| Home | About Us | Publications | Projects and Conferences | Int'l Advisory Network | Forum | Links |
Menu:
Latest news:
April 1, 2008:A page devoted to The International Conference on "The Challenge of Abolishing Nuclear Weapons" added
Security and Cooperation conference in Northeast Asia added to Conferences section
New book entries added to the Publications section
Josei Toda
Second Soka Gakkai president Josei Toda was born in 1900. Like his mentor, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, he was a passionate and innovative educator. Disillusioned with a Japanese educational system that advanced the interests of the state and suppressed independent thought, Mr. Toda took immediate interest in Mr. Makiguchi's pedagogical theories when they met in 1920. Mr. Toda was the first to apply those theories when he began managing a private school in Tokyo.
Mr. Toda began practicing Nichiren Buddhism in 1928. Two years later, together with Mr. Makiguchi, he founded Soka Kyoiku Gakkai (the Value Creation and Education Society). With the onset of World War II, however, because of their unyielding commitment to human rights and the pacifist principles of their faith, they met with harassment and persecution. Both were arrested and imprisoned by the militarist government in 1943 on charges of "blasphemy" and "violating the Maintenance of Public Order Act"; the Society, in effect, ceased to exist. Makiguchi died in prison, never having compromised his beliefs.
Mr. Toda, too, would not compromise. He was released just weeks before Japan's surrender in 1945. While imprisoned, Mr. Toda, through faith and study of Nichiren Buddhism, had come to a profound understanding that Buddhahood, or enlightenment, is inherent in life itself and all people can manifest it.
This realization, coupled with his deep anger toward the military government's wanton exercise of power, became the motivation for his efforts to propagate Nichiren Buddhism for the remainder of his life. He renamed the pre-war society Soka Gakkai (the Value Creation Society), thus expressing his conviction that its mission should not be confined to educators and the field of education but should extend to the whole of society.
In 1957, Mr. Toda issued a declaration condemning the use of nuclear weapons as criminal under any circumstances, and called on the young people of the world to work for their abolition. The declaration became the cornerstone of Soka Gakkai's peace activities. Membership in the Society grew rapidly under Mr. Toda's leadership, to more than 750,000 households by the time of his death in 1958.