In the following excerpted preface to the Japanese edition of My Dear Friends in America, Ikeda Sensei discusses his hopes and expectations for peace to prevail in our country.[1] The compilation of his U.S. addresses during the pivotal years of 1990 to 1996 serves as a compass for the accomplishment of kosen-rufu in our country.
America, vast land of freedom and equality!
America, proud nation of solidarity among the world’s people!
America, utopia of hope and victory I long to see!
Benjamin Franklin, a member of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, the 300th anniversary of whose birth is celebrated this year,[2] loftily declared that one’s birth is of no matter in “America, where people do not inquire concerning a Stranger, What is he? but What can he do? ”[3]
Surely, America has generously embraced a multiplicity of cultures and a diverse array of people who, sharing a common humanity, have spurred one another to greater challenges while fostering among themselves a broad-minded and magnanimous spirit. “How best can I live as a human being?” “How can I best contribute to society?” Such are the unclouded, straightforward and sensible standards by which Americans gauge a valuable way of life.
This open, free and egalitarian society, on the other hand, can also be a world of intense competition and serious win-or-lose struggles.
A distinguished young physician from Japan who had moved to the United States observed, “In America, no matter how skillful your words, you can never win the trust of others without showing clear results.”
Our fellow SGI members have sunk roots deep into their local communities throughout the great land of America. As good citizens, they have developed substantial bonds of trust and friendship on a broad scale. The tenacious, dedicated and persevering efforts they have made in doing so are beyond words to describe.
To the precious pioneers of the Mystic Law, “mothers of kosen-rufu,” who emigrated from Japan after World War II and opened a path in this land where no path had existed before; to all of you, my treasured comrades who have shouldered the advance of kosen-rufu in America, I express from the bottom of my heart my highest praise and admiration. My wish is to honor you eternally.
From 1990 through 1996, I visited America on six occasions, almost once each year. I leaped in among my circle of friends with the intent of packing a year or even 10 years’ worth of effort into each day. In addition, I initiated dialogues with a number of scholars and leaders of society and delivered lectures at several universities.
Determined to lay the foundation for the next thousand years of the SGI organization in America—an America reborn—I moved, conversed, spoke out and strove with my beloved fellow members of the SGI-USA.
America is vast. It is a majestic land. For that reason, American kosen-rufu is something you must move forward steadily, firmly and sincerely, one step at a time, while gazing into the distant future, hundreds or even thousands of years ahead.
It is with this in mind that I have made every possible effort to prepare the way. Nichiren Daishonin writes, “And now when Nichiren chants Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, he is enabling all living beings to attain Buddhahood in the ten thousand years of the Latter Day of the Law” (The Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings, p. 41).
If we consider that ten-thousand-year journey, it is clear that we are still in the very groundbreaking stage. The time has come to pour all our heart and soul into fostering one person at a time, thereby steadily and carefully planting the seeds for future development. At times, the seeds we have taken such great pains to plant may not sprout. Should that happen, then we must plant more seeds. Or there may be times when, upon sprouting, those young plants become bent or twisted. If so, then we had better try again to raise them straight.
If you tirelessly continue to challenge yourselves in this way, then without doubt a great “forest” of kosen-rufu will unfold before you. This is the formula of the Mystic Law. In a well-known passage from “The True Aspect of All Phenomena,” Nichiren declares: “At first only Nichiren chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, but then two, three and a hundred followed, chanting and teaching others. Propagation will unfold this way in the future as well. Does this not signify ‘emerging from the earth’?” (The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 385).
Whatever challenges you may face, you who live by the philosophy of the Mystic Law must always look toward the future, ablaze with hope, advancing forward, ever forward. These accord with the expression not to advance is to retreat.
[My Dear Friends in America] contains the text of speeches I gave in the United States, poems I presented to my friends in America and lectures I delivered at American universities between 1990 and 1996. I would like to think of it as an enduring symphony of the soul, an eternal score of shared struggle on the level of life, that I have composed together with my precious comrades in faith. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than if this book could become a compass for the accomplishment of kosen-rufu in America as a leading example for the rest of the world, a guide that inspires courage and hope in our excellent friends who will be emerging in steady succession from here on.
Rosa Parks, the mother of the American Civil Rights Movement, shared the following with my wife and me while visiting the Soka University campus in Calabasas: “We should build a place where people can live at ease, a place in which prosperity and equality exist in harmony.”
And she said that she found among our American comrades of Soka the hope that can serve as a driving force to achieve this.[4]
May true peace prevail and glory long endure in America, land that is so dear to me!
And may boundless happiness, joy and victory belong to all my honored fellow members here!
October 2, 2025 World Tribune, pp. 2–3
References
- My Dear Friends in America, fourth edition, pp. xiii–xvi. ↩︎
- The 300th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s birth was celebrated on Jan. 17, 2006. ↩︎
- The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 41, Sept. 16, 1783, through February 29, 1784, ed. Ellen R. Cohn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 597–608. ↩︎
- Translated from Japanese. ↩︎
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