Daisaku Ikeda

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Daisaku Ikeda (池田大作, Ikeda Daisaku) (January 2, 1928–) is the president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a Buddhist association of more than 12 million members in more than 190 countries and territories, and founder of several educational, cultural and research institutions.

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[edit] Biography

Daisaku Ikeda is the President of the Soka Gakkai International, a lay Buddhist organization in Japan.

Born of poor origins in Ōta, Tokyo, Ikeda's family endured the hardships of the war, as many did. In his youth, he lost an older brother to World War II, which developed in him a strong opposition to war. In his late teens, he learned of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism through Josei Toda, a Nichiren Shōshū Buddhist, peace activist, and then president of Soka Gakkai. As a disciple of Toda, Ikeda took on Toda's dream and mission to spread the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism and its principles of developing a peaceful world through the individual development of each human being, one person at a time. Following Toda's death, Ikeda became president of the Soka Gakkai from 1960 to 1979.

From its beginnings in the 1930s, the Soka Gakkai was a lay organization whose role was to support the laity in their practice of Nichiren Shōshū Buddhism. After World War II, as Nichiren Buddhism began to spread throughout the world, Soka Gakkai responded by developing an international outreach program, the SGI (Soka Gakkai International). Ikeda took a lead role in this development, and became the honorary president of SGI upon its founding in 1975. In 1979, Ikeda resigned as president of Soka Gakkai due to conflicts with the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood and was succeeded by Hiroshi Hojo. Even so, he still remained the president of the SGI, and he is the honorary president of Soka Gakkai today.

As the president of this international Buddhist organization, Ikeda (in October 2006 he received his 200th honorary doctorate degree) has used the principles of Nichiren Buddhism throughout his own life, and in his role as president of SGI, he acts to support the membership in a number of ways, including providing support and encouragement through his writings and lectures, by striving to promote a global dialog on Nichiren Buddhist principles as they apply to today's global challenges with many of today's world leaders. As such, the SGI membership views him as a great role model for how to apply this practice in their own lives. He is fondly referred to by followers as their mentor, or sensei (Jp: 先生).

Nichiren Buddhism is a form of Buddhism based on the final teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, in what is called the Lotus Sutra. The basic premise of this teaching is that Buddhahood and enlightenment are states of being that are as innate to each and every human being, as are the more commonly experienced states of, say, anger, hunger (as in greed, thirst, or insatiable desire), or tranquility (as in calm, complacent, or satisfied). According to the Lotus Sutra, not only are all living beings equally endowed with the potential for enlightenment, but so are they potentially capable of attaining this state, within the current lifetime. According to Nichiren Buddhists' interpretation of the Lotus Sutra, one may awaken one's "Buddha Nature" through a practice of chanting the phrase, "Nam myoho renge kyo," to develop one's sense of compassion, wisdom, and clarity of mind, and through the development of a sense of the interconnectedness of all life—the "oneness of man and environment," or esho funi—and the ways in which one's thoughts, actions, and deeds, or karma, affect one and his or her environment, throughout the past, the present, and the future.

Ikeda and his predecessors in SGI, Toda and Makiguchi, and the founder of Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism, a 13th-century priest named called Nichiren Daishonin, all strived to live according to these, and other Buddhist principles, and to encourage others to do the same. Through the study of their teachings, the practice of chanting, and the practice of active involvement in the world at large, one is thought to be able to develop the innate "Buddha Nature" within, leading to a happier, more fulfilling life for oneself and others.

[edit] Accomplishments

Ikeda is a prolific writer, poet, peace activist, and interpreter of Nichiren Buddhism. He has traveled to more than 50 countries to hold discussions with many political, cultural, and educational figures, as well as to teach, support, and encourage practitioners of Nichiren Buddhism living in these countries. Topics he has addressed include the transformative value of religion, the universality of life, social responsibility, and sustainable progress and development.

As a mentor of SGI, he has founded several institutions, such as the Soka schools (from kindergarten through university level), the Min-On Concert Association, and the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, in order to promote educational, cultural and artistic activities and conduct exchanges with like groups and institutions on a global scale. In addition, he has guided the Soka Gakkai's support of, and involvement in, the Komeito (Komei Party), which was begun under Josei Toda's direction. Ikeda has also initiated a wide range of grassroots exchange programs and delivered speeches at a number of institutions of higher learning around the world, including Harvard University, the Institut de France and Beijing University.

Ikeda, who is usually referred to as Mr. or President Ikeda, has received over two hundred honorary doctorates from universities around the world. These include docotrate of letters from the University of Delaware (USA), University of Glasgow (UK), Moscow State University, Sofia University (Bulgaria), University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Ankara University (Turkey), University of Nairobi (Kenya),University of the Philippines, and Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (Manila, Philippines). He has honorary professorships from many universities, including Beijing University and National University of San Marcos (Peru). He shares these honors with the millions of SGI members, saying that they are proof of the outstanding lives that ordinary people around the world are living, based on the practice of Nichiren Buddhism. He also acknowledges that these honorary degrees are honoring the greatness his mentor Josei Toda, as well as Toda's mentor Tsunesaburo Makiguchi.

For his humanitarian endeavors in a range of fields, he is the recipient of numerous awards, including the United Nations Peace Award, National Order of the Southern Cross of the Republic of Brazil, Honorary Cross of Science and the Arts from the Austrian Ministry of Education, Medal of the Grand Officer of Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture, the Grand Officer award from the President of the Italian Republic and the World Poet Laureateship from the World Poetry Society.

Founder of Soka University, the Soka School System, the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, and the Toda Institute for Global Peace Policy and Research, Ikeda is also author of numerous books and has held dialogs on peace, education, and culture with numerous scholars and world leaders. Each year he authors and submits to the United Nations a Peace Proposal. Most notable are his dialogs, such as Choose Life: A Dialogue (English edition, Oxford University Press, 1976), in which Ikeda and historian Arnold J. Toynbee discuss "humanity's predicament in all its aspects." More recently, in Planetary Citizenship: Your Values, Beliefs, and Actions Can Shape a Sustainable World (Middleway Press, 2003), futurist Hazel Henderson and Ikeda "explore the rise of 'grassroots globalists,' ordinary citizens all over the world who are taking responsibility to build a more peaceful, harmonious and sustainable future." He is also the recipient of the most honorary doctorates awarded to a single individual, including the United Nations Peace Award, the International Tolerance Award of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Rosa Parks Humanitarian Award.

[edit] Books

[edit] Children's books

  • The Snow Country Prince
  • The Cherry Tree
  • The Princess and the Moon
  • Over the Deep Blue Sea
  • Kanta and the Deer
  • The Way of Youth: Buddhist Common Sense for Handling Life's Questions (with a foreword by Duncan Sheik)

[edit] Resources

Encountering the Dharma: Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai, and the Globalization of Buddhism by Richard Huges Seager, University of California Press, 2006.

[edit] External links

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