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necessarily directly related to the election, but something that encouraged
them to look positively at their lives, their practice of Buddhism and the
actions that they were taking in the election campaign. It was not unusual to
hear quotes also from famous poets such as William Blake (1757
-
1827), for
instance,
'
Fighting for peace is the mission of Buddhist practitioners who
fight for the sanctity of life. It is vital to take concrete action for peace as the
English poet William Blake wrote:
Acts themselves alone are history
”'
(Ikeda 2009a: 24). This re
ected the kind of
'
action-based
'
Buddhism that is
taught in Soka Gakkai. Here it was also used to speci
cally refer to taking
action to canvass for Komeito. Yet, chanting for them was clearly about inner
transformation, encouraging themselves by reading things like,
When our
attitude changes, our entire world changes. This is the formula for change in
Buddhism
'
). In this way, they told them-
selves, often on a daily basis, that their Buddhist practice meant making
e
'
(Ikeda 2009b: 1,
'
To my Friends
'
orts to challenge themselves to confront their
'
smaller self
'
, the
'
self
'
that
lacked self-con
dence, lacked courage, lacked energy, felt apathetic, the feel-
ings that stopped them from being what they had come to aspire to be
through reading Ikeda
s writings. Courage (y - ki) was the key word. Self-doubt
'
or lack of self-con
dence (jishin ga nai) was the opposite of courage; lack of
courage meant lack of action. Lack of self-con
dence may be a rather typical
problem for young people in their early twenties; here it was challenged head
on. Many felt chanting and taking action to be a process of self-empower-
ment, which seemed to be deeply satisfying for many.
As in previous years of observing young people
'
selectionactivities,Iwondered
why they described these as the best way to challenge this lack of self-
con
.
Young people in Okinawa, as in Tokyo, said it was most challenging because
they had to challenge themselves to become more con
dence, seen as the opposite of courage, and in fact of
'
Buddhahood
'
dent, which also
meant more broad-minded. While they believed in the good that Komeito
said it was doing, and agreed with the consistent focus on welfare issues, they
felt election activities turned out to be opportunities to develop this
'
sense of self, exactly because it was so challenging to call their friends and
talk to them about political issues. For them it was natural to chant about
this, as they chanted about other things in their life, because chanting had a
positive e
'
bigger
ect on how they felt about themselves; they felt invigorated and
resolved to challenge whatever they felt needed challenging in their life.
For instance, one time, I was listening to a young woman, Keiko, having a
conversation with a friend. Keiko was a con
dent young student in her third
year at a university in Okinawa. After she put the phone down, she told me
that she had
finally got hold of her friend and arranged to meet her to talk
about why she votes for Komeito. They lived quite close to each other but
somehow she had not had much of a chance to meet her. She was therefore
happy
finally to have arranged to meet her at her place that evening. Her
friend was Christian and Keiko found it di
cult to discuss religion with her.
She was not sure this friend would end up voting for Komeito, but Keiko had
 
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