Encountering
the Dharma. Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai, and the Globalization of
Buddhist Humanism. By
Richard Hugh Seager. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of
California Press, 2006, xv + 245 p., ISBN 0-520-24577-6 (paperback),
US$19.95.
Reviewed by
Martin Baumann
Professor for the Study of Religions
University of Lucerne, Switzerland
martin.baumann@unilu.ch
It must be ten years ago, by coincidence
I met a fellow from my school days. He was known to be a rigorous
handball player, tough and uncompromising. At some point in our
conversation he mentioned that he had read bits of my work on Buddhism,
as he himself now is a practicing Buddhist. This was completely
unexpected. Adding to my surprise, he explained that he had joined
the Soka Gakkai, chanted “Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo”
every morning and served as contact person of a Soka Gakkai regional
chapter. How remote this was from what I had known of him before.
I also noted the change in his manner—his style of speech
was softened, and his body language was smoother. As we departed
I remained slightly perplexed by these changes and by the obvious
impact of Soka Gakkai on him.
Richard Hughes Seager’s
book is a broad and well researched guide to reducing this kind
of perplexity. Seager, a historian of Religions at Hamilton College,
New York, and author of Buddhism in America (1999), traveled
to Japan, Singapore, Brazil, and sites in the U.S. to gather information
and develop a picture of the movement. For critics, the Soka Gakkai
(SG), a Buddhist group originating in Japan in the 1930s, is a new
religious movement embroiled in financial and political controversies
and commanded by a messianic leader. Though it is one of the many
Asian spiritualities much heralded in Western countries, SG has
often been seen as quite distinct from other forms of Buddhism,
sometimes being regarded as a “foreign cult,” far removed
from either traditional Western religious sensibilities or from
forms of Buddhism emphasizing meditation. Encountering the Dharma
takes on these issues of otherness and the allegations — founded
and unfounded — against the organization, as well as the appeal
and success of the SG in post-war Japan. Seager also aims to provide
an informed impression of Daisaku Ikeda, the movement’s current
president, leader, and teacher. Finally, he attempts to trace the
trajectories of the movement’s globalization and adaptation
to local settings. He achieves these aims and more.
Seager has a passion
to write and give his research an entertaining narrative tone. The
book tells at least three interwoven stories: the rapid social and
national change in twentieth century Japan; the emergence, explosive
growth, and globalization of SG; and the change of the narrator’s
attitude from skeptical interest, through doubt, to appreciation.
The stories provide accounts of the modern history of Japan, starting
with the 1868 Meiji Restoration; the internal changes the once tiny
movement has gone through; and the personal trauma the author himself
faced with the recent passing away of his beloved wife. Seager masters
balancing his personal narrative with the descriptive and analytic
elements of the text. He skillfully gives voice to his interviewees,
from ordinary devotees to top ranking members, and it is often they
who tell the story and offer valuable insights.
The story unfolds
well, arranged in eight chapters sandwiched between a brief preface
and epilogue. Chapter one sees Seager during his first visit to
Tokyo, Japan. Longtime American SG member Rob Eppsteiner and translator
Rie lead him through the puzzling new environment and arrange visits
and interviews. Seager has the privilege of meeting Ikeda and describes
his critical stance towards Japanese nationalism and exceptionalism.
Next is information on Nichiren, the uncompromising thirteenth century
critic and reformer of Japanese schools of Buddhism. This historical
exploration provides the background for understanding the centrality
of the Lotus Sutra and the chant “Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo.”
This mantra, which is the sutra’s title in Japanese, is held
to embody the essence of the teaching. According to Nichiren and
the evolving Nichiren traditions, the invocation of the title forms
the central spiritual practice in this age of degeneration (Jap.
mappo); it is the only remaining path to attain enlightenment.
The next chapters
introduce the leading figures and religious concepts of SG. In 1930,
teacher and Tokyo school administrator Tsunesaburo Makiguchi founded
the Value Creating Education Society. To foster values, happiness
and benefit — not necessarily religious in tone — was of
primary interest to Makiguchi in view of Japan increasing militarization
and its entry into World War II. His resistance to venerating the
emperor and State Shinto brought him into conflict with the imperial
government. Makiguchi was imprisoned and died a year before the
war ended. His successor was Josei Toda who transformed the disbanded
group of educators into a mass movement and strengthened ties with
the priestly Nichiren Shoshu sect. The SG grew rapidly in post-war
Japan, as Toda emphasized the transformative force of Buddhism in
culture and politics. During this time (1950s) SG’s evangelical
style of proselytizing emerged. Youth divisions and other organisational
units carried out campaigns to empower voiceless people such as
working-class men and women, small-business owners, shopkeepers,
and housewives. “Often traditional in background and instinct,
these people had been displaced by war and rapid social change.
They were also neglected by big government, unions, and business
and plagued by the kyodatsu condition [state of post-war
depression]. To these people the Gakkai gave meaning, motive, and
community […]” (p. 78). Toda and his people worked to
raise consciousness and to engage actively in the transformation
of life on both individual and social levels.
Among the activists
working with Toda was Daisaku Ikeda (b. 1928), Toda’s successor
and third president from 1960 to present day. Ikeda promoted SG’s
outreach from Japan with his journeys to the Asian mainland, the
Americas and Europe from 1960 onwards. Consequently, in 1975 Ikeda
established the globally operating wing of SG, Soka Gakkai International
(SGI). Ikeda promoted his ideas and the ideal of “Buddhist
Humanism,” working for reconciliation with mainland Asian
nations and emphasizing the importance of creating peace through
culture and education. During the 1970s Ikeda encouraged members
to moderate their aggressive missionizing style and to adapt Nichiren
Buddhism to local settings. A spirit of openness, egalitarianism,
and democratization pervaded the SG, embodying and giving new life
to the idea of self-empowerment. In 1991, these liberalizing developments
led to the split between the Japan-oriented, priestly Nichiren Shoshu
and the lay-based, globalized SGI. The conservative priesthood excommunicated
the SGI, depriving it of its central place of pilgrimage, the Taisekiki
temple. It also stopped issuing gohonzons (Jap., object
of worship) to SGI members. Now standing on its own feet, the SGI
developed new religious places of central importance, like the Makiguchi
Hall in Tokyo, and legitimated the prime objects of worship through
its Tokyo headquarters and through another Nichiren high priest.
The final two chapters
provide informative snap-shots of SG’s global outreach and
adaptive localization. Seager interviewed rank-and-file members,
children, and leading officials in Singapore, the U.S., and Brazil.
In all the different settings, he observed ambitions both to preserve
the essential spirituality and intention of SGI, shaped in Japan
by Japanese, and also to form new modes of expression adapted to
new cultures. In the U.S. SGI has succeeded in attracting African
Americans and Hispanics, in contrast to most Buddhist groups and
traditions. Ideas of empowerment, community, patriotism, and the
liberalizing spirit of inner transformation generate interest in
this movement. Similarly, in urbanized Singapore the movement is
constituted overwhelmingly by Chinese people attracted to the movement
by its dynamism and ideals such as optimism, happiness, personal
empowerment, and social responsibility. In Brazil the story of adaptation
and success is linked to stimulation of self-esteem, hope, responsibility,
and achieving personal ends. “Benefits from practice are inconspicuous
but highly tangible — improvements in speech, conduct, and grooming,
all of which contribute to their sense of well-being, their happiness,
and their upward mobility.” (p. 192)
Seager is a talented
writer and provides vivid impressions of his encounters, interviewees,
and journeys. The book contains end notes, a helpful glossary of
Japanese terms, a bibliography, and a detailed index. The narrative
style, containing autobiographical elements, might have prevented
Seager from attempting more analytical achievements and theoretical
insights. Since Seager is trained as a comparative historian of
religions, I wondered why he did not analytically deepen the general
topic of the preservation of tradition and innovative adoption of
a transplanted religion. How much “Japaneseness” is
possible in Brazil or the U.S., and at what point will the SGI become
co-opted by society and deprived of its “empowering spirit”
as interviewees called it? What can we infer from other globalized
religions with regard to the tension of maintenance and acculturation?
Also, Seager classified the SG as an expression of “Buddhist
modernism,” applying a term from the late Buddhologist Heinz
Bechert (p. 32). What exactly, however, does he imply by “modern”
or “modernist” in the case of Japan, and does this apply
also for the U.S., Singapore, and Brazil? Furthermore, modernity
has not only the supposedly positive side of happiness, freedom
and liberty, but also the dark “under-side” of suppression,
mass-exploitation, and gargantuan world wars. Seager does not explore
an under-side of “Buddhist modernism,” however. Finally,
Seager convincingly shows that much of the dynamism and appeal of
the SGI is related to the idea of personal and communal empowerment.
This is an important point and presents a new perspective on the
movement, counting about twelve million members in the early twenty-first
century. It would have been worthwhile to compare the approach of
the SGI with other grass-roots movements of empowerment, such as
Ambedkar Buddhism in west India and Christian Liberation Theology
in South and Latin America. What is specific to the SGI and what
is common to such movements of empowerment? And, do not religious
empowering movements inevitably violate the separation between religion
and politics, a reproach critics voice against SG in Japan?
Despite these minor
reservations, Encountering the Dharma successfully attains
its goal of stripping away the remoteness and strangeness of Soka
Gakkai spirituality for those unfamiliar with it. It makes intelligible
the appeal of the movement, with its central teaching of empowerment
of self and others for achieving happiness. My perplexity encountering
my old schoolmate and his new religious orientation mirrors how
we ignore the ongoing flow of change in religions, persons, and
perceptions. Seager’s book admirably remedies this condition
with respect to Soka Gakkai.