SGI Canada Newsletter, No. 137 - Aug 29, 2025
SGI Canada Newsletter
Issue no. 137
August 29, 2025
Welcome to the 137th issue of the SGI Canada Newsletter, a bi-weekly summary of news, upcoming events and encouragement. If you are not subscribing to the SGI Canada Newsletter, you may do so by clicking on the button below. Subscriptions are free of charge, and the SGI Canada Newsletter will be emailed directly to you.
Encouragement
Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada’s editorial: “Building a Harmonious and Beautiful Soka Family”
In his editorial in the September issue of Daibyakurenge, the Soka Gakkai monthly study journal, Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada writes about the importance of women in our movement for world peace:
Both happiness and peace begin in the home, radiating outward from there into our communities and beyond. Ultimately, both spring forth from within our hearts.
It is the Soka Gakkai’s noble women who, with the unwavering spirit of mentor and disciple, are taking the lead—in their families, communities, workplaces, and on the front lines of kosen-rufu.
The Soka International Women’s Center was inaugurated on September 8, 2000. September 8 is a date forever etched in history as a milestone in the Soka Gakkai’s peace movement,[1] so it is profoundly significant that this magnificent palace dedicated to women opened on that day.
The following day, September 9, President and Mrs. Ikeda visited the center for the first time. He led everyone in gongyo, warmly encouraging them with the words: “Let’s pray for the happiness of all. Let’s pray for victory.” In complete “consistency from beginning to end” with their mentor’s intent, the women’s division continues to energetically nurture an ever-expanding garden of happiness and triumph.
When Madame Laureana San Pedro Rosales, the founder of the distinguished Capitol University in the Philippines, visited the Soka International Women’s Center [in 2004], she voiced her conviction that as more Soka women arise to spread President Ikeda’s philosophy of peace, the world will surely become a better place. These words carry the weight of one who endured the tragic Bataan Death March.[2] In truth, our women members shine as radiant beacons of hope for humanity; they all serve as noble emissaries of peace.
1] September 8 is the date when second Soka Gakkai president Josei Toda issued a declaration calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons in 1957. It is also the date when President Ikeda called for the normalization of relations between Japan and China in 1968; the date he made his first visit to the Soviet Union in 1974; and the date he designated for the publication of the final installment of The New Human Revolution in the Seikyo Shimbun in 2018.
[2] Bataan Death March: During World War II, on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, the Japanese military perpetrated the atrocity of forcing prisoners of war and civilians to march under the scorching sun—a march in which as many as 20,000 are said to have perished.
You’ll find the complete editorial in the October issue of New Century.
Upcoming events
Josei Toda’s “Declaration Calling for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons”
Nagasaki Peace Park in Japan“On September 8, 1957, Toda Sensei [the second president of the Soka Gakkai] delivered his “Declaration Calling for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons”, which would become the start and keynote of the Soka Gakkai’s peace movement. In it, based on the Buddhist principle of the sanctity and dignity of life, he identified nuclear weapons as a devilish creation that threatens to usurp humanity’s inviolable right to live, calling use of such weapons an act of absolute evil.”[3]
In our September discussion meetings, we will be talking about the significance of Toda Sensei’s Declaration and about our own efforts for peace in our daily lives.
Ikeda Sensei writes:
Toda realized that the devilish nature inherent in life underlies nuclear weapons, and he keenly sensed that the only way to vanquish it was through the power of the Buddha nature. Since human beings created nuclear weapons, they are also capable of eliminating them. Toda was convinced that the existence of the Buddha nature within human beings would open the way to nuclear abolition without fail.
He entrusted the youth with the task of inspiring this conviction in others, urging them to believe in people’s Buddha nature, to address that Buddha nature, and to communicate widely the absolute evil of nuclear weapons.[4]
[3]The Basics of Nichiren Buddhism for the New Era of Worldwide Kosen-rufu, Chapter 9 “The History of the Soka Gakkai”.
[4] The Wisdom for Creating Happiness and Peace, Part 3: Kosen-rufu and World Peace, Chapter 31.22, “The Starting Point of the Soka Gakkai’s Peace Activities—The Declaration Calling for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons”.
We hope you enjoy your discussion in September. Please see your district leaders for more details.
Calendar for September and October
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Throughout September |
Men’s Division Day Commemorative Meetings |
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September discussion meetings |
District activities focusing on the Declaration calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons |
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October 5 |
SGI Canada Day Commemorative Meetings, celebrating the 65th anniversary of Ikeda Sensei’s first visit to Canada |
New Century - September 2025
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We hope you found this newsletter beneficial. Please email your questions or comments to contact@sgicanada.org. Please note that the next SGI Canada Newsletter will appear on September 12, 2025. See you then!