Daisaku Ikeda

I hope that you will always speak the truth boldly, saying what needs to be said no matter whom you're addressing. When it comes to championing a just cause, you must never be cowardly, never fawn, never try to curry favor.

Daisaku Ikeda, 池田大作, Daisaku Ikeda (池田 大作, Ikeda Daisaku, 2 January 1928 – 15 November 2023) was a Japanese Buddhist leader, author, educator and businessman. He served as the third president and then honorary president of the Soka Gakkai, the largest of Japan's new religious movements.

Quotes

Faith into Action (1999)

Faith into Action is a compilation of thoughts on selected topics by Daisaku Ikeda. It is divided into 5 parts: life, faith and practice, leadership, our treasured organization, peace culture and education.

Life

• Buddhism is an earnest struggle to win. This is what the Daishonin teaches. A Buddhist must not be defeated. I hope you will maintain an alert and winning spirit in your work and daily life, taking courageous action and showing triumphant actual proof time and again.

• Life passes by in an instant. In the twinkling of an eye, we grow old. Our physical strength wanes and we began to suffer various aches and pains. We practice Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism so that instead of sinking into feelings of sadness, loneliness and regret, we can greet old age with inner richness and maturity, as round and complete as the ripe, golden fruit of autumn.

Faith and practice

• Prayer become manifest in action, and action has to be backed up by prayer. Only then can we elicit a response from the Buddhist deities and all Buddhism. Those who pray and take action for kosen-rufu are the Buddha's emissaries. They cannot fail to realize lives in which all desires are fulfilled.

• In the inner realm of life, cause and effect occur simultaneously. What ever the person desire with the passage of time, this causal relationship becomes manifest in the phenomental world of daily life. This is the ultimate law of whole universe.

Leadership

• Leadership is not a matter of ordering people around but of first taking action yourself. By initiating action yourself, you will win others' trust, and they, in turn, will take action.

• After fully hearing out the views of everyone, one should judge things impartially and come to a decision. And once one has done so, one should rise to implement it without vacillation. Please make united efforts that demonstrate responsiveness to others' views.

Our treasured organization

• Significant discussions that foster mutual understanding are much more valuable than the self-complacent pronouncements of one person. Please conduct discussions that deeply penetrate the hearts of the participants — the kind that make them want to say :"That was really refreshing. I have so much hope now. That gave me confidence. I now have the strength to advance."

• I hope that you will always speak the truth boldly, saying what needs to be said no matter whom you're addressing. When it comes to championing a just cause, you must never be cowardly, never fawn, never try to curry favor.

Peace, culture and education

• A great work of art is one that truly moves and inspires you. You yourself must be moved. Don't look at art with others' eyes. Don't listen to music with others' ears. You must react to art with your own feelings, your own heart and mind.

• Peace and culture are one. A genuinely cultured nation is a peaceful nation. and vice versa. When conflicts multiply, culture wanes and nations fall into hellish existences. The history of the human race is a contest between culture and barbarity. As we leave the tensions of the Cold War behind, the pressing question becomes "What will the coming century be like?" Only culture is a force strong enough to end conflict and lead humanity in the direction of peace.

• American philosopher and educator John Dewey (1859-1952) said "Genuine culture stimulates the creative powers of imagination, of mind and of thought. It includes not merely free access to things of the mind and taste already in existence but a positive production of them so that the waters of knowledge and of ideas are kept fresh and vital. Culture is a stimulus. Culture is to produce things of value. Culture enriches life. Culture belongs to the people. (6/15/96)

• Reading literature can greatly enhance the study of science. If science is all one focuses, the mind will grow very mechanical. We are only fully human when we possess not only intelligence but also emotion and sensitivity. Literature is the oil that greases the wheels of the mind.

The World of Nichiren Daishonin's Writings (2003)

• Only a teaching that gives each individual the power to draw forth his or her innate Buddha nature can lead all people to happiness.
  • p. 7

• The Latter Day of the Law is an "age of conflict"; it is a time when all and sundry are compelled towards strife. The strength to resist this torrent comes from the firm conviction in the existence of the Buddha nature in oneself and others.
  • p. 10

• A Buddha vows to carry out a struggle that can lead the people and the age to enlightenment. The strength of this vow causes the Buddha's enlightenment to mature into rich wisdom.
  • p. 49

• The essence of the Daishonin's practice lay in the struggle against the devilish nature of power and authority that treats the people with contempt. Fundamentally, it is a struggle against the forces that seek to keep people from entering the path to enlightenment.
  • p. 81

• Spreading the Buddha's teaching is a noble undertaking that illuminates both the person and the law.
  • p. 101