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The New Human Revolution, vol. 23
The New Human Revolution, vol. 23
The New Human Revolution, vol. 23
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The New Human Revolution, vol. 23

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Through this novelized history of the Soka Gakkai—one of the most dynamic, diverse, and empowering Buddhist movements in the world today—readers will discover the organization's goals and achievements even as they find inspiring and practical Buddhist wisdom for living happily and compassionately in today's world. The book recounts the stories of ordinary individuals who faced tremendous odds in transforming their lives through the practice of Nichiren Buddhism and in bringing Buddhism's humanistic teachings to the world. This 23rd volume looks at events that occurred in 1976, including the founding of a new Soka kindergarten and the Division of Correspondence Education at Soka University, as well as many of the heart-warming stories of correspondence students from all walks of life. This inspiring narrative provides readers with the principles with which they can positively transform their own lives for the better and realize enduring happiness for themselves and others.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 1, 2013
ISBN9781938252464
The New Human Revolution, vol. 23

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    The New Human Revolution, vol. 23 - Daisaku Ikeda

    The Future

    TSUNESABURO MAKIGUCHI, the founder of Soka education and an impassioned advocate of educational reform, once wrote: Our sole aim is to plan for posterity with our vision toward the future. This is because it is difficult now for anyone to identify an effective means to support people other than through education.¹ Educating children is the way to build the future, and that is why it is a most sacred task.

    The newly completed Sapporo Soka Kindergarten in Toyohira Ward, Sapporo, Hokkaido (the northernmost of Japan’s four main islands), seemed like a fairytale castle with its bright blue roof, white walls and brown chimney topped with a steeply pitched crown. It was April 16, 1976, the day of the school’s first entrance ceremony.

    Principal Tateno! Are the children here yet? Shin’ichi Yamamoto eagerly asked the kindergarten principal, Kozo Tateno. Dressed in a suit, Shin’ichi had been at the entrance of the school for the last thirty minutes, waiting to greet the new students as if they were honored dignitaries.

    The principal replied somewhat apologetically, The ceremony doesn’t begin until 12:30 PM, so there’s still about an hour to go.

    Yes, that’s right, said Shin’ichi, who was determined to welcome the first class to the new kindergarten.

    Shin’ichi then went to look at the classrooms, decorated with pictures of flowers and animals, but soon returned to the front door. He just naturally found his feet moving in that direction, out of his anticipation that perhaps some of the first students had arrived.

    Observing Shin’ichi’s excitement, Principal Tateno felt as if he understood the founder’s feelings. He could see how eagerly Shin’ichi was awaiting the arrival of the students.

    As the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates writes, For where there is love of humanity, there is also love of the art [of healing].² A love for the art of education also begins with a love for humanity. Passion for and commitment to education are born from a strong love for children.

    THE SOKA GAKKAI had designated 1976 as the Year of Health and Youth, a year of many new developments in Soka education. Not only did the Sapporo Soka Kindergarten open that year, but in March the first class graduated from the Soka Girls schools (present-day Kansai Soka schools) in Katano, Osaka, sending its graduates out into the world.

    It was also a time of remarkable growth and development at Soka University. From April, new departments of Business Administration, Education and Primary Education were established. A Division of Correspondence Education (with departments of Economics and Law), which had been eagerly anticipated from the university’s founding, was also established. In addition, a special Institute of Japanese Language was initiated for overseas students.

    Regarding the year as a pivotal new stage in Soka education, Shin’ichi Yamamoto was determined to make a special effort to actively interact with and encourage the students of the Soka education system. In mid-January, he visited the Soka Girls schools, where he attended a luncheon to commemorate the first graduating class and spoke to the students about the importance of building a fine tradition for their school. He also joined the students in playing the piano.

    In the second half of January, he visited the Soka schools in Tokyo and attended such events as a farewell table tennis tournament for high school seniors and a gathering for the sixth graduating class. He wholeheartedly encouraged students on both occasions and made the following declaration: I am going to put even more effort into the Soka schools. I’ll do whatever is necessary. My life’s work is education. I will give it my all. He urged the students not to forget the true purpose and basis of their studies. He stressed that fostering leaders who will provide a sure path to revitalization for people is the aim of Soka education, which is rooted in the spirit of humanism.

    As the American educator and philosopher John Dewey (1859–1952) writes, "Education is the means of the advancement of humanity toward realization of its divine perfection."³ The foundation for this is intense one-to-one interaction at the deepest level.

    Education requires time to come to its full fruition. Through persistent interaction and training, people are awakened and grow.

    IN FEBRUARY, Shin’ichi Yamamoto discussed with school officials the future operations of the Soka schools in Tokyo and conferred with representatives of dormitory students and those living in off-campus lodgings. He also visited the Soka Girls schools, meeting with students at a Japanese tea ceremony and holding discussions with faculty and staff.

    On March 13, he attended the first graduation ceremony of the Soka Girls Senior High School, where he called on the students to remain loyal friends for life. On March 16, the sixth graduation ceremony took place at the Soka Senior High School in Tokyo, but Shin’ichi had to be in Okayama that day, so the morning of the day before the ceremony he recorded a taped message for the students and had it delivered to the school.

    I’m in Okayama Prefecture, it said. From far-away Okayama, I’m speaking to you filled with deep emotion for your graduation ceremony. Shin’ichi emphasized how vital it was for graduates to anchor their hearts at the Soka schools, their spiritual home, in order to always preserve their friendships with fellow students. Anchoring their hearts means to make a certain place a mainstay of one’s life. For the students, that means to determine to forever support the Soka schools and to work for the development of their alma mater.

    If you are just nostalgic about your Soka school, there is still a gap between you and your alma mater. But if you have anchored your heart there, then there is no gap, you and it are one and united forever. In our world, where there is so much division, this reflects a life state that transcends all divisions.

    If the students all based themselves on a commitment to complete unity with their school, they’d be able to maintain strong relationships with their fellow classmates throughout their lives.

    Listening to Shin’ichi’s voice over the loudspeaker, the students realized that Shin’ichi was always thinking about them, and that he had anchored his heart at their schools. They pledged in their hearts to do the same.

    IN APRIL, WHEN Shin’ichi was visiting Kansai, he met with members of the first graduating class of the Soka Girls Senior High School and current dormitory students, encouraged them and sat for commemorative photographs with them. On April 8, he sent messages to the ninth entrance ceremony of the Soka schools in Tokyo and the fourth entrance ceremony of the Soka Girls schools.

    After the entrance ceremonies had ended, Shin’ichi rushed to the Soka schools in Tokyo and participated in various school activities, including an unveiling ceremony for a stone monument inscribed with the dormitory song Kusaki wa Moyuru (The Trees and Grasses Are Blooming, later to become the Soka schools song), commemorative group photos with newly entering students and faculty, and a meeting to celebrate the schools’ eighth anniversary.

    At the celebration, a music teacher of the Soka schools sang. He had set to music Shin’ichi’s poem Atsuta Village: Thinking of My Mentor’s Childhood Home. Shin’ichi had composed the poem in August 1954 during a visit with his mentor, Josei Toda, to Atsuta Village, Hokkaido, where Mr. Toda had spent his childhood. Shin’ichi was deeply moved when he thought that now a Soka kindergarten would open in Hokkaido, where his mentor had grown up.

    On April 10, at the sixth Soka University entrance ceremony, Shin’ichi gave a commemorative address. He celebrated the future of the incoming students and discussed the life of the Indian poet and educator Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) in order to emphasize the importance of making sorrow a source of value creation. He also ate lunch that day with a group that included overseas students from China, who were attending Soka University for the second consecutive year. He then played table tennis with them and encouraged them. He next participated in an unveiling ceremony for a stone monument that was inscribed with Soka University in the calligraphy of the founder of Soka education, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi. He also attended an opening ceremony for the university’s new main gate, as well as a gathering of members of the third graduating class of Soka University.

    With the passage of time, it is commonplace for freshness of spirit to fade and for apathy and inertia to set in. When that happens, new growth and development cease. The way to overcome apathy is to return to one’s starting point. Shin’ichi always returned to the starting point of education, the encounter between individuals. Through his own actions, he strove to bring a fresh breeze of this spirit into the Soka schools.

    SHIN’ICHI YAMAMOTO visited the Soka Sapporo Kindergarten in Hokkaido on the evening of April 15, the day before the entrance ceremony. When he entered the grounds and stepped out of the car, Principal Tateno was there to greet him. It looks like a fairytale castle, said Shin’ichi, gazing at the brand new blue roof of the school building. The teachers were in the lobby waiting for him. Congratulations! I’m happy to at last meet you all in person, exclaimed Shin’ichi.

    He had already received detailed information about the entire faculty from those in charge of setting up the kindergarten. He’d taken pains to remember everyone’s name, where they were from, their families, and their professional and educational history. The most important educational stimulus for children is, after all, their teachers.

    All of the teachers at the kindergarten were young women in their twenties, with four or five years of teaching experience. Shin’ichi greeted each of them and shook their hands. The eyes of all the teachers sparkled with determination, and they replied enthusiastically that they would do their best. Their passion and commitment to education was palpable. They weren’t extremely experienced, but they burned with fiery resolve to carry out the mission of pioneers in the Soka schools’ new arena of kindergarten education.

    There are always fresh new challenges. Today is never the same as yesterday. That’s why the passion, courage and action to rise to those challenges are so important. The indefatigable effort to solve a challenge through the process of trial and error in order to find the best way to do something eventually takes shape as a most valuable experience.

    Shin’ichi was satisfied with the faculty. He sensed hope for the future in them, and having decided to entrust the school to them, he said: Please work together in harmony and unity to build an unsurpassed citadel of humanistic education. All of your devoted efforts are certain to create a golden record for the Soka kindergarten. I hope each of you will regard yourself as the founder of the school, along with me, and strive your hardest. I’m counting on you.

    PRINCIPAL TATENO gave Shin’ichi Yamamoto a tour of the school. An entryway shaped like a tunnel was situated to the left of the lobby. It was painted green, orange, yellow and other bright colors. The windows in the tunnel were set low at one side of the walls, so that the kindergarten students could see out of them. At the end of the tunnel was the playroom, where the entrance ceremony was to be held. It had a stage, decorated charmingly for the next day’s ceremony, and chairs set out on the floor. The staff room, the student lavatory and four classrooms were located to the right of the lobby.

    The first entering class of the kindergarten would consist of one class of younger children who would attend for two years before beginning primary school, and three classes of older students who would only attend for one year. Each classroom had a piano, a video tape recorder and other equipment.

    Shin’ichi also carefully inspected the lavatory. Then he spent some time talking with the teachers in a Japanese-style room on the second floor: With the opening of this Soka kindergarten, the first gate to Soka education has been completed. I believe it is very significant that this kindergarten is in Sapporo, Hokkaido.

    The Hokkaido Normal School, which was where Tsunesaburo Makiguchi—the founder of Soka education—had studied, and the elementary school attached to the Hokkaido Normal School—where Mr. Makiguchi first taught—were both located in Sapporo. Moreover, second Soka Gakkai president Josei Toda grew up in Atsuta Village and went to work at a general wholesale store in Sapporo. While holding down that job, Mr. Toda passed the examination for an elementary school associate teacher’s license. For both Mr. Makiguchi and Mr. Toda, Sapporo was the starting point of their careers in education.

    From the time he began planning to create a Soka education system, Shin’ichi had decided to eventually establish some educational institution in Sapporo, to commemorate the efforts of Mr. Makiguchi and Mr. Toda and make their achievements known to the public. The impulse to repay his gratitude to these mentors always ran beneath all of Shin’ichi’s thoughts.

    The universal foundation for a humane life and the basis for humanistic education are to be found in a life lived with gratitude.

    MR. MAKIGUCHI envisioned establishing a complete school system, from kindergarten through university, that would put Soka education into practice. He entrusted the realization of this dream to his disciple, Josei Toda.

    Mr. Toda himself informed Shin’ichi Yamamoto about this vision in late autumn of 1950, the year when Shin’ichi had initiated an all-out struggle to rescue Mr. Toda’s businesses, which had fallen on hard times. During that discussion, Mr. Toda remarked: I hope to be able to achieve this while I am still in good health, but it might not be possible. If that turns out to be the case, I’m counting on you, Shin’ichi, to make this dream a reality.

    And from that moment, the establishment of a comprehensive Soka education system became Shin’ichi’s lifework.

    As the Venezuelan educator Simón Rodríguez (1769–1854) writes in a letter to his student, Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), The work that I was going to undertake demanded the presence of you … and you … to complete yours, needed me.⁴ Great projects cannot be achieved in a day. Sometimes they take two or three generations. Nothing truly remarkable can be accomplished without the united struggle of mentor and disciple.

    In January 1955, Shin’ichi visited Kochi Prefecture in Shikoku [the smallest of Japan’s four main islands], with Mr. Toda. On that trip, a local member asked Mr. Toda whether the Soka Gakkai would start a school. Mr. Toda replied: Yes, I intend to establish it in the near future. It will be a unified school system, from kindergarten to university. I’ll make it the best in all Japan! This was Mr. Toda’s declaration of his intention to build a comprehensive school system. Step by step, Shin’ichi realized the educational vision shared by Mr. Makiguchi and Mr. Toda.

    In 1968, the Soka Junior and Senior High Schools⁵ opened in Kodaira, Tokyo. In 1971, the first students entered Soka University in Hachioji, Tokyo. And in 1973, the Soka Girls Junior and Senior High Schools⁶ were established in Katano, Osaka. In August 1974, a preparatory committee for the creation of a Soka elementary school was set up. Part of the committee’s job was also to explore the establishment of a kindergarten.

    ON SEPTEMBER 29, 1974, soon after the preparatory committee for the establishment of a Soka elementary school had begun proceedings, Shin’ichi Yamamoto spoke at the 2nd Hokkaido Youth Division General Meeting in Sapporo. He then visited the Hokkaido Youth Center in Sapporo (also known as the Hitsujigaoka Community Center, present-day Toyohira Culture Center) to attend the Hokkaido University Group General Meeting. By that time, Shin’ichi had already conceived the idea of establishing a kindergarten in Hokkaido—if possible in Sapporo—a place that had strong associations with both Mr. Makiguchi and Mr. Toda.

    The youth center was located in a quiet residential area with green surroundings in Toyohira Ward in the southeast part of Sapporo. The center was near a picturesque hill called Hitsujigaoka, which offered a fine view of the farms and flocks of grazing sheep and commanded a panoramic view of the Ishikari Plain. The Soka Gakkai had already purchased some land nearby the youth center with plans for future expansion.

    Driving through the Hitsujigaoka area, Shin’ichi said to Hokkaido Region Leader Kosaku Takano, who was with him in the car: This area is perfect for a school. I wonder if we could build a Soka kindergarten on the land we own near the youth center. Both Mr. Makiguchi and Mr. Toda grew up in Hokkaido, and Mr. Makiguchi got his first teaching job in Sapporo. I’d like to build a kindergarten, the gateway to the Soka education system, in Sapporo, and make it the best in Japan and the world. That’s my dream.

    Shin’ichi was convinced that his actions as a disciple demonstrating his gratitude to Mr. Makiguchi and Mr. Toda—who had fought against the persecution of Japan’s military government—would foster through education countless capable individuals who would go out into the world to work for global peace.

    Principal Takano was thrilled by Shin’ichi’s suggestion. He also felt a powerful sense of mission for Hokkaido. That’s a wonderful idea, he replied.

    Do you think so? asked Shin’ichi. All right, then, let’s present it for consideration to the Soka Gakkai executive leadership and the preparatory committee for the establishment of a Soka elementary school. I really want to make this a reality.

    THE GERMAN EDUCATOR Friedrich Fröbel (1782–1852), who established the world’s first kindergarten, thought long and hard what to call his school for children of preschool age. Then one day while strolling on a hill overlooking Blankenburg, he suddenly came up with the name kindergärten—a garden for children.

    Shin’ichi Yamamoto also materialized the plan to establish a Soka kindergarten while driving around the hill of Hitsujigaoka.

    Shin’ichi believed that kindergarten education is very important. From his observations of his own three sons and the children of other Soka Gakkai members, he knew that the kindergarten years are a period of important mental, emotional and spiritual development in a child’s life. Children begin to gain a degree of independence around the age of four, develop greater awareness of their relationships with others and start to really communicate. They also learn to dress themselves and do simple daily tasks, and they demonstrate the beginnings of self-discipline and social behavior. It is, in other words, a time when a child’s social foundation is built. Shin’ichi therefore concluded that kindergarten education is extremely vital for children.

    Shin’ichi had one indelible memory of his own from that period in his life. One summer day, his mother served seven or eight watermelon slices to her family. One of his older brothers, who had already finished his slice, looked at the remaining watermelon and said to their mother, Mom, you don’t like watermelon, so can I eat your slice, please?

    Their mother smiled and said, I’ve come to like watermelon, and put the remaining watermelon slices away in the cupboard. Shin’ichi remembered keenly sensing what she had in mind then; she was saving the rest of the watermelon for her other children who weren’t there. He was deeply moved by her wish to treat all the children fairly, and he came to realize that she had just taught him an essential unspoken rule.

    THE SOKA GAKKAI’S top leaders, the members of the preparatory committee for the establishment of a Soka elementary school—who were also tasked with considering the founding of a kindergarten—and the directors and other officials of the Soka schools all agreed with Shin’ichi Yamamoto’s suggestion that a kindergarten be built on the land the Soka Gakkai owned near the youth center in Toyohira Ward, Sapporo. As a result, a preparatory committee for the official establishment of a Soka kindergarten was formed. Susumu Aota, the chair of the Soka schools’ board of directors and a vice president of the Soka Gakkai, was appointed as committee chairperson.

    The opening of the kindergarten was set for April 1976, just a year and a half away. An enormous amount of work had to be accomplished in that short time. There were numerous legal processes and applications, an educational policy and curriculum to be drafted, the number of students and their yearly schedule to be set, a faculty to be hired, a building to be designed and built, equipment to be purchased, uniforms and schoolbags to be designed—a dizzying mountain of tasks. Everyone worked at full speed on the preparations.

    One of the most pressing issues was finding a school principal. People are the most crucial element in good education, and the influence of the principal on a school is tremendous. Josei Toda always said that personnel is the vital factor upon which all else depends. And in accord with that principle, Mr. Toda always paid wholehearted attention to personnel matters, weighing them carefully and rigorously.

    In January 1975, a principal was tentatively selected for the Sapporo Soka Kindergarten—Kozo Tateno, a classroom teacher who taught disabled students at a junior high school in Mikasa, Hokkaido. Principal Tateno had never taught kindergarten, but he was a diligent and tireless educator with a warmhearted, sincere character.

    Mr. Tateno was born in August 1928 in Kamisunagawa, Hokkaido. His father died in an accident when he was only three years old, after which the Tateno family adopted Kozo. Kozo was so young at the time that he always believed that his adopted mother was his birth mother. About six months after he was adopted, his adoptive father suddenly died of illness. His adoptive mother remarried, and took Kozo with her to her new family. At her wish, Kozo kept the family name Tateno.

    KOZO’S NEW FATHER worked in a coal mine. He had children of his own from a previous marriage, all of them older than Kozo. His new father and siblings warmly welcomed Kozo and his mother, and soon a new little sister was born. The neighborhood children, however, used to tease and pick on Kozo because his last name was different than that of his adoptive family.

    World War II started in December of the year Kozo began the last two-year course at the national people’s school.⁷ After graduating, he secured a job at a steel foundry in Muroran, Hokkaido. The factory produced war materiel. At that time, Kozo happened to see the family registry that his mother had obtained for submission to the factory as part of his employment application. He gasped. For the first time, he learned that he was adopted, and the woman he thought was his birth mother turned out to be his adoptive mother. For him, it was a terrible shock. He dropped the family registry from his grasp.

    From that day on, he had no appetite. Seeing him wasting away, his mother, who guessed the reason for her son’s distress, explained the situation to him. But hearing the truth from her didn’t make him feel any better.

    He soon started his job and his new life at the factory in Muroran, but he remained depressed. He realized he had no blood connection to his parents or any of his siblings. He thought to himself that no one would care if he died, and he gave himself over to despair. He even considered sacrificing his life by enlisting as a kamikaze pilot in the military’s Junior Pilots Training Corps.

    He wrote of his overwhelming feelings in a letter to his parents. They were so surprised that they immediately set out on the five-to-six-hour train journey from Kamisunagawa to Muroran in order to beg their son not to end his life, finally succeeding in convincing him. Their deep love for him warmed the young man’s heart, and hot tears rolled down his cheeks. He realized that even though they might not be connected by ties of blood, he had real parents, and he resolved to make something of himself in order to repay this debt of gratitude to them.

    From this experience Mr. Tateno learned about the power of parental love, and it helped shape his attitude to the children he later taught when he became a teacher.

    Giving wholehearted affection to one’s children is the sure way to open up communication and interaction.

    TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS are an inescapable part of life. What matters is how we deal with the challenges we encounter. It is our struggles to overcome them that become our greatest treasures in life and make us shine as people.

    In December 1944, his

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