Amsterdam Geshu Site
is a bi-lingual, unofficial website maintained by Amsterdam members of the SGI. Our goal is to help people get acquainted with our Buddhist practice, and to share ideas and information.

Soka Gakkai means Literally, "Society for the Creation of Value." It is the name of the lay organization of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. Soka Gakkai International: SGI is the umbrella organization led by President Daisaku Ikeda. It includes organizations in 170 nations and 20 million people around the world, who are actively practicing this Buddhism in order to create value in their daily lives, both for their own happiness and that of society.

We believe that Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism, a humanistic philosophy of infinite respect for the sanctity of life and all-encompassing compassion, enables individuals to cultivate and bring forth their inherent wisdom and, nurturing the creativity of the human spirit, to surmount the difficulties and crises facing humankind and realize a society of peaceful and prosperous coexistence.

The foundation of our practice is chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo reciting certain parts of the Lotus Sutra every morning and evening, known as performing the Gongyo. The goal is nothing short of Kosen Rufu, or happiness for all human beings.

President Ikeda: "Our movement can become a vast ocean, like Nichiren Daishonin said: a single person realizing the truth of life, will inspire another, and then two, three and ten".

At neighbourhood monthly meetings we have heart to heart talks and exchange experiences in order to increase our understanding of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism and the SGI.

"Without practice and study, there can be no Buddhism."
Nichiren Daishonin TheTrue Entity of Life

Geshu: Planting the seed of Buddhahood in the lives of others by telling them about the Gohonzon

Gohonzon; The Gohonzon is the Object of devotion in the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin. It is a concrete/ tangible form of the highest Universal Law of life, which Nichiren inscribed so that all people could manifest their inherent Buddha Nature. "Never seek this Gohonzon outside yourself. The Gohonzon exists only within the mortal flesh of us ordinary people who embrace the Lotus Sutra and chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" (MW-1, 213). This realization is what Buddhism calls the condition of enlightenment.
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Nichiren Daishonin: a 13th Century Japanese Buddhist priest whose philosophy centered around the final teaching of the first historically recognized Buddha known as Siddhartha Gautama or Shakyamuni Buddha. This teaching, called the Lotus Sutra, declares that all living beings have the potential to attain enlightenment or Buddhahood in this life time.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo: The fundamental component of the practice of Buddhism, which expresses the ultimate truth of life and the universe and allows each individual to tap his or her innate enlightened nature directly. Although the deepest meaning of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is revealed only through the practice of chanting it, there is a literal definition:

Nam (devotion) means to fuse one's life with the universal law;
Myoho (Mystic Law) is the fundamental principle of the universe and its phenomenal manifestations;
Renge (lotus flower) refers to the lotus, which blooms and seeds at the same time, symbolizing the simultaneity of cause and effect; and
Kyo (sutra, or teaching of a Buddha) broadly indicates all phenomena or the activities of all living beings. Sound; action; Title and essence of the Lotus Sutra

See aslo, article on Geshu Site: Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

Lotus Sutra: The supreme Buddhist teaching that leads all people directly to enlightenment in this lifetime, by teaching that the Buddha state is inherent in all human beings.
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This page was last modified on Monday, August 21, 2006.

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After a long period of silence Amsterdam Geshu is on the net again, thanks to the help of some good friends.