In the April 11, 2025, World Tribune, the national youth team introduced a motto, born from the question what the next steps should be after gathering more than 3,000 youth guests at our March district discussion meetings. It is: Creating a District With Many Youth Is Up to Me. In this issue we will explore how sharing our personal faith experiences plays a major role in sharing Buddhism with youth, rooted in friendship.
In Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari describes a pivotal leap in human evolution—regarded as the Cognitive Revolution (think, 30,000 to 70,000 years back)—in which Homo sapiens developed the capacity for complex language and imagination.
What, then, distinguished H. sapiens from other species, allowing them to build increasing complex societies that laid the groundwork for religion, trade, empires and culture? According to Harari, an important aspect was their newfound ability to create and tell stories.
Storytelling gave human beings the ability not only to adapt to their environment but also shape it, making it the engine of human progress.
In our practice of Buddhism, we read in Nichiren Daishonin’s writings amazing tales from ages past that, more than mere relics, are roadmaps to the present. For instance, he writes of Shakyamuni’s incarnations as King Shibi, who gave his flesh to a hawk to save a dove; and the boy Snow Mountains, who jumped into the mouth of a flesh-eating demon to learn half a Buddhist verse.
Ikeda Sensei elaborates:
These might seem like mere fairy tales of old. But we are in fact composing many such “bodhisattva tales” through our SGI activities, which constitute bodhisattva practice for the modern age.[1]
Nichiren Daishonin himself praised the real-life struggles of his followers as greater than any legend. Writing to the Ikegami brothers, who persevered in faith despite deep opposition from their father, he declared: “Could there ever be a more wonderful story than your own?”[2]
Indeed, we are writing a living history. The efforts we make—especially in reaching out to youth with courage and sincerity—will become the stories that future generations look to for hope. Through shakubuku rooted in friendship, we enact the drama of the Lotus Sutra in real time.
In classical cinema, the protagonist drives the story. Within the first few scenes, the hero faces a crisis that threatens to upend their world—and it is their resolve in the face of that difficulty that sets the story in motion. They do not wait for more favorable circumstances. They decide. They act.
In much the same way, Nichiren Buddhism teaches that we, too, are the protagonists—actors on the grand stage of kosen-rufu. As Bodhisattvas of the Earth, we have chosen to be reborn in this time, in this place, to lead others to happiness.
Consider second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda, who emerged from wartime imprisonment in 1945 to find a devastated Japan. Despite his profound loss and failing health, he vowed to spread the Daishonin’s teachings as the direct path to profound personal and social transformation. With his most trusted disciple, Daisaku Ikeda, he rebuilt the Soka Gakkai into a vibrant movement of 750,000 households by the time of his passing in 1958. Neither waited for the world to change—they changed the world.
That is the essence of the hero: someone who does not wait for ideal circumstances but declares their vow amid the deepest difficulties and takes action with their eyes fixed on the distant horizon.
In our own practice of Nichiren Buddhism, we may hesitate to share our faith with others because of our personal struggles. But the Daishonin’s writings are filled with encouragement for those in the midst of intense hardship. It is not our perfection, but our conviction, that moves people. Our struggles, transformed into victories through the power of our own lives, become undeniable proof of the power of Buddhist practice.
Sensei reminds us:
You are the playwright of your own victory. You are also the play’s hero. Shakespeare wrote: “All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players.”[3]
Buddhism teaches us that the individual writes and performs the script for their own life. Neither chance nor a divine being writes the script for us. We write it, and we are the actors who perform it. This is an extremely positive philosophy, inherent in the teaching of three thousand realms in a single moment of life.
You are the author and the hero. To perform your play well, it is important to pound the script into your head so thoroughly that you can see it vividly before your eyes.
You may need to rehearse in your mind. Sometimes it helps to write down your goals (for example, to pass an examination or to improve at your job), copying them over and over until they are burned into your heart.[4]
Our script, then, is ours to shape. When introducing young people to Buddhism, it is not enough to recite theory. We must share our own journey—honestly—so they may see with their own eyes the power of the Gohonzon in action. In this way, we can embody the spirit that “Creating a District With Many Youth Is Up to Me!”
It’s time to tell your story.
—Prepared by the World Tribune staff
June 13, 2025 World Tribune, pp. 6–7
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