The following message by Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada was translated from the September 2025 issue of the Soka Gakkai’s monthly study journal, Daibyakurenge.
Both happiness and peace begin in the home, radiating outward from there into our communities and beyond. Ultimately, both spring forth from our hearts.
It is the Soka Gakkai’s noble women who, with the unwavering spirit of mentor and disciple, are taking the lead—in their families, communities, workplaces and on the front lines of kosen-rufu.
The Soka International Women’s Center was inaugurated on Sept. 8, 2000. Sept. 8 is a date forever etched in history as a milestone in the Soka Gakkai’s peace movement,[1] so it is profoundly significant that this magnificent palace dedicated to women opened on that day.
The following day, Sept. 9, Ikeda Sensei and Mrs. Ikeda visited the center for the first time. He led everyone in gongyo, warmly encouraging them with the words “Let’s pray for the happiness of all. Let’s pray for victory.” In complete “consistency from beginning to end” with their mentor’s intent, the women’s division continues to energetically nurture an ever-expanding garden of happiness and triumph.
When Madame Laureana San Pedro Rosales, the founder of the distinguished Capitol University in the Philippines, visited the Soka International Women’s Center in 2004, she voiced her conviction that as more Soka women arise to spread Sensei’s philosophy of peace, the world will surely become a better place. These words carry the weight of one who endured the tragic Bataan Death March.[2] In truth, our women’s division members shine as radiant beacons of hope for humanity; they all serve as noble emissaries of peace.
Madame Rosales was deeply moved by a vibrant song welcoming her, performed by the Fuji Hope Boys and Girls Chorus, a choir made up of elementary school pupils. This September marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the elementary school division.
Nichiren Daishonin, the Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law, must surely be showering praise upon the sincere dedication of the parents, guardians and all members of the Soka family who, in the spirit of the Daishonin’s declaration that “there is no treasure greater than a child” (“The Treasure of a Filial Child,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 1045), lovingly care for, nurture and guide these treasures of the future. Sensei always cherished children as complete and unique individuals, approaching each with the conviction that their mission surpassed even his own. His care and sincerity left a profound imprint on the lives of everyone he encountered.
In a series of articles for a women’s magazine that he began writing in September 1965, the very month the elementary school division was founded, Sensei likened the family to an airplane, explaining that a healthy family is one that sustains its stability and balance in flight by harnessing the fierce headwinds of society, all the while advancing toward a common goal.
Through warm encouragement and the example of our own lives, we must pass on to the next generation the invincible spirit that will enable them to transform every adversity into the power to take wing and soar. This, in turn, will become the unshakable foundation that makes the citadel of Soka impregnable. The home and the local community form the primary arena for this endeavor.
Now, as we look toward the end of the year, let us embody and put into action the wisdom and spirit we have inherited from our mentor, as we build citadels of happiness in the places of our mission.
September 12, 2025 World Tribune, p. 8
References
- Sept. 8 is the date when second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda issued a declaration calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons in 1957. It is also the date when Ikeda Sensei called for the normalization of relations between Japan and China in 1968; the date he made his first visit to the Soviet Union in 1974; and the date he designated for the publication of the final installment of The New Human Revolution in the Seikyo Shimbun, the Soka Gakkai’s daily newspaper, in 2018. ↩︎
- Bataan Death March: During World War II, on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, the Japanese military perpetrated the atrocity of forcing prisoners of war and civilians to march under the scorching sun—a march in which as many as 20,000 are said to have perished. ↩︎
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