Cult of the Master
Chapter One:
Finding A Path
The blue sky was cloudless and the winter sun was beginning to set as the sonorous sound of chanting the Daimoku emanated from my being. I had just been happily driving along on Dallas’ LBJ freeway through the rush hour traffic in my proud new benefit, a free 1951 Chevy. My excitement and anticipation was growing with each passing mile. After having long sought a source of knowledge, there I was at last on my way to becoming a true Buddhist. Enlightenment offered up with a promise that I would unquestionably turn out to be both happy and rich. What fool wouldn’t go for that? I had decided to pull over to the side and park next to the freeway guardrail so that I could chant this wonderful new and magical incantation that I had just recently learned about. As I chanted Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo to the setting sun on the far horizon, my mind reviewed the events of the last few weeks. Yes, chanting seemed to be working out very well already.
Having bought and paid for two cars that had both succumbed to mechanical failures, I had chanted for a car and presto, I was gifted with a car (from my Mom for finally entering college). I had chanted for money and abracadabra, I received a check in the mail (expected it anyway). How easy it was to attribute these and many more coincidences to this new miracle mantra that I had recently sought out and embraced so whole-heartedly. It was so easy to frame these experiences within my newly suggested mindset. See, look – there’s proof that chanting really can get you anything! Yes, isn’t it mystical?
I had previously become very interested in eastern religions, karma, and reincarnation. At age fifteen I was fascinated by Edgar Cayce’s reading that referred so often to karma and reincarnation. Then at age eighteen, I had begun reading and studying about Tibetan Buddhism in a large square book titled, “Be Here Now”. But trying to teach myself how to practice Buddhism from a book was not very satisfying to say the least. It was sort of like attempting all alone to master martial arts from a book, in practicality, a futile endeavor. I had been searching for real live teachers to learn from and to interact with - for a spiritual sensei (teacher), neh?
Then one day in January 1972, a friend that knew of my interest in Buddhism gave me the phone number of another friend that went to “some sort of Buddhist meetings”. Eagerly, I called up Pat, introduced myself, and asked her to invite me to one of her Buddhist meetings. She quickly agreed, as long as I would drive her and her husband, to and from the meeting place. I was already euphoric to have discovered a Buddhist group - geez, was I ever going to be an easy mark!
Finally the big evening arrived for the NSA (Nichiren Shoshu of America) meeting. NSA was the American branch of the Japanese Buddhist Lay organization known as the Soka Gakkai (Value Creation Society). I was going to be amongst real Buddhists as last. As I entered through the front door, hearing the sound of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo being chanted by the small crowd of people literally stuffed into a tiny living room, my musician’s ears perked up. The room was filled mostly with Japanese ladies, with only a few American faces mixed in. The sound of the chanting swirled around in my head and then out of my mouth so comfortably and so effortlessly. I could harmonize my voice with all the others. The singer in me said, yes! The vibrations from the chanting were so upbeat and powerful. I was immediately enthralled with the sound of many voices chanting together. As the Daimoku (chant) washed over me, I felt energized and wonderful. This was all so new and strange to a native Texan country boy, yet so appealing to my hippie nature. I had never heard the term “hippie to happy before”. Strange, weren’t hippies obviously already some of the happiest people around?
As the meeting proceeded, members related their uber-happy experiences regarding their Buddhist practice along with tidbits of NSA doctrine. I began to form fundamental questions regarding some conflicting basic Buddhist principles that I had previously learned on my own. I asked, “But doesn’t a Buddhist practitioner strive to eliminate their own earthly desires and attachments in order to attain the Eightfold path”, I asked? “Oh no, chant for anything you desire, a car, money, job, whatever you desire. No God and no faith needed.” Having been an atheist, that sounded so reasonable. “Just chant for something that makes you happy and see for yourself if chanting really works. Earthly desires equal enlightenment”. What could be the harm in trying this out? Nothing dangerous anywhere that I could see so far. Didn’t seem like one of those dangerous cults. After all, didn’t they say that one could quit anytime if they didn’t get any benefit from the practice?
During the meeting, I kept hearing many references to President Ikeda, whose picture hung on the wall right next to the alter. I thought it was strange to have a picture of a Japanese man enshrined so close to the gohonzon. Shouldn’t it be a picture of the founder Nichiren, or the high priest, but hey, what did I know? Everyone gushed about how wonderful his or her “Sensei” (honorable teacher) was. There was no mentioned of the coveted master and disciple relationship, but they were sure full of admirations and adoration for the organization’s top dog. They even had a special song that was used to close every meeting, “Forever Sensei”. I didn’t quite yet get just how “forever” they wanted everybody to be for the “Master”, perhaps because the brunt of the meeting was getting the guests (me) to agree to join up. Forever meant, you can never quit or leave the Master.
For many years I used to boast with pride that I had shakabuku’d (introduced) myself, because I got to my first meeting totally on my own volition. Having already made some attempts to understand Buddhism on my own, I was already primed and ready to study and practice NSA’s true Buddhism, ready to become a follower of Nichiren’s (a 13th century Japanese Buddhist Reformer) teachings. Ready to accept Ikeda as my sensei. I was all set to be molded and shaped by these NSA Buddhists who, seemed so much wiser and experienced than I. In hindsight, I was treading in shark-infested waters.
After the NSA discussion (indoctrination) meeting was over, the leaders invited, well actually more like challenged me to stay longer and chant for one hour. It was perhaps the most awesome hour of daimoku I have ever done. The energy and endorphins both coursed through me as I struggled to sit Japanese style with my legs folded underneath. As my legs fell asleep over and over, the pain was mind numbing, but the pure joy and exhilaration of letting my voice robustly join in with the others in chanting was so new and exciting. A pair of Juzu prayer beads were offered for me to use by someone – they added such a sensual input. And the beads were so rhythmic too! Such fun! Here, there was no need for all those bizarre esoterical practices I had previously learned about in Tibetan Buddhism. For instance, trying to envision this or that bodhisattva with my third eye. Huh? It was so hard for me to grasp all that mysterious mumbo jumbo. But now, here I was offered Enlightenment at my fingertips, from the only sect that could rightfully provide such a benefit. Just chant for anything - so easy, neh? (Just don’t get too intellectual or ask embarrassing questions about finances).
The Gohonzon (mandala – object of worship/meditation) and it’s surrounding Japanese butsudan (Buddha house) and butsugu (accessories) looked so mystical and cool. Such an energetic and friendly group of people, and all the nice friendly Asian ladies! Best of all, I loved joining my voice with the sound and rhythm of everyone chanting together. Suddenly, I was becoming fascinated with the surrounding Japanese culture as well as the Buddhist practice. The two just seemed to go together so seamlessly. When the hour long chanting toso (session) had ended, I was love bombed yet again, extra hard. Everyone was so excited that I had roared like a lion through the hour of chanting. Then there was one very nice Japanese lady who smiled so sweetly as she repeatedly complemented me on my loud and strong chanting voice, along with my resolve to stick it out to the end of the hour toso.
Before me kneeled a middle-aged Buddhist war bride with a shining face. Her Japanese name was Teruko, but she went by Terry (the name bestowed upon her by Gen. Dir. George Williams). This small Japanese woman leader seemed so unthreatening, and just so progressive. All the members called her either Mrs. Vaden, or by her NSA title, “fujin-bucho”. She was the Texas General Chapter Chief, a woman holding a man’s central leadership position in NSA.
In those early pioneering days, NSA still had a few remote areas (like Texas) where a woman was still holding onto the traditional senior male position for the area. Even though the credit was always given to Ikeda, it had been the Japanese women, married to American service men after World War 2, who had first brought Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism and the Soka Gakkai organization (later reorganized as NSA in 1960) over to this country. But the sexist aspect of Japanese culture frowns upon a women holding a higher positions than men. So the top brass at NSA headquarters preferred men to lead all meetings, especially American men, particularly easily influenced American men. And Texas was desperately in need of well-trained ganjin (round eyed) males to quickly fill leadership positions held by women.
Right away, Mrs. Vaden began to tell me in no uncertain terms how wonderful and special an NSA leader I was going to become. Her eyes and voice both burned with such passion. I felt so exceptional – so significant. She told me I had a very special mission for kosen rufu to fulfill (psychic ability or just gakkai M O?). Here I was, so open and happy to finally be get underway with my practice of Buddhism. And I was being given the suggestion from someone, obviously very important and respected, that I was destined for some sort of prominence in a grand new Bodhisattva march to world peace with NSA. (Looking back it was more like being love bombed and then being marked for quick advancement within the organization, ID’d as potentially easy to train fodder for the movement.) But at that moment in time, I felt an immediate strong connection with Mrs. Vaden. It was like being bathed in warm sunlight whenever she turned her sweet motherly attention on me. I ate it all up like candy (just didn’t occur to me that the candy might someday come tainted with glass shards). Yep, I was completely sold now - hook, line and sinker. As she spoke to me, I couldn’t have imagined just what a massive influence this nice honey-voiced Japanese lady was about to craft over me. The required frame was being solidly established for me. And it was all framed the NSA way, of course. That’s the way a cult works. Ssshhhh, don’t let the secret out.
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My earliest experience with religious cults reached back to around age six. I was baptized into a small Southern Baptists church in South Dallas. Well, more like nearly drowned. The church had a huge water tank (think giant fish tank) that was set in the wall, right up at the front behind the pulpit and next to the choir area. A curtain was pulled back when it was used for baptisms, which required the sinner to be completely immersed in water. Being just a small child, I feared that I might drown, as I didn’t swim yet and was scared of water. But there was something even more traumatizing for me than being ceremonially dunked into cold water in front of an entire church assembly. Nudity. For the first time in my young life, I was forced to strip naked in front of complete strangers to get dried off and into dry clothing. I was really embarrassed and humiliated. But no one was really concerned about how I might have felt. They were all so happy I wasn’t going to hell now that I was wet and naked, I mean saved.
I probably got my musical talent from my grandmother. She played piano at the tiny Southern Baptist church just a few doors down from her home in the backwaters of East Texas. She was totally into the church cult, and though I loved to hear her play piano, I hated going to church. (gee, wonder why?)
After losing my father to cancer, my mom remarried when I was nine. She changed her religious sect from Baptist over to the Methodist church to accommodate my new step dad. So off to a new church we went. When I got to be around fourteen I began to seriously question the dogma I was being taught in Sunday school. “If God made everything, then who made God?” “How does some magical sky god know everything that everyone is thinking and doing everywhere all at once?” It’s a miracle! Of course! “Hey, where did those wives that Cain and Able married come from anyway?” But there were no satisfactory answers for me. I was told I asked too many questions (sound familiar?) So eventually I just decided that Man is God, for Man had created God in his image, not the other way around. For that matter, I thought both god and the devil inherently existed within the mind of Man. I grew to doubt the bible. When Man needed a god to worship, perhaps he always invents one – or many gods, as the case may be.
Well anyway, just forget about some vengeful sky god, and screw all the threats of eternal damnation if you don’t believe. “You must accept His (go-between) son as your personal savior.” Oh, and that cross thing – so damn morbid! Resurrection? What? “Miracles boy!” Anyways, I started cutting Sunday school and church regularly and lightening bolts didn’t come down out of the sky to zap me. As a matter of fact, it felt damn good to reject the religious dogma and propaganda. So I guess I became a kind of an atheist before age fifteen.
But it was a dark time in my life. Music was very important to me, but the rock band I played guitar and bass in had broken up. My family was dysfunctional to say the least, with an abusive and violent step dad and alcoholic, drugged out mom that fought constantly. And then they would turn their anger on me. For two years, I had been running away from home about once every month or two. But there was no existing support system that I could access for help, so the cycle of my youthful suffering just spiraled deeper. My oldest brother had previously taken in our middle brother in order to help him get out of our wretched house, but he was not interested in repeating that deal for me. No relief from church, teachers, or family. With nowhere to turn and nobody to turn to, I began abusing alcohol and inhalants. Then I fell into a deep depression over having no control in my life, no solution to my problems at home, no relief from the stress of school (state indoctrination). Being a young atheist, I began thinking that if there was nothing after this life, then perhaps death would bring an end to my debilitating confusion, unhappiness and suffering. So after another incident of having run away from home for a few days, and with still nowhere to go and no one to turn to, I stopped by a drugstore and bought a bottle of sleeping pills.
Late that night I snuck into the tool shed behind our house and took the entire bottle of 32 pills. At the time, I didn’t understand that taking the pills with alcohol would have greatly increased the odds of death, or I would have drunk alcohol as well. Lucky I didn’t drink with all those pills, neh? But after committing to my plan and taking them all, I was suddenly and very strongly overcome with a feeling that perhaps there was a special reason to remain alive that I had not yet discovered – that somehow, perhaps I had a special purpose, a reason for being alive after all. However, I decided to continue along with my plan. If there was a reason to live, maybe I would find out or maybe not, but either way I would discover if there was a life beyond this one. When I laid down to float away to my impending death, sleep didn’t come easily. I finally began to drift in and out, then my stomach started to hurt quite badly. The nausea became acute very quickly and I threw up as I slept. That probably helped save my life, as I naturally purged most of those pills. Well, yes most of them, but some were kind of stuck in my throat, still half digested. Ugh! For a whole day they kept coming up.
At first light awoke with a start. I heard the sound of my step dad opening the back door, freaked out and ran, jumped the back fence, then ran down a few doors to the neighbor’s house where a hip young guy with a band rented a house from my folks. Suddenly, I began to hallucinate from the drugs in the sleeping pills. Man was I tripping out. Starting talking to my friends that I thought were setting inside the locked car in his driveway, but would blink and instantly, they’d be gone. Poof! What was reality and what was a dream? It was like a waking dream. My ghostly friends informed me that it was okay to go into the rented house. So I wondered on inside, using the side door and sat down at the small kitchen table. This was my parent’s rental house, and I had spent some time in there. It was familiar and comfortable, and I didn’t know where else to go. So I sat there, dozing on and off while tripping out for a while. Then the guy renting the place woke and came in the kitchen. He started yelling at me for coming in uninvited, and I tried to tell him “they” said it was all right to come in the house. Luckily, he did know me and I think he realized that I was extremely high and eventually calmed down and offered me coffee.
Well, long story short – eventually my parents had me locked up over the suicide attempt, and I was involuntarily committed to a mental institution for a 90-day observation period. After only 30 days, my doctor decided there was nothing wrong with me and released me with out ever have prescribed any drugs whatsoever. (Can you imagine that happening in today’s world?) The institutional experience and time away from home had an influence, but my spiritual renaissance allowed me to change my views and attitudes, and grow quickly into a much more mature young man. So I was able to return home and find a way to cope with my life much more successfully. But I was still searching for something out there, something very deep and revealing, a fifteen year old adult ready to search for the Ultimate Reality of Life.
I was to learning to think for myself. I questioned everything, so I could now more easily question authority, in my mind if not outright. Questioning religion and living outside of the box eventually lead me down the road of questioning education and status quo as well. I eventually dropped out of high school three times. If I wasn’t interested in a class, I would sleep through it, or if possible, read a book of my choosing. When a class was just too pointless for me, I made an F on purpose in order to drop out of the class (how the hell was I going to use algebra if I wanted to become a musician for example). If a subject or teacher was inane, I would tune them out. When a teacher was unbearably dreadful, I purposely flunked the class. When I found a teacher that I could enjoy and respect, I had no problem understanding the courses, and I easily made A’s or B’s without even trying hard. If I was interested, I could become completely absorbed. Academic studies became so much easier once I decided to choose and control my own agendas and curriculums, both in and out of school. I began to read on a diverse range of subjects almost all night long, and then try to catch some sleep during the school day during the dull classes with inane teachers.
High school seemed so insignificant after challenging death, and attaining a new consciousness and self-awareness. Having just passed though an intuitional system of mental health, and then reading Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Coocoo’s Nest”, I intuitively sensed that something about the entire school system was rotten to the core, but it would be a long time before I could put my finger on exactly what it was (please research the story of John Taylor Gatto, recipient of New York State’s Teacher of the Year Award. Mr. Taylor presents an eye-opening and in depth examination on public schooling (indoctrination disguised as education.)
It was during my junior year of high school that I first began to read about reincarnation and karma. These concepts immediately had something to them that rang true to my ears. Life and death as a continuous cycle made much more sense to me than western religious doctrine (especially the personal savior and brimstone & hell fire elements). There were mysterious truths about life that I wanted to learn about. Then I discovered the usefulness of LSD to explore my inner self.
The first few times I took low dosages, and had lightweight and entertaining trips. Then I made friends with an ex-marine turned hippie, James Avery. He had been to Viet Nam and seemed so worldly to this seventeen year old. He was my first mentor, teaching me how to lead a hippie lifestyle and how to use LSD to explore my spirituality. He was the teacher and I was the student. I dropped out of school again, trading it off for adventures in the real world with James. We took off for California, and would eventually wind up traveling all over the country together looking for wild girls, drugs, and rock n roll. One of our buddies had an old limo Checker Cab that we (a bunch of hippies) had set out west in. We carried on a bit like the Merry Pranksters conducting one of their kool-aid acid tests. James and I actually had a competition going to see who could get the largest number of girls to have sex (a win-win situation). Fun times indeed!
James was also the first person to ever tell me about chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo during our travels. I had forgotten about this until years later when he reminded me about it during a visit to introduce him to NSA. Turns out he had told me about it sometime during the long hippie road trip we had made together to California in 1969, and I had completely forgotten about it.
Eventually, I moved back home to my folks and resumed my senior year of high school. After turning eighteen, I had become eligible to directly receive VA and SS benefits for schooling that I qualified for through my deceased fathers’ military service during WW2. After previously having to support myself by working full time to make ends meet, it was a blessing to live with my parents and receive financial support for schooling! I bought a nice ‘56 Chevy and a top of the line 8-track stereo, and still had plenty of cash to spend. Life seemed to be getting better.
The time was ripe for healing, for building a new relationship between Mom and me. At first, after I had been committed to an institute, I was very resentful of my folks for what ‘they had done to me”. But I quickly changed that type of thinking around when I began to face my reality more as an adult. Now as a mature young man, I could go and visit with my mom at her workplace. There, we could have a chance to talk in a neutral environment. Once, after I complained about my alcoholic step dad, she revealed me how unhappy she was as well. Mom helped me to understand that we were both suffering from my violent and abusive step dad’s acute alcoholism, and we bonded at last.
Back in school, I began to wonder if perhaps karma and reincarnation were the subjects that I needed to foster a deeper understanding about instead of algebra and school indoctrination. I was still searching to find my real purpose or mission on this plane of existence. My ongoing personal search for answers to my questions about life drove my determination to discover some hidden answers from esoteric eastern religious thought and particularly from within Buddhism.
After about a year’s absence, my ole traveling partner James came back to town. Before very long, I had dropped out of high school again, and we were off on another adventure. This time we headed east to Florida to spend the winter with one of James’ Vietnam marine buddies. We enjoyed the nicely tanned babes on the white beaches and the wide variety of hallucinogenic drugs. James and I really loved the availability of so many different marijuana strains from countries all over the world. I was receiving a worldly education with my first mentor. By the time summer rolled around, we had landed back in Dallas/Ft. Worth.
By then, with James as my acid guru, I had become comfortable with taking prodigious amounts of LSD on a semi regular basis. But there was this one acid trip that was particularly extraordinary. After I dropped, I got so high I become mostly disconnected from my ordinary reality. Outwardly, I appeared to be asleep but internally, I was tripping at a colossal rate. About all I could do was lay on the floor and watch the surreal images that flashed through my mind. Time began to run backwards as I watched my past experiences unfold in my mind’s eye. I re-experienced my childhood, my birth. Then I went back even further, to before my birth. I became aware I was “alive” and consciousness when I had no body before I was born. Eventually, I “awoke” from my induced hyper state of consciousness. This was a deep spiritual experience for me, right down to my core. Similar to the American Indian use of peyote and its effects on the mind and spirit, I interpreted my visions and insights as affirmation of the nature of life and death. The journey of spiritual discovery that I had set upon four years earlier was progressing.
I decided to start collecting my VA benefits again and enrolled into a community college after getting my GED high school diploma. But now my life experiences set me worlds apart from the other teenage students just coming straight out of high school. I couldn’t relate to them. I was already a man of the world on a spiritual quest to know myself, and to comprehend the true nature of life.
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And so my search for Universal Truth and Buddhism was well underway. It had begun long before that day, on the side of freeway, stopping to chant to the Sun on my way to meet an actual Buddhist priest, to receive my Gohonzon, and to become an official member of NSA and the Soka Gakkai.
There was still no permanent NSA kaikan (center) in Texas, so instead, they had rented a banquet room at a north Dallas Holiday Inn. A room was filled to standing room only with about 40 - 45 people from all over Texas and Oklahoma. I had chanted for, and just managed to scrape together my required five-dollar donation (NSA publications were pushed separately back then). The entire donation was all in coin change, included three dollars in rolls of pennies. But I had chanted for the money, and there it was – more proof? Inside the small banquet room, everyone chanted NMRK as we waited for the meeting to begin. The priest entered and a young man hung (enshrined) the large Joju Gonhonzon from the temple directly on the wall. The Reverend began the service with slow gongyo (sutra recitation) and chanting of the daimoku. It was the first time I had heard gongyo and chanting performed at a slow tempo. The priest’s presence certainly legitimized the NSA organization for me. These couldn’t be crazy people, for they had a real Buddhist temple and priest at their disposal. I struggled along, completely frustrated at my inability to keep up with even a slow recitation of the sutra. After a brief sermon and some instructions about how to care for our new Gohonzon scroll, we received the Gojukai (blessing) ceremony. I was duly impressed with the way the Reverend lightly tapped the head of each person with a scroll as he “blessed” us. Then I received my gohonzon from the Reverend, along with about 10 or 12 others. At last, I was officially a true Buddhist. Not just any old Buddhist, but a Nichiren Shoshu of America Buddhist.
Once again, the older members dropped a nice love bomb on all us newbies. I felt happy and excited at the prospect of entering the Way, the path to enlightenment. They said it was like my birthday, that I would be starting my life anew (born again?) But I still had no idea just how radically my life was about to change. I had no clue that within a short time, I would be looking up at the face of Mt Fuji, propelled along by tornado-like winds of change by NSA. Being a practicing bodhisattva and accomplishing this grand human revolution was going to be challenging and very hard work. Maintaining a future in the vanguard as a senior leader of NSA – much, much harder even still. More like trying to put a boulder through the eye of a needle.
Having bought and paid for two cars that had both succumbed to mechanical failures, I had chanted for a car and presto, I was gifted with a car (from my Mom for finally entering college). I had chanted for money and abracadabra, I received a check in the mail (expected it anyway). How easy it was to attribute these and many more coincidences to this new miracle mantra that I had recently sought out and embraced so whole-heartedly. It was so easy to frame these experiences within my newly suggested mindset. See, look – there’s proof that chanting really can get you anything! Yes, isn’t it mystical?
I had previously become very interested in eastern religions, karma, and reincarnation. At age fifteen I was fascinated by Edgar Cayce’s reading that referred so often to karma and reincarnation. Then at age eighteen, I had begun reading and studying about Tibetan Buddhism in a large square book titled, “Be Here Now”. But trying to teach myself how to practice Buddhism from a book was not very satisfying to say the least. It was sort of like attempting all alone to master martial arts from a book, in practicality, a futile endeavor. I had been searching for real live teachers to learn from and to interact with - for a spiritual sensei (teacher), neh?
Then one day in January 1972, a friend that knew of my interest in Buddhism gave me the phone number of another friend that went to “some sort of Buddhist meetings”. Eagerly, I called up Pat, introduced myself, and asked her to invite me to one of her Buddhist meetings. She quickly agreed, as long as I would drive her and her husband, to and from the meeting place. I was already euphoric to have discovered a Buddhist group - geez, was I ever going to be an easy mark!
Finally the big evening arrived for the NSA (Nichiren Shoshu of America) meeting. NSA was the American branch of the Japanese Buddhist Lay organization known as the Soka Gakkai (Value Creation Society). I was going to be amongst real Buddhists as last. As I entered through the front door, hearing the sound of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo being chanted by the small crowd of people literally stuffed into a tiny living room, my musician’s ears perked up. The room was filled mostly with Japanese ladies, with only a few American faces mixed in. The sound of the chanting swirled around in my head and then out of my mouth so comfortably and so effortlessly. I could harmonize my voice with all the others. The singer in me said, yes! The vibrations from the chanting were so upbeat and powerful. I was immediately enthralled with the sound of many voices chanting together. As the Daimoku (chant) washed over me, I felt energized and wonderful. This was all so new and strange to a native Texan country boy, yet so appealing to my hippie nature. I had never heard the term “hippie to happy before”. Strange, weren’t hippies obviously already some of the happiest people around?
As the meeting proceeded, members related their uber-happy experiences regarding their Buddhist practice along with tidbits of NSA doctrine. I began to form fundamental questions regarding some conflicting basic Buddhist principles that I had previously learned on my own. I asked, “But doesn’t a Buddhist practitioner strive to eliminate their own earthly desires and attachments in order to attain the Eightfold path”, I asked? “Oh no, chant for anything you desire, a car, money, job, whatever you desire. No God and no faith needed.” Having been an atheist, that sounded so reasonable. “Just chant for something that makes you happy and see for yourself if chanting really works. Earthly desires equal enlightenment”. What could be the harm in trying this out? Nothing dangerous anywhere that I could see so far. Didn’t seem like one of those dangerous cults. After all, didn’t they say that one could quit anytime if they didn’t get any benefit from the practice?
During the meeting, I kept hearing many references to President Ikeda, whose picture hung on the wall right next to the alter. I thought it was strange to have a picture of a Japanese man enshrined so close to the gohonzon. Shouldn’t it be a picture of the founder Nichiren, or the high priest, but hey, what did I know? Everyone gushed about how wonderful his or her “Sensei” (honorable teacher) was. There was no mentioned of the coveted master and disciple relationship, but they were sure full of admirations and adoration for the organization’s top dog. They even had a special song that was used to close every meeting, “Forever Sensei”. I didn’t quite yet get just how “forever” they wanted everybody to be for the “Master”, perhaps because the brunt of the meeting was getting the guests (me) to agree to join up. Forever meant, you can never quit or leave the Master.
For many years I used to boast with pride that I had shakabuku’d (introduced) myself, because I got to my first meeting totally on my own volition. Having already made some attempts to understand Buddhism on my own, I was already primed and ready to study and practice NSA’s true Buddhism, ready to become a follower of Nichiren’s (a 13th century Japanese Buddhist Reformer) teachings. Ready to accept Ikeda as my sensei. I was all set to be molded and shaped by these NSA Buddhists who, seemed so much wiser and experienced than I. In hindsight, I was treading in shark-infested waters.
After the NSA discussion (indoctrination) meeting was over, the leaders invited, well actually more like challenged me to stay longer and chant for one hour. It was perhaps the most awesome hour of daimoku I have ever done. The energy and endorphins both coursed through me as I struggled to sit Japanese style with my legs folded underneath. As my legs fell asleep over and over, the pain was mind numbing, but the pure joy and exhilaration of letting my voice robustly join in with the others in chanting was so new and exciting. A pair of Juzu prayer beads were offered for me to use by someone – they added such a sensual input. And the beads were so rhythmic too! Such fun! Here, there was no need for all those bizarre esoterical practices I had previously learned about in Tibetan Buddhism. For instance, trying to envision this or that bodhisattva with my third eye. Huh? It was so hard for me to grasp all that mysterious mumbo jumbo. But now, here I was offered Enlightenment at my fingertips, from the only sect that could rightfully provide such a benefit. Just chant for anything - so easy, neh? (Just don’t get too intellectual or ask embarrassing questions about finances).
The Gohonzon (mandala – object of worship/meditation) and it’s surrounding Japanese butsudan (Buddha house) and butsugu (accessories) looked so mystical and cool. Such an energetic and friendly group of people, and all the nice friendly Asian ladies! Best of all, I loved joining my voice with the sound and rhythm of everyone chanting together. Suddenly, I was becoming fascinated with the surrounding Japanese culture as well as the Buddhist practice. The two just seemed to go together so seamlessly. When the hour long chanting toso (session) had ended, I was love bombed yet again, extra hard. Everyone was so excited that I had roared like a lion through the hour of chanting. Then there was one very nice Japanese lady who smiled so sweetly as she repeatedly complemented me on my loud and strong chanting voice, along with my resolve to stick it out to the end of the hour toso.
Before me kneeled a middle-aged Buddhist war bride with a shining face. Her Japanese name was Teruko, but she went by Terry (the name bestowed upon her by Gen. Dir. George Williams). This small Japanese woman leader seemed so unthreatening, and just so progressive. All the members called her either Mrs. Vaden, or by her NSA title, “fujin-bucho”. She was the Texas General Chapter Chief, a woman holding a man’s central leadership position in NSA.
In those early pioneering days, NSA still had a few remote areas (like Texas) where a woman was still holding onto the traditional senior male position for the area. Even though the credit was always given to Ikeda, it had been the Japanese women, married to American service men after World War 2, who had first brought Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism and the Soka Gakkai organization (later reorganized as NSA in 1960) over to this country. But the sexist aspect of Japanese culture frowns upon a women holding a higher positions than men. So the top brass at NSA headquarters preferred men to lead all meetings, especially American men, particularly easily influenced American men. And Texas was desperately in need of well-trained ganjin (round eyed) males to quickly fill leadership positions held by women.
Right away, Mrs. Vaden began to tell me in no uncertain terms how wonderful and special an NSA leader I was going to become. Her eyes and voice both burned with such passion. I felt so exceptional – so significant. She told me I had a very special mission for kosen rufu to fulfill (psychic ability or just gakkai M O?). Here I was, so open and happy to finally be get underway with my practice of Buddhism. And I was being given the suggestion from someone, obviously very important and respected, that I was destined for some sort of prominence in a grand new Bodhisattva march to world peace with NSA. (Looking back it was more like being love bombed and then being marked for quick advancement within the organization, ID’d as potentially easy to train fodder for the movement.) But at that moment in time, I felt an immediate strong connection with Mrs. Vaden. It was like being bathed in warm sunlight whenever she turned her sweet motherly attention on me. I ate it all up like candy (just didn’t occur to me that the candy might someday come tainted with glass shards). Yep, I was completely sold now - hook, line and sinker. As she spoke to me, I couldn’t have imagined just what a massive influence this nice honey-voiced Japanese lady was about to craft over me. The required frame was being solidly established for me. And it was all framed the NSA way, of course. That’s the way a cult works. Ssshhhh, don’t let the secret out.
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My earliest experience with religious cults reached back to around age six. I was baptized into a small Southern Baptists church in South Dallas. Well, more like nearly drowned. The church had a huge water tank (think giant fish tank) that was set in the wall, right up at the front behind the pulpit and next to the choir area. A curtain was pulled back when it was used for baptisms, which required the sinner to be completely immersed in water. Being just a small child, I feared that I might drown, as I didn’t swim yet and was scared of water. But there was something even more traumatizing for me than being ceremonially dunked into cold water in front of an entire church assembly. Nudity. For the first time in my young life, I was forced to strip naked in front of complete strangers to get dried off and into dry clothing. I was really embarrassed and humiliated. But no one was really concerned about how I might have felt. They were all so happy I wasn’t going to hell now that I was wet and naked, I mean saved.
I probably got my musical talent from my grandmother. She played piano at the tiny Southern Baptist church just a few doors down from her home in the backwaters of East Texas. She was totally into the church cult, and though I loved to hear her play piano, I hated going to church. (gee, wonder why?)
After losing my father to cancer, my mom remarried when I was nine. She changed her religious sect from Baptist over to the Methodist church to accommodate my new step dad. So off to a new church we went. When I got to be around fourteen I began to seriously question the dogma I was being taught in Sunday school. “If God made everything, then who made God?” “How does some magical sky god know everything that everyone is thinking and doing everywhere all at once?” It’s a miracle! Of course! “Hey, where did those wives that Cain and Able married come from anyway?” But there were no satisfactory answers for me. I was told I asked too many questions (sound familiar?) So eventually I just decided that Man is God, for Man had created God in his image, not the other way around. For that matter, I thought both god and the devil inherently existed within the mind of Man. I grew to doubt the bible. When Man needed a god to worship, perhaps he always invents one – or many gods, as the case may be.
Well anyway, just forget about some vengeful sky god, and screw all the threats of eternal damnation if you don’t believe. “You must accept His (go-between) son as your personal savior.” Oh, and that cross thing – so damn morbid! Resurrection? What? “Miracles boy!” Anyways, I started cutting Sunday school and church regularly and lightening bolts didn’t come down out of the sky to zap me. As a matter of fact, it felt damn good to reject the religious dogma and propaganda. So I guess I became a kind of an atheist before age fifteen.
But it was a dark time in my life. Music was very important to me, but the rock band I played guitar and bass in had broken up. My family was dysfunctional to say the least, with an abusive and violent step dad and alcoholic, drugged out mom that fought constantly. And then they would turn their anger on me. For two years, I had been running away from home about once every month or two. But there was no existing support system that I could access for help, so the cycle of my youthful suffering just spiraled deeper. My oldest brother had previously taken in our middle brother in order to help him get out of our wretched house, but he was not interested in repeating that deal for me. No relief from church, teachers, or family. With nowhere to turn and nobody to turn to, I began abusing alcohol and inhalants. Then I fell into a deep depression over having no control in my life, no solution to my problems at home, no relief from the stress of school (state indoctrination). Being a young atheist, I began thinking that if there was nothing after this life, then perhaps death would bring an end to my debilitating confusion, unhappiness and suffering. So after another incident of having run away from home for a few days, and with still nowhere to go and no one to turn to, I stopped by a drugstore and bought a bottle of sleeping pills.
Late that night I snuck into the tool shed behind our house and took the entire bottle of 32 pills. At the time, I didn’t understand that taking the pills with alcohol would have greatly increased the odds of death, or I would have drunk alcohol as well. Lucky I didn’t drink with all those pills, neh? But after committing to my plan and taking them all, I was suddenly and very strongly overcome with a feeling that perhaps there was a special reason to remain alive that I had not yet discovered – that somehow, perhaps I had a special purpose, a reason for being alive after all. However, I decided to continue along with my plan. If there was a reason to live, maybe I would find out or maybe not, but either way I would discover if there was a life beyond this one. When I laid down to float away to my impending death, sleep didn’t come easily. I finally began to drift in and out, then my stomach started to hurt quite badly. The nausea became acute very quickly and I threw up as I slept. That probably helped save my life, as I naturally purged most of those pills. Well, yes most of them, but some were kind of stuck in my throat, still half digested. Ugh! For a whole day they kept coming up.
At first light awoke with a start. I heard the sound of my step dad opening the back door, freaked out and ran, jumped the back fence, then ran down a few doors to the neighbor’s house where a hip young guy with a band rented a house from my folks. Suddenly, I began to hallucinate from the drugs in the sleeping pills. Man was I tripping out. Starting talking to my friends that I thought were setting inside the locked car in his driveway, but would blink and instantly, they’d be gone. Poof! What was reality and what was a dream? It was like a waking dream. My ghostly friends informed me that it was okay to go into the rented house. So I wondered on inside, using the side door and sat down at the small kitchen table. This was my parent’s rental house, and I had spent some time in there. It was familiar and comfortable, and I didn’t know where else to go. So I sat there, dozing on and off while tripping out for a while. Then the guy renting the place woke and came in the kitchen. He started yelling at me for coming in uninvited, and I tried to tell him “they” said it was all right to come in the house. Luckily, he did know me and I think he realized that I was extremely high and eventually calmed down and offered me coffee.
Well, long story short – eventually my parents had me locked up over the suicide attempt, and I was involuntarily committed to a mental institution for a 90-day observation period. After only 30 days, my doctor decided there was nothing wrong with me and released me with out ever have prescribed any drugs whatsoever. (Can you imagine that happening in today’s world?) The institutional experience and time away from home had an influence, but my spiritual renaissance allowed me to change my views and attitudes, and grow quickly into a much more mature young man. So I was able to return home and find a way to cope with my life much more successfully. But I was still searching for something out there, something very deep and revealing, a fifteen year old adult ready to search for the Ultimate Reality of Life.
I was to learning to think for myself. I questioned everything, so I could now more easily question authority, in my mind if not outright. Questioning religion and living outside of the box eventually lead me down the road of questioning education and status quo as well. I eventually dropped out of high school three times. If I wasn’t interested in a class, I would sleep through it, or if possible, read a book of my choosing. When a class was just too pointless for me, I made an F on purpose in order to drop out of the class (how the hell was I going to use algebra if I wanted to become a musician for example). If a subject or teacher was inane, I would tune them out. When a teacher was unbearably dreadful, I purposely flunked the class. When I found a teacher that I could enjoy and respect, I had no problem understanding the courses, and I easily made A’s or B’s without even trying hard. If I was interested, I could become completely absorbed. Academic studies became so much easier once I decided to choose and control my own agendas and curriculums, both in and out of school. I began to read on a diverse range of subjects almost all night long, and then try to catch some sleep during the school day during the dull classes with inane teachers.
High school seemed so insignificant after challenging death, and attaining a new consciousness and self-awareness. Having just passed though an intuitional system of mental health, and then reading Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Coocoo’s Nest”, I intuitively sensed that something about the entire school system was rotten to the core, but it would be a long time before I could put my finger on exactly what it was (please research the story of John Taylor Gatto, recipient of New York State’s Teacher of the Year Award. Mr. Taylor presents an eye-opening and in depth examination on public schooling (indoctrination disguised as education.)
It was during my junior year of high school that I first began to read about reincarnation and karma. These concepts immediately had something to them that rang true to my ears. Life and death as a continuous cycle made much more sense to me than western religious doctrine (especially the personal savior and brimstone & hell fire elements). There were mysterious truths about life that I wanted to learn about. Then I discovered the usefulness of LSD to explore my inner self.
The first few times I took low dosages, and had lightweight and entertaining trips. Then I made friends with an ex-marine turned hippie, James Avery. He had been to Viet Nam and seemed so worldly to this seventeen year old. He was my first mentor, teaching me how to lead a hippie lifestyle and how to use LSD to explore my spirituality. He was the teacher and I was the student. I dropped out of school again, trading it off for adventures in the real world with James. We took off for California, and would eventually wind up traveling all over the country together looking for wild girls, drugs, and rock n roll. One of our buddies had an old limo Checker Cab that we (a bunch of hippies) had set out west in. We carried on a bit like the Merry Pranksters conducting one of their kool-aid acid tests. James and I actually had a competition going to see who could get the largest number of girls to have sex (a win-win situation). Fun times indeed!
James was also the first person to ever tell me about chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo during our travels. I had forgotten about this until years later when he reminded me about it during a visit to introduce him to NSA. Turns out he had told me about it sometime during the long hippie road trip we had made together to California in 1969, and I had completely forgotten about it.
Eventually, I moved back home to my folks and resumed my senior year of high school. After turning eighteen, I had become eligible to directly receive VA and SS benefits for schooling that I qualified for through my deceased fathers’ military service during WW2. After previously having to support myself by working full time to make ends meet, it was a blessing to live with my parents and receive financial support for schooling! I bought a nice ‘56 Chevy and a top of the line 8-track stereo, and still had plenty of cash to spend. Life seemed to be getting better.
The time was ripe for healing, for building a new relationship between Mom and me. At first, after I had been committed to an institute, I was very resentful of my folks for what ‘they had done to me”. But I quickly changed that type of thinking around when I began to face my reality more as an adult. Now as a mature young man, I could go and visit with my mom at her workplace. There, we could have a chance to talk in a neutral environment. Once, after I complained about my alcoholic step dad, she revealed me how unhappy she was as well. Mom helped me to understand that we were both suffering from my violent and abusive step dad’s acute alcoholism, and we bonded at last.
Back in school, I began to wonder if perhaps karma and reincarnation were the subjects that I needed to foster a deeper understanding about instead of algebra and school indoctrination. I was still searching to find my real purpose or mission on this plane of existence. My ongoing personal search for answers to my questions about life drove my determination to discover some hidden answers from esoteric eastern religious thought and particularly from within Buddhism.
After about a year’s absence, my ole traveling partner James came back to town. Before very long, I had dropped out of high school again, and we were off on another adventure. This time we headed east to Florida to spend the winter with one of James’ Vietnam marine buddies. We enjoyed the nicely tanned babes on the white beaches and the wide variety of hallucinogenic drugs. James and I really loved the availability of so many different marijuana strains from countries all over the world. I was receiving a worldly education with my first mentor. By the time summer rolled around, we had landed back in Dallas/Ft. Worth.
By then, with James as my acid guru, I had become comfortable with taking prodigious amounts of LSD on a semi regular basis. But there was this one acid trip that was particularly extraordinary. After I dropped, I got so high I become mostly disconnected from my ordinary reality. Outwardly, I appeared to be asleep but internally, I was tripping at a colossal rate. About all I could do was lay on the floor and watch the surreal images that flashed through my mind. Time began to run backwards as I watched my past experiences unfold in my mind’s eye. I re-experienced my childhood, my birth. Then I went back even further, to before my birth. I became aware I was “alive” and consciousness when I had no body before I was born. Eventually, I “awoke” from my induced hyper state of consciousness. This was a deep spiritual experience for me, right down to my core. Similar to the American Indian use of peyote and its effects on the mind and spirit, I interpreted my visions and insights as affirmation of the nature of life and death. The journey of spiritual discovery that I had set upon four years earlier was progressing.
I decided to start collecting my VA benefits again and enrolled into a community college after getting my GED high school diploma. But now my life experiences set me worlds apart from the other teenage students just coming straight out of high school. I couldn’t relate to them. I was already a man of the world on a spiritual quest to know myself, and to comprehend the true nature of life.
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And so my search for Universal Truth and Buddhism was well underway. It had begun long before that day, on the side of freeway, stopping to chant to the Sun on my way to meet an actual Buddhist priest, to receive my Gohonzon, and to become an official member of NSA and the Soka Gakkai.
There was still no permanent NSA kaikan (center) in Texas, so instead, they had rented a banquet room at a north Dallas Holiday Inn. A room was filled to standing room only with about 40 - 45 people from all over Texas and Oklahoma. I had chanted for, and just managed to scrape together my required five-dollar donation (NSA publications were pushed separately back then). The entire donation was all in coin change, included three dollars in rolls of pennies. But I had chanted for the money, and there it was – more proof? Inside the small banquet room, everyone chanted NMRK as we waited for the meeting to begin. The priest entered and a young man hung (enshrined) the large Joju Gonhonzon from the temple directly on the wall. The Reverend began the service with slow gongyo (sutra recitation) and chanting of the daimoku. It was the first time I had heard gongyo and chanting performed at a slow tempo. The priest’s presence certainly legitimized the NSA organization for me. These couldn’t be crazy people, for they had a real Buddhist temple and priest at their disposal. I struggled along, completely frustrated at my inability to keep up with even a slow recitation of the sutra. After a brief sermon and some instructions about how to care for our new Gohonzon scroll, we received the Gojukai (blessing) ceremony. I was duly impressed with the way the Reverend lightly tapped the head of each person with a scroll as he “blessed” us. Then I received my gohonzon from the Reverend, along with about 10 or 12 others. At last, I was officially a true Buddhist. Not just any old Buddhist, but a Nichiren Shoshu of America Buddhist.
Once again, the older members dropped a nice love bomb on all us newbies. I felt happy and excited at the prospect of entering the Way, the path to enlightenment. They said it was like my birthday, that I would be starting my life anew (born again?) But I still had no idea just how radically my life was about to change. I had no clue that within a short time, I would be looking up at the face of Mt Fuji, propelled along by tornado-like winds of change by NSA. Being a practicing bodhisattva and accomplishing this grand human revolution was going to be challenging and very hard work. Maintaining a future in the vanguard as a senior leader of NSA – much, much harder even still. More like trying to put a boulder through the eye of a needle.