by DenMark Clarke
West Orange, N.J.
We’d just left the yacht for a dinner in town—Michelin-grade filet mignon to celebrate my 25 years on earth. My phone rang as we queued up for our reservation—my young men’s leader calling from back home in New Jersey. I let it ring once and then—click—sent him to voicemail. I’m good, I thought, which was, I felt, a pretty modest way to put it.
Earlier that year, an investment of mine took off, catapulting me into a lifestyle I’d only dreamed of. Suddenly, I was traveling the world—jetting first-class from New York to Los Angeles to Miami; from Jamaica to Turks and Caicos, getting chauffeured to celebrity dinners and courtside seats at NBA games and the U.S. Open. Suddenly, I’d made many new friends, and these multiplied every night that the drinks were on me.
In 2022, the investment I’d made stopped growing, and then rapidly shrunk. Worried, I reached out to the friends I figured would understand best—the ones I’d met at the top of the world. They’d be familiar, I was sure, with a setback like this—a temporary change of fortune. Instead, they were only vaguely sympathetic, then evasive and then … click, click, click—sent me straight to voicemail.
“DenMark,” my mother asked me over the phone one day, “are you getting your World Tribune?” I shot a glance at the heap of mail by my living room couch—overdraft fees, credit card bills, notices, spam and, yes, unopened World Tribunes. I hadn’t told her anything, but she’d sensed something wasn’t right. “Well?”
Yes, I said, I was. “And are you reading them?” she asked, in a way that meant she knew the answer and knew I knew she knew.
Born and raised in the garden of Soka, I’d hardly chanted since leaving for college seven years earlier. It had occurred to me that it might be a good time to start, in the same way that it had occurred to me to tell someone what was going on—someone I’d known longer than a year and hadn’t met at the club. The thing was, doing either required me to first acknowledge reality, the very thought of which paralyzed me with fear.
As things got bad and then worse, I stopped sleeping, staying later and later at work, drafting pitches for venture capital, working my stocks. What I feared most was abandonment. My girlfriend and I were going on eight years and had begun talking about buying a home—impossible for us now. At 2 or 3 a.m., I’d leave work and turn into the bakery just down the block, where I’d stuff my face with half a dozen cupcakes and a pizza for the fleeting relief it gave. Then I’d go home and pretend, absurdly, that everything was under control.
In early 2024, I gambled the last of my savings on an investment I was promised would win. After investing the money, I sat bolt upright on the couch, wired from lack of sleep, my mind a single, looping, one-track thought: I’ve got to get it back.That spring, that stock went belly-up, and there was no hiding the truth from anyone. That September, after months of fighting, my girlfriend and I went our separate ways.
In the apartment that I now had to myself, I brought out my small, portable Gohonzon, the one I’d received before leaving for college, and began to chant, sitting with the deeply uncomfortable facts. In some ways, it felt awful, but in others, I felt more connected to myself than I had in years.
Many were harsh when they found out, asking me how I could have been so reckless, and hadn’t they warned me and… and all I could manage was, “But … I can’t change that. I’m here now.”
From the pile of discarded papers by the couch, I fished out my World Tribunes and read them, one by one, page by page. Ikeda Sensei’s words never failed to redirect my gaze—away from the rearview and toward the present and future that were within my power to shape.
Soon after the breakup, I went to the Teaneck Buddhist Center on a whim, for the first time in years. There, I ran into a family friend whose many calls I’d sent to voicemail. He’d known me since I was a boy, had driven me to many activities when my parents had been unable, and was, I could tell, genuinely happy to see me.
Over lunch, I opened up. He did not mention his many unanswered calls. There was just presence—listening without judgement. When it came to my relationship, he pointed me to Sensei’s Discussions on Youth, to a chapter titled “What is Love?” It struck home. Sensei says:
If you are neglecting the things you should be doing, forgetting your purpose in life because of your relationship, then you’re on the wrong path. … If anything, you may only find yourself with even more problems along with a great deal of pain and sadness. However much you may try, you can never run away from yourself. If you remain weak, suffering will only follow you wherever you go. … Happiness is not something that someone else, like a lover, for instance, can give to you. We have to achieve it for ourselves. And the only way to do so is by developing our character and capacity as human beings—by fully maximizing our potential. If we sacrifice our growth and talent for love, we absolutely will not find happiness.” (pp. 60–64)
Finding it felt good—really good, in fact—to open up to friends in faith, I stayed open. I met the young men’s leader at my discussion meeting and connected right away, finding in him a good friend. Over time, that friendship sparked something in me, a desire to become a person who could give to others in a meaningful way. In October 2024, I received and enshrined a full-sized Gohonzon and the following month accepted young men’s leadership for West Orange District here in New Jersey. It’s been such a privilege to grow alongside the young men of my district—to chant, talk and study with them. It has convinced me that the most meaningful thing a person can give is presence, respect and conviction. We’ve begun supporting behind the scenes in the Soka Group together, an activity that has polished my life and brought me so much joy. This training has shone through at work, where I’ve gained trust and leadership. And it is reflected in my finances, which have steadied out and begun to grow. All these benefits are reflections of an inner change—a deep appreciation for my life itself and for all those who never gave up on me, certain that someday, somehow, I’d awaken to my mission.
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