Promoting peace through dialogue and human revolution: The life of Daisaku Ikeda
Saikat Kumar Basu
On Tuesday 20th February, 2024 an event was held in the European Parliament at Brussels in Belgium to celebrate the life of SGI President Daisaku Ikeda. The program was hosted by Vice President of the Parliament Pina Picierno MEP in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International (SGI) Europe. The event was live streamed through the following link: https://youtube.com/live/8GcujDhDvu8?feature=share, and then a recording has been made available on the same link with subtitles in various global languages. The meeting took place at 9.00 am Central Europen Time and lasted for approximately hours. This particular event has been a significant event where different speakers shareed how President Ikeda’s life has impacted and influenced different aspects of the European culture.
The erudite seekers at the event were: Vice President Pina Picierno MEP; Stefano Bettera, President of the European Buddhist Union; Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Co-President of the Club of Rome; Akpéné Bernard, Co-Chair of SGI European Youth Committee; Melissa Parke, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN); and Robert Harrap, Co-Chair of SGI Europe.
The program captured in a nutshell the life of Daisaku Ikeda and his monumental impact on the mind and wellbeing of people across our planet including Europe. Daisaku Ikeda (January 2, 1928 – November, 15 2023) was a Japanese Buddhist philosopher, educator, author, and a prominent nuclear disarmament advocate. Ikeda served as the 3rd president and then honorary president of the Soka Gakkai the largest of Japanese neo- religious movement. He has been the founding president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), the world’s largest Buddhist lay organization, which claims to have approximately 12 million practitioners in 192 countries and territories. It is broadly estimated based on 2012 data, that over 1.5 million of these devoted practitioners reside outside of Japan.
Ikeda was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1928, to a family belonging to the traditional Japanese seaweed farming community. He survived the devastation of the second World WR as a teenager, which he said left an indelible mark on his life and fueled his quest to solve the fundamental causes of human conflict. At age 19, Ikeda began practicing Nichiren Buddhism. He joined a youth group of the Soka Gakkai, which led to his lifelong work developing the global peace movement of SGI and founding dozens of institutions dedicated to fostering peace, culture and ducation. The monumental accomplishments of Daisaku Ikeda are honored internationally and received over 400 accolades from various national and international organizations across the world.
Photo credit: Saikat Kumar Basu
