Michigan is on a winning streak. The University of Michigan clinched the 2023 college football championship, while the Detroit Lions won its first playoff game in 32 years. For local SGI-USA members, add to that excitement the purchase of the SGI-USA Detroit Buddhist Center, which will now serve as a permanent castle of kosen-rufu in the Motor City.
The Detroit Buddhist Center opened on Sept. 12, 2021, after a nearly 18-month hiatus from in-person SGI activities. Located in New Center, an area undergoing dynamic transformation, the SGI-USA facility is near a lively and historic business district and on a thoroughfare that connects it to the heart of downtown Detroit.
Since its opening, the center has inspired the members of Michigan Region to focus on using prayer first, one-to-one care and nurturing the youth. Through these consistent, grassroots efforts, they have seen an increase in the number of members coming out to activities, and what’s more, the youth are standing up.
Just as 2023 was coming to a close, the members received the exciting news that the center, which was originally under lease, had been purchased.
Their joy was evident on New Year’s Day. Despite the Midwestern winter season and the two-hour-plus drive for some, the members filled every available room for their first kosen-rufu gongyo meeting of the year. Nobuko Quait, the Michigan Region women’s leader, recalled how the “sound of joy” filled the center and permeated outward into the city.
Looking toward the great development of their community, Ms. Quait continued: “This is easy to say but hard to do. My determination is for each of us to encourage the person in front of us. I keep in mind Ikeda Sensei’s guidance for a 100 people to advance one step forward [versus one person taking 100 steps]. One by one, that’s how we can create a turning point.”
Brimming with pride for their community, members expressed their determination to advance kosen-rufu, in one neighborhood after another, as a way to respond to Ikeda Sensei from their “forever home.”
—Prepared by the World Tribune staff
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