40 Facts About Daisaku Ikeda

Daisaku Ikeda was a Japanese Buddhist leader, author, educator and nuclear disarmament advocate.

Daisaku Ikeda was the founder of a variety of educational and cultural institutions including Soka University, Soka University of America, Min-On Concert Association and Tokyo Fuji Art Museum.

Daisaku Ikeda has been described as controversial over the decades due to the ambivalent reputation of the Soka Gakkai and his relation to the political party Komeito, which he founded.

Daisaku Ikeda has been the subject of numerous articles, questions and accusations in Japanese and international media.

Ikeda Daisaku 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.

Daisaku Ikeda began practicing Nichiren Buddhism and joined the Soka Gakkai.

Daisaku Ikeda regarded Toda as his spiritual mentor and became a charter member of the group's youth division.

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.

In 1952, Daisaku Ikeda was one of the leaders in violently harassing Nichiren Shoshu priest Jimon Ogasawara.

In July 3,1957, Daisaku Ikeda was arrested on charges of violating the election law and spent two weeks in jail in Osaka.

Daisaku Ikeda was taken into custody in his capacity as Soka Gakkai's Youth Division Chief of Staff for overseeing activities that constituted violations of elections law.

Daisaku Ikeda was finally exonerated of all charges in 1962.

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

Daisaku Ikeda reformed many of the organization's practices, including the aggressive conversion style known as shakubuku, for which the group had been criticized in Japan and in other countries.

In 1979, Daisaku Ikeda resigned as president of the Soka Gakkai, in compliance with the demands of the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood.

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

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

Daisaku Ikeda has elicited a variety of assessments from scholars and journalists.

In 1984, Polly Toynbee, grand-daughter of British historian Arnold Toynbee, whose conversations with Daisaku Ikeda were published, was invited by Daisaku Ikeda to meet him in Japan.

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

Daisaku Ikeda interprets the Middle Way as a path between idealism and materialism.

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.

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 founded a number of institutions to promote education, 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.

Since 26 January 1983, Daisaku Ikeda had 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 has described his travels, meetings and dialogues as citizen diplomacy.

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

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.

Daisaku Ikeda lived in Tokyo with his wife, Kaneko Daisaku Ikeda, whom he married on 3 May 1952.

Hiromasa Daisaku Ikeda is the executive vice-president of the Soka Gakkai International and trustee of the Soka University in Japan.

Takahiro Daisaku Ikeda is director of the Soka School System, the educational corporation of the Soka Gakkai.

Daisaku Ikeda died on 15 November 2023, at the age of 95.

Daisaku Ikeda's most well-known publication is the novel The Human Revolution, which is an autobiography in 30 volumes, but with great freedoms in relation to the facts.

In 2003, Japan's largest English-language newspaper, The Japan Times, began carrying Daisaku Ikeda's contributed commentaries on global issues.