44 Facts About Daisaku Ikeda

Daisaku Ikeda is a Japanese Buddhist philosopher, educator, author, and nuclear disarmament advocate.

Daisaku Ikeda served as the third president and then honorary president of the Soka Gakkai, the largest of Japan's new religious movements.

Daisaku Ikeda was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1928, to a family of seaweed farmers.

Daisaku Ikeda survived the devastation of World War II as a teenager, which he said left an indelible mark on his life and fueled his quest to solve the fundamental causes of human conflict.

At age 19, Daisaku Ikeda began practicing Nichiren Buddhism and joined a youth group of the Soka Gakkai, which led to his lifelong work developing the global peace movement of SGI and founding dozens of institutions dedicated to fostering peace, culture and education.

Daisaku Ikeda's accomplishments are honored internationally; in Japan he has been described as a "controversial figure" over several decades through the 1990s in relation to the political party Komeito, which he founded, and has been the subject of libelous accusations in Japanese media.

Daisaku Ikeda was born in Ota, Tokyo, Japan, on 2 January 1928.

Daisaku Ikeda had four older brothers, two younger brothers, and a younger sister.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Daisaku Ikeda family had successfully farmed nori, edible seaweed, in Tokyo Bay.

The devastation of the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake left the family's enterprise in ruins; by the time Daisaku Ikeda was born, his family was financially struggling.

In May 1945, Daisaku Ikeda's home was destroyed by fire during an Allied air raid, and his family was forced to move to the Omori area of Tokyo.

Shortly after the end of World War II, in January 1946, Daisaku Ikeda gained employment with the Shobundo Printing Company in Tokyo.

In March 1948, Daisaku Ikeda graduated from Toyo Trade School and the following month entered the night school extension of Taisei Gakuin where he majored in political science.

In 1953, at the age of 25, Daisaku Ikeda was appointed as one of the Soka Gakkai's youth leaders.

Daisaku Ikeda was later arrested and detained in jail for two weeks, charged with allegedly overseeing these activities.

Daisaku Ikeda's arrest came at a time when Soka Gakkai Buddhist candidates were achieving success at both national and local levels.

Later that year, Daisaku Ikeda began to travel overseas to build connections between Soka Gakkai members living abroad and expand the movement globally.

In 1979, Daisaku Ikeda resigned as president of the Soka Gakkai, accepting responsibility for the organization's purported deviation from Nichiren Shoshu priesthood doctrine and the accompanying conflict.

Daisaku Ikeda continues to be revered as the Soka Gakkai's spiritual leader, according to Asian studies associate professor Daniel Metraux in 1999.

Daisaku Ikeda took a leading role in the global organization's development and became the founding president of the SGI.

In October 1982, Daisaku Ikeda had to appear in court concerning three cases.

Daisaku Ikeda is credited with having fostered among SGI members an ethos of social responsibility and a strong spirit of global citizenship.

Bilingual-bicultural education specialist Jason Goulah's research into transformative world language learning characterizes Daisaku Ikeda's Buddhist-inspired refinement of Makiguchi's Soka education philosophy as an approach engendering a "world view of dialogic resistance" that responds to the limitations of a neoliberal world view of education.

In 1970, after Daisaku Ikeda announced the severing of official ties between the Soka Gakkai and Komeito, the use of "politically charged terms such as obutsu myogo" was eliminated.

Since the 1970s, an understanding of the term kosen-rufu took into account religious tolerance, which was made explicit in 1995 in the SGI Charter and, in the 2000s, interpreted by Daisaku Ikeda to mean the movement based on the philosophy and teachings of Nichiren that conveys the principles of individual happiness and peace as accessible to all.

Daisaku Ikeda refers in several writings to the Nine Consciousness as an important conception for self-transformation, identifying the ninth one, "amala-vijnana", with the Buddha-nature.

Daisaku Ikeda has founded a number of institutions to promote education in all its forms, cultural exchange and the exchange of ideas on peacebuilding through dialogue.

From 1990, Daisaku Ikeda partnered with Rabbi Abraham Cooper and the Simon Wiesenthal Center to address anti-Semitic stereotypes in Japan.

Daisaku Ikeda was actually our first visitor to the Museum of Tolerance.

Daisaku Ikeda was an original proponent of the Earth Charter Initiative, co-founded by Mikhail Gorbachev, and Daisaku Ikeda has included details of the Charter in many of his annual peace proposals since 1997.

Since 26 January 1983, Daisaku Ikeda has submitted annual peace proposals to the United Nations, addressing such areas as building a culture of peace, gender equality in education, empowerment of women, youth empowerment and activism for peace, UN reform and universal human rights with a view on global civilization.

Daisaku Ikeda's work has been described by academics as citizen diplomacy for his contributions to diplomatic as well as intercultural ties between Japan and other countries, and more broadly between peoples of the world.

Between 1971 and 1974, Ikeda conducted multiple dialogues with Arnold J Toynbee in London and Tokyo.

In 1974, Daisaku Ikeda conducted a dialogue with French novelist and Minister of Cultural Affairs Andre Malraux.

In September 1974, Daisaku Ikeda visited the Soviet Union and met with Premier Alexei Kosygin.

Daisaku Ikeda presented Waldheim with a petition containing the signatures of 10,000,000 people calling for total nuclear abolition.

Daisaku Ikeda made several visits to China and met with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1974, though Sino-Japanese tensions remained over the brutalities of war waged by the Japanese militarists.

In 2000, the city of Londrina, Brazil honored Daisaku Ikeda by naming a 300-acre nature reserve in his name.

In November 2010, citing his peacebuilding efforts and promotion of cultural exchange and humanist education, the University of Massachusetts Boston bestowed an honorary doctorate upon Daisaku Ikeda, marking the 300th such title conferred by higher learning institutions in more than 50 countries, which Daisaku Ikeda accepted, he said, on behalf of SGI members and in recognition of their contributions to peace, culture and education.

Daisaku Ikeda received his first honorary doctorate in 1975 from Moscow State University and, as of August 2020, some 395 such academic honors.

Daisaku Ikeda is a prolific writer, peace activist, and interpreter of Nichiren Buddhism.

However, Toynbee being "paid well" for the interviews with Daisaku Ikeda raised criticism, and questioning arose about an attempt to use Toynbee's reputation.

My own feeling for Mr Daisaku Ikeda is one of great respect and sympathy.

In 2003, Japan's largest English-language newspaper, The Japan Times, began carrying Daisaku Ikeda's contributed commentaries on global issues including peacebuilding, nuclear disarmament, and compassion.