Daisku
Ikeda (1928-Present)
A
great human revolution in just a single individual will
help achieve a change in the destiny of a society and
further, will enable a change in the destiny of all
humankind.
--
Daisaku Ikeda
Daisaku Ikeda
is the president of Soka Gakkai International (SGI),
an international Buddhist organization dedicated to promoting
peace, culture, and education. Ikeda is a Buddhist thinker and
educator who believes in creating peace through personal
interaction and dialogue across different cultures. He has
traveled to 128 countries thus far in pursuit of this ideal,
holding discussions with many prominent figures including Dr.
Arnold Toynbee, Dr. Linus Pauling, Rosa Parks, and Nelson
Mandela. Ikeda has organized many fundraising campaigns and
relief efforts for suffering peoples around the world, and has
created numerous peace proposals and petitions to abolish
nuclear weapons. In recognition to his sincere devotion to
promote peace, Daisaku Ikeda has been awarded many honorary
doctorates from world wide academic institutions and has
received the UN Peace Award and the United Nations High
Commission for Refugee Humanitarian award. Most importantly, he
has won the trust and admiration of those who strive for peace,
prominent and common alike.
Quotation of
Inspiration
What our world
most requires now is the kind of education that foster love for
humankind, that develop characters - that provides an
intellectual basis for the realization of peace and empowers
learners to contribute to and improve society
I learnt from
his ("Toda's") example. The burning commitment
to peace that remind unshakened throughout his imprisonment was
something he carried with him his entire life. It was from this,
and from the profound compassion that characterized each of his
interactions with people, that I most learned.
I am confident
that if people everywhere engage in sincere dialogue to identify
a common basis for belief and action, and if all people can join
as equal partners to create that culture of peace, we will
witness the dawn of an era in which happiness can be enjoyed by
everyone.
Human
brilliance derived from the light of altruistic action. People
are truly human only when they endeavor to dedicate their lives
for their friends and fellow human beings.
Adversity
gives birth to greatness. The greater the challenges and
difficulties we face, the greater opportunity we have to grow
and develop as people. A life without adversity, a life of ease
and comfort, produces nothing and leaves us with nothing.
Our task is to
establish a firm inner world, a robust sense of self that will
not be swayed or shaken by the most trying circumstances or
pressing adversity. Only when efforts to reform society have as
their point of departure the reformation of the inner life -
human revolution - will they lead us with certainty to a world
of lasting peace and true human security.
