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SGI President and Mrs Ikeda at the Kansai Ikeda
Centre in Tennoji, Osaka. (8 November, 2007)
The means to deepen our happiness
Robert Harrap explores the relationship between the mentor and the disciple
W
hen I was 11, I had a French teacher who I
really admired. He seemed to really like the
process of teaching, he was very good with the
class, and he was enthusiastic about his subject. His
enthusiasm rubbed off on me, and I started to do quite
well at the subject. A friend and I pooled our pocket
money and decided at the end of the year to buy him
some aftershave as a thank you present (although I’m
not really sure how good our choice was). Later with
different teachers I carried on with the subject through
school, and then later studied modern languages at
university. I would say that that first teacher must take a
lot of credit for getting me interested, and for nurturing
my early potential.
Having a great teacher is important in many aspects
of life, and this is also true in the practice of Buddhism.
In this article I wish to explore the meaning of the
mentor and disciple relationship partly through sharing
my journey of developing a relationship with my mentor,
Daisaku Ikeda.
The mentor-disciple relationship is not something
that has been created by the SGI. It goes back through
Nichiren Daishonin to Shakyamuni Buddha. Quoting from
chapter seven of the Lotus Sutra, Nichiren Daishonin
wrote in 1272:
It must be ties of karma from the distant past that
have destined you to become my disciple at a time like
this. Shakyamuni and Many Treasures certainly realised
this truth. The sutra’s statement: ‘Those persons who
had heard the Law dwelled here and there in various
Buddha lands, constantly reborn in company with their
teachers’, cannot be false in any way.1
Nichiren Daishonin often wrote about his relationship
with Dozen-bo who had been his teacher when he was
studying as a youth, and in our modern history, we can
see the relationship between first and second Soka
Gakkai presidents Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei
Toda, and then between Josei Toda and Daisaku Ikeda.
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Having a great teacher is important
in many aspects of life, and
this is also true in the practice
of Buddhism
SEIKYO PRESS
possess, is indispensable for attaining Buddhahood in
this lifetime.3
Soka Gakkai second president Josei Toda and young Daisaku Ikeda at a
youth division sports festival in Setagaya ward, Tokyo. (November 1954)
The Lotus Sutra describes the emergence of countless
bodhisattvas who reaffirm their pledge to Shakyamuni
that they will practise and teach Buddhism in an age of
conflict in the future. President Ikeda writes:
Those who have a mentor in life are truly fortunate.
The path of mentor and disciple is one that leads to
personal development and growth. Those without a
mentor may appear free and unbeholden to anyone,
but without a solid standard of model on which to
base themselves, their lives become aimless and
wandering.2
President Ikeda still considers himself to be a disciple
of Toda, even though Toda died in 1958 and Daisaku
Ikeda only spent ten of his 87 years of life with him. It is
through Daisaku Ikeda that we know about the life and
achievements of both Toda and Makiguchi because he
is constantly talking about them in lectures. From his
example we can see the profundity of the connection.
In his lectures on ‘On Attaining Buddhahood’ President
Ikeda explains the heart of the mentor-disciple
relationship in this way:
A teacher or mentor in Buddhism is one who leads
and connects people to the Law – teaching them that
the Law on which they should depend exists within
their own lives. The disciples in turn seek the mentor,
who embodies and is one with the Law. Looking to
the mentor as a model, they exert themselves in their
Buddhist practice. In this way, they lead a life that
allows them to become the master of their mind. In
other words, the existence of a mentor who embodies
and lives in complete accord with the Law, and who
teaches people about the vast inner potential they
In the same lectures he talks about the importance of
being clear about our goals. He says that it is no good to
just have vague goals. Instead he says that: ‘Our prayers
can only be realised when we replace vague yearnings
with concrete determinations and confident daimoku to
definitely accomplish what we hope to achieve.’4 The five
words that I have underlined have had an extraordinary
impact on my life and are probably the lines that I have
shared most frequently with others. The combination
of having as clear a determination as we can muster,
and chanting daimoku with the same confidence as the
Buddha is the way to drive our goals forward (and filter
out those which are not value creating).
In this Buddhism, the disciple chooses the mentor –
not the other way round. People sometimes ask, ‘Can
anyone be a mentor?’ and of course there are no rules
about this. The point is, I think, that the role of having
a guide in life is an extremely important one, and it is
worth following or choosing the best mentor. Especially
at this time when there are many philosophies,
ideologies and religions to choose from. Even within
particular religions there are different strands of belief
and this adds to the confusion.
Since we don’t have to be in the same place as our
mentor, or, thanks to the written word, living at the same
time as them because guidance becomes eternal, I
have chosen the person who I think will be the best
guide for the rest of my life. Daisaku Ikeda has also
provided me with the biggest vision of how the world can
develop over the coming centuries, and that expansive
time frame is something which I have not experienced,
together with the other important factors at the heart of
this relationship, from anyone else.
I am often asked how people can develop the
relationship for themselves. I don’t think there is just
one way, but from my own experience it has been
through finding pieces of guidance which have been
1 Nichiren Daishonin, ‘The Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life’ (WND‑1, p. 217).
2 Daisaku Ikeda, Faith into Action (World Tribune Press, 1999) p. 234.
3 Daisaku Ikeda, Lectures on ‘On Attaining Buddhahood in this Lifetime’ (SGIMalaysia, 2007) p. 71.
4 Ibid, p. 46.
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…the role of having a guide in life
is an extremely important one, and
it is worth following or choosing the
best mentor
Makiguch and Toda.
useful to me and which I have read again and again so
that they are absorbed into my life. Then when I have
found myself in challenging times it is as if I can have a
conversation in my heart with my mentor.
Last year the members of SGI-Italy interviewed the
jazz musician, Herbie Hancock. One of their questions
asked him to share his experience of meeting with
President Ikeda. Before I heard the answer, I expected
that he would talk about playing music for President
Ikeda, perhaps in Los Angeles or in Tokyo, or of having a
meal with him and receiving some guidance. I was very
surprised at the answer he gave. Briefly, he said: ‘I was
with President Ikeda this morning; I was reading one
of his study lectures.’5 It was a really important answer
because it clarifies that the most important aspect of the
mentor-disciple relationship is not being geographically
close to someone, but having them in your heart and
mind. I once heard someone say that the darkest place
is at the bottom of a lighthouse, meaning that just being
close can be deceptive. The true relationship is one of
the heart and, because we can have access through the
written word on the page, distance is no object.
I have had the opportunity of being in the same room
or place as President Ikeda on a number of occasions,
both in Europe and in Japan, but I have never had a
one-to-one conversation with him. In fact, I am the first
General Director of SGI-UK who has never had one-to-one
guidance with him. How, then, can he be my mentor?
I have developed my relationship with Daisaku Ikeda
through pieces of guidance that he has written which
have really resonated with my life. The first of these was
from the account in the series of books called The Human
Revolution of the 1956 Osaka Campaign where he was
working to fulfil his mentor’s dream of seeing the Soka
Gakkai start to have an even greater impact on Japanese
society. The young Ikeda demonstrated how someone
using their faith, practice and study could make an
impossible dream come to be a reality. I was impressed
by not only what he achieved, but how he wrote about it
and expressed with such clarity the necessary ingredients
for success. I realised that this account was in effect a
manual for achieving success in other areas too.
I have especially focused on pieces of guidance with
a particular group in mind – for example, I have read the
poems and guidance directed to the United Kingdom,
and to men, much more often than ones to a more
general readership.
I have developed my relationship based on pieces
of guidance which I have absorbed into my life and
applied when things have been difficult. The feeling I get
when I read one of the passages which have developed
such meaning for me, is that President Ikeda is like an
uncle who is gently holding me by the shoulders and
encouraging me to see that I have more potential inside
me to draw out, more to achieve and more impact to
have. He guides me to the Gohonzon, the Gosho and
the Law of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and he serves as an
example of an ordinary person who has been able to
achieve things to improve not only his personal life, but
also as wider society.
It is a relationship which continues to grow and develop,
and because I will always have his guidance it can carry
on and flourish even after President Ikeda passes away.
It is not always an easy relationship, and I have to make
sure that I put effort into it. The benefit however has been
so valuable and has meant that I have got so much more
out of my life than I would have imagined possible. Since
Buddhism is about individuals and society becoming
happier and more fulfilled, and the mentor disciple
relationship is a catalyst for accelerating that change, it
is worth exploring how we can enhance our practice in
this way. The result of setting out on this journey is that
we will all, I am sure, recognise that it is the means for
deepening our personal and collective happiness. ■
5 Tentative translation from a recording.