Homework for the Overactive Brain

Today's Quote--"Happy birthday to me, Happy birthday to me..."

Saturday, May 22, 2004

 

Actually, I'm all done. Just hanging out at school until Ed gets off work and takes me to his house...leave early tomorrow morning. To the land of no emails! AHHHH! No internet or blogs either...but I'll see what I can cook up with the library. Kinda glad it's over, but feeling a little nervous all the same. This is the last time I'll do storage...can check out and keep my key...in exactly 1 year I will be graduating...no kidding. May 22, 2005. Now that's crazy! I'm going to miss some of the somphomores...anD and K. But it's all okay, I guess. Home soon! Ahh, I've missed it a lot. Now if only Ed could get on that plane with me tomorrow...well, he'll be up there soon enough. And he will get that job.

Anyway, the following is a reply email I sent to my YWD group leader down here. I thought it might interest some of you who have had issues with the SGI in SoCal, or not. But yes, this is just my opinion...blah, blah, blah.

So you heard I don't like the organization down here...well, it's interesting, because I've tried really hard not to complain too much about it. I think a major part of my problem is that I grew up in a very different kind of organization in a very different place. A lot of what I dislike is merely homesickness, I think. I miss specific people who I've grown up with as SGI leaders and not having them around is difficult. The organization in Spokane is a little bit tighter and more down to earth (well...sometimes!) than what I feel down here. It is very easy to be a member in Southern California. There are so many members down here...someone is always going to be around to take care of you, (make sure you do gongyo, get your world tribune, get to meetings), and to me, all that coddling is more sufficating than helpful.

In Spokane, there are only about 300 members in a city of 400,000. I know everyone and everyone knows me. They are my family. Some of them even have "Aunt", "Uncle", and "Grandma" for names in my life. Here? I feel like I'm in a whirlwind of names and people. My district leaders are never the same and I don't really get to know anyone in my district, let alone my chapter! In Spokane, I feel very close to my district members and leaders. I feel our karmic bonds. When I go to a meeting, I know who will be there and when i get there, I know enough of what's been going on in their lives that I can talk with them in meaningful ways about my experiences and theirs and share any good guidance I've heard that will help them or help me. Here? I'm lucky if I know someone's name and whether or not they're married. Sure, in our district meetings someone may give an experience and then I know a little bit more about them, but at home, I don't need people to give experiences in order to know their struggles. Our district meetings are ususally just open dialogues on a specific study subject, not the longer affairs that we do down here with skits and performances and things of that nature. Sometimes we do, but usually we have a small little group, only 5-10 people, who can feel comfy just discussing the study material and our lives. Like I said, though, it's the nature of the organization where I come from...

We're also not real big on major meetings. Our biggest is usually kosen rufu gongyo (and no, I will never call it World Peace Prayer meeting because it sounds like a load of bull shit to me and it leaves out some of the most important information...the meaning of kosen rufu. You can't translate that directly...World Peace leaves out too much.) Down here, it's major meeting after major meeting...YWD, performances, culture festivals. It's too much hooplah and not enough buddhism for me. I know I have an idealized version of what my SGI is like in Washington, but it comes from experience. To me, it seems that the focus of the SGI down here is all shakabuku and PR. While they are important, I see protecting current members and helping them expand in their practice as the most important role of the organization.

I also don't like the SGI's relationship to SUA down here. SGI is the largest contributor to SUA, yes, but that doesn't mean it should have free reign...and it doesn't mean that SUA is SGI's school. I feel like there is too much assumption that all SUA students are SGI, that all SUA students are brilliant future leaders of the SGI, and that all SUA students are already global citizens, by virtue of being accepted to the school. This is a load of crap. Our minority students have enough to deal with that when SGI people come on the scene and make those assumptions, it really damages our chances of keeping non-SGI students around. Yes, I want to shakabuku them too, but that is not something that a huge culture festival will do. One on one dialogue is the only way, and only if that dialogue is free, open, and mutual will anything positive happen. I see the eyes of the WD and MD light up when they hear I'm an SUA student...I can see them turning over the possibilities. And yes, this too is happening at home. Doesn't mean I like it there, either, though.

Too many of our students are taking leadership positions in the SGI. Yes, everyone agrees to do it of their own free will. Yes, everyone works hard at it and is developing as a result of their responsibility. But that doesn't mean I think it's okay. When our president, Danny H., was in grad school (in Washington, near my home...he and my family are actually rather close), he was offered many leadership positions as well, because of his involvement in Soka high school and SUJ. President Ikeda wrote to him and told him not to take them. His studies were more important, he wrote, because Danny had a important mission in the US. And here he is at SUA. Danny only took a minor vice role (since the area was severly lacking in youth). Yes, our area has many many youth and they need leaders to take care of all of them...and yes, sometimes it is convient to have your YWD leader living just downstairs from you, but the reality is that we are all here to study. To me, my studies are more important than the SGI. That's why I miss so many meetings. (partly...;) ). I see Ken S. running around and I say to myself...he needs to do one or the other, either be an excellent high up SGI leader, or Teach! I feel that the responsibilities our fellow students are taking on are too much. We are NOT global citizens, yet, and that's why we're here, to learn about our world and understand that global citizenship isn't an end, isn't a certificate we can just hand out, isn't the result of 4 years of soka education, it's a way of looking at the world and of continuous growth. Yes, we are learning a lot here, and yes the founder has many high goals for us. But we're not there yet. We need time. Maybe leadership roles in the SGI are important for some people's growth...sure. But not area leaders...probably not even chapter leaders.

This of course, is a problem everywhere. As for Southern California, though, they seem to have it the worse, since SUA is in their backyard. There is a spirit of pioneering that has been lost in the vast numbers of SGI down here. At the moment, I see it disappearing at home, too. When I go to montana, where there are only a small number of members, I feel it again. The need to study. The need to shakabuku, starting with those closest to us. The struggle just to have a district, let alone a district meeting. The knowledge that no one is going to call you up and tell you to chant today, tell you to order your world tribune, tell you to go to that meeting, that you have to make that effort yourself. To me, I see that as the fountain of growth, so much stronger than leadership positions. When you begin your faith in that environment, you have a never ending wellspring of courage and hope. When times get tough, when you're all alone, you can still pull yourself through it. Here? Too much coddling has moddled the brains of some members. Without those reminders, without all that help, they fall away, they lose faith. In the end, what have you given that person? Perhaps you've instilled a dislike for the SGI or the Lotus Sutra, and that is more harm than they could have recieved having never heard Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. No, not everyone can stand to live with that pioneering spirit...it is hard for me, too, at times. But I feel like the organization down here is somehow fake because it is lacking in so many members. In Japan, I think they call it the Kansai spirit. We have yet to master that idea. We need to be utterly isolated to understand that spirit, to build it up. The Kansai members can do it together. I admire them very much.

Where does this leave us? Well, I know only that I do my best in my daily practice, attend meetings when my study schedual allows, and try to at least flip through the world tribune. At home, I hold no position, but I've done a lot of supporting of many members. Sometimes, support doesn't mean calls and 'homework' help, sometimes it is merely chanting for that person to be successful in overcoming their obsticals. Soemtimes, it's just arranging times to get together to chant, with no meeting at all, just the joy of chanting with another person. To me, what seems to be missing is the true spirit of buddhism. What can we do? I don't know. Chant...of course. Study more. Find ways to support one another in everything. Recognize the importance of smaller and smaller groups...and stability. Shakabuku, because it opens our eyes to how our orginization looks from new or outside eyes...that's always a positive way to begin change. We are blind to it because we live in it.

Yes, so I don't like the organization down here, but I don't let that stop me from being an SGI member. I don't let that stop me from chanting, going to meetings, reading the world tribune, or doing shakabuku. It is one more challenge in my life and I will be better for it...eventually. :)

Well, that's what I think. I'll be off now...hopefully I'll be updating again soon. Much love to all my friends. I'm outtie...

GL 6:51 PM