by the Mideast Zone team
What is your zone motto? One With Ikeda Sensei!
Tell us briefly about your zone’s history.Mideast Zone was formed on July 21, 2007, at the same time Central Territory was established. Our zone encompasses six states, including most of Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky as well as the entirety of Ohio. We also support members in parts of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Four of the five Great Lakes of North America are located in Mideast Zone. Although we are located in an area vital to our planet’s ecosystem, the true strength of Mideast Zone lies in the diversity of our membership, our communities and our culture of innovation.
Do you have a Buddhist Center(s) in your zone? Yes, we have four centers: the Detroit Buddhist Center, the Cleveland Buddhist Center, the Columbus Buddhist Center in Ohio and the Louisville Buddhist Center in Kentucky.
Does your zone have a particular point of pride? There are two historic events with Ikeda Sensei that are points of pride for the members. The first event took place on Oct. 8, 1960, when pioneer members from Michigan and Kentucky drove long distances to welcome Sensei at Chicago’s Midway Airport on his first trip to the United States. The following day Chicago District and Kentucky District were formed. This event was recorded in The New Human Revolution.[1] It was also featured in the documentary film Traveler for Peace.[2]
The second event took place on June 11, 1996, during Sensei’s final visit to the United States. While flying from Denver to New York, the pilot of the plane in which Sensei was a passenger decided to make an unexpected landing at Indianapolis Airport because of bad weather. This would mark the first and only time Sensei was physically in Mideast Zone. To commemorate this event, Sensei sent a beautiful piece of paper with his stamp and the date of when he landed at Indianapolis Airport to a pioneer member living in Indianapolis. Sensei’s account of the visit appears in the July 2001 Living Buddhism. Every year we commemorate this day with a daimoku relay from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
These two historic events are a source of pride because they are part of Sensei’s first and last visits to the United States, a part of his monumental struggle to establish the eternal foundation for kosen-rufu in America and the rest of the world.
What is essential for you as a zone? One of our prime points with Sensei can be found in a message he wrote for the founding of our territory and zone on July 21, 2007.
A section from the message reads:
The Central Territory serves as a central axis of our movement for the worldwide propagation of Buddhism. Taking pride in this fact, I ask that you dash forward powerfully with a cheerful sense of optimism, overcoming every sort of sorrow and sadness with the shared determination that the Central Territory will be a haven of reformation and progress for kosen-rufu. (Aug. 10, 2007, World Tribune, p. 4)
Do you have something that is unique to your zone? Throughout the years Sensei and Mrs. Ikeda have received honorary citizenships, proclamations and other honors from various municipalities in our zone in recognition of their wide-ranging international achievements for peace, culture, education and human rights.
Some of those honors and recognitions include:
• June 29, 2003. The Township of West Chester, Ohio, formally dedicated the Daisaku Ikeda Tree Grove, issuing a proclamation designating the day as “Daisaku Ikeda Day.”
• May 21, 2005. The Board of Trustees of West Chester Township, Ohio, named a street in honor of second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda located in Voice of America Park adjacent to the Daisaku Ikeda Tree Grove.
• Nov. 18, 2020. The governor of Michigan proclaimed Nov. 18, 2020, as “Daisaku & Kaneko Ikeda World Peace Day” in the state.
Our local organizations have also participated in community activities such as:
• The Michigan Region organization participated in many peacebuilding activities with the late Rosa Parks and the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development.
• “SGI-USA Michigan” is engraved on the Granite Wall at the Underground Railroad Monument at the New Riverfront Promenade in Detroit, where it will remain as a lasting monument to Detroit’s 300th birthday.
What’s your vision toward 2030? Our vision is to create a vibrant and youthful organization of unshakable unity that is one with our mentor’s heart and spirit. We are determined to expand and help our families, friends and local communities prosper and become absolutely happy by using our practice to build bonds of trust. Our zone is ready to “serve as a central axis of our movement for the worldwide propagation of Buddhism” and to become “a haven of reformation and progress for kosen-rufu.”
Anything else you’d like to add? We currently have five SGI Buddhist campus clubs in our zone, and we are determined to continue expanding our reach by establishing more campus clubs at universities and colleges.
September 12, 2025 World Tribune, p. 10
References
- The New Human Revolution, vol. 1, revised edition, pp. 152–153, 167. ↩︎
- Traveler for Peace is a documentary film recounting Ikeda Sensei’s first overseas visit to the United States. It closely follows the events of the first volume of the novel The New Human Revolution. Check with your local zone for viewings. ↩︎
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