Tag65th Anniversary

In February 1987, Ikeda Sensei met in Los Angeles with the journalist and humanist Norman Cousins, who was dubbed “the conscience of America” for speaking out tirelessly for nuclear abolition. Sensei referred to their meetings (in 1987 and 1990) in a commencement message to Soka University of America, providing this insight from their dialogue: Life

‘To My Beloved Young American Friends—Youthful Bodhisattvas of the Earth’ In June 1981, Ikeda Sensei returned to New York for the first time in six years. It was there that he crystallized his hopes for the SGI-USA youth in the poem “To My Beloved Young American Friends—Youthful Bodhisattvas of the Earth.” In the following excerpts,

How our Buddhist movement has expanded over the years.

In the mid-1970s, as the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War dominated the news, Ikeda Sensei delivered his first overseas university lecture, “The Enduring Self,” on April 1, 1974, at UCLA. Speaking to 600 students, he introduced Buddhist principles largely unfamiliar to Western society and urged a shift from a civilization focused on the “lesser

What Ikeda Sensei taught us about peace during his 27 visits to America.

Ikeda Sensei’s 27 Visits to America

In the following excerpted preface to the Japanese edition of My Dear Friends in America, Ikeda Sensei discusses his hopes and expectations for peace to prevail in our country. The compilation of his U.S. addresses during the pivotal years of 1990 to 1996 serves as a compass for the accomplishment of kosen-rufu in our country.

Click on the link below to read the university speeches. The Enduring Self (UCLA, 1974) The Age of ‘Soft Power’ (Harvard, 1991) Mahayana Buddhism and Twenty-First-Century Civilization (Harvard, 1993) Radicalism Reconsidered (Claremont McKenna, January 1993) Peace and Human Security (East-West Center, January 1995)