Message from SGI Honorary Women’s Leader Kaneko Ikeda to the

In closing, I wish to humbly convey that applause of the three founding presidents to all the admirable members of the women’s and young women’s divisions around the world.

Kaneko Ikeda

SGI Honorary Women’s Leader February 2015

Those of us who embrace the Mystic Law taught by the Daishonin possess the wisdom, courage and compassion to transform the universal sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death into the noble virtues of eternity, happiness, true self and purity.

As fellow members who share deep karmic bonds and a great vow for kosen-rufu, let’s together create “memories of our present life in this human world” (see WND-1, 64) each precious day as we treasure every individual. And for the sake of the future of humanity, let us open ever more widely the great path of peace and joy!

As I was composing this message, my husband came up to me and, when I shared with him your wonderful efforts, he applauded loud and long, saying, “Together with first Soka Gakkai President Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and second President Josei Toda, I applaud our noble Soka women everywhere, and I am sincerely praying for their health and good fortune.”

Members around the world are now studying the selected excerpts of my husband’s guidance series, “The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace.” I would like to share a few passages that touch upon the Buddhist view of life and death:

Life is eternal. Those who dedicate their lives to the Mystic Law are Buddhas in both life and death. Therefore, they will without fail move ahead serenely and confidently in a boundless state of being in which both life and death are filled with joy. (March 2015 Living Buddhism, p. 52)

Lives connected by the Mystic Law are always together, transcending the boundaries of life and death, encouraging, protecting and guiding one another as they advance on a course of absolute happiness and victory. (p. 53)

Message from SGI Honorary Women’s Leader Kaneko Ikeda to the Women’s and Young Women’s Divisions

Just as the sun rises every day, illuminating and warming everything, each of you, my dear friends of the women’s and young women’s divisions, are making the sun of the Mystic Law shine unceasingly, brightening and bringing warmth to your families, communities and the future. I express my heartfelt appreciation for your most noble and steadfast efforts.

My husband is overjoyed to see how you, our women and young women around the world, are working together and advancing harmoniously and cheerfully. He composed a poem expressing his delight:

The golden voices of mothers and daughters open the way to happiness. Never wavering in any storm, their prayers bring unending victory.

For the pure-hearted young women, nothing is more reassuring and comforting than the warm encouragement of the women, who have overcome the challenges of karma through their Buddhist practice.

At the beginning of this year, she unfortunately came down with the flu and was unable to attend the New Year’s gongyo meeting herself. So she got up the courage to ask her husband to take their children in her place. He gladly agreed, and later told her that he was astonished and moved to see how well their small children did gongyo. She shared with me that she has resolved to steadfastly continue chanting to create a harmonious family through faith and through carrying out her own human revolution.

I immediately sent her a message praising the great strides she had made. I urged her always to remember her present joy and determination, and to lead a happy life.

The Daishonin promises us with absolute certainty that “Winter always turns to spring” (“Winter Always Turns to Spring,” WND-1, 536).

Even if we should weather a long, harsh winter of adversity, spring will definitely arrive in our hearts. The important thing is to encourage one another as fellow members, taking one courageous step forward, followed by another persevering step. Those efforts will create a path filled with flowers of happiness on which our friends in the future can walk with courage and joy.

Similarly, for the women, working closely with the exuberant young women who possess vast potential, is a source of lifelong youthfulness.

Those who have recently graduated from the young women’s division and moved on to the women’s division are also building friendships in their local communities and in society, among members and nonmembers alike, while striving amid the reality of their daily lives.

The other day, I received good news from a Japanese women’s division member, with whom I have corresponded from the time she was a Soka Women’s College student. She married someone who was brought up in a different culture, and who was not a Soka Gakkai member. In addition, her husband’s family was against her Buddhist practice. She wrote of the difficulties she faced in her letters to me, and I encouraged her to advance step by step, without being impatient.

Addressing the lay nun Sennichi, one of his disciples on the remote island of Sado, Nichiren Daishonin writes: “Though we live in the impure land, our hearts reside in the pure land of Eagle Peak. Merely seeing each other’s face would in itself be insignificant. It is the heart that is important” (“The Drum at the Gate of Thunder,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 949).

As fellow members carrying on the Daishonin’s spirit and living our vow for kosen-rufu, our hearts are always connected, wherever we may be.

Nichiren Daishonin writes: “Single-mindedly chant Nam-myoho-renge- kyo and urge others to do the same; that will remain as the only memory of your present life in this human world” (“Questions and Answers about Embracing the Lotus Sutra,” WND-1, 64).

Chanting daimoku ourselves while teaching others to do the same and engaging in SGI activities every day for the sake of kosen-rufu requires steady perseverance. It may not be exciting or glamorous. But over time, such efforts will make one’s life shine with great richness and inspire others with the light of hope.

In 1975, at the meeting where the SGI was founded, my husband called out to the participants: “I hope that you will dedicate your noble lives to sowing the seeds of peace of the Mystic Law throughout the entire world. I shall do the same.”

I am reminded of how my husband, embodying those words, continued to tirelessly sow the seeds of encouragement in the heart of each member in Guam during that visit.

I listened with deep respect and appreciation to recent updates from the pioneer members of that period, who wrote brilliant pages of history together with my husband. They have brought amazing flowers of victory to full bloom in their lives and continue to sow the seeds of peace and hope in the same spirit as my husband.

How inspiring it is that many women, including Judith Won Pat, Speaker of the Guam Legislature, are playing an active and vibrant role as leaders in society!

Another leader, who made the long trip from Brazil to Guam as a young women’s representative 40 years ago, attended a kosen-rufu gongyo meeting at the Hall of the Great Vow for Kosen-rufu last month. She came all the way to Japan on behalf of her family and fellow members in her local area, who have shown actual proof of gaining great benefit in faith.

One of the founding aims of the SGI is to create “heart-to-heart bonds between people awakened to the sanctity of life” for the sake of peace. I, too, have renewed my determination to further deepen and expand the network of those who share this commitment, based on the life-nurturing power of women.

At the Soka Gakkai Headquarters last November, in the month of the Soka Gakkai’s founding, I was able to greet, along with my husband, SGI leaders from various countries and territories visiting Japan for a training course.

I heard that one of those leaders shared that she felt as if not only those present on that occasion but all the members back home were also meeting with my husband and me.

Though he may not be able to meet everyone in person, my husband receives reports on members’ activities from throughout Japan and around the world, and he is always thinking about and praying for members everywhere as he leads our movement.

This year marks the 55th anniversary of my husband’s first journey for worldwide kosen-rufu and the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the SGI.

Festive events were held in Hawaii and Guam in January to commemorate those two milestones at their starting points.

We are both deeply grateful to everyone who sent warm congratulatory messages, the local members who helped make these events a success and all the members of the SGI-USA.

A great example of this truth was the late SGI-India Women’s Leader Chabi Prasad.

Mrs. Prasad was proud of the SGI-India tradition of transcending all differences and valuing each individual. While striving her hardest as a dentist running her own clinic and as a wonderful wife and mother, she traveled throughout the vast land of India, wholeheartedly encouraging one person after another. The growth of youthful successors was her greatest joy. I will never forget her smiling face as she declared: “The Buddhism of the sun has begun to rise in India!”

Sadly, Mrs. Prasad passed away last year due to illness.

However, her husband, children and fellow members in India are continuing to advance, despite their grief. I deeply admire their efforts to resolutely carry on her vow for kosen-rufu.

Mrs. Prasad’s noble life will shine eternally in my heart and that of my husband.

He continues to send personal messages to members, offering encouragement. He assures them that they are always in his heart and that they can change poison into medicine. And he urges them to join him in living out truly wonderful lives.

Being at his side, I really feel that the hearts of the members of our global Soka family are one.