Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
felt people were listening to her more. Someone else had discovered that she
was the one who had not been listening properly to other people and she was
now making an e
ort to change this. She felt this made people listen to her
more in return. Many of these accounts conveyed a belief that a change in
one
s own attitude and behaviour simultaneously causes a change in the rela-
tionship one has with other people. This conveyed a basic Buddhist principle
for changing social reality.
Another person mentioned how the quality of her relationship with some-
one had improved as a result of calling them about the election; because they
had to talk about something as serious as politics they had begun to talk
about other signi
'
s
fears about Soka Gakkai, and thus also about their relationship. One person
talked about the negative response she had had when talking about Komeito
to someone. She described it as being confronted with the prejudice that
existed toward Soka Gakkai and by extension Komeito. On the upside, how-
ever, they believed that this gave them an opportunity to try to change what
they regarded as misperceptions that existed in the public realm. As they saw
it, the election campaign was raising awareness about what they were com-
mitted to and what Komeito stood for as a party, which was why they were
supporting it. As I was later to discover, there was also apprehension about a
religious group supporting a political party coming from inside the organisa-
tions. Most of such criticism came from largely inactive Soka Gakkai members
who were not participating regularly if at all in Soka Gakkai religious activ-
ities. Many of such members had parents who practised or may have practised
but did not do so themselves.
Mari, who had picked me up from the station and taken me to the kaikan
and back to the station on the back of her bicycle, told of how things she had
been struggling with for a long time at work had begun to shift. In her mid-
thirties and older than the rest, Mari was a YWD Headquarters deputy
leader who had been a member of Soka Gakkai most of her life. She had
lived and studied in the UK for a number of years. In perfect English, she
explained to me how
cant issues. Now they were also talking about this person
'
life in England had seemed compared to Japan.
Unmarried and working as a manager in a cosmetics company, she was
facing various di
'
free
'
culties in her job. Having to work extremely long hours was
the worst of it and she was su
ering from ill health. At the meeting she related
some of her di
culties at work, but said that as a result of resolving to talk to
her friends about Komeito (not to her colleagues, who she did not canvass as
this could make the relationship awkward), she had begun to see how to solve
her problems at work. She said that by pushing herself to chant just a bit
more daimoku and by making e
orts to talk to people about Komeito, she
had also begun talking with her boss about her long working hours and other
issues. This experience con
orts to
change inner attitudes and working for k
-
sen-rufu will result in positive
changes in the environment. Motivation behind one
rmed the Buddhist belief that making e
s actions was of utmost
importance and intricately linked to how they understood karma, life lived
'
Search WWH ::
Custom Search