CategoryTo My Friends

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer is reported to have said: “I have no intention of dying so long as I can do things. And if I do things, there is no need to die. So, I will live a long, long time.” He in fact lived to the age of ninety. From The

No matter how much wealth or power one may possess, such things vanish like a fleeting dream in the face of the unrelenting reality of old age and death. What is crucial, then, is the philosophy one upholds and the life one has lived. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 1, revised

We of the Soka Gakkai, however, are able to exert ourselves fully today, confident that our movement for kosen-rufu will show wonderful development thirty or fifty years from now. Why? Because we have successors, our future division members. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 3, revised edition, p. 408

When we cannot say thank you, our personal growth has stopped. When we are growing, we can see how wonderful others are too. When we stop growing, all we see are other people’s faults. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 2, revised edition, p. 67

All of you who make your way together with the Soka Gakkai are naturally leading the most admirable and fulfilling of lives. The Daishonin assures Nichigen-nyo, the wife of Shijo Kingo, “You will grow younger, and your good fortune will accumulate” (WND-1, 464). From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 1, revised edition,

Life is an explosion and burning of the stored-up energy that had been in a resting state. Eventually that life brings its story to a close and it drifts back into death. It merges with the universe, is recharged by the power of the life of the universe as a whole, and awaits its next

Treasuring each day of our lives, aware how precious it is, is a way of living that accords with the true spirit of Buddhism. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 2, revised edition, p. 164

Our founding president, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, used to say, “Unless you have the courage to be an enemy of those who are evil, you cannot be a friend to the good.” Unless we have the courage to combat injustice, we contribute to it. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 3, revised edition, p.

The more you suffer, the more sadness you experience, and the more daimoku you chant, the more profound a life you will lead. All will serve to nourish your growth into leaders of the twenty-first century. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 2, revised edition, pp. 346-47

I believe that any revolution that is genuine—that truly serves the needs of the people—will also clearly manifest itself in the family. Such a family-based revolution is the most fundamental and lasting kind of revolution; it will create an enduring groundswell and become the tide of the times that no one can hold back. From

Valuing each individual—this is an unbroken tradition of the Soka Gakkai. We focus on one suffering person, wholeheartedly engage them in dialogue, and do everything we can to encourage them. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 3, revised edition, p. 95

In Europe, there is an old saying: “A joyful heart is good medicine.” The German philosopher Immanuel Kant also noted that laughter has a positive effect on our health, functioning like a physician. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 1, revised edition, p. 295

In life and in the struggle for kosen-rufu, all our sufferings and earthly desires are fuel for our enlightenment. The tougher the challenges we face, the greater the joy and benefit and the higher the life condition we will ultimately savor. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 3, revised edition, p. 199

As we do our best for the welfare of others, we break out of our narrow lesser self that is focused only on personal concerns and gradually expand and elevate our life state. The commitment to others’ well-being is what propels us to transform our life state and carry out our human revolution. From The

Soka Gakkai discussion meetings are oases where ordinary people gather; they reverberate with a spirit of fresh resolve and gratitude, where suffering is transformed into courage, and exhaustion into a satisfying sense of fulfillment. These small gatherings are microcosms of human harmony. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 3, revised edition, pp.

Discussion meetings are a great river, of which all our other activities are tributaries. Our activities to promote friendship and understanding, as well as the different kinds of meetings we hold, all merge into the great river of discussion meetings and flow toward the vast ocean of an age of the people. From The Wisdom

Mr. Toda sternly observed that the sense of happiness we feel in the final years of our life is what counts. It’s got nothing to do with how well things go in your youth. Similarly, no matter how many times you fail at something when you’re young, there’s plenty of time to recover and get

The power of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is unfathomable. The “light” of the daimoku we chant reaches every corner of the universe, illuminating even those agonizing in the hell of incessant suffering after death and enabling them to attain Buddhahood directly, says the Daishonin. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part 1, revised edition, p.

If we just carry out activities routinely, without that special focus, we won’t be able to raise capable people. We need to consciously chant and take action toward that goal. We cannot build a full-fledged golden tower of capable individuals by simply going through the motions. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, part

Optimists are strong. They see the positive in everything and decide to make it a reality for all to see. I hope you will live with optimism, remaining undefeated by whatever happens in life, transforming hardship into joy, and laughing off adversity like the famous comic actor Charlie Chaplin. From The Wisdom for Creating Happiness