Read Online Waking the Buddha by Clark Strand - Free Book Online

real life to the Ceremony in the Air and then back to real life—this continuous back-and-forth process is the path of human revolution, the path of transforming our state of life…. We can change nothing unless our feet are firmly planted on the ground.
    The discovery of Makiguchi’s death marks the first pairing of religious idealism with firm, practical resolve that distinguished Toda’s career as a religious leader and that has virtually defined the Soka Gakkai movement ever since.

glimmers of a global movement
    T HE MEANING of certain events in collective human history is clear from the moment they happen. A ship is sunk, and a war begins. After years of careful planning, a human being sets foot on the moon. The significance of personal events, however, usually emerges only with the benefit of hindsight. This is especially true when we speak of the hardships or tragedies. By their very nature, such events interrupt the course of individual lives, forcing us to reevaluate ourselves—our goals, our values, even our sense of who we are.
    On August 23, 1950, having already failed in business the previous year when his publishing company was forced to close, Josei Toda suspended operations of the credit association of which he’d become director the year before. In the shadow of a government investigation, and with legal action against him seemingly inevitable, Toda voluntarily stepped down from his position as general director of the Soka Gakkai, a post he had held for more than twenty years. His motive was to prevent negative associations with the still-fragile postwar organization. Added to Toda’s disappointment over his failed business ventures and the constant harassment of creditors was the knowledge that a number of Soka Gakkai members had invested heavily in the association and some suffered financial hardship because of its failure. Some even left the movement as a result.
    Toda remained generally optimistic in his attitude toward business matters (the economic climate in postwar Tokyo was, after all, extremely volatile and fraught with risk). But he became deeply reflective about his relationship to the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism, unwilling (or perhaps unable) to go forward in his spiritual life until he had asked himself the most penetrating questions. Naturally, the most urgent of these questions concerned the role of business in his spiritual life.
    From the earliest days of the Soka Gakkai, Toda had assumed responsibility for the financial viability of the organization, often funding its operations and outreach programs out of his own pocket. “Therefore, when he dedicated himself to the reconstruction of the organization after the war,” writes Ikeda, “he first gave consideration to the establishment of its economic foundation rather than its organizational development.” This strategy made sense while Makiguchi was alive; Toda’s writing and publishing efforts allowing the older man to concentrate on pursuing his educational reforms. But now he began to wonder if, all along, this strategy hadn’t been a way of avoiding responsibility for the
spiritual
leadership of the organization.
    If it is true that new religious movements typically follow three stages in their years of formative growth— foundation, development, and completion—and that in each stage of growth a leader emerges whose temperament and abilities match the demands of the movement at that particular stage, then it is clear that Josei Toda was continuing to build a foundation for the Soka Gakkai, when it was actually the development and rapid expansion of the organization that was being called for.
    Josei Toda showed a dynamic entrepreneurial spirit as a businessman and, given the right economic climate, had the skills to succeed as a businessman. Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine anyone remarking years after Toda’s death that he had been unusually gifted in that field,