Protesting Nichiren Shoshu’s Use of Miller Theatre

On Sunday, May 18, the fundamentalist “Nichiren Shoshu”—or The True Sect of Nichiren—Buddhist Temple will be holding a 1 p.m. meeting at Miller Theatre. As a member of Columbia’s Buddhism for Global Peace club, I am concerned about this event and will be in front of Miller Theatre in protest.

Nichiren Shoshu preaches the doctrine that “the living essence” of Buddhism exists solely within the lives of its anointed priests. Stemming from this untenable doctrine—so inimical to the contention of the Lotus Sutra that all beings are inherently respectworthy and equal—senior Nichiren Shoshu priests have issued numerous incendiary remarks about other religions. In fact, the Web site of the Nichiren Shoshu temple in Washington, D.C. clearly condemns the very concept of religious tolerance which, it bemoans, has “penetrated and become fixed in society” and is “actually hypocrisy and will definitely lead to ruin.”

It is difficult to document what Nichiren Shoshu priests say behind the closed doors of their temples (the event at Miller Theatre is closed to the Columbia community.) However, snippets of their remarks have occasionally surfaced on Web postings. For example, in his posting of a monthly sermon, a local New York Nichiren Shoshu priest urged his congregants to “discard the imperfect precepts of imperfect religions and ideas such as the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments.” In a rare, publicly transcribed question-and-answer session, a priest from Argentina characterized Mother Teresa as “a Jihi Ma (literally “devil incarnate”) leading people to hell.

Nichiren Shoshu priests, however, have reserved their most offensive remarks for Islam. In 1997 a senior priest referred to God and Allah as “heartless and uncharitable gods” who are mere figments of the imagination. “Religions that force people to believe in gods who do not exist,” he continued, are “arrogant faiths that lack compassion.” On the second anniversary of Sept. 11th, 2001, ignoring the extreme duress experienced at that time by Muslims, a New York priest concluded, “Just as Indian Buddhism was destroyed by Islam … all slanderous religions, including Islam, will be defeated by true Buddhism.” This remark caught the attention of the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which protested with a petition drive and a press conference in front of the priest’s Flushing temple on July 9, 2003. The priest refused to apologize—how can someone touched by “the living essence” of Buddhism make a mistake?—and just removed the objectionable passages from his Web site.

Laughable? Easily dismissed as the fodder of the ignorant? Yes, but it is important to remember the lessons of history which clearly teach that extremism must be immediately and strongly confronted whenever it emerges. The warning of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is clear on this point: “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

Certainly the bar of verbal challenge to the Nichiren Shoshu priests should be no lower than the one raised when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia on Sept. 24, 2007: “People of intolerance can speak but people of conscience must react,” said University President Lee Bollinger. “To commit oneself to a life—and a civil society—prepared to examine critically all ideas arises from a deep faith in the myriad benefits of a long-term process of meeting bad beliefs with better beliefs and hateful words with wiser words.”

As a member of the Buddhism for Global Peace club at Columbia, I must stress that our members do not support the intolerance and authoritarianism shown by the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood—such qualities are inimical to the beliefs and traditions of mainstream Buddhism. In particular, the life of Nichiren, a 13th century Japanese freedom fighter, exemplified the broad social activism, humanistic compassion, intellectual pursuit, and, above all, commitment to dialogue characteristic of the Mahayana teachings of engaged Buddhism.

Our club is affiliated with the Soka Gakkai International-USA, an international lay Buddhist organization dedicated to peace, culture and education. Our commitment to these goals is well illustrated by the efforts of our president, Daisaku Ikeda, one of the world’s foremost advocates of intercultural dialogue. In recognition of his efforts to support higher education, he has been the recipient of over 230 honorary doctorates from universities all over the world.

Whereas Nichiren Shoshu is renting Miller Theatre and along with it the imprimatur of Columbia, Dr. Ikeda's relationship with Columbia University has lasted for 33 years. He visited the Columbia campus in 1975, presenting a collection of rare books to the C.V. Starr East Asian Library and conducting a dialogue about higher education with prominent Columbia professors and administrators. He lectured at Teachers College in 1996 and articulated a vision to revitalize schooling based on the paradigm of education for global citizenship. He has conducted dialogues on Buddhism with professor Robert Thurman. With Dr. Ikeda’s support, Columbia University Press was able to publish a definitive English translation of the Lotus Sutra by professor Burton Watson. In collaboration with the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, a research institution founded by Dr. Ikeda, Teachers College Press published two volumes of essays, Educating Citizens for Global Awareness and Ethical Visions of Education, edited respectively by professors Nel Noddings and David Hansen. Clearly, Dr. Ikeda fully understands the unique significance of Columbia and its students.

Please join me at 1 p.m. in front of Miller Theatre to hold Nichiren Shoshu priests visiting our campus publicly accountable to standards of tolerance, decency, and broadmindedness.

The author is a graduate student in the School of Social Work.