Thank you for the A2A.
The short answer is that Nichiren Daishonin was the genius who recognized the common aspects of life that apply to everyone, and turned the five-word distillation into a method usable by anyone, for free.
The SGI is the organization that teaches the method devised by Nichiren.
Let me start with the source, Nichiren Daishonin.
He was a monk in thirteenth century Japan, and his family were fishermen. That gave him a commoner's view right from the start. Since he was bright, his family sent him to a Buddhist monastery for schooling. In that monastery he got the desire to become wise, and to help humans overcome suffering. He studied for almost twenty years at different sources.
He studied history, and many sutras from a variety of sects. He came to realize that the Lotus Sutra was the teaching that could help every person overcome the delusions that beset them by using their own inherent abilities.
The Lotus Sutra was already respected as the highest teaching of Buddhism, yet it is very figurative, and somewhat convoluted because it was composed for Indians whose understanding required allegory, and parables that explain the psychological content of a message, more than any factual record can convey. However, Nichiren recognized that the title of the Chinese translation of the Lotus Sutra (Myoho Renge Kyo) contained the essence of the meanings in only five words.
Nichiren recognized that those five words are the distilled understanding of how life works independent of time, place, and circumstance. He therefore advocated that humans can divest themselves of delusions, and generate great lives by chanting the title, to which he added the verb Nam.
Chanting engages the entire body, and uses what we now call neural plasticity to enlighten a person to the realities of hiser life, independent of the psychological state, wealth, class, geography in which that persons life takes place. This activity creates an awareness of innate value, and a determination to use life to the fullest to create value for the individual, and hiser surroundings.
The effect of this gift to humanity was that the government, colluding with sects that supported the rulers, and gained patronage from them, saw that the philosophy of control, and confusion, that were being promoted by the popular sects of the time, were going to be threatened. They did not want a method that would empower all humans, including commoners, and women, to achieve dignity, and value. So they immediately set about to kill Nichiren.
They continued to try to kill him. They persecuted, and exiled him, but his message was too powerful. Nothing worked. He was gaining more, and more adherents to his philosophy of individual empowerment. They turned on his lay followers, and exiled them, and took their property, and tortured, and killed.
That didn't work well either. Nichiren achieved his life-goal and left many letters, able followers, and inscribed many mandalas to serve as mnemonic devices for people to fix their attention to what works in life.
The teachings survived, in various states of influence, until two teachers, named Makiguchi, and Toda, in 1930 recognized that the teachings of Nichiren could become the key to a prosperous, happy, war-free world. This kind of world can only be created with a teaching, and specific method, that respects all life, and engages every human exactly as heshe is, and enables that individual to release the innate power of awareness that we all have, and power of compassion that we can all learn.
These two teachers were very well educated and knew that the world is full of delusion, and great concepts. They also hated war, and realized from their study of history that politics, and war, do not create peace.
The prime matter of importance is to replace the delusions with awareness of what is true for everyone. They saw that the method devised by Nichiren exactly fit the need. They set about to build an organization to teach the Nichiren method of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo whenever, for as long as one needs in order to achieve the desired results. Nichiren also advocated reciting two short sections of the Lotus Sutra, along with chanting, twice a day.
This activity is enhanced when it is done while looking at a copy of the mandala originally inscribedby Nichiren.
Mantras are very familiar to Asians, and Makiguchi, and his disciple Toda, recognized that this method can release people from their suffering, help them build great lives, and establish open-hearted communication across all divisions of humanity.
They had such deep conviction that they refused to yield to the mind-control methods of the militarist government of Japan, and were imprisoned.
Makiguchi died in prison, and Toda was released in early 1945, with severe illnesses.
Toda set about to rebuild the organization and named it Soka Gakkai. In 1960 his disciple, Daisaku Ikeda, took the teaching to the world and, in 1975, founded the Soka Gakkai International (SGI).
SGI now has millions of members in 192 countries, and territories, and world institutions all over have recognized Daisaku Ikeda, and the SGI for the great work for humanity.
Because the group is still based in Japan, and most of the very senior leaders are Japanese, or Japanese trained, there is still a social-habit influence in the presentations of the teaching. There is great effort to adapt to the local usages, yet such changes do not happen overnight.
What is of utmost importance is to realize that just having great ideas does not change more than the surface of peoples minds. Real change occurs when the needed replacement of delusions with value, wisdom, compassion happens despite the emotional storms to which we humans are subject.
If you want more information, from a variety of perspectives, google "gshpower."
You can also use this link.
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Read other answers by William Ranger on Quora:
- Does chanting "Nam myoho renge kyo" really work?
- What is the science behind Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo? How does chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo help you improve your life?
- What makes Soka Gakkai so popular in Japan?
from Quora http://ift.tt/29u1HjP
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