Their Chants for Change

Soka Gakkai Buddhism has spread worldwide since World War II. Though prayer meetings take place monthly in St. Paul, adherents chant daily for -- among other things -- peace and nonviolent social change.

``A great revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a society and further, will enable a change in the destiny of humankind.'' -- "The Human Revolution,'' a history [sic] of Soka Gakkai International

They worship in a quiet neighborhood in St. Paul inside a white concrete building, but their Buddhist origins emerged from the violence and ruins of World War II.

The religion is Soka Gakkai International. It is one of perhaps 1,000 branches of Buddhism. Since World War II, it has steadily grown in membership in 128 countries.

The local Soka Gakkai community has about 450 members across the Twin Cities. They worship together once a month in a building on Eustis Street on the western edge of St. Paul. Only the letters SGI identify the building as a place of worship.

But inside on the first Sunday of each month, about 50 people gather to chant and contemplate life. The Twin Cities' Soka Gakkai leader is Howard Dunlavy, a native Minnesotan who discovered the religion at a critical juncture in his life.

"It was 1974 and a friend at a party told me about SGI,'' Dunlavy said. "I grew up in Willmar as a United Methodist. But by that time I was almost anti-religious. It surprised me that I would begin practicing Buddhism."

But Dunlavy says Soka Gakkai is a different kind of Buddhism. For one thing, SGI teaches that any person, regardless of race, gender, nationality or past religious practice, can achieve enlightenment, which is the chief goal of all Buddhism. In some Buddhist sects, enlightenment is reserved for certain classes of people, and in others, only men are encouraged to achieve the Buddha nature.

Soka Gakkai emerged in Japan in the 1930s but did not reach prominence until after World War II. Founded by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, a philosopher and educator, the religion initially focused on education as the key to a valuable life. But in 1943 both Makiguchi and his young apprentice, Josei Toda, were arrested and incarcerated by Japanese authorities for being "thought criminals."

Makiguchi died in prison in 1944, but Toda was released just before the war's end and expanded the scope of Soka Gakkai, which means "value creating society."

Toda saw both need and opportunity as he viewed the wreckage of Japan and especially the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs dropped on those cities by Allied forces. The Soka Gakkai beliefs, Toda thought, were exactly what the Japanese people needed as they rebuilt their nation.

The core belief of SGI is that every individual has a duty to add value to his or her own life and thereby create a peaceful world. Not surprisingly, one of Soka Gakkai's most fervent causes is the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Followers, Dunlavy said, pray and chant twice a day and gather as a community once a month to chant and view videotapes and satellite transmissions of Soka Gakkai speakers.

"The goal is to be happy ourselves and, therefore, be able to help others and influence others," Dunlavy said. "We believe, by elevating life conditions, we can create world peace."

Dunlavy, a computer software program manager, is married and the father of a son.

"I was a fairly unhappy guy when I was first introduced to SGI," Dunlavy said. "I had dropped out of college and had lost direction. Then I started chanting, and today I'm an optimistic person."

Another aspect of Soka Gakkai that has contributed to its amazing growth in the past 50 years is its emphasis on lay leadership. There are few monks or priests in Soka Gakkai, and each of the 66 community centers in the United States is led by a lay person. Daisaku Ikeda, who began studying with Toda at the age of 19, is the international leader of SGI based in Japan.

When the local community worships, members have symbols of life on their altar: water, incense, candles and bells. The only object of worship is a scroll inside a wooden cabinet (called butsudan, or Buddha's House) that says (in Japanese): "Devotion to the mystic law of cause and effect through Buddhist Teaching." It is the work of Nichiren Daishonin, a Buddhist philosopher who lived in the 13th century.

And that is the phrase followers chant twice a day: "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.''

During chanting, some worshipers also hold beads that represent 108 human desires. Dunlavy says these encompass the "three poisons of earthly desire -- greed, anger and stupidity -- but also all desires that keep people from being happy."

Rather than following the ancient Buddhist belief that it is possible to remove all desire from daily life, Soka Gakkai followers believe desire can be used to make people happy, Dunlavy says.

"We use our desire for positive results," he says. "Our desires drive us toward happiness. The idea of chanting is to elevate daily life and our life conditions."

June Parrott, a professor of black studies and women's studies at St. Cloud State University, says she began chanting when she was teaching at the University of the District of Columbia. One of her colleagues had a "very harried, frantic presence." But one day Parrott noticed the woman was calmer. As they talked, the colleague said she had been chanting at a Soka Gakkai community center. Parrott became intrigued.

"I come from a very religious Pentecostal background from my youth," Parrott says. "But religion had not produced the kind of life I wanted. I had a troubled adolescence and I didn't think religion had benefited our family."

But, she says, she knew there were times the pressures in her life needed to be reduced. So, she decided to try Soka Gakkai.

Now she chants 30 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening in her home and gathers with the local community once a month. If her life becomes too frenzied, she increases her chanting time.

"Chanting made a difference in my energy, my spirits,'" Parrott says. "I think I was experiencing burnout but I didn't know that at the time. I would get up early and go to the community center and chant an hour before going to work and I could go all day.

"One of the first things I noticed was that I lost my desire to be angry," Parrott says. "I couldn't put it on as an act. In the black community one of the things you learn is to use anger as a defense mechanism. It's the notion of holding your space and telling people to back off. But I didn't want to do that anymore. It took too much energy."

Clark D. MorphewFebruary 21, 1998