Champions of Hope: To My Youthful Successors Around the World

By Daisaku Ikeda

Champions of Hope brings together five lectures that Daisaku Ikeda dedicates to the young people who will carry on the Soka Gakkai's mission for creating happiness and peace. He covers five key topics:COURAGEINVINCIBLE SPIRITSUCCESSORSHUMANISMKOSEN-RUFUUsing passages from Nichiren's writings, he offers lessons for humanistic leadership and guidelines to help young people become champions of life and hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Oct 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781946635303

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

COURAGE

Your Determination to Win in This Moment Can Change Everything

[The Buddhas] have exerted themselves bravely and vigorously (LSOC, 56). My mentor, Josei Toda, wrote about these words from the Lotus Sutra sixty years ago in his January 1958 editorial for our monthly study journal, the Daibyakurenge.

Mr. Toda’s towering struggle for kosen-rufu, undertaken with the energy of a great lion king, filled his disciples with powerful courage. The month before we had finally achieved a membership of 750,000 households, the goal Mr. Toda had set at his inauguration as the Soka Gakkai’s second president (in May 1951).

In one of his New Year’s poems for 1958, he wrote:

Issuing the lion’s roar¹

to guide the poor and destitute

to happiness—

seven years of my life

crowned with delight.

For seven years, he had selflessly dedicated himself to going out among the people and working for their happiness, striving harder with each passing year, ascending the steep and difficult path to a new summit of triumph in our movement for kosen-rufu.

INEXHAUSTIBLE FIGHTING SPIRIT

Instead of just sitting back, however, Mr. Toda resolved to exert himself even more bravely and vigorously.

In December 1957, after the announcement that we had achieved the goal of 750,000 households, Mr. Toda said, Daisaku, I want to devote the next seven years to reaching two million households. But just two months later, he set an even higher goal of three million. Having surmounted one towering peak, he resolved to take on the next, to keep engaging in new challenges.

Whenever I, a disciple committed to striving alongside my mentor, saw Mr. Toda’s inexhaustible fighting spirit, I was inspired and uplifted, and I fought with even greater courage and resolve.

OUR MENTOR’S CALL TO STRIVE BRAVELY AND VIGOROUSLY

In his editorial, Mr. Toda predicted that great obstacles would befall the Soka Gakkai. He called on his precious fellow members to stand up with courageous faith, writing: No matter how strong our opponents, you mustn’t fear them, you mustn’t let them sway you…. I pray earnestly that you will forge ahead bravely and vigorously on the great path of kosen-rufu.² And in closing, he urged:

Repeat to yourself morning and night the Daishonin’s words You must not spend your lives in vain and regret it for ten thousand years to come (WND-1, 622), and strive with faith that grows stronger day by day, month by month, and year by year. This should be the basic spirit for everything you do in the coming year and throughout your life. Start by making a firm determination! Then, set to work with courage!³

Let us once again answer Mr. Toda’s powerful call and make the great life force that comes from exerting ourselves bravely and vigorously rise brilliantly within us like the morning sun!

I would like to dedicate the next several chapters of this series⁴ to our youth division members, to whom I fully entrust our movement for worldwide kosen-rufu. In doing so, I wish to share passages from the Daishonin’s writings and recorded teachings that offer lessons on humanistic leadership and guidelines for living a victorious youth.

The first subject is courage, the essence of which is the Buddhist teaching of exerting oneself bravely and vigorously.

Let us begin with a passage from The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings.⁵

FREELY REVEALING OUR BUDDHAHOOD

If in a single moment of life we exhaust the pains and trials of millions of kalpas,⁶ then instant after instant there will arise in us the three Buddha bodies⁷ with which we are eternally endowed. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is just such a diligent practice. (OTT, 214)

Emerging from the Earth, the Lotus Sutra’s fifteenth chapter, contains the phrase in order that day and night with constant diligence they may seek the Buddha way (LSOC, 260). Here, Shakyamuni Buddha, the teacher, praises the devoted efforts of the countless Bodhisattvas of the Earth,⁸ his disciples, who have dynamically emerged on the scene.

The passage from the Orally Transmitted Teachings we are studying here is Nichiren Daishonin’s comment on this phrase.

No matter what storms of adversity we may encounter, we must persevere in our faith in the Mystic Law. We must dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to the struggle for kosen-rufu and continue along the supreme path to a life of supreme value. In this passage, Nichiren assures us that if we do, we will activate the boundless state of Buddhahood within us.

A PASSAGE THAT OFFERS A LESSON FOR SOKA YOUTH

Soon after I joined the Soka Gakkai, Mr. Toda said to me sternly, referring to this passage: Engrave these words of the Daishonin in your life. Champions of the Soka Gakkai should never forget them.

It is a difficult passage to understand, but since my mentor told me to engrave it in my life, I deeply determined to grasp its full meaning. I read and pondered it again and again. I did so during the bitter winter of adversity when Mr. Toda’s businesses collapsed in the postwar recession, and I worked my hardest to support him and turn the situation around. I also did so during the Osaka Campaign of 1956,⁹ which paved the way to our achieving a victory that everyone had said was impossible. I prayed and strove earnestly to break through the obstacles before us and win in each moment.

Through those efforts, I summoned forth the wisdom of the truth that functions in accordance with changing circumstances (OTT, 10), broke through all the dark clouds that hung over us, and raised high the banner of the victory of Soka. Now I would like to present this same passage to you, my beloved youth division members around the world. I hope you will engrave its essence in your lives, which are united with my own, and carry on the invincible spirit of Soka champions.

THIS MOMENT DETERMINES THE ETERNAL FUTURE

The pains and trials of millions of kalpas (OTT, 214) connotes eons of painful, arduous effort. We could take this to mean