Impulses

The neighborhood called Watts is in the ghetto, the most distressed, depressed and underdeveloped area of south-central Los Angeles. Along with poverty, misery, and violent crime, Watts is the home of seventeen beautiful hand-made structures and towers. An Italian immigrant built the Watts Towers in his spare time over thirty years between the 1920s and 50s.

The towers have survived vandalism, abandonment, accusations of being communications relays for a Japanese invasion, neglect, demolition orders and the 1965 Watts riots.

In 1968 I was in Junior High. I joined a special class that was bussed for half the day to schools in different parts of town. The class was part of some experimental program in cross cultural sixties something-or-other. A bus picked up kids from three schools and deposited us all for classes at a fourth.
Each of the three was tougher than the last and the fourth school was toughest of all.

None of the schools were in areas as tough as Watts. I don't know if Watts even has schools. When you drive its streets children and school-aged kids wander about and play freely during the day.

I joined the program for several reasons – I'd get credits for traveling instead of sitting in a boring, mindless class. The class had the appeal of being alternative. And the magnetic Evie Paine was signed up. Evie was smart, lovely and had an innocent, intelligent curiosity. As I struggled with the end of childhood and the doubts of adolescence she offered the aspiration to something greater, something higher. Ahh, Evie Paine. I had to let her know I existed.

One day the class went on a field trip to visit the Watts Towers. Fun. Field trip.

The Towers were great. The hard material of urban decay - broken glass, scrap steel and mortar - spire into the sky. Hope and beauty rise out of waste. Thirty years of volunteer labour, using materials at hand and scavenged; they soar out of the ghetto and offer us life's eternal challenge: Can we do the right thing today with what we have today? The towers stand as proof that our answer matters.

Kids attract kids and the toughs of the neighbourhood hung around. A bit of jostling, attempts to touch the girls. I wandered a bit, away from the towers to a cross street. A couple of kids started hassling me.

Someone older got between us, someone with a name tag, telling me to go back to the group, not to fight. In fact, fighting those boys was furthest from my mind.

Things got worse and we were sent to the bus. I went to my usual spot in the very back. There sat Evie. The neighbour kids started pelting the bus with rocks. Glass was flying from broken windows. I threw Evie to the floor. Rocks were coming in.

Just as I threw myself over her I saw my mates leaping from their seats, yelling for battle, charging to the door. Every single boy, but me. The driver stumbled up the stairs, blood flowing from his face and head and just closed the door before our boys went out.

In my adrenalin rush I managed several conflicting feelings. Fear. Joy at being the protector. And amazement. I was stunned by how the other boys reacted – so instinctual, so immediate and so opposite from me. How could I be so different? Thinking back, decades passed, I am still amazed. We each reacted by programming. Is mine so different?

The driver got the bus to the Watts police station and the long process of dealing with the incident began. Evie and I untangled and climbed up to our seat. She was still shaking. I held her. We eventually got back to our school and were met by officials and the principal and more police and reporters. I held her hand til the end.

official trailer of the film "I Build the Tower" the Watts Towers by Sim...

Bus 67

Perhaps there was a strike somewhere, or perhaps it was the normal Sunday schedule. Bus number 67 was full that September afternoon. In the front row sat a lovely couple of the generation and upbringing who, you could just tell, always dressed properly for going out. Both in tan overcoats, he wore a fedora and plaid scarf. She, a wool knit beret, black gloves and proper brown ankle boots. They sat contentedly, chatting quietly, apparently immune to the fatigue and alienation that afflicts bus passengers around the world.

We climbed aboard the 67 at the Nation stop, fighting through our bags and carry-ons to swipe our tourist transit passes on the ticket scanners. The couple looked up at us with simultaneous bright smiles. He started to get up and point to his seat, but we shook our heads, no, thank-you. I threw our carry-ons onto a small rack. They couple shuffled closer against the window trying to make room for one of us.

The phrase book would be a waste, so with body language, hand signals and a few mispronounced words we tried to explain that we wanted to stand. We chose to take the bus, not the faster metro, so we could see everything, not miss a moment, a street scene or, if lucky, an encounter.

Their smiles brightened and warmed. They spoke to us and occasionally pointed out the window. We did not understand.

Later we talked about the lovely elderly couple and invented stories about where they were going. Visiting grandchildren? Were a few sweets in her handbag? They would not be going shopping as most stores closed Sundays. To or from church?

My inventions grew more elaborate. They were visiting his widowed elder sister in the 13th. His wife would make tea and clean the apartment while he'd attempt again to convince her to move somewhere she'd not be alone. “But I am alone, cher frère,” the sister always replied.

They got off the 67 just before Place d'Italie. He scampered down the stairs first, then offered his arm to help her down. We turned to look through the window. We watched, hoping to wave goodbye. A folded umbrella was in one arm; his love in the other. His chest was out, his chin was up. His step was light as he led her from the curb into the Autumn afternoon. This is how to take your girl out on a Sunday afternoon. This is how I've always taken my girl out.

Talk at World Peace Prayer, November 6, 2011

Good morning. It is a very long time since I spoke here. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to transform my destiny and develop good fortune by speaking about the priesthood issue and the spirit of the Soka Gakkai. I am very happy to hear that the Tuesday morning daimoku crew have been studying about these issues.

Talking about the priesthood issue is not some boring history lesson. Rather, it is about today and it is about tomorrow. It goes to the heart of our individual practice and it goes to the question of whether our movement will endure.

In your districts, for several months you've been studying Sensei's lecture on the gosho, Letter to the Brothers. The Ikegami brothers were faced with an intricate and extraordinarily cunning manifestation of fundamental darkness. What is fundamental darkness? It is the belief that one person is better then another person. It is the belief that one group is better than another group. That you are better than or worse than, others.

Fundamental darkness divides us, makes us feel unworthy, alienated, arrogant or diminished. In today's terms it is something like the Occupy Wall Street's 1% versus 99%.

By contrast, the Lotus Sutra teaches us that we all equally have the great inner potentiality of Buddhahood. We all equally have a tremendous energy within. That is the energy of transformation, of revolution and liberation.

Fundamental illusion says, no, you don't have that energy. You aren't good enough. The spirit of Soka is the spirit to fight that fundamental darkness, to believe in and stand up for ourselves and our communities and our world.

In “Letter to the Brothers,” Nichiren writes, “The great demon of fundamental darkness can even enter the bodies of bodhisattvas who have reached near-perfect enlightenment.” Sensei explains that this possession takes place, not from the outside but from within. His lecture reads, “They are defeated by the darkness that is innate to life itself....this devilish nature gives rise to the desire to control others, or even take others lives, and causes destruction and war.”

So Sensei identifies fundamental darkness with the desire to control or manipulate others. Fundamental illusion is the belief that your will, your needs, are more important than, the needs of others.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine met with some top youth leaders of SGI USA. He asked them the following question. “After Sensei's passing, how will you be certain that our movement continues to follow the path of kosen-rufu? How will you make sure we do not fall into corruption and lose our way? How will you know our members are being led correctly?”

Good questions, aren't they? Serious questions, worthy of serious consideration. In fact, I believe these are the only questions worth asking today. As Sensei comes to the end of his life, we need to be engaged in a earnest dialogue on this topic. I am sure those young people thought carefully about my friend's questions. One of the young leaders answered, “I believe in cause and effect. I will find the person who shows the most actual proof and follow that person.” Another answered, “I believe in unity. I will find the person who has the most followers and follow them.” A third answered. “I trust the organization. I will follow whomever is the president.”

My friend found these answers unsatisfactory. He could easily imagine a future where a charismatic leader, with a lot of fortune, becomes president and leads us all to ruin. So my friend went to the writings of Nichiren to find its answer. The gosho was very clear. It says that to identify the votary of the Lotus Sutra you must find the person, or persons, who fight against fundamental darkness at the risk of their own lives. The true practitioner is the one who challenges great enemies for the sake of the happiness and the equality of all.

The gosho reads, “if I do not call forth these three enemies of the Lotus Sutra, then I will not be the votary of the Lotus Sutra. Only by making them appear can I be the votary. And yet if I do so, I am almost certain to lose my life.” WNDI Pg 53

This is what the writings of Nichiren teach us about identifying the practitioners of the Lotus and this is the spirit of Soka, the spirit to defeat fundamental darkness, to fight unyielding for your own happiness and the happiness of others. It is to believe in others' potentiality for enlightenment even when they've lost that belief themselves. As a side note, you may find it difficult from time to time to maintain that belief. You may occasionally doubt your own dignity and potentiality, or you may come to doubt it in your boss, your partner or your district coordinator. When those times come, I suggest you plunge into activities with your fellow SGI members. Because together we are taking action based on the Soka spirit, even when as individuals we falter. Your happiness, your families happiness and the future of our movement, depend on this struggle.

I will share a tiny bit of my experience with you, not because I have a particular attachment to the past; I don't; but because I am concerned for the future.

When I was young I had a remarkable experience. I wanted to meet our great mentor more than anything. I wanted to meet him more than I wanted to live. I was a sickly, sad and lonely boy. Not much different than the man who stands before you. Amazingly I was even more obnoxious, more self-righteous and more pompous then, than now.

It is a long and bizarre story how I came to meet Ikeda Sensei. And I don't have time to tell it here. But at the age of seventeen, just out of high-school, I spent a week with the greatest philosopher of our age. It was in a suburb of Paris in May of 1972. Ikeda Sensei was there to prepare for his dialogues with the English historian, Arnold Toynbee. He and Mrs. Ikeda also celebrated their wedding anniversary and for the first time outside Japan he celebrated his inauguration as Soka Gakkai President on May 3. I was there looking for him and with all the passion and clumsiness and arrogance of my youth I tried to help him for that week. I witnessed how, with his every step and every breath, he worked to encourage others.

From that one week with our great mentor I decided that my life was worth living. And I made a determination and decided that I would try to support him and try to protect the great work he was engaged in.

Life is long and has many ups and downs and unexpected twists and turns. I came to Calgary. Here the organization was led by a charismatic man who had great mental powers and influence. Unfortunately he lacked the mentor-disciple relationship and subsequently did not understand the spirit of Nichiren's writings and the Soka Gakkai. He sought division between people instead of equality and ultimately he fell into ruin, wounding many people in the process.

For some reason, in those days, whenever the priests came to Calgary, I was tasked with taking care of them and making arrangements for their ceremonies and events. So I got to know quite a few of them over the years. And when the high priest Nikken came to visit Vancouver I went there to assist in that movement. I witnessed a few small incidents that revealed the true nature of the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood. For example, there was a labour dispute in the hotel that the priest was staying. We had to make a change in their schedule as a result. It was very minor, as I recall, like what door the high priest would exit from or something else quite trivial. We met the high priest at the elevator and someone explained the change to him. His response was a stream of expletives. Now, I understand a wee bit of Japanese but I was unsure of it meant. But I remembered what I heard and later asked Yoshiko. She said she'd only heard such language in grade B Japanese gangster movies.

Finally in 1990 and 1991, fundamental darkness manifest as the priests tried to destroy our precious organization and destroy our precious teacher. I fought with all my heart and all my energy and time to protect our organization in my own small way. I did everything I could to visit every member and communicate with people in the community and university to explain what was going on. I started to write to six people via the new technology of Internet. The six became more and more, until finally I was writing to over 2,000 people around the world.

Of course, together with Ikeda Sensei, the members of SGI won the battle with the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood. Our victory was so decisive that many people today are only vaguely aware of the 'priesthood issue' and what I speak of may sound like ancient history.

But I believe that our struggle with the Nichiren Shoshu priests was only a warm-up for far more difficult battles ahead. Fundamental darkness, the belief in power and control and division, has not been defeated. It is alive in our society and in our lives. As a community of great Bodhisattvas we must experience and confront these dark functions both inside and out. It will manifest again. And we must prepare with the Gosho and with a serious internal struggle. Thank you very much for listening to me.