Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
owners of this house were a family who ran a Japanese restaurant on the
ground
floor. They had been Soka Gakkai members for two generations, and as
they had moved into a bigger house, had made the rooms above the restau-
rant available for Gakkai meetings. It was a typical Japanese house, and the
three rooms on the
floor had low ceilings with frosted windows that gave
the room a somewhat dim atmosphere, good for keeping out the hot summer
sun. At the back of the biggest room, the gohonzon was enshrined in a but-
sudan, a Buddhist cabinet that houses objects of worship. The butsuma (room
with the butsudan in) had sliding doors leading into the bigger room. A few
boxes and other things were stacked up at the back of the room, indicating
that it was also a venue for
rst
activities.
The door was open when I arrived, but as I found no one upstairs, I went
downstairs again to wait in the restaurant. Brie
'
practical
'
y introducing myself to the
restaurant sta
, I explained that I was attending a meeting upstairs. They did
not seem to
find it peculiar that I, a foreigner, was attending a meeting above
the restaurant in which they worked and simply smiled at me. Perhaps they had
seen me enter the restaurant some days earlier, when I had been there with
Nakaue Masanobu, a Soka Gakkai vice-president and Director of the Soka
Gakkai-Komeito Liaison O
04), who had introduced me to the
restaurant owner and later his son who appeared while we were having a
rather delicious Japanese meal. Nakaue seemed to know them well as they used
relatively informal Japanese. He may have been a well-known
ce (in 2003
-
figure in Soka
Gakkai as one of the vice-presidents, but he was also just a fellow Soka Gakkai
member who lived and practised Buddhism in this area as the informality of
the situation suggested. I was told that it was no problem for me to attend
their meetings; a bit later the restaurant owner
'
s son arrived and invited me to
this Sunday
meeting for the election.
As I waited for a few minutes just before 9:00 am on the Sunday morning,
a young man arrived. He looked to be around 30 years of age. As we went
upstairs, I introduced myself. Soon people started to trickle in, and we sat
down in front of the gohonzon and began to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
(daimoku) at a fast, rhythmic pace. Soon people
'
s meeting, a kick-off
filled the room and the sound
finished morning gongy
-
(reciting two
parts of the Lotus Sutra and chanting daimoku), the meeting proceeded and
people got up at the front of the room to say something, perform skits and
declare their commitment to talk to people about Komeito. While these
young men were asserting in loud, vigorous voices the number of people they
would get to vote for Komeito, or how determined they were to speak to
more people about the greatness of Komeito, they were also simultaneously
making a lot of jokes through their expressions and gestures, usually making
fun of themselves in the process. Everyone greeted those who stood up to
speak with a big round of applause and laughter. Some less con
of chanting got louder. After we had
dent in this
art of public speaking were still greeted by good cheer and clapping. The
atmosphere was hyped up by the loud voices, but there was a constant reas-
surance from the audience aimed at whoever was speaking. Each person
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