We first heard of the fire from our neighbor, in a cluster of hurried texts on our way home from a family vacation in New Mexico. Orange smoke, she said, was climbing in the west. An hour later: Strong winds, smoke everywhere, she’d grabbed her children and fled. This was the end of December 2021.
Our children behaved well in the back seat while I discreetly showed the texts to my husband, Taka, and tried to hide my distress. The Marshall Fire would, by day’s end, consume our home and a thousand others to become the most destructive in Colorado’s history in terms of buildings destroyed. We told the kids that night, at a hotel near the state border. Emi, the eldest, took it hard, but the boys, Hideyuki, Masataka and Takashi, seemed mostly OK.
For my part, I wept the rest of the ride home. Taka, usually the family worrier, stayed uncharacteristically and infuriatingly calm.
“Can’t you shed a tear?” I cried.
“What happened, happened, no?” he said, eyes on the road. “Besides, haven’t you been saying we’re overdue for a big human revolution?”
“Not what I had in mind.”
“Well…,” he scratched his head. For some reason, I laughed a little at this. Then he did a little, too, and then we laughed a little harder. I closed my eyes.
Nichiren Daishonin says, “More valuable than treasures in a storehouse are the treasures of the body, and the treasures of the heart are the most valuable of all” (“The Three Kinds of Treasure,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 851). Taka was right: This was the time to put our Buddhist practice into practice.
When we got to town, it was a mad race to find housing—thousands were in need—and toothbrushes, shampoo, clothing, shoes, all in time for the start of the school year. A donation center at the mall offered quality goods, sorted and heaped for the choosing. The kids were giddy, running pile to pile.
Appreciation washed over me as I collected what we’d need; then, suddenly, grief. No one—not the mayor or our insurance provider—could yet tell us whether we’d be able to rebuild. All this stuff, as much as it was needed, could not replace a home.
Grief and appreciation—in the following months, these feelings lived together in me, every moment of the day. So often I was crying, overwhelmed by one or the other, but especially by appreciation; the support and kindness of others was vast, unending.
Like me, Emi was up and down. At night, she was inconsolable. Taka and I encouraged her to chant with us—the daimoku seemed to do for her what it did for me, calming her down. Daimoku was my anchor. Chanting, I felt determination rise up, a fighting spirit to rebuild and the conviction that we would.
As soon as the city permitted, we drove toward where our neighborhood had been, a little sprawl at the foot of the Flatirons. As we turned down familiar spruce- and fir-lined streets, past familiar homes and lawns, a sudden patch of bald white earth leaped into view. Just as quickly, it was gone again, swept from sight by roofs and treetops. This far out, the fire had begun to sputter, to “jump” between homes and neighborhoods, consuming some and leaving others intact. But as we neared our neighborhood, the bald patches grew larger, more frequent, until colors and shapes fell away on all sides into a flat unbroken gray. A volunteer stooped here and there, searching the ashes.
Nothing was recognizable. Our home of 17 years, in which we’d raised our children, hung their art and photographs, celebrated birthdays and New Years’, was gone.
One of the only possessions remaining after the fire—a Seikyo Shimbun newspaper clipping that reads, “Buddhism is concerned with the happiness of a single individual.” photo courtesy of Taeko Kamata.
One of the volunteers approached. “Excuse me, is this something to you?”
Of the unlikeliest things to survive a fire, I’d say a scrap of newspaper tops the list. I blinked at the bold type in its burned border. In Japanese, it read: “Buddhism is concerned with the happiness of a single individual.” It was from an old copy of the Seikyo Shimbun, the Soka Gakkai’s daily newspaper.
The only other thing to turn up was my husband’s wedding band. It had never quite fit, so he took to keeping it in the dresser. Together, these things reminded me: A house needs a roof and walls, sure, but the foundation of a home lies in the hearts of the people who live there and the bonds between them.
We all stood in the drive, in front of the burned out shell of our Nissan, and my husband held out his phone. Fiercely, I felt: We’re gonna rebuild! We’ll do it no matter what! We punched the air and snapped a selfie.
Photo by Gideon Mendel
For the following month and a half, we crammed together in a tiny hotel room—all bigger rooms were taken by others displaced. The only space for the kids to play was on the counter. Even here, I knew, was the place to win, not only in our “little home,” but in society. Over Zoom, I hosted all our district meetings, no matter what.
In February 2022, we moved out of that little hotel into an apartment and later that year rented a home. Here, Taka and I began itemizing everything we’d lost, down to the toothpick, so we could get full coverage from our insurance company. Recently, Taka turned to me, smiling a little.
“You know, it might bug you to hear, but I’m actually enjoying this, overcoming this with you.”
Actually, these days, his optimism puts me in a working mood. More than anything, the house we lost brings to mind the friends we’ve gained and bonds we’ve deepened. If I do shed tears, they’re of appreciation. Recently our fighting spirit won out: Our insurance covered everything.
We’re now rebuilding in our old neighborhood, where plants and flowers have popped up alongside fresh house frames. Ours is unfinished, but its foundation is solid, built of strong bonds and winning spirits forged fighting together.
“Do we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by difficulties, or do we fight back and triumph over them? This is the earnest struggle that we must wage both as individuals and as a society.”
from Ikeda Sensei (April 9, 2010, World Tribune, p. 1)
On January 27, the Toda Peace Institute, an affiliate of the Soka Gakkai, held a seminar titled “Global Challenges to Peace in the 21st Century” in Tokyo, Japan. The event consisted of two panel discussions that were facilitated by Director of the Toda Peace Institute Kevin Clements. In the first, panelists discussed the role of social media in strengthening human solidarity, challenges to democracy and the relationship between climate change and conflicts in the Pacific. The second discussion focused on the impact of the crisis in Ukraine on East Asia and how, from the standpoints of international law and conflict resolution, the crisis could be resolved.
Between January 24 and 28, a Soka Gakkai delegation joined some 1,000 scholars and civil society representatives from 90 countries attending the 5th International Conference For World Balance in Havana, Cuba. The event, themed “With all and for the good of all,” was held to mark the 170th anniversary of the birth of José Martí, poet, philosopher and symbol of Cuban liberation. During the opening ceremony, messages from Pope Francis and President Daisaku Ikeda, among others, were introduced. On January 26, during a breakout session, Hajime Mizushima of the Soka Gakkai Office of International Affairs presented the organization’s activities for peace and nuclear disarmament and introduced President Ikeda’s January 11 statement on the crisis in Ukraine and “No First Use” of nuclear weapons.
From January 23 to 25, a Soka Gakkai delegation led by Chair of the Soka Gakkai Peace Committee Tomohiko Aishima visited Agouégan village in Togo and a reforestation project run by the African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF) and supported by the International Tropical Timber Organization and the Soka Gakkai. Cécile Ndjebet, president and founder of REFACOF, expressed her gratitude to the Soka Gakkai for support since July 2020 that has helped 150 women to become financially independent and has seen more than 25,000 trees planted. The delegation also met Director of Administrative and Financial Affairs of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Resources Comlan Awougnon in the capital of Lomé.
Living Buddhism: Hello, Phyllis. We understand that you’re an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter and have played a key role in expanding SGI-USA’s Peace Hands Group, often by introducing fellow interpreters to the practice. What has fueled your passion to share Buddhism with others?
Phyllis Sapp: That’s right. Becoming a part of the Peace Hands Group, composed of ASL interpreters, has been at once one of my greatest joys and hardest-fought journeys.
To your question, when I began my practice, I was someone whose happiness and self-worth were tied up entirely in what others said and thought of me. When praised, I was elated; when disparaged, crushed. This was the case in all my relationships with friends, partners, co-workers and bosses. And challenges with finances, family and health completely swayed me. I was “happy” when my external circumstances were problem free and devastated when problems arose, dragged about by my environment. Practicing Buddhism, however, I’ve come to enjoy a much more stable and joyful state of life, even when problems arise. Appreciation and sheer joy are what propel me to share this incredible practice.
When did you begin chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo?
Phyllis: I began chanting in the summer of 1986 and received the Gohonzon that winter. From the jump, I was a strong chanter and loved being around SGI members, but my study wasn’t very strong. However, just by showing up at meetings, I deepened my study, because that’s what everyone around me was doing. I remember encountering the book from Ikeda Sensei Learning from the Gosho: The Eternal Teachings of Nichiren Daishonin. The very last lecture was on the writing “Happiness in This World,” and the closing sentence of the first paragraph completely hooked me. Sensei says, “When we deeply understand this Gosho, we have internalized the secret of faith and of life” (p. 233).
Well, who doesn’t want to know the secret of faith and life? Reading Sensei’s words, I thought: This is great! If I just deeply understand this one Gosho, I’ll have unlocked the secret of faith and life! At a glance, I thought, How hard could this be? But you should see my copy of this lecture, its margins marked up and down, its pages worn thin. Over the years, I’ve read it close to a hundred times. I’ll quote a piece of it here:
It is the mind of faith, which is invisible, that moves everything with enormous power and strength in the best possible direction—toward happiness, toward the fulfillment of all our wishes.
Someone who puts this principle into practice is a Buddha of absolute freedom … who, while remaining an ordinary person, freely receives and uses limitless joy derived from the Law. (p. 239)
Chanting with this conviction has awakened my “mind of faith.”
You first began learning ASL in your late 40s. What compelled you to take on such a challenge?
Phyllis: Even now, it surprises me sometimes. For the longest time, my life revolved around my sons, Austin and Alex. The jobs I chose to work were ones that allowed me to be flexible around their schedules. In short, I was a mother and that was my thing. But one day, when they were in middle school, my husband made a prescient comment that made me think. He said, “You know, you might want to draw up a new bucket list—it won’t be long before your goals and dreams will be moving out the house.” Knowing how fully I’d invested myself in raising the kids, he wanted me to bear in mind a future for myself after they’d left the nest. He’s right, I thought. Where would I carry out my mission when they did? This was the question I took with me to the Mentor and Disciple Conference at the Florida Nature and Culture Center in 2008.
It sounds like you found an answer there. What happened?
Phyllis: We were all gathered and given choral sheets to a song I’d never sung before. For whatever reason, I wasn’t interested in singing this unfamiliar tune. In fact, I was feeling negative about it. I’d shuffled my way to the back of the group, planning to hide there and bluff my way through, when this young man beside me asked if I could track the lyrics on the music sheet with my finger.
“No,” I said. “Actually, I’m sitting this one out.”
“Oh, all right” he said. “But the thing is, I’m hard of hearing. I can’t follow along by listening, but if you follow the lyrics with your finger, I can sing, too.”
His words shook me like a thunderbolt. Here was someone wanting to give his all to a song I was shrinking from, who had actively sought out support I could easily lend but, due to my own negativity, had denied. His proactive, seeking spirit was like a light flooding my life, revealing to me the negativity and avoidance hiding there.
As we sang, my finger bobbing beneath the words, I felt a strong sense of mission. Maybe this is something I can do, a kind of help I can give. Later on in the conference, I followed the quick, intelligent hands of the ASL interpreters accompanying the presentations. I was a district women’s leader at the time, and I thought to myself: How many deaf and hard of hearing people are there in Minnesota who would like to practice Nichiren Buddhism? How many are unable due to a lack of interpreters? Leaving that conference, I reported cheerfully in my heart to my mentor: Sensei! Don’t worry about the deaf and hard of hearing in Minnesota! I’m going to become an ASL interpreter, making sure that anyone who wants to can participate in our kosen-rufu movement!
I was absolutely sincere, but gosh, so naive! I had no idea how daunting a challenge it would be to begin training as an ASL interpreter in my late 40s! Of course, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that learning to sign was a far more intensive endeavor than tracking lyrics with a finger. In fact, it would require me to do something no one in my family ever had: attend and graduate from college. Ages ago, I’d barely graduated from high school. As soon as I realized that college was involved, I thought, Oops, never mind! I guess I was a littlehasty with that promise, Sensei! I dropped the idea and forgot about the whole thing.
But not for long. What brought it back to mind?
Phyllis: I’m not sure what exactly caused the memory of this promise to come surging forth from my life, but it did, two years later at an SGI study conference. I can’t say why, but I felt myself weighed down by this intense negativity that wouldn’t let up. I was eating a snack outside during a break in the conference when I felt this wave of anguish crash over me—I remembered the determination I had made to learn ASL.
A senior in faith assured me that no matter how many times we fall down, the important thing is to get back up and keep fighting. So long as I continued to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with a vow for kosen-rufu, there was nothing I could not accomplish.
I felt my negativity getting bust up like heavy clouds by sunshine. When I came back to Minnesota, I enrolled in community college to study ASL. I decided that I would fulfill my promise to Sensei no matter what. Of course, when we make a vow for kosen-rufu, obstacles invariably arise.
One week into the first semester of school, my husband lost his job. Suddenly, I needed to take on work to pick up the slack—I found a job at a grocery store thinking, I’ll be here six months—six months tops. I was there for five years, which is also how long it took me to earn my two-year degree.
What was that like?
Phyllis: Well, I was working, raising kids and supporting SGI activities as the region women’s leader all while going to school—it was nuts. But because it was nuts, I learned what it means to base my life on daimoku and a vow for kosen-rufu. While there, the grocery store ran on a skeleton crew and a shoestring budget, so the workload was intense. At school, too, the work was overwhelming. As mentioned, most people training to become ASL interpreters have signed from a young age, usually to support a family member. I was starting from scratch, way behind everyone in all of my classes. There were days I thought I would drop out, but then I’d remember my vow and return to this passage from Sensei’s lecture on “Happiness in This World,” where he explains that the mind of faith moves our life in the best possible direction.
Whenever I felt deadlocked, I returned to the spirit of this passage and, chanting to fulfill my vow for kosen-rufu, felt joy rise up from within my life at the understanding that I was in the place of my mission.
When the opportunity arose, I naturally shared Buddhism with those around me, at the grocery store and at school. At my work, five people began their practice and received the Gohonzon, while at school, fellow students as well as my instructor, a top notch interpreter, took up their practice and began supporting as members of the Peace Hands Group, having experienced actual proof of the transformative power of the practice in their own lives.
That’s incredible! What would you say to those who are intimidated by the prospect of school?
Phyllis: First, I’d say to everyone earnestly practicing this Buddhism: You are amazing—just as amazing as someone with a bunch of diplomas or a Ph.D. Also, if you’d like to go to school, you absolutely can! Looking back at getting my ASL degree, I think to myself: I did it! I really did it! It was so hard, but now, whether signing with children at work, or for our precious SGI members, or exchanging stories of profound human revolution with fellow interpreters, I feel like my heart is about to burst with joy and know this must be, as Nichiren describes, the “boundless joy of the Law” (“Happiness in This World,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 681).
Phyllis teaches ASL in Minneapolis, November 2022. Photo by Patty Rains-Hendrickson.
On January 21, SGI-USA opened the SGI Guam Ikeda Peace and Culture Center in Tamuning, Guam. A delegation led by Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada and Soka Gakkai Senior Vice President Yoshiki Tanigawa attended the opening ceremony to which President Daisaku Ikeda sent a congratulatory message. To mark the opening, the Guam Legislature presented a resolution recognizing the 48th anniversary of the January 26 founding of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and commending President and Mrs. Ikeda’s contributions to peace. At a separate event, the governor of Guam, Lou Leon Guerrero, signed a proclamation in recognition of the contributions that local Soka Gakkai members make to the community.
The term human revolution was used by second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda to describe the process by which we elevate our state of life and become unshakably happy—the ultimate goal of our Buddhist practice.
In Japan, the attainment of Buddhahood had long been viewed as something to be realized only after death, but Mr. Toda clarified that developing such a life state is an internal process, and that our inner transformation—our human revolution—is how we “attain Buddhahood” in this lifetime.
Ikeda Sensei reminds us that engaging in our human revolution by diligently striving in Buddhist practice is a “spiritual adventure” in which we grow over time and pave a new path for our lives. He states:
Needless to say, living in the real world as we do, none of us is perfect. Those who achieve their human revolution have not attained perfection, either. Human revolution entails a clear awakening to our purpose in life, followed by the effort to approach the state of perfection a little at a time, keeping that purpose clearly in mind. Human revolution is not a final goal that can be realized; rather, it is a change in the course, the direction of our lives.
As a result, at any fixed point in time, those striving for human revolution will naturally have faults and deficiencies, just as all people do, and may appear no different from others. But on the inside, those engaged in human revolution are completely different from the people they were before they embarked on this spiritual adventure, and over the long term, their differences from others will become apparent. (The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 2, revised edition, pp. 28–29)
Here are six points we can glean from Sensei’s guidance about what human revolution is and how we can succeed in accomplishing it. These excerpts can be found in the revised edition of The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 2, pp. 5–9.
—Prepared by the World Tribune staff
Ikeda Sensei’s Guidance:
1. Look Beyond Your Ordinary Concerns
Human revolution is opening your eyes wide and looking beyond your ordinary concerns, striving for and dedicating your actions to something higher, deeper and broader.
Someone who at first may seem to be a hopeless case can, by achieving a major self-transformation through their Buddhist practice, become an inspiration to countless others.
Also, times when you are suffering intensely, when you don’t know what to do or which way to turn, can become important opportunities for making great strides in your human revolution. (pp. 5–6)
2. Refresh Your Determination
If you tend to be easily discouraged, just refresh your determination each time that happens. People who are resolved to see problems as opportunities and keep trying again and again, forging ahead with unflagging optimism, will definitely succeed in their human revolution. (p. 6)
3. Purposefully Engage in Compassionate Behavior
Our lives as human beings are a complex fabric of many factors—our personalities, habits, karma and family connections among them—in which we can easily become entangled and unable to free ourselves. People spend their days fussing and fretting about immediate, minor problems, and before they know it, their lives are over. Many end their lives still trapped in the cycle of the six paths, or lower six worlds—that is, the worlds of hell, hungry spirits, animals, asuras, human beings and heavenly beings.
Human revolution is a revolution in our actions and behavior. It means to purposefully engage in behavior that is grounded in compassion, in actions that break free from the cycle of the six paths and bring us to the worlds of bodhisattvas and Buddhas.
When human revolution spreads to the family, the country and the world, it becomes a noble and bloodless revolution for peace. (p. 6)
What matters is who we are when all the external things are stripped away; who we are as ourselves. Human revolution is transforming that inner core, our lives, ourselves.
4. Revolution Means Radical Change
“Revolution” means to turn things around. It signifies a sudden, radical change.
The natural process is for people to grow little by little, with the passage of time. Human revolution is a step beyond that gradual process, propelling us rapidly in a positive direction. And while it is a rapid improvement, it is also growth that continues throughout our lives. There is no end point. And our Buddhist practice is the engine, the driving force, for our human revolution. (p. 7)
5. Take Concrete Action
There are countless books of moral teachings that have existed for thousands of years. There are also self-help and inspirational books, but achieving human revolution or changing our karma cannot be realized through words alone.
The Soka Gakkai has consistently followed the path not of abstract arguments but of actual human revolution—transforming our minds, orienting them in the direction of supreme goodness in our real lives through concrete action. (p. 7)
6. Unite With the Life of the Buddha
Fundamentally, human revolution is achieved by uniting with the life of the Buddha. Through attaining the “fusion of reality and wisdom” with the Buddha, the power for self-transformation wells up within us.
Only human beings have the ability to seek growth and self-improvement. We have the capacity to consciously change the direction of our lives, to enrich and deepen our lives instead of just allowing them to flow on aimlessly.
People tend to view the way to greatness as rising within the ranks of society. But human revolution is bettering ourselves in a more profound, inner way. It also has an eternal aspect. It is far superior to mere social advancement.
Human beings always remain human beings; we can’t transform ourselves into some higher being. That’s why the most important thing is to transform ourselves as human beings. We can try to adorn ourselves with fame, social status, academic credentials, knowledge or money, but if we are impoverished in terms of our own humanity, our lives remain poor and empty inside.
What matters is who we are when all the external things are stripped away; who we are as ourselves. Human revolution is transforming that inner core, our lives, ourselves. (p. 8)
Ironically, I may owe some of my early success in New York to my father; resenting him gave my acting an edge that some directors found intriguing. More ironic still, our similarities—profound arrogance and a sense of entitlement—were the very ones that most often detonated my best opportunities.
In my mind, the show didn’t start until James DuMont arrived, sometimes with a slice of street pizza in hand, having caved to a hankering on the way to rehearsal. Upon arrival, I was usually enraged by the doorman.
“Door’s closed. Rehearsal starts at 4.”
“Four?” I’d bluster, checking my beeper. “Well, look, it’s 4 right now!”
“Starts at 4,” he’d say. “Which is to say rehearsal’s begun. Door’s closed.”
“Absurd!” I’d rage.
This was summer 1985. At 20, I was two years out from my mother’s house and dealing with the news of my father’s death. I was 5 and my twin sisters 3 when my mother filed for divorce; one too many women had called our home asking after him.
In both life and death he’d failed me, leaving me fuming but without anyone to direct my fury against. My mind was like a spinning lotto cage, my thoughts so many numbered balls bouncing madly about, hardly intelligible.
No one but my cousin could have gotten me to try something like Buddhism. He visited me in New York, in 1988, on a mission to introduce me to the practice. Basically, he bet our relationship on it working for me.
As I chanted, my anger cooled, and my thoughts, like lotto balls lining up in their chute, came to rest, into focus. At some point, a senior in faith encouraged me to chant for my father, an idea I found absurd. But chanting, my head cooled, and he came into focus as but one man in a long line of men, each simply playing the role that had been taught to him. My father, his father and his father before him—all of them had caved at a crucial moment in the lives of their families, chasing after something or somebody new, in search of happiness. Was this my fate, too? For the first time, I felt a profound and unsettling compassion for my father.
In the months that followed, I leaned into my Buddhist practice, doing what the great James DuMont could have hardly imagined himself doing before—supporting meetings behind the scenes, out of the spotlight. I gained an appreciation for everything that goes into putting something together—be it a meeting or a play—for the unseen efforts of countless people, be they script writers, directors, other actors—even doormen.
Within a year of my practice, my career took off. Within two, I’d met my future wife. Four years out, in 1992, I moved with her to Los Angeles to kick off a national tour of a Broadway show.
I put down roots in LA, took on SGI leadership and purchased a home with my wife. In 2001, we welcomed our first child, Sinclair, and in 2003, our second, Kelton. By 2008, I’d built up a solid résumé and a connection of mine offered me some work in Louisiana. I took it. “Just a few weeks’ work,” I told my wife. I was gone for the next 18 months.
In Louisiana, one job opportunity opened onto the next and opened in me a seemingly bottomless hunger—for recognition, for success. You’ve wanted this, fought for this, earned this! I told myself. Bouncing all over, I let my faith slacken.
My wife, who was singlehandedly raising the kids, underwriting my acting ambitions and working full time as a lawyer and partner at her firm, was stunned by my selfishness.
“You knew you were marrying an actor!” I accused, defensive, all bluster.
“Yes, but aren’t you a father, too?”
Self-righteous, fuming, I boarded a flight for another shoot, chanting some distracted daimoku under my breath.
Wherever I went, I brought a copy of Nichiren’s writings, though lately, I hadn’t given it the attention it deserved. On that flight, I lay it out on my lap, and the pages fell open to “On Offerings for Deceased Ancestors.” One passage stuck out, about the inheritance of karma across generations.
I’m slipping into the groove of my father’s karma, I realized. Here I was, with all this fortune from my Buddhist practice but still unsatisfied, arrogant, hungry, entitled. This is the work I have to do, I realized. I have to choose to play the role that none of the men in my family were taught to play—that of a father. This is something I can do, because I’ve had the great fortune to encounter Buddhism and a mentor in life in Ikeda Sensei.
Sensei says, “A mentor helps you perceive your own weaknesses and confront them with courage” (www.daisakuikeda.org).
I began to take my responsibilities seriously—as a district leader, husband and father. No matter where I traveled, I communicated with my family and my friends in faith. I kept the promises I made to myself, consistently hitting my daimoku goals and stopping into SGI centers wherever I’d landed. I planted seeds of Buddhahood on planes, trains and Uber rides.
As seems to be the case when I put faith first, my career again took off. When, in 2015, I was offered 12 weeks of work for Deepwater Horizon, a major feature film, I sat down with my wife to discuss. We were a team, her and I, and I wasn’t about to run off again, chasing some glittering idea of success. We decided that I should go for it and that we should make a gradual move to Louisiana, where with the lower cost of living she began, for the first time, working part time.
I did not have a father to mentor me in the ways of living, of fathering, of taking everything on without giving anything up. But what I did, and do, have is a mentor in life who taught me how to break the mold of the character I’d been instructed to play and live boldly, instead, as a great father for my children and partner for my wife, rewriting the script for generations to come.
“The greatest evil … produces consequences that not only affect the perpetrators personally but extend to their sons, their grandsons, and so on down to the seventh generation. And the same is true of the greatest good.”
“On Offerings for Deceased Ancestors,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 820)
On January 14 and 15, the 3rd European Summit Towards the 100th Anniversary of the Soka Gakkai was held at the Soka Gakkai Italy center in Rome. Some 900 people from 34 countries attended the hybrid meeting. The event featured faith experiences, a report by Soka Gakkai representatives who had participated in COP27 and a study session facilitated by SGI Study Department Leader Seiichiro Harada. President Daisaku Ikeda sent a congratulatory message to the meeting.
The Ukraine crisis that erupted in February last year continues with no prospect for cessation. The intensified hostilities have inflicted great suffering in population centers and destroyed infrastructure facilities, compelling large numbers of civilians, including many children and women, to live in a state of constant peril. More than 7.9 million people have been forced to find refuge in countries throughout Europe, and some 5.9 million have been internally displaced.
The history of the 20th century, which witnessed the horrors caused by two global conflicts, should have brought home the lesson that nothing is more cruel or miserable than war.
During World War II, when I was in my teens, I experienced the firebombing of Tokyo. To this day, I remember with great vividness getting separated from family members as we fled desperately through a sea of flames, and not learning that they were safe until the following day. Also indelible is the image of my mother, her back convulsing with sobs after she was informed that my eldest brother—who had been drafted and borne anguished witness to the barbarous acts committed by Japan—had been killed in battle.
How many people have lost their lives or livelihoods in the ongoing crisis, how many have found their own and their family’s ways of life suddenly and irrevocably altered?
For the first time in 40 years, the United Nations Security Council called on the U.N. General Assembly to convene an emergency special session under a “uniting for peace” resolution. Subsequently, Secretary-General António Guterres has engaged repeatedly with the national leaders of Russia, Ukraine and other countries in an effort at mediation.
And yet the crisis continues. It has not only heightened tensions across Europe but also seriously impacted many other countries in the form of constrained food supplies, spiking energy prices and disrupted financial markets. These developments have increased the desperation of great numbers of people worldwide already afflicted by extreme weather events caused by climate change and the suffering and death resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is crucial that we find a breakthrough in order to prevent any further worsening of the conditions facing people worldwide, to say nothing of the Ukrainian people who are compelled to live with inadequate and uncertain supplies of electricity amidst a deepening winter and intensifying military conflict.
I therefore call for the urgent holding of a meeting, under U.N. auspices, among the foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine and other key countries in order to reach agreement on a cessation of hostilities. I also urge that earnest discussions be undertaken toward a summit that would bring together the heads of all concerned states in order to find a path to the restoration of peace.
This year marks 85 years since the adoption by the League of Nations General Assembly of a resolution on the protection of civilians from aerial bombardment. It is also the 75th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which expressed the shared vow to bring about a new era in which human dignity would never again be trampled and abused.
Recalling the commitment to protect life and dignity that undergirds International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law, I urge all parties to bring about the earliest possible end to the present conflict.
Together with calling for the earliest possible resolution to the Ukraine crisis, I wish to stress the crucial importance of implementing measures to prevent the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, both in the current crisis and all future conflicts.
As the conflict has dragged on and nuclear rhetoric has ratcheted up, the risk that these weapons might actually be used stands today at its highest level since the end of the Cold War. Even if no party seeks nuclear war, the reality is that, with nuclear arsenals in a continuing state of high alert, there is a considerably heightened risk of unintentional nuclear weapon use as a result of data error, unforeseen accident or confusion provoked by a cyberattack.
October last year marked the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. It was also the month in which both Russia and NATO conducted a series of exercises for their nuclear command teams. In the face of these heightened tensions, Secretary-General Guterres warned that nuclear weapons “offer no security—just carnage and chaos.”[1] Awareness of this reality must be the shared basis for life in the 21st century.
As I have long asserted, if we consider nuclear weapons solely from the perspective of national security, we risk overlooking critically important issues. In my 40 annual peace proposals issued since 1983, I have argued that the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons must be the pivotal focus of any discourse or deliberation. I have also stressed the need to face squarely the irrationality of nuclear weapons with their capacity to destroy and render illegible all evidence of our individual lives and our shared undertakings as societies and civilizations.
A further point I would like to emphasize is what might be called the negative gravitational pull inherent in nuclear weapons. By this I mean the way in which escalating tensions around possible nuclear weapons use creates a sense of urgency and crisis that holds people in its grip as a kind of gravitational force, stripping them of their capacity to halt a further intensification of the conflict.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) wrote to U.S. President John F. Kennedy (1917–63): “A moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot. … ”[2] For his part, Kennedy is recorded as saying that the world will remain impossible to manage so long as there are nuclear weapons. These statements suggest the degree to which the leaders of these nuclear-armed states experienced the conditions of the time as something beyond their control.
Should the point be reached where the launch of nuclear-armed missiles is considered, there would be neither the time nor the institutional capacity to engage the views of the citizens of the parties to the conflict—much less those of the world’s peoples—on how to avert the catastrophic horrors about to be unleashed.
Nuclear-weapon dependent deterrence policy is how a state attempts to exert control and assert autonomy. But once the precipice is reached and the abyss yawns below, both the people of that state and of the world end up constrained, deprived of all freedom of action. This is the reality of nuclear weapons that has remained unchanged since the start of the Cold War, and it is a reality that both the nuclear-weapon and nuclear-dependent states need to face in all its harshness.
In September 1957, when my mentor, second president of the Soka Gakkai Josei Toda (1900–58), made his call for the outlawing of nuclear weapons, the nuclear arms race was rapidly accelerating: there had been successful test launches of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, which meant that every place on Earth was now a potential target of nuclear attack.
Even as he noted the significance of the growing movement calling for an end to the testing of nuclear weapons, Mr. Toda was convinced that a fundamental resolution to the problem required extirpating the ways of thinking that would justify their use. When he voiced his determination to “expose and rip out the claws that lie hidden in the very depths of such weapons,”[3] he was expressing his outrage at the logic that would entertain the possibility of subjecting the world’s people to such catastrophic horrors.
The focus of his declaration was a call for thoroughgoing self-restraint on the part of those in positions of political authority, who hold the life or death of vast numbers of people in their hands. Another objective was to counter the sense of popular resignation in the face of nuclear weapons, the feeling that one’s actions cannot possibly change the world. In this way, he sought to open a path for ordinary citizens to be the protagonists in the effort to outlaw nuclear weapons.
Mr. Toda described this declaration as the foremost instruction he was leaving to his disciples, which I understood as setting down a line that must not be crossed, an indispensable marker for humanity’s future.
To make this a reality, in my meetings with political and thought leaders from different countries, I have continued to stress the absolute necessity of resolving the nuclear issue. At the same time, with the aim of bringing the era of nuclear weapons to an end, the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) has mounted a series of exhibitions and engaged in awareness-raising educational efforts in countries around the world.
In 2007, the 50th anniversary of Mr. Toda’s declaration, the SGI launched the People’s Decade for Nuclear Abolition and, while collaborating with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) which was initiated around the same time, has worked for the realization of a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons.
The desire and determination of civil society, represented by the victims of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that the tragedy of nuclear weapons use never be experienced by the people of any country was crystalized in 2017 when the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was adopted, entering into force in 2021. This, for us, represented progress toward the realization of the injunction bequeathed by Josei Toda.
The TPNW comprehensively bans all aspects of nuclear weapons, not limited to their use or threat of use but including their development and possession. While states possessing nuclear weapons may find it difficult to embrace the treaty, at the least there should be a shared and common recognition of the importance of preventing the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons use.
Along with reducing tensions with the goal of resolving the Ukraine crisis, I feel it is of paramount importance that the nuclear-weapon states initiate action to reduce nuclear risks as a means of ensuring that situations do not arise—either now or in the future—in which the possibility of nuclear weapons use looms. It was with this in mind that in July last year I issued a statement to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in which I urged the five nuclear-weapon states to make prompt and unambiguous pledges that they would never be the first to launch a nuclear strike—the principle of “No First Use.”
Regrettably, the August NPT Review Conference was unable to reach consensus on a final document. But this in no way means that the nuclear disarmament obligations set out in Article VI of the treaty no longer pertain. As the various drafts of the final document indicate, there was widespread support for nuclear risk reduction measures such as the adoption of No First Use policies and extending negative security assurances, by which nuclear-weapon states pledge never to use nuclear weapons against states that don’t possess them.
Building on these deliberations, it is absolutely necessary to sustain the state of nuclear non-use, which despite everything has been maintained for the past 77 years, and to advance the process of nuclear disarmament toward the goal of abolition.
There is already a basis from which to start: that is, the joint statement issued last January by the leaders of the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China in which they affirm that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”[4] During the NPT Review Conference, many governments called for the five nuclear-weapon states to abide by their January statement and maintain the stance of self-restraint. The representatives of these five states also made reference to the joint statement in speaking of their responsibilities as nuclear-weapon states.
To use the example of a circle to describe the nuclear-weapon states’ responsibility to maintain self-restraint with regard to nuclear weapons use, the commitment expressed in the joint statement to prevent nuclear war would be an arc comprising half the circle. This alone, however, is not enough to fully eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons use. I believe the key to resolving this challenge is for states to commit to No First Use.
During the NPT Review Conference, the SGI worked with other parties and NGOs to hold a side event at the UN focused on the urgency of adopting this principle, and I am certain that if pledges of No First Use can be linked to the January joint statement this will form the arc that completes the circle, containing the nuclear threat that has long hung over the world, in this way opening the path to finally making progress on nuclear disarmament.
Last November, a workshop to promote this kind of paradigm shift was held in Nepal by the Toda Peace Institute, which I founded. Participants agreed on the need for Pakistan to join China and India in declaring commitment to No First Use, thereby fully establishing the principle within the South Asian region. They also shared views on the importance of galvanizing international debate on No First Use so as to enable all nuclear-armed states to take steps in this direction.
This brings to mind the views of Dr. Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005) who for many years served as president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In the dialogue we published together, he spoke of agreement on No First Use, saying it would be the most important step toward total abolition of nuclear weapons and calling for a treaty to that end.
Prof. Rotblat was also deeply troubled by the dangers inherent in nuclear-weapon dependent deterrence policies that are rooted in a climate of mutual fear. The basic structures of nuclear deterrence have not changed in the years since our dialogue in 2005, and the current crisis has brought into ever sharper relief the vital necessity for humankind to move beyond such policies.
The pledge of No First Use is a measure that nuclear-weapon states can take even while maintaining for the present their current nuclear arsenals; nor does it mean that the threat of the some 13,000 nuclear warheads existing in the world today would quickly dissipate. However, what I would like to stress is that should this policy take root among nuclear-armed states, it will create an opening for removing the climate of mutual fear. This, in turn, can enable the world to change course—away from nuclear buildup premised on deterrence and toward nuclear disarmament to avert catastrophe.
Looking back, the global state of affairs during the Cold War era was characterized by a series of seemingly insoluble crises that rattled the world, spreading shockwaves of insecurity and dread. And yet humankind managed to find exit strategies and pull through.
One example of this is the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) held between the United States and the Soviet Union. Intention to hold these was announced on the day of the 1968 signing ceremony for the NPT, which had been negotiated in response to the bitter lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The SALT negotiations were the first steps taken by the U.S. and the USSR to put the brakes on the nuclear arms race based on their nuclear disarmament obligations under Article VI of the NPT.
For those involved in these talks, to impose constraints on the nuclear policies that had been developed as the exclusive prerogative of the state could not have been easy. Nonetheless, this was a decision indispensable to the survival not only of the citizens of their respective nations, but of all humankind. For me, the naming of these negotiations—SALT—brings this complex context to mind.
Having experienced first-hand the terror of teetering on the brink of nuclear war, the people of that time brought forth historic powers of imagination and creativity. Now is the time for all countries and peoples to come together to once again unleash those creative powers and bring into being a new chapter in human history.
The spirit and sense of purpose that prevailed at the time of the birth of the NPT is resonant with and complementary to the ideals that motivated the drafting and adoption of the TPNW. I strongly call for all parties to explore and expand ways to link the efforts made on the basis of these two treaties, drawing forth their synergistic effects toward a world free from nuclear weapons.
The following statement was published in the Jan. 11, 2023, issue of the Soka Gakkai’s daily newspaper, Seikyo Shimbun.
