As the confrontation involving Israel and the Gaza Strip and its attendant risks rapidly escalates, we are deeply concerned for the safety of those who have been taken hostage and heartbroken by the loss of civilian lives, including women and children, on an unprecedented scale.

In the intensifying conflict, countless ordinary people have lost the basis of their livelihoods and been plunged into a grave humanitarian crisis.

As Buddhists whose core value is the dignity of life, we sincerely pray for an immediate ceasefire, and hope that efforts will be focused on ensuring people’s safety and restoring peace.

We add our voices to appeals by the international community for the safe release of all hostages, the protection of civilians based on international humanitarian law and a humanitarian ceasefire to enable provision of vitally needed assistance.

If the situation is allowed to worsen, the result will be even greater human suffering and an even graver humanitarian crisis. Intensified cycles of hatred could then bring about further horrors.

Above all, it is unacceptable that children in Israel and Gaza have lost their lives and are living under constant threat. As UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell has commented: “A child is a child. Children everywhere must be protected at all times and must never come under attack.” We must not lose sight of this principle under any circumstances.

We strongly pray for the earliest possible release of the hostages, and urge that the international community work to protect the lives, dignity and livelihoods of those trapped in this humanitarian crisis by realizing a de-escalation of tensions and the cessation of hostilities.

Yoshiki Tanigawa, chair
Shinobu Sugimoto, vice chair
Soka Gakkai Council on Peace Issues

Living Buddhism: Thank you, Karen, for speaking with us. We hear your brother, Tim, introduced you to Buddhism in the 1970s. Could you tell us more about how you started practicing?

Karen Dennis: Tim called our first family meeting. We’d never had one, but we all came around our parents’ dining table in Detroit, expectant, a little skeptical, looking at him like, Well?

“Well,” says Tim, “I’ve found the key to happiness.”

He didn’t look crazy. He looked serious and assured.

He drove all the way here for this? I thought. Above the heckling of my siblings, “All right,” I said. “Give me the key.” 

Over the next 30 days, morning and evening, I chanted the “key” my brother gave me: Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. “Make a list of goals,” Tim had said, “and don’t hold back.” Topping my list was “pass stats,” something I knew was impossible. Wrapping up my first year at Michigan State University (MSU), I’d shown my face just once in my statistics class before deciding it was hopeless. The self-paced exams had piled up, the material way over my head. 

At the bus stop one day, two weeks into my Buddhist practice and two weeks out from the end of the year, I struck up a conversation with another student. He was about to graduate, he told me. Wistfully, I congratulated him, then said, “I’m failing stats.”

“Oh,” he said, “that class. I had it. Very hard.” We kept talking, and it turned out he’d kept his old workbooks with the completed exercises inside—did I want them? That night, I chanted with appreciation, even awe. But the battle had just begun: If I wanted to pass, I’d need to put in the work. I went into my advisor’s office the next day and discovered that, as an athlete, I was eligible for a personal tutor and an extension. Long story short, I passed.

That was it for me. This works, I thought. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo works.

What else were you chanting about?

Karen: The other thing on my list was energy. I was a single mother, no money, bouts of depression. I could sleep all night and not feel rested. We had hot dog meals most of the time because they were simple. 

There was another student, Bob, a fellow Buddhist, who lived, like me, in the MSU student housing. Tim had got us connected, and every morning since, the first thing I saw each day was Bob striding down the campus walk toward my apartment, wearing this silly smile. I thought, I’ll shut the blinds, pretend I’m not here, go back to bed. But I never did. He’d knock, I’d answer and every morning we did gongyo together. The thing was, I knew I’d feel better after chanting; I felt better, ate better, slept better, woke up with more energy to study, prepare meals and care for my daughter. I also found more enthusiasm to resume running track. 

You were at MSU to run?

Karen: That and pursue a degree. I’d met MSU’s head coach, the legendary Jim Bibbs, when I was 13, after losing a race I should have won—I’d weaved outside my lane and been disqualified. Afterward, crying in the backseat of my father’s car, I heard a tap at the window—coach Bibbs. “If you join my track club, I’ll teach you to run inside the lines.” Jim became like a second father to me. Through my newfound Buddhist practice and his constant encouragement, I summoned the will to go for what I’d all but given up on—a national championship win. In my junior year, I did win. When I graduated, I was taken aboard as an assistant coach for the women’s team. 

At the time, you had no intention to coach long term. What led you to continue for 10 years at MSU? 

Karen: A slap in the face. 

As assistant coach, scouting and recruitment is crucial. I’ll never forget one young woman, Odessa, whose 200-meter dash time had garnered her dozens of scholarship offers from universities all over the country. I’d had my eye on her for two years and visited her and her family many times, assuring her that MSU was the program for her. But when it came time to decide, she said she was going to Iowa. Iowa? Why Iowa? And she told me flat out: “I’ve never been coached by a woman.” What she meant was she doubted I could coach on par with the country’s top male coaches. And she’s not the only one, I realized.

As with any challenge in my career, I hit it straight on with daimoku. Ours was an emerging program at Michigan State, and I planned to make her its cornerstone. That’s how I talked to her. “If you come,” I said, “others will follow. I can coach you. You just have to trust me.” 

I believe she could feel my intense prayer for her happiness and success, and for the victory of the program as a whole. She came to MSU, and I coached her to multiple championships. 

It wasn’t the last time you’d have to prove yourself to aspiring champions.

Karen: True. In 2002, I arrived at Ohio State University as the assistant coach for a dual-gender program. 

We had room to grow, with a men’s team that hadn’t won a championship in 25 years and a women’s team that had never won one. The women routinely placed at the bottom. The only silver lining was that, once you hit bottom, the only way to go is up. My prayer was to move us upward. In 2006, the position for women’s head coach opened up, and I went into the interview with a five-year plan to make program history: to take the Ohio State women’s team from dead last to the very top.

Sounds daunting!

Karen: When a team loses year after year, an expectation of loss and mediocrity comes to pervade the program. Changing that ingrained culture was difficult and necessary work. My first year as head coach, one of the star athletes I’d managed to recruit told me flat out, “Had I known this was the state of the program, I wouldn’t have come.” Some parents took their doubts to the administration, saying I wasn’t cut out for the job. The criticism stung; without my Buddhist practice, I’d have crumbled. But I’d staked my life and career on the Buddhist principle of the “oneness of life and its environment,” which holds that all phenomena in our environment are a reflection of our own lives. All that was going on in my career was my problem to solve.

What did you do? 

Karen: Grind. As second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda said, “In faith, do the work of one; in your job, do the work of three” (Youth and the Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 20). If I was going to transform the Ohio State culture, my determination would be decisive. If I grew complacent, that complacence would make its way into the hearts of all my athletes. But if I roused courage, that courage would take hold of everyone. By my fifth year, we made Ohio State program history, taking home its first women’s track and field team’s championship title. We did it again and again over the next decade.

Incredible. In 2014, you became Ohio State’s director of both the men’s and women’s track and field teams, a position held by less than 3% of women throughout the country. In such a position and competing at such a high level, how did you keep the prerogative of winning from overshadowing the happiness of the students? 

Karen: So, I understand the spirit of the question; we’ve all heard of coaches who sacrifice too much for a medal. But as a disciple of Ikeda Sensei, my honest feeling is that winning is the prerogative. As Sensei says: “Winning is exhilarating and joyful. Winners’ smiles are beautiful” (September 4, 2009, World Tribune, p. 5). Buddhism and athletics—they run parallel; in both, it’s win or lose. This is where faith comes in. 

Morning and evening, I woke up and chanted for the happiness of these young people, for their total victory on and off the track. Based on that prayer, I took action. I got to know their families and struggles, and I made it a mandate for my staff to meet kids when it was convenient for the kids. If a student’s pre-med courses meant they had to miss evening practice, I made sure someone was there to work with them in the morning. If they needed to be at the hospital early on a nursing schedule, someone would be on the track to work with them in the evening.

Once students saw that I was willing to do anything extra within the bounds of the rules, they took it upon themselves to do their best. A shared spirit to strive inevitably pervaded all areas of our lives—school, friendships, family, work. As a Buddhist coach, I always went for the win; this brings out the best in people. Then, win or lose, there are no regrets, because we know in our hearts, we did our best.

It sounds like you built an incredible program. What do you consider your greatest victory?

Karen: When I became the director of the men’s and women’s teams, three of the top male athletes walked. Like Odessa, they’d simply never been coached by a woman. I let them go and assured those who stayed that if they gave me a chance, we’d find success as surely as I had with the women’s program. Twenty-five years had passed since the men’s team had won a Big Ten championship, so I knew my work was cut out for me. So work I did, with faith, practice and study as my foundation. In 2018, our men’s team won both the indoor and outdoor Big Ten championships.

Two years later, I told my boss I would be retiring within a couple of years. But after chanting, I decided that my mission wasn’t quite finished. I decided to strive to make program history one last time. I committed myself to the goal of both the men’s and women’s team winning the Big Ten championship in the same year. Both teams were now in the top three of our conference and among the top 10–20 teams in the country. We were working harmoniously together as a combined staff and team who believed we were the people who would accomplish this lofty goal.

In my final season, 2022, our women’s team won the indoor championship and our men’s team was second. During our outdoor campaign, we were firing on all cylinders! Our men achieved a victory for the third time in my career, and our women also won!

During my coaching journey, my teams won 13 Big Ten championships, ranking us No. 1 among all Ohio State sports programs. I’ve been inducted into the Hall of Fame for three prestigious organizations and voted coach of the year by my peers 13 times.

The biggest difference between the person I am today and the person I was before I started my practice is this: I’ve learned to appreciate the good times and the challenging times. In both gain and loss there’s benefit if you can see things from a high life condition. It all comes down to my Buddhist faith, practice and study. Nichiren Daishonin states, “A sword is useless in the hands of a coward” (“Reply to Kyo’o,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 412). When feeling low, faith resurrects my courage. No course in life is smooth sailing, but through faith, I’ve learned that I can create the conditions for victory.

From the November 2023 Living Buddhism

On October 20, Soka Gakkai Italy held an opening ceremony for the climate action exhibition “Heritage of Life” in the town of Chiavari in Liguria. Chiavari Mayor Federico Messuti attended the event. The exhibition was created based on President Daisaku Ikeda’s 2012 environment proposal titled “For a Sustainable Global Society: Learning for Empowerment and Leadership.” The exhibition is also part of the “If I change, the world will change” campaign launched by Soka Gakkai Italy in 2020 to raise awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals. 

From October 17 to 19, Nobuyuki Asai, director for Sustainable Development and Humanitarian Affairs of the SGI (Soka Gakkai International), participated in and gave opening remarks at the Annual Forum on Religion and Sustainable Development 2023 hosted by the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD) in Berlin, Germany. On October 19, Mr. Asai facilitated a breakout session on how religious groups can collaborate with government agencies during complex situations. Participants also discussed the role of faith actors in humanitarian assistance and development.

by Miki DePalm
San Diego 

In the early ’90s, few knew or spoke of post-traumatic stress disorder. When my first husband, a U.S. Marine, returned from a year’s deployment to Somalia, I didn’t understand the changes that had taken place in him. Mostly, we got along, but the occasional outburst made me wary. One, in the summer of ‘94, frightened me badly enough for me to take our son, Jymmia, and run away. 

For months, a friend had been encouraging me to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, but I’d always turned her down. In my desperation I called to say, “I am ready to change my life.”

That week, I attended my first district meeting and grasped with my life: This is why I came to America. To meet the Gohonzon. 

At first, I chanted a fearful kind of daimoku, worried for my son. But chanting gave rise to the courage to take action. Within six months, I gotten a divorce, full custody of my son, a full-time job, a safe place to live and a brand-new car. I also realized that my husband had experienced something on his deployment that was beyond his control. I felt no fear or malice. Compassion arose from my life and, with it, a prayer for his happiness. 

Three years later, I remarried. In the first year, my second husband acquired custody, one after the other, of his five children. With him I had my second child, my daughter, Hina, in 1998. Raising so many children in a small house on a shoestring budget often reduced me to tears. One night, chanting at my wit’s end, I vowed to transform my karma. Soon after, I heard a senior in faith say that the shortest path to do so is by sharing Buddhism with others. 

That year, I introduced three people, including my best friend. She had recently lost her husband in a motorcycle accident and, devastated, she refused to leave her house. 

“You’ve got to try,” I said. With her late husband’s best friend, we managed to get her out to a discussion meeting. 

There, she looked up just long enough to say that her husband was dead. A hush fell, and then an older woman spoke up. 

“My husband died of an overdose,” she said. “I wanted to kill myself. Instead though, I found this practice and it saved my life. I’ve experienced so many beautiful things since then, and I’m so happy I’m still alive.” 

Later, my friend would tell me what she had felt at that meeting—like someone had put a salve on her inner wound.

Still she wouldn’t chant, and I wondered what it would take. 

 “This practice can make anything possible?” she asked me. 

“Yes,” I said, no hesitation.

“Like bring my husband back?”

“Yes!” I said, then thought immediately: Miki, what??

That day, I chanted intensely: Somehow my friend’s gonna feel her husband is with her. The next day, she told me she had.

“Whaddya mean?” I asked, worried. 

Music, she said, from a wind-up box her husband had bought her. As she chanted late into the night, it had begun to play where it rested on the nightstand. I don’t know if all the words in the world could have moved my friend to take faith, but that music did. She began her practice in earnest and grew brighter day by day. As I supported her and she emerged from her pain, my own grew small.

Ikeda Sensei says: “Merely thinking about our own problems more often than not causes us to fall even deeper into despair. … Taking action out of a concern for others enables us to heal our own lives” (The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra, vol. 5, p. 259).

This, I realized, was what had been missing from my practice. And I vowed to practice strongly for myself and others. Having just finished vocational school to become a pharmacy technician, I determined to get a job where I could meet many young people to share this Buddhism with them.

Despite my lack of experience, I was hired at a Naval hospital with 100 co-workers, half of whom are active-duty young sailors. I started introducing Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to someone every day at my job. At first, I was laughed at—Buddhism to them was a statue or trinket of a laughing man rubbing his round belly. They’d do that—rub their bellies and laugh.

A youth leader came to visit my son, and I mentioned how hard it was, how I wasn’t sure if anyone would ever practice Buddhism with me at work. He told me: “Miki, maybe there’s nobody now. But one becomes two, two becomes three, three becomes four, five, seven…”

Taking heart, I began sharing Buddhism again at work. One co-worker was undergoing triple bypass surgery. I went to his room while he was recovering. “Can I chant for you, next to you?”

“Yes please, thank you.” So I did, and he loved it. He wanted to start his own practice and received the Gohonzon. Three years later, he passed away but so happily that his daughter decided to receive the Gohonzon, too. So it was like this, one by one by one. 

By 2018, 17 co-workers were practicing Buddhism. My husband and I struggled to pay the mortgage and thought we’d lose our house, but most painful was watching our daughter admitted to a psychiatric hospital after a serious mental breakdown from which doctors warned she might never recover.

That September, I invited 10 guests to the 50,000 Lions of Justice Festival. My daughter, with lots of daimoku and the support of her young women’s leaders, also took part as a Byakuren member. Soon after, my marriage ended, but on good terms. Pained as I was, I realized that, for me, this really was the best outcome. And pained as I was, my life really was so wonderful. That year at work, I helped another seven youth receive the Gohonzon, and they all received lots of benefits!

My daughter has had breakthroughs and relapses, ups and downs. But she has always loved to chant. She chanted fiercely to transform her mental health and by Nov. 18, 2020, she had, making a full recovery.

In 2019, I was promoted to supervisor and have completely transformed my financial karma. I have a good relationship with both my ex-husbands and a wonderful relationship with my children. These days, I feel—how can I put it… so light and… so simple? Instead of hellos, my co-workers greet one another with “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo!” They have big dreams and are bursting with life. Surrounded by friends, I’ve gained the confidence that through practice for oneself and others, everything will work out in the best way possible for everyone.  

October 20, 2023, World Tribune, p. 5

On October 13, Amnesty International, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and the SGI (Soka Gakkai International) hosted an event to launch an exhibition titled “Automated by Design” in New York. The exhibition, designed by Identity 2.0, situates autonomous weapons within the larger issue of digital dehumanization—the process by which humans are reduced to data. Verity Coyle, senior advisor and campaigner of Amnesty International, Isabelle Jones, campaign outreach manager for Stop Killer Robots and Tomohiko Aishima, executive director for peace and global issues of the SGI, spoke at the event.  

by Willie Mack
Coaldale, Penn.

I first began playing with Harlem’s New Amsterdam Music Association (NAMA) at the gibe of one of its instructors. Memorably, she asked if I wanted to learn to play “that thing,” by which she meant the saxophone I wore around my neck—the one I’d worn about as long as I’d been walking. 

Attitude, was what she saw I lacked, not technique. Born and raised in Darlington, South Carolina, a hotbed of jazz talent, a town in which everyone, it seemed, played something, the first thing I bought for myself was a horn.

“Gonna play that horn, boy?” my uncle called when he saw it. I nodded. “Then how’re you gonna earn a living?” We laughed. 

No one I knew played music for the money, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a dream. Big name talents lived in Darlington, and when they came home from tour, you heard about it. There was something rapturous about this—I dreamed of trotting the globe with my own quartet, causing a fuss when I got back into town.

I wouldn’t perform until college, and then without much success. On good nights, the band would make merry. On bad nights, we’d fight. We were wrapped up in our egos, trying to outdo the others onstage. This, of course, is no recipe for great jazz.

I was in my late 30s when I caught the pride-wounding gibe from the NAMA instructor. What did she mean learn to play? 

A couple years later, in 1973, I was introduced to Nichiren Buddhism by a fellow musician. Chanting at his place, I felt… good. I kept at it. Friends and fellow musicians saw the difference. At the NAMA studio, my instructor noted the changed sound of my sax. “It’s good,” she said. I didn’t know how to explain it, really—it was life force I was tapping. The following year, I received the Gohonzon.

In June 1981, nearly a decade after I’d been introduced to Buddhism, I was given the opportunity to perform for Ikeda Sensei in Glen Cove, New York. We played as an orchestra, and he played for us a piece on the piano.

Afterward, I wandered aimlessly, admiring the huge swans roaming the massive estate. Alone with my thoughts, they turned to matters at home. My wife and I had been married for 8 years by then and were raising our two children in a small, rented apartment on an unsteady income. My feet grew heavy as I walked. 

From the corner of my eye, I saw someone walking at a vigorous pace: Sensei with his interpreter. There was no one else in sight. He came close, clasped my hand and said: “Let’s fight together for kosen-rufu. Fight with me for world peace.” 

“Yes!” I said. Down the slope, a bus of members arrived, and as swiftly as he’d come, he was off, rushing down to welcome them.

I was crying, I realized. Crying? Why? But something deep had happened in me. It was like, on contact with my mentor, my life resonated with his, pitching mine to a new key, one I’d never heard before. 

I stood there, alone again with the swans, my whole body vibrating. My personal worries seemed suddenly small. A new question hummed in the depths of my life: How can I make good on this promise? 

The following day, Sensei unveiled the poem he dedicated to the members of the youth division: “To My Beloved Young American Friends: Youthful Bodhisattvas of the Earth.” Sensei was telling us to never forget our vow.

I returned from Glen Cove with an expanded heart. I felt I’d seen the world through Sensei’s eyes. I saw that my dreams of a world-touring quartet and my personal worries were small potatoes. My mentor’s dream was the awakening of all humanity to its highest potential and the elimination of misery. Chanting abundant daimoku, I came to realize that I wanted to teach. This I began doing within the year. 

From my first day of teaching, I chanted morning and evening for the happiness of my students. Teaching, like jazz, is a give and take. Engaging with my students with my entire being gave rise to new avenues of creativity. 

Walking down the hall one day, through a class of painting children, a splash of color caught my eye and brought me up short. Most of the kids had finished up; their works were hung to dry on the walls. The one that had caught my attention was all color—all green, yellow, indigo splashes. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. 

“You’ve been looking at that one for a while,” the class’s teacher said, approaching. 

“Well, I can almost hear it,” I said. And it was true, the colors were forming in my mind as notes, as music. The experience would lead me to explore what is called color music—music exploring the relationship between color and sound. It would become one of my life’s great interests, one I explored with my students as well as with many painters and artists.  

Over the past two years, I became NAMA’s board chairman and received my city’s Public Advocate Award, leading to some invitations to speak. Recently, at a dinner, I was asked to give the invocation. 

I shared about Buddhism and ended with a story I’d read from Sensei, about an emperor and a wise man, called “Three Questions.” 

“When is the most important time to start a task?” the King queries. “What kind of person do I need most? What tasks are most important?” To which the wise man answers, “The most important time is now; the most important person is the one in front of you; and the most important task is doing good to others” (see The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 1, revised edition, pp. 234–35).

Striving to share in my mentor’s dream and spirit, I’ve engaged with the person right in front of me, one after another, to impart my hopes for them, my belief in them; to awaken them to a dream that is bigger than they have yet to dream of. 

---

Q: What advice would you give the youth?

Willie Mack: Dare to dream. With the Gohonzon, there’s nothing you can’t do. 

October 13, 2023, World Tribune, p. 5

On October 1, the “Seeds of Hope & Action: Making the SDGs a Reality” exhibition, a joint initiative of the Earth Charter International and the SGI (Soka Gakkai International), opened at the peace garden adjacent to the Soka Gakkai of Spain center in Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Madrid. The opening ceremony was attended by Rivas-Vaciamadrid City Mayor Aída Castillejo Parrilla.

From September 26 to October 27, the same exhibition was shown at the Caracas Science Museum in Caracas, Venezuela. The opening ceremony was attended by Sandra García, general director of the museum.   

On September 24, Soka Gakkai members in 24 countries in Africa attended an online lecture by SGI Study Department Leader Seiichiro Harada on Nichiren’s writing “Letter from Sado.” President Daisaku Ikeda sent a congratulatory message.   

On the same day, SGI-Nicaragua held an introductory level Buddhist study exam in three cities across the country, including the capital city of Managua.

On July 16, 1945, the atomic age came into being when scientists detonated the first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project, would later recall in a magazine profile the reactions of those present: some laughed, some cried, most were silent. In his own mind ran a line from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds.”

A month later, when the U.S. deployed atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer became a vocal opponent of nuclear weapons and their horrific consequences, underscoring the moral dilemma that scientific progress would present in the nuclear age.

The fragile balance between humans and science is being upended again in the context of artificial intelligence (AI). In particular, as tools for generative artificial intelligence have become widely available in the past year, they’ve fueled a dizzying range of applications, from the helpful (“Siri, play my book”) to the value-creative (precision medicine that helps physicians tailor care for Alzheimer’s patients) to the destructive (a widely disseminated fake video of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy urging soldiers to lay down their arms amid active conflict). These represent the nascent applications of a technology that is already outpacing our ability to create ethical and legislative guardrails for it.

Amid this rapidly changing framework, what role can Buddhism play in finding a way forward?

In a society increasingly based on knowledge and information, we must develop the wisdom to master these resources.

Let us consider Ikeda Sensei’s address to the first graduating class of Soka University of America in May 2005, in which he spoke about the distinction between wisdom and knowledge. Citing the view of his own mentor, second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda, who considered the confusion between the two as the “crucial misapprehension of contemporary civilization,”^[1] he writes:

Knowledge alone cannot give rise to value. It is only when knowledge is guided by wisdom that value—defined by the father of Soka education, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, as beauty, benefit and goodness—is created. The font of wisdom is found in the following elements: an overarching sense of purpose, a powerful sense of responsibility and, finally, the compassionate desire to contribute to the welfare of humankind. When wisdom arises from such wellsprings, it nourishes the kind of inner strength that remains unmoved by the superficial judgments of society and can acutely discern what is of genuine value and what is, in fact, detrimental.^[2]

To be sure, Mr. Toda also stressed the importance of people being able to differentiate facts from truth, which he explains in The Human Revolution:

There is a difference between mere facts and the truth, though this may be difficult to comprehend. …

The facts as people perceive them do not necessarily represent the truth. For example, suppose there is a man who gives a great deal of money to the poor. His charitable act is an irrefutable fact, and from this some might conclude that he is a kind-hearted and generous individual. Yet this may not necessarily be true. His actions may have been calculated with the expectation of receiving some sort of future gain or advantage, or he may have done it to ingratiate himself with someone. …

In other words, facts don’t always reveal the truth. If we allow our eyes to focus exclusively on the facts, we may end up losing sight of the truth entirely.^[3]

Sensei, in his address to the SUA graduates, goes on to consider what type of philosophy can guide this process of advancement in a manner that benefits humankind. We glean three points from that message.

No. 1—A philosophy of respect for life

At the time of SUA’s first commencement ceremony in 2005, Ikeda Sensei was carrying out an ongoing dialogue with Joseph Rotblat, a renowned physicist who became an ardent proponent of nuclear abolition. One of the topics they discussed at length was reverence for life.

Professor Rotblat had been born into a prosperous family in Warsaw, then Russian Poland, until the outbreak of World War I, when his family’s possessions were confiscated, and they fell into poverty.

It was this experience, indelibly imprinted on his young mind, that enabled him to act in accord with his convictions during World War II. He had joined the Manhattan Project (the research and development project that produced the first nuclear weapons) to counter the Nazi threat. However, when he learned that Germany had given up on its nuclear ambitions, he resigned from the project, the only scientist to do so before its completion.

Professor Rotblat became the focus of intense slander and rebuke as a result, yet he remained emboldened by the commitment that he made in his youth to use the power of science to create a world without war. Sensei writes:

Unless acted on, even the ideal of reverence for life can end up being a mere slogan without the power to transform reality. It must, therefore, be established as a genuine philosophy in our own hearts and in the hearts of others. We must put this philosophy into practice through concrete actions for peace, working one step at a time toward its realization.^[4]

Each of us has the means to unlock the wisdom, courage and compassion necessary to create real, positive change. Our starting point is to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and teach others of this Mystic Law, the fundamental rhythm that undergirds the universe.

Sensei has described the deep significance of chanting in this way:

The fundamental power activating and moving all stars, planets and other celestial bodies in the universe is Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. It is an incredible force. And we of the SGI embrace faith in this great Mystic Law. We chant the most powerful and supreme rhythm of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. There is nothing stronger. Chanting is the key to absolute victory. We will never be defeated. When we practice as the Daishonin teaches, boundless energy and courage surge forth from the depths of our beings.^[5]

When we call forth the Buddha nature within ourselves and those around us, we can stay true to our convictions and use our wisdom and spiritual strength to move society in the direction of respect for all life.

No. 2—A philosophy of respect for cultural differences

In his message to the SUA students, Ikeda Sensei described human history as being filled with conflicts derived from prejudice and misunderstanding of other cultures.
He then went on to relay a story about how deeply Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence had taken root in the minds of India’s youth at the time.

According to the late Dr. B. N. Pande, vice chairman of the Gandhi Memorial Hall, a mob of fanatical Hindus attacked a student hostel where both Hindu and Muslim students were living and working to complete their academic theses.

The mob said to the Hindu students that they would be safe if they came out of the hostel, leaving the Muslim students inside. If no one emerged, they would set fire to the building with everyone in it.

Yet, the Hindu students refused to come out until everyone’s safety had been guaranteed. In the process of this standoff, the army arrived to evacuate the students from the building.

The mob then insisted that only the Hindu students bring out their schoolwork and, yet again, they refused to do so. In the end, all the students exited safely, but the mob burned down the building with all their books and papers inside.

Sensei explains how Dr. Pande had spoken with one of the Hindu students, who had spent three years writing his doctoral thesis:

When he asked the student if he wasn’t bitter, the student responded: “What could I be bitter about? My conscience is perfectly clear. I acted in accordance with Gandhiji’s teachings. That is our spirit.” He had protected, to the very end, his fellow students whose religion was different from his own.^[6]

Such tragic conflicts, derived from prejudice and misunderstanding, take on new dimensions when AI becomes advanced enough to amplify bias and discrimination. For that reason, at the heart of a philosophy that respects cultural differences lies the Buddhist principle of human revolution.

This process of inner transformation enables us to break through the shackles of our “lesser self,” bound by self-concern and the ego, and bring forth our “greater self,” which is capable of taking action and caring for others and, ultimately, all humanity. In the process, we can harness advancements in all spheres of human activity in a way that protects and serves humanity.

Sensei writes of the impact of such inner-directed change:

There are many kinds of revolutions—political, economic, industrial, scientific and artistic; there are revolutions in the distribution of goods and services, in communications, and in countless other spheres. Each is significant in its own way, and sometimes necessary. But whatever changes are made, if the people implementing them are selfish and lack compassion, they won’t improve the world. Human revolution is the most fundamental revolution and, indeed, the most essential revolution for humankind.^[7]

No. 3—A philosophy rooted in the shared vow of mentor and disciple

In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha expresses the following determination: “At the start I took a vow, hoping to make all persons equal to me, without any distinction between us.”^[8]

The spirit of shared commitment between teacher and learner, mentor and disciple, is the basis for continually developing our humanity and returning to the spirit to place the happiness of people at the center of all human activity.

Sensei explains:

Just as a diamond can only be polished by another diamond, it is only through intense human interaction engaging the entire personality that people can forge themselves, raising themselves up to ever greater heights. It is the relationship between teacher and learner, between mentor and disciple, that makes this possible. …

In terms of the essential capacities and possibilities of life, there is no inherent difference between teacher and learner. The mentor creatively and imaginatively uses various means and methods to inspire and awaken in the learner the wisdom and power that has been realized by the teacher. The true teacher, the mentor, desires nothing so much as to be equaled—no, to be exceeded and surpassed—by the students and disciples.^[9]

When our activities are grounded in a spirit to repay our debts of gratitude to those who have supported our growth and a philosophy that prioritizes serving humanity, they become the prime point to which we can always return when faced with increasingly complex challenges in life and society. Sensei writes:

We are starting to recognize that people must come first and that human growth may be what is most important. We are coming to understand that, in our information-oriented societies with their explosion of knowledge, we urgently need a matching explosion of wisdom to use that knowledge properly.^[10]

While science and technology have indeed provided invaluable benefits to our lives and health, they can also be the impetus to distance ourselves from our surroundings and, even worse, objectify and reduce everything around us to numbers and objects.

This is personified by the development in several countries of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), also known as killer robots, which can take out a target without any ethical dilemma involved. The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a civil society coalition of which the SGI became a member in 2018, is working to ban the development and use of LAWS.

Sensei writes of this effort: “I have been warning of the threat they present from a humanitarian and ethical perspective because these weapons, when given a command to attack, automatically go on killing with no hesitation or pangs of conscience.”^[11]

While knowledge can be transmitted from one person to another, the only way to develop wisdom is to acquire it through personal experience. What then should be our viewpoint in developing our lives and societies in the 21st century? Sensei writes:

Of course, it is ideal to possess both wisdom and knowledge, but everything ultimately depends on wisdom. Our goal is happiness, and happiness cannot be attained through knowledge alone. The only way to realize true human happiness and prosperity in the 21st century, therefore, is to make it a century of wisdom.^[12]

The goal of SGI’s kosen-rufu movement is precisely this.

It is our mission as Soka Gakkai members to spread widely such Buddhist principles as respect for life, unity in diversity, human revolution and a spirit to work for the benefit and well-being of the people. We can find no other time in our history when people are yearning for the wisdom to do so.

We can look to the writings and actions of Nichiren Daishonin and the three founding Soka Gakkai presidents as a finely tuned roadmap to how to become unshakable, how to maintain our composure and persistence in the face of the headwinds that we will inevitably come up against in bringing about an era of peace. In that sense, AI and any other technologies developed in the future are neither positive nor negative in and of themselves. It’s what we, as human beings, believe in, practice and protect that will ultimately guide them.

—Prepared by the Living Buddhism staff