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Introduction on Daisaku Ikeda
Daisaku Ikeda was born in Tokyo on January 2, 1928. As a teenager during World War II, Mr. Ikeda experienced the horrors of war through the death and devastation around him, including the death of his eldest brother on the Burmese front. He developed a deep-rooted abhorrence to war and a respect for those who had undergone persecution by the state for their anti-war beliefs but had not compromised their convictions. In 1947, at age 19, he met such a person--Josei Toda.
Soon after their meeting, Mr. Ikeda joined Soka Gakkai and began working as editor for a boy's magazine that Mr. Toda published. He became Mr. Toda's most trusted aide in the organization. In 1960, two years after Mr. Toda's death, Mr. Ikeda became the third Soka Gakkai president.
During Mr. Ikeda's presidency, the organization expanded in Japan and internationally. At the same time he was instrumental in establishing various institutions to apply Buddhist principles in the fields of peace, culture and education. Among these are Soka University and other Soka schools, from kindergarten through high school; the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum; the Min-On Concert Association; and the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research.
In 1971, Mr. Ikeda began a series of discussions with the British historian Arnold Toynbee which were later published under the title Choose Life. Mr. Ikeda has since criss-crossed the globe in pursuit of peace and has met with leading scholars, activists, ordinary citizens and world leaders, among them former Brazilian Academy of Letters president Austregesilo de Athayde, Norwegian peace scholar Johan Galtung and former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev.
Mr. Ikeda was an early proponent of citizen's diplomacy, meeting with leaders in China and the former Soviet Union from the early 1970s. He has received 39 honorary degrees (as of mid-July 1996) and has given addresses at the Institut de France, Harvard University, Moscow State University and Beijing University, among others. Mr. Ikeda also authors an annual peace proposal that is presented to the United Nations.
In 1975, Mr. Ikeda became first president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a position he still holds. In 1979, he resigned as third Soka Gakkai president.
A prolific writer and poet, Mr. Ikeda has published works in Japanese and 25 other languages on a variety of subjects, from Buddhist philosophy to children's stories. His photographs taken during travels in Japan and abroad have been compiled into an exhibition, "Dialogue with Nature," shown around the world. He is the recipient of the U.N. Peace Medal (1983), the International Tolerance Award of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (1993), and the Rosa Parks Humanitarian Award (1994).
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