Encountering the Dharma: Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai, and the Globalization of Buddhist Humanism
In a readable and engaging study, Hamilton College professor Seager (Buddhism in America) argues that Soka Gakkai, a recent form of Japanese Buddhism, is "best understood as a liberal or modernist movement" that intentionally tries to adapt Buddhism to contemporary society. Peace, culture and education sit at the heart of the movement; adherents understand these as three important ways to express the dharma in a world beset by inequality and injustice. In Seager's view, Daisaku Ikeda, the current president of Soka Gakkai International, has, more than any other leader, developed the movement's Nichiren Buddhist Humanism. Several chapters focus on the exportation of Soka Gakkai to the rest of the world, including the U.S. and Brazil. Soka Gakkai has aroused much controversy over the years—onlookers have worried, for example, that Ikeda is a power-mad potentate. Seager airs but ultimately dismisses these concerns. He capably infuses the book with a strong first-person element. Shortly before Seager began this book, his wife died, and his bereavement transformed a disinterested scholarly project into something of a personal quest. Still, the finished product is an academic study, not a memoir, and Seager integrates autobiography to good effect—it illumines but does not overshadow Soka Gakkai.(Mar.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.