practice that worked for her. Just three days before she was to receive the Gohonzon, she passed away. Ten years went by before I reconnected to the woman who had introduced my mother to the practice. This time, I joined the SGI.
Because loss has been such a big part of my life, I was afraid of dying. This fear became magnified when I found myself on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic as an emergency room respiratory therapist. My work requires me to intubate patients who need to be put on a ventilator. I was constantly worried about getting exposed, so I was extremely careful when treating patients. My constant thought was, If I die, will my son be OK?
When I did test positive, my SGI family chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for me when I didn’t have the physical strength to sit in front of the Gohonzon and could only whisper from my bed. I was confident that all the causes I had been making to support the members as a new district women’s leader protected me during this time. My 26-year-old son even began to chant for me, which reassured me that he is building a spiritual foundation for his own life.
I recovered from COVID-19, and I’m now back at work. Because I faced and won over my greatest fear, I no longer fear dying. My new sense of hope and empowerment have enabled me to be more present and compassionate when I treat patients. I pray for my patients every day, and I’m determined that my courage can rub off on them and help them get through tough times as well. I’ve also been sharing Buddhism with my co-workers.
Ikeda Sensei says, “[Mothers] are the ones responsible for teaching their children faith” (The New Human Revolution, vol. 2, p. 83). I now see that my mother gave to me a spiritual foundation before she died. Now, I have passed on that practice to my son. For me, global citizenship means that I have the heart to treasure and chant for the happiness of everyone around me, including those in my family, my district, my work environment, extending to all people in this world.
Just as the currents of the Hudson River move ceaselessly, with power and grandeur, Teachers College is producing an unbroken flow of youthful leaders who will create a magnificent new era in the coming century. It is an unparalleled honor to speak here today at the premier institute for graduate study in education in the United States, a monarch in the world of education, whose crown sends forth brilliant beams that light the future.
I offer my heartfelt gratitude to President Arthur Levine and all those whose support has made this event a reality. I would also like to thank in advance our distinguished commentators who will later be sharing with us their enlightening views.
In 1975, it was my privilege to visit Columbia University. Four years earlier, in 1971, we had established Soka University in Tokyo. The warm encouragement and invaluable advice we received at that time for a university still in its infancy is something that I will never forget. Thank you very much.
It is with profound emotion that I speak today at the college where the world- renowned philosopher John Dewey taught. The first president of the Soka Gakkai, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, whose thinking is the founding spirit of Soka University, referenced with great respect the writings and ideas of Dewey in his 1930 work The System of Value- Creating Pedagogy.
My own interest in and commitment to education stem from my experiences during World War II. My four elder brothers were drafted and sent to the front; the eldest was killed in action in Burma (Myanmar). During the two or so years following the end of the war, my three surviving brothers returned one after another from the Chinese mainland. In their tattered uniforms, they were a truly pathetic sight. My parents were already aged; my father’s pain and my mother’s sadness were searing.
To the end of my days, I will never forget the disgust and anger with which my eldest brother, on leave from China, described the inhuman atrocities he had seen committed there by the Japanese army. I developed a deep hatred for war, its cruelty, stupidity, and waste. In 1947, I encountered a superb educator, Josei Toda. Toda, together with his mentor, Makiguchi, was jailed for opposing Japan’s wars of invasion. Makiguchi died in jail. Toda survived the two-year ordeal of imprisonment.
When, at nineteen, I learned of this, I instinctively knew that here was someone whose actions merited my trust. I determined to follow Toda as my mentor in life.
It was Toda’s constant and impassioned plea that human-ity could be liberated from horrific cycles of war only by fostering new generations of people imbued with a profound respect for the sanctity of life. He therefore gave the highest possible priority to the work of education.
Education is a uniquely human privilege. It is the source of inspiration that enables us to become fully and truly human, to fulfill a constructive mission in life with composure and confidence.
The end point in the development of knowledge isolated from human concerns is the weaponry of mass destruction. At the same time, it is knowledge also that has made society comfortable and convenient, bringing industry and wealth. The task of education must be fundamentally to ensure that knowledge serves to further the cause of human happiness and peace.
Education must be the propelling force for an eternally unfolding humanitarian quest. It is for this reason that I consider education the final and most crucially important undertaking of my life. This is also the reason I deeply concur with the view expressed by President Levine that while education is perhaps the slowest means to social change, it is the only means.
Global society today faces myriad, interlocking crises. These include the issues of war, environmental degradation, the North-South development gap, and divisions among people based on differences of ethnicity, religion, or language. The list is long and familiar, and the road to solutions may seem all too distant and daunting.
It is my view, however, that the root of all these problems is our collective failure to make the human being, human happiness, the consistent focus and goal in all fields of endeavor. The human being is the point to which we must return and from which we must depart anew. What is required is a human transformation or a human revolution.
There are many areas of commonality in the thinking of Makiguchi and Dewey, and this is one of them. They shared an immovable conviction in the need for new modes of people- centered education. As Dewey put it, “Everything which is distinctly human is learned.”[1]
Dewey and Makiguchi were contemporaries. On opposite ends of the Earth, amid the problems and dislocations of their newly industrializing societies, both wrestled with the task of laying a path toward a hope-filled future.
Greatly influenced by the views of Dewey, Makiguchi asserted that the purpose of education must be the lifelong happiness of learners. He further believed that true happiness is to be found in a life of value creation. Put simply, value creation is the capacity to find meaning, to enhance one’s own existence and contribute to the well- being of others, under any circumstances. Makiguchi’s philosophy of value creation grew from the insights into the inner workings of life his study of Buddhism afforded him.
Both Dewey and Makiguchi looked beyond the limits of the nation-state to new horizons of human community. Both, it could be said, had a vision of global citizenship, of people capable of value creation on a global scale.
What then, are the conditions for global citizenship? Over the past several decades, I have been privileged to meet and converse with many people from all walks of life, and I have given the matter some thought. Certainly, global citizenship is not determined merely by the number of languages one speaks or the number of countries to which one has traveled. I have many friends who could be considered quite ordinary citizens but who possess an inner nobility; who have never traveled beyond their native place, yet who are genuinely concerned for the peace and prosperity of the world.
I think I can state with confidence that the following are essential elements of global citizenship:
The wisdom to perceive the interconnectedness of all life and living.
The courage not to fear or deny difference, but to respect and strive to understand people of different cultures and to grow from encounters with them.
The compassion to maintain an imaginative empathy that reaches beyond one’s immediate surroundings and extends to those suffering in distant places.
The all-encompassing interrelatedness that forms the core of the Buddhist worldview can provide a basis, I feel, for the concrete realization of these qualities of wisdom, courage, and compassion. The following parable from the Buddhist canon provides a beautiful visual metaphor for the interdependence and interpenetration of all phenomena.
Suspended above the palace of Indra, the Buddhist god who symbolizes the natural forces that protect and nurture life, is an enormous net. A brilliant jewel is attached to each of the knots of the net. Each jewel contains and reflects the image of all the other jewels in the net, which sparkles in the magnificence of its totality.
When we learn to recognize what Thoreau refers to as “the infinite extent of our relations,”[2] we can trace the strands of mutually supportive life and discover there the glittering jewels of our global neighbors. Buddhism seeks to cultivate wisdom grounded in this kind of empathetic resonance with all forms of life.
In the Buddhist view, wisdom and compassion are intimately linked and mutually reinforcing. Compassion in Buddhism does not involve the forcible suppression of our natural emotions, our likes and dislikes. Rather, it is the realization that even those whom we dislike have qualities that can contribute to our lives and can afford us opportunities to grow in our own humanity. Further, it is the compassionate desire to find ways of contributing to the well- being of others that gives rise to limitless wisdom.
Buddhism teaches that both good and evil are potentialities that exist in all people. Compassion consists in the sustained and courageous effort to seek out the good in all people, whoever they may be, however they may behave. It means striving, through sustained engagement, to cultivate the positive qualities in oneself and in others. Engagement, however, requires courage. There are all too many cases in which compassion, owing to a lack of courage, remains mere sentiment.
Buddhism calls a person who embodies these qualities of wisdom, courage, and compassion, who strives without cease for the happiness of others, a bodhisattva. In this sense, it could be said that the bodhisattva provides an ancient precedent and modern exemplar of the global citizen.
The Buddhist canon includes the story of a contemporary of Shakyamuni, a woman by the name of Srimala, who dedicated herself to education, teaching others that the practice of the bodhisattva consists in encouraging, with maternal care, the ultimate potential for good within all people. Her vow is recorded thus: “If I see lonely people, people who have been jailed unjustly and have lost their freedom, people who are suffering from illness, disaster, or poverty, I will not abandon them. I will bring them spiritual and material comfort.”[3]
In concrete terms, her practice consisted of the following:
Encouraging others by addressing them with kind-ness and concern through dialogue (Skt priyavacana).
Giving alms, or providing people with the things they require (Skt dana).
Taking action on behalf of others (Skt artha-carya).
Joining with others and working together with them (Skt samanartha).
Through these efforts she sought to realize her goal of bringing forth the positive aspects of those she encountered.
The practice of the bodhisattva is supported by a pro-found faith in the inherent goodness of people. Knowledge must be directed to the task of unleashing this creative, positive potential. This purposefulness can be likened to the skill that enables one to make use of the precision instruments of an airplane to reach a destination safely and with-out incident.
For this reason, the insight to perceive the evil that causes destruction and divisiveness, and that is equally part of human nature, is also necessary. The bodhisattva’s practice is an unshrinking confrontation with what Buddhism calls the fundamental ignorance of life.[4]
“Goodness” can be defined as that which moves us in the direction of harmonious coexistence, empathy, and solidarity with others. The nature of evil, on the other hand, is to divide: people from people, humanity from the rest of nature. The pathology of divisiveness drives people to an unreasoning attachment to difference and blinds them to human commonalities. This is not limited to individuals but constitutes the deep psychology of collective egoism, which takes its most destructive form in virulent strains of ethnocentrism and nationalism.
The struggle to rise above such egoism and live in larger and more contributive realms of selfhood constitutes the core of the bodhisattva’s practice. Education is, or should be, based on the same altruistic spirit as the bodhisattva.
The proud mission of those who have been able to receive an education must be to serve, in seen and unseen ways, the lives of those who have not had this opportunity. At times, education may become a matter of titles and degrees and the status and authority these confer. I am convinced, however, that education should be a vehicle to develop in one’s character the noble spirit to embrace and augment the lives of others.
Education should provide in this way the momentum to win over one’s own weaknesses, to thrive amid society’s sometimes stringent realities, and to generate new victories for the human future.
The work of fostering global citizens, laying the conceptual and ethical foundations of global citizenship, concerns us all. It is a vital project in which we all are participants and for which we all share responsibility. To be meaningful, education for global citizenship should be undertaken as an integral part of daily life in our local communities.
Like Dewey, Makiguchi focused on the local community as the place where global citizens are fostered. In his 1903 work, The Geography of Human Life, which is considered a pioneering work in social ecology, Makiguchi stressed the importance of the community as the site of learning.
Elsewhere Mr. Makiguchi wrote: “The community, in short, is the world in miniature. If we encourage children to observe directly the complex relations between people and the land, between nature and society, they will grasp the realities of their homes, their school, the town, village, or city, and will be able to understand the wider world.”[5]
This is consonant with John Dewey’s observation that those who have not had the kinds of experience that deepen understanding of neighborhood and neighbors will be unable to maintain regard for people of distant lands.[6]
Our daily lives are filled with opportunities to develop ourselves and those around us. Each of our interactions with others—dialogue, exchange, and participation—is an invaluable chance to create value. We learn from people, and it is for this reason that the humanity of the teacher represents the core of the educational experience.
Makiguchi argued that humanistic education, education that guides the process of character formation, is a transcendent skill that might best be termed an art. His initial experience as a teacher was in a remote rural region of Japan, where he taught in the Japanese equivalent of a one- room schoolhouse. The children were poor, the manners they brought from their impoverished homes, rough. Makiguchi, however, was insistent:
there be between them and other students? Even though they may be covered with dust or dirt, the brilliant light of life shines from their soiled clothes. Why does no one try to see this? The teacher is all that stands between them and the cruel discrimination of society.[7]
The teacher is the most important element of the educational environment. This creed of Makiguchi’s is the unchanging spirit of Soka education.
Elsewhere, he writes: “Teachers should come down from the throne where they are ensconced as the object of veneration to become public servants who offer guidance to those who seek to ascend the throne of learning. They should not be masters who offer themselves as paragons but partners in the discovery of new models.”[8]
It is my abiding conviction that it is the teacher dedicated to serving students, and not the inanimate facility, that makes a school.
I recently heard an educator offer this view: students’ lives are not changed by lectures but by people. For this reason, interactions between students and teachers are of the greatest importance.
In my own case, most of my education was under the tutelage of my mentor in life, Josei Toda. For some ten years, every day before work, he would teach me a curriculum of history, literature, philosophy, economics, science, and organization theory. On Sundays, our one-to-one sessions started in the morning and continued all day. He was constantly questioning me—interrogating might be a better word—about my reading.
Most of all, however, I learned from his example. The burning commitment to peace that remained unshaken throughout his imprisonment was something he carried with him his entire life. It was from this, and from the pro-found compassion that characterized each of his interactions, that I most learned. Ninety- eight percent of what I am today, I learned from him.
The Soka, or value-creating, education system was founded out of a desire that future generations should have the opportunity to experience this same kind of humanistic education. It is my greatest hope that the graduates of the Soka schools will become global citizens who can author a new history for humankind.
The actions of such citizens will not be effective unless coordinated, and in this regard we cannot ignore the important potential of the United Nations system.
We have reached the stage where the United Nations can serve as a center not only for “harmonizing the actions of nations”[9] but also for the creation of value through the education of global citizens who can create a world of peace. While states and national interests have dominated debate at the world organization to date, increasingly, the energy of “we the peoples … ” has been making itself felt, particularly through the activities of nongovernmental organizations.
In recent years, global discourse on such critical issues as the environment, human rights, indigenous peoples, women, and population has been held under UN auspices. With the participation of both governmental and nongovernmental representatives, conferences on world issues have furthered the process of shaping the kind of global ethic that must undergird global citizenship.
In coordination with ongoing efforts of the United Nations in this direction, I would hope to see these issues incorporated as integral elements of education at all levels. For example:
Peace education in which young people learn the cru-elty and folly of war to root the practice of nonviolence in human society.
Environmental education to study current ecological realities and means of protecting the environment.
Developmental education to focus attention on issues of poverty and global justice.
Human rights education to awaken an awareness of human equality and dignity.
It has long been my belief that education must never be subservient to political interests. To this end, I feel that education should be accorded a status within public affairs equivalent even to that of the legislative, executive, or judicial branches of government. This proposal grows out of the experiences of my predecessors, the first and second presidents of the Soka Gakkai, who fought consistently against political control of education.
In the coming years, I would hope that there could be held a world summit not of politicians but of educators. This is because nothing is of greater importance to the human future than the transnational solidarity of educators.
Toward that end, we are determined to continue our efforts to promote educational exchange among young people, following the example of Teachers College, which I understand at present has a student body drawn from some eighty countries.
As Makiguchi stated: “Educational efforts built on a clear understanding and with a defined sense of purpose have the power to overcome the contradictions and doubts that plague humankind, and to bring about an eternal victory for humanity.”[10]
I would like to pledge my fullest efforts to working, together with my distinguished friends and colleagues gathered here today, toward fostering the kind of global citizens who alone can produce this “eternal victory for humanity.”
On August 19, Soka Gakkai of Mexico (SGMex) hosted a forum at its center in Guadalajara to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first meeting between President Ikeda and British historian Arnold J. Toynbee. The forum took place in person and was connected with venues across the country online. Professor José Manuel Jurado Parres of the University of Guadalajara and President of the Alfonso García Robles Diplomatic Foundation Rafael Medina Martínez joined a panel discussion on the Ikeda-Toynbee dialogue Choose Life. Both speakers agreed that the dialogue is still relevant in highlighting issues that should be tackled in order to build a better society.
On August 17, Amnesty International, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the SGI (Soka Gakkai International) co-organized a third conversation session with young human rights educators from around the world. Themed “Fighting Human Trafficking Through Human Rights Education,” the online event invited Ms. Aiki Matsukura to speak on her work combatting human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Japan. Ms. Matsukura is featured in a film series titled Stories of Young Human Rights Educators, a multilingual, multimedia educational tool developed by the three organizers. The video featuring her work was screened during the event.
The SGI develops various activities to promote gender equality by supporting the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and gender dimensions of the SDGs. These include events supporting the activities of UN Women and the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
The “Young Women’s Stories—Fostering Leadership” project explores how young women’s personal development can help them empower themselves and others.
CSW side events run by the SGI bring together young women from across the globe to discuss their role as leaders and initiators of change.
The SGI has been involved in the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, New York (NGO CSW/NY), for over 20 years.
Read more about the SGI’s activities to foster women’s leadership here.
In support of the World Programme for Human Rights Education (2005– ) and the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (2011), the SGI has developed educational tools that illustrate the transformative impact of human rights education and promote a culture of human rights where dignity and equality are paramount. The SGI is chair of the NGO Working Group on Human Rights Education and Learning.
“Transforming Lives: The Power of Human Rights Education”
An exhibition created through the collective effort of civil society, governments and intergovernmental organizations with the goal of raising awareness of the vital role of human rights education in promoting dignity, equality and peace and in preventing human rights violations and abuses. It was created to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training. Learn more
Human Rights Education Open Web Resource
A collaborative initiative providing human rights education and training tools for teachers and activists. Learn more
A Path to Dignity
A film documenting the impact of human rights education on schoolchildren, police officers and victims of domestic violence.
View resources for the promotion of human rights education here.
