is a Japanese Buddhist religious movement based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese priest Nichiren as taught by its first three presidents Tsunesaburō Makiguchi, Jōsei Toda, and Daisaku Ikeda. It is the largest of the Japanese new religions and claims the largest membership among Nichiren Buddhist groups. The organization bases its teachings on Nichiren's interpretation of the Lotus Sutra and places chanting Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō at the center of devotional practice. The organization promotes its goals as supporting "peace, culture, and education".
The movement was founded by educators Makiguchi and Toda on 18 November 1930, and held its inaugural meeting in 1937. It was disbanded during the Second World War when much of the leadership was imprisoned for violations of the 1925 Peace Preservation Law and charges of lèse-majesté. After the war, it expanded to a claimed total of 750,000 households in 1958 through explosive recruitment, held to be unprecedented in Japanese media. Further expansion was led by its former third president Daisaku Ikeda. According to its own account, has 12 million members in 192 countries and territories around the world.
Moving the group toward mainstream acceptance, the organization is still viewed with suspicion in Japan and has found itself embroiled in public controversies, especially in the first three decades following World War II. From 1952 to 1991, it was affiliated with the Nichiren Shōshū Buddhist sect. Komeito, a political party closely aligned with Soka Gakkai and founded by elements of its lay membership, entered a coalition agreement with the Liberal Democratic Party in 1999 and is currently a junior partner in government.
Beliefs
The belief of the Soka Gakkai centers on recognizing that all life has dignity with infinite inherent potential; this immanent Buddhahood exists in every person and can be awakened through the Buddhist practice prescribed by Nichiren. Further, a person's social actions at every moment can lead to soka, or the creation of value (the theory of the interdependence of life). Societal change is facilitated through "human revolution", a way of living in the world that creates value.
The doctrine of the Soka Gakkai derives from Nichiren, who promulgated the Lotus Sutra as he perceived its application to the epoch in which he and people today live. Soka Gakkai gives significance to Nichiren's writings, as Gosho, and Soka Gakkai refers to the collection of Nichiren's writings that was compiled by Nichiko Hori and Jōsei Toda, published as Nichiren Daishonin Gosho Zenshu in 1952 (and later officially published an English translation, The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, and in several other languages based on the collection).
The principle of the mutually inclusive relationship of a single moment of life and all phenomena
T’ien-t’ai (538–597), a Chinese Buddhist scholar who upheld the Lotus Sutra, developed a theoretical system to describe the infinite interconnectedness of life translated as "the principle of the mutually inclusive relationship of a single moment of life and all phenomena" or "three thousand realms in a single moment of life" (Japanese: ichinen sanzen). This theory demonstrates that the entire phenomenal world exists in a single moment of life. Soka Gakkai members believe that because Nichiren made actualizing this possible by inscribing Gohonzon and teaching the invocation, their prayers and actions can in a single moment pierce through limitations.
"Life force" and "Human Revolution"
While imprisoned, Josei Toda studied a passage from the Immeasurable meanings sutra (considered the introduction to the Lotus Sutra) that describes Buddhahood by means of 34 negations – for example, that it is "neither being nor non-being, this nor that, square nor round". From this, he concluded that "Buddha" is life, or life force.
The "philosophy of life" restates principles formulated by Nichiren: "three thousand conditions in a single moment" (ichinen sanzen), and "observing one's own mind" (kanjin)
The concept of life force is central to the Soka Gakkai's conception of the role of religion and the application of Nichiren's teachings. "Our health, courage, wisdom, joy, desire to improve, self-discipline, and so on, could all be said to depend on our life force", Ikeda says.