by Courtney Sanders Belfast, Maine Summer brings a steady stream of tourists to Belfast and, so, a great many mouths to feed. What I did not expect was the river—no, the torrent—of tourism that visited our little seaside town last summer, swamping my tiny restaurant with demands for soup. I began Daily Soup in 2014, after requests for soups I’d been making friends from home swiftly outgrew my kitchen’s capacity. When needed, I tended to hire women like me—middle-aged, experienced. We understood one another; we were chummy. But in 2023, themed the “Year of Youth and Triumph” in the SGI, I deci ..read more

by Diann Oden Birmingham, Ala. In 2001, my son crossed Tacoma Narrows Bridge and drove into Spanaway, where our friend lay dying. “She’s in and out,” he warned me, but I urged him on. “That’s all right, that’s just fine. Put me to her ear. She’ll hear me.”  Chanting in her ear through my son’s cellphone, I reflected on the debt of gratitude I owed her, the person who introduced me to Buddhism, with whom I could discuss anything. One year earlier, she’d called to tell me she’d been diagnosed with lung cancer. I remembered what she’d told me at that crucial time. “I’ll be alright,” she’d s ..read more

by Kronskie Dickenson-Foster Antigua, Antigua and Barbuda To young people, I say: No matter how fine a suit may seem, if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit! Don’t go squeezing into a suit like that, telling yourself it looks all right; in the end, you won’t be able to breathe. I’m talking, of course, about relationships. I found myself bound up in just such a fit in 2016. After three years and a thousand lies in the mirror, I didn’t have breath enough to tell one more. I was with a man who vented his anger on me and my children. I summoned the courage to end a bad situation and began building fro ..read more

Living Buddhism: Thank you for speaking with us today, Yoko. You credit your mother and grandmother as two of your greatest role models. Tell us about them. Yoko Ambulo: Thank you. Yes, two of the strongest people I’ve ever known—the type to point to the heavens and declare of whatever’s up there—hailstorms, hurricanes, buckets of rain: “Mira, Yoko, esta es su responsibilidad.” This is your responsibility. This is the word they always used—responsibility. Never, this is your fault or your problem. What they meant was that if I was experiencing something, then who else but Yoko could take owne ..read more

by Christopher Robin Donaldson Denver As much laughter and love as there was in my childhood, there was also a great deal of pain. My father left our  family when I was 6. My mother, a true punk rocker, actress and singer, raised me and my sister on her own as best as she could for as long as she could afford it, but she was unable to protect me from abuse by another family member soon after my father left. The abuse eventually ended, but left scars that only deepened with time. I brought them with me to Denver, where I moved at 10 to live with my father. In 2009, at 19, a bad breakup br ..read more

by Eileen Reinholz Honolulu Don got lucky. I’d gotten all prettied up in the mirror, all dressed to go out when, last minute, my friend called to cancel. So I was bummed out sitting at home by the telephone, when it rang again. I picked it up thinking my friend had changed her mind. Instead it was Don, who I knew from SGI activities.  We went dancing and I found him to be a beautiful, funny person. We married within the year, and anyone would tell you ours was a happy, easygoing marriage. We worked hard, though—me for a bank, Don for the Navy as a nuclear submariner, a truly difficult jo ..read more

by Bhavini Gupta Duvall, Wash. Born and raised in a large family in Delhi, I’d not taken so much as a meal alone until I moved to America, where suddenly, most all my meals were had alone. I spoke to my husband for the first time in April 2019 over the phone, and that winter, we married. An arranged marriage, we knew very little of each other and did not know how to be together. Nonetheless, by year’s end, there we were, married and living together in Chicago where my husband worked.  He worked long days, from early morning until late afternoon, something I’d known before we married but ..read more

Living Buddhism: You left home at 17 to make a life for yourself in New York. What drew you at such a young age from Charleston, South Carolina, to the Big Apple? Blane Charles: In fact, I was drawn back—I was born in Brooklyn. My family moved to Charleston when I was 10. New York for me has always been home. As a young person, I saw it as the place I could discover, or rediscover, myself—the self that had been shunned and buried underground. There simply wasn’t anything for me at home in Charleston. I’d have left earlier if I could have. Raised in a hardline, isolationist religious community ..read more

On November 23, 2023, a Soka Gakkai Memorial Service for Daisaku Ikeda, Honorary President of Soka Gakkai and President of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), was conducted from 1:30 p.m. at the Toda Memorial Auditorium in Sugamo, Tokyo. The service was broadcast live to 1,000 venues throughout the 47 prefectures of Japan. Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada, General Director Shigeo Hasegawa and national Women’s Division Leader Kimiko Nagaishi attended the service with other divisional and regional representatives from around the country. President Harada led the recitation of portions of ..read more

Daisaku Ikeda, Honorary President of the Soka Gakkai and President of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), passed away from natural causes at his residence in Shinjuku, Tokyo, on the evening of Nov. 15. He was 95. A funeral has been held with members of his immediate family; the time and date of commemorative services will be announced shortly. Ikeda Sensei was born in Tokyo on Jan. 2, 1928. He was inaugurated as third president of the Soka Gakkai in 1960 and for almost two decades led the lay Buddhist movement in dynamic growth that also saw important international development. He beca ..read more