Emerging from the Earth

Buddhism in the Heart of England

Nina Alvarez — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 22:14:21 +0000

Visit this unofficial site of SGI-UK Heart of England (Birmingham, Coventry, Black Country, Warwickshire, Worcester).

Taplow Court is the national culture centre for SGI-UK. It is in a village called Taplow, near Maidenhead in Berkshire. In the summer we have a number of open days which everyone is welcome to go to, all guests are very welcome.

More SGI Districts and Groups Online

Nina Alvarez — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 03:23:44 +0000

General information for members of Crystal Springs Area, San Francisco Mid-Peninsula
Link courtesy of Bruce

Soka Gakkai Unofficial Group on Yahoo
Get together with other members to discuss our buddhism
Link courtesy of Rob

Soka Gakkai International on Facebook
Join this SGI group on Facebook for a wider community and encouragemnt

Thanks Rob and Bruce! Everyone else, take their lead. Send me your SGI links to add to our Itai Doshin page.

Send Us Your SGI Website Link

Nina Alvarez — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:11:54 +0000

Below are the links I have listed on the Itai Doshin page. If you have an SGI website or blog that isn’t here, please let me know!

SGI Sites and SGI-Related Sites

Non-Official

Official

Research

Education

SGI Sites Around the World

Listing of International SGI websites

Sensei’s Daily Encouragement for 04th January

Nina Alvarez — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 06:03:44 +0000

Life is a series of changes, a succession of ups and downs. But those who possess a prime point, a home to which they can return no matter what happens, are strong. To come home to the world of friendship in the SGI, to talk things over and prepare for a fresh departure-this is the way I hope all of you will live. When you do, you will advance upon a fundamentally unerring path to happiness.

Happy New Year!

Nina Alvarez — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 02:07:55 +0000

If the minds of living beings are impure, their land is also impure, but if their minds are pure, so is their land. There are not two lands, pure or impure in themselves. The difference lies solely in the good or evil of our minds. It is the same with a Buddha and an ordinary being. While deluded, one is called an ordinary being, but when enlightened one is called a Buddha. This is similar to a tarnished mirror that will shine like a jewel when polished.

Nichiren Daishonin

Who is truly great?

Nina Alvarez — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:03:06 +0000

SGI President Ikeda’s Daily Encouragement for 29th December

I hope you can develop the ability to discern true human greatness. A great person is someone who forges unity among human beings through sincere dialogue, armed with a solid philosophy, feet firmly planted on the ground. A great person is one who lives among the people and earns their unshakable trust. Fickle popularity and temporary fads are nothing but illusions.

Reposting of Cybele’s Stand-Alone Spirit Story

Nina Alvarez — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:33:02 +0000

Last year we posted regularly a column called Stand-Alone Spirit by two SGI members: Brad and Cybele. Each had faced the challenge of practicing in isolation and were sharing their stories. To celebrate the coming year and its spirit of hope in the face of challenge, I am reposting Cybele’s story. If you have any Stand-Alone Spirit stories of encouragement you’d like to share, please send them in.

Cybele’s Story

I got a taste of the stand-alone sprit when I joined the United States Peace Corps in September of 2004. I was assigned to work in a Muslim country as a small business development advisor. Alone in my mountain village, my SGI-USA publications and daimoku sustained me. It was the first time in my life that I had lived without the SGI.

It was also the first time that I had to explain Buddhism to people who practiced a non-Western religion. Most Westerners ask me questions like, “Do you believe in God?” or “Does Buddhism forbid eating meat?” I confronted a new round of questions one day as I sat in my friend Zahra’s house. She showed me a photo of the recently passed pope in an Arab newspaper. “I’m sorry your baba died,” she said.

“It’s not my baba,” I replied. “But thank you for saying so.

Her sisters looked up from their needlework and asked me what my religion was. “I am Buddhist.” I explained, knowing that they had never heard the word. The girls circled around me with wide eyes. They asked me who my prophet was, what book my prayers came from, and was that book the word of God? I wasn’t sure how to answer that one. “Ours is,” they said.

Another time, I was at my neighbor Fatima’s house where the village women were convening; another neighbor was going into labor so we all sat with her until it was time to go to the clinic. Someone asked about my religion and I began to answer the same questions with thought-out answers. “But how do you pray?” a woman asked. “Like us?” She demonstrated the Muslim prayers by sinking to her knees and touching her forehead and palms to the ground.

“No, like this.” I said. I turned to face the wall and knelt (had I faced, them, they would have thought I was committing idolatry by praying to them). I placed my palms together and recited three daimoku. When I turned back to the women, they smiled. “It’s very nice,” one said.

For two years, I essentially chanted alone. There were a couple clandestine SGI members in the capitol city, so I visited them once a month or so. It took me seven hours and about a week of my paltry salary to get there, but it was well worth it. Those members took care of me like I was their long-lost daughter, showering me with food and gifts. Being with them reminded me that I wasn’t the only Buddhist in the world.

That may seem like an exaggeration, but try to imagine the loneliness of suddenly becoming deaf, dumb, illiterate, and alone all at once. That’s what happened in my village until I learned to speak the local dialect and form relationships. With no one to talk to about Buddhist things, it was easy for the sense of isolation to take over.

A funny thing happened, though: with nothing and no one to rely on but my prayers and study, my faith grew to a new level. Actually, it turned to rock, like a mountain rising beneath me to lift me out of my delusions. It got stronger, harder, and higher. The impossible thing happened: I felt at home in my village. I became a part of my community. The usual obstacles arose but I was too strong to let them sway me.

I’ve been back in the states since December of 2006. It’s exhilarating to be able to call SGI members and chant with them whenever I want. I love my new district. Of course, I have plenty of challenges and I am not happy all the time. But nothing ever gets in the way of my faith and determination. I know, on a fundamental level, that everything will in fact turn out just fine, because I have the power to make it so.

Buddhism Day by Day: Live with a Dancing Spirit

Nina Alvarez — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:36:05 +0000

Live with a dancing spirit. The stars in the heavens are dancing through space, the earth never ceases to spin. All life is dancing: the trees with the wind, the waves on the sea, the birds, the fish, all are performing their own dance of life. Every living thing is dancing, and you must keep dancing, too for the rest of your life!

-Much thanks to Buddhism Day by Day

Buddhism Day by Day: Guard the Truth of Life

Nina Alvarez — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:32:48 +0000

A society that has sacrificed so much to material wealth that it has forgotten the human heart and the better human aspirations degenerates into something compassionless, doctrinaire, ignorant and ultraconservative. When this happens, fundamental solutions to calamities become impossible. If we protect the truth and are resolute, we are capable of creating peace and prosperity. And the truth we must protect ought to be high and great. Our great truth-the thing that we must protect to the utmost-involves ethics and the best of human nature. But more basic than anything else is our duty to guard the truth of life, the truth that we and the universe are one, and that a single ordinary human thought contains the entirety of universal life.

from Buddhism Day by Day. Much thanks to http://www.sgi-usa.org/encouragement/dbd.php