HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

ECHOES AND REFLECTIONS

THE SELECTED WORKS OF DAISAKU IKEDA

Showcasing some of the most potent and far-reaching spiritual works of our
times, this major new series brings together – for the first time under the
banner of a single imprint – twelve classic dialogues between modern
spiritual master Daisaku Ikeda and a distinguished roll-call of discussants,
who are uniformly thinkers of global stature and reputation. Echoes and
Reflections ranges widely across the fields of religion, politics, economics,
science and the arts, and in each instance puts a profound and searching
new perspective on some of the most pressing issues of our age. Topics
covered include: the search for worldwide social justice; the challenges
posed by climate change and diminishing natural resources; the perils of
religious misdirection; the urgent need for inner growth and harmony; the
importance of learning and education; and, above all, the significance of the
human quest for meaning and value in life.
Titles in the series:

Choose Life, Arnold Toynbee & Daisaku Ikeda

Dawn After Dark, René Huyghe & Daisaku Ikeda
Human Values in A Changing World, Bryan Wilson & Daisaku Ikeda
Search for A New Humanity, Josef Derbolav & Daisaku Ikeda
Before it is Too Late, Aurelio Peccei & Daisaku Ikeda
A Lifelong Quest for Peace, Linus Pauling & Daisaku Ikeda
Ode to the Grand Spirit, Chingiz Aitmatov & Daisaku Ikeda
Human Rights in the Twenty-first Century, Austregésilo de Athayde &
Daisaku Ikeda
Dialogue on José Martí, Cintio Vitier & Daisaku Ikeda
 Compassionate Light in Asia, Jin Yong & Daisaku Ikeda
Global Civilization, Majid Tehranian & Daisaku Ikeda
Moral Lessons of the Twentieth Century, Mikhail Gorbachev & Daisaku
Ikeda
Echoes and Reflections is a new series that repackages twelve classic
dialogues held between Daisaku Ikeda and a variety of interlocutors, which
took place from 1972 to 1996. The texts of these dialogues are presented in
this series substantively in the form in which they were originally published.
For the sake of verisimilitude, and to preserve the integrity of the series, the
events, persons and dates referred to in the texts reflect the original periods
and contexts in which the conversations were first held, and so have not been
altered or edited to mirror subsequent developments in international affairs
or the changed worldwide circumstances of later years.
Published in 2009 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
www.ibtauris.com

Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010

Copyright © 1995 Laura Sandroni, Antonio Vicente Austregésilo de Athayde, Roberto Athayde,
Cícero Sandroni, Daisaku Ikeda and Hiromasa Ikeda

English Translation Copyright © 2009 Soka Gakkai

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978 1 84511 988 1

eISBN: 978 0 85773 193 7

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

Typeset by Ellipsis Books Limited, Glasgow

Contents

Preface by Austregésilo de Athayde

Preface by Daisaku Ikeda

1. TOWARDS THE CENTURY OF THE RENAISSANCE OF HUMAN

RIGHTS
Armed with Words
Recollections of Youth
Holy Orders to Journalism
Recollections of Parents and Wife
The Brazilian Academy of Letters

2. CONTINUING THE FERVENT SPIRIT OF HUMANISM

Champions of Human Rights
Five Concrete Proposals
Mandela University
The Practice of Satyāgraha
Transcending Obsession with Differences

3. CARRYING THE BANNER OF HUMANISM

Mentors and Disciples Find Each Other
Gandhi’s Heritage from Shakyamuni
The Enlightenment
Loving and Trusting
4. THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: AN
ETERNAL GUIDING LIGHT FOR ALL PEOPLES
Not to Repeat the Tragedy of the Second World War
Friendships with Mrs. Roosevelt and Dr. Cassin
Committee Three
Proposing and Revising
The Buddhist Viewpoint

5. TOWARDS A SPIRITUALLY UNITED WORLD; TRACING HUMAN

RIGHTS THOUGHT
Philosophical Foundation
Two Currents
Confronting Ignorance
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophers
Power from Within
Equality Arising from the Universal Law

6. EXPANDING THE NETWORK OF HUMANISM AROUND THE

GLOBE
Dialogue with Patience
Passionate Self-sacrifice
Integrated Rights
Respect for the Dignity of All Life Forms
Global Influence
The Universality of the Declaration
Human Rights in the Light of the Three Realms of Existence and the
Theory of Eshō-funi

7. TREASURING THE DIGNITY OF EACH INDIVIDUAL

Freedom of the Spirit
Freedom of Thought in Peril
Separation of State and Religion
Corrupt Buddhist Priesthood

8. PATH TO THE NEW CENTURY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Education: The First Prerequisite of Progress
New Perspectives and Ideals
The Pursuit of Happiness
Brazilian Education

9. TOWARDS THE NEW MILLENNIUM

Proof of the Possibility of Peace
The Right to Live in Peace
Symbiosis of Humanity and Nature
Human Development
A Model Bodhisattva
The Advent of a New Humanism

10. PATERNAL IMAGES

Immortal Achievements of a Champion of Human Rights
The Meaning of Life
At Life’s Major Stages
Hardships in Youth
Treasured People, Treasured Beloved Books
Unforgettable Encounters
A Wholesome, Active Way of Life
Fervour Bordering on Obstinacy
Like Long-lost Comrades
Supporting the United Nations
Fighting Against Unjust Authority and Power
Hope and Courage for the People
Free Expression
The Most Beautiful Woman in Rio de Janeiro
Strength from Trees and Stars
No Linguistic or Racial Barriers
Peace and Human Rights are Inseparable

Glossary
Notes
Preface

by Austregésilo de Athayde

This dialogue is more than an encounter between two human-rights

advocates. It presents posterity with a book by Daisaku Ikeda who, like me,
has dedicated his utmost energies to the essential, indispensable, noble work
of protecting the rights of all humanity. The two of us equally have shared
the struggle. Emerging from the experiences of that struggle, this dialogue
sets out to bring to flower humanity’s historic, long held, cherished wish.
Accomplishing this in the twenty-first century will rewrite philosophical,
social, and political history. As trusting, steadfast comrades, we both hope
that our passionate dedication will be the determining factor in ushering in a
day of salvation and of equality for men and women of all ages. Such
equality will be free of prejudices and respectful of all religious sensibilities
and creeds and will assure the basic principles of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.
Daisaku Ikeda strives to unite the East and the West. His wise teachings
embody the noblest ideals of that declaration. The path he points out for the
twenty-first century leads to freedom from fear and the preservation of a
priceless world where non-discrimination and equality are respected and
where families and homes enjoy tranquillity. He is like a shepherd walking
side by side with the sheep he guides.
The idea of dialogue has a venerable history. Cicero engaged in dialogues
with his friends. Samuel Johnson might be said to have conducted an
extended dialogue with his biographer James Boswell. And, of course, the
dialogue between Goethe and his friend Johan Peter Eckermann is famous.
Mr. Ikeda has conducted many dialogues, including one with Arnold J.
Toynbee, one of the most prominent British historians of modern times.
Dialogue as a form enables people with great ideas to exchange opinions
and bequeath to the world their richly inspiring discussions. In addition,
though the participants may speak different languages and belong to
different cultural spheres, dialogue enables them to transmit to each other
the national spirits as reflected in their social, economic and political
concepts. In accumulation, these characteristics determine the course of
history and reveal a picture of the evolution of humanity.
Dialogues are remembered into the future to identify our time and space
as well as the philosophy, outlook, and plans for the future of the
individuals taking part in them. A dialogue with a modern leader like
Daisaku Ikeda, whose actions originate in profound reflections, is bound to
blaze the way forward and will always be remembered. The heritage of
great lessons embodied in his numerous dialogues and his expanding
influence on spiritual evolution prove Mr. Ikeda’s greatness.
The creativity characteristic of humanity since its very emergence is a
never-ending process that began when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by
eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. The process includes the
Code of Hamurabi, which has a history of millennia and which was later
reflected in condensed form in the pronouncements of Moses and the
twelve Hebrew heroes of the Book of Judges. As is the case with
Buddhism, through their philosophical concepts, these fundamentally
religious works continue to influence people and nations.
In the time of Socrates, the so called Seven Sages – Thales of Miletus,
Solon, Bias, Chiron, Cleobulus, Pittacus, and Periander – publicly argued
over the meanings of many different problems on the basis of the same kind
of inspiration that was behind the profound, diverse thought of Socrates and
Plato. Without flattery of any kind, I can mention in this context Daisaku
Ikeda, whom I consider an heir to Aristotle. As we know from his great
works, Aristotle relied, not on ideas, but on experiential vision as his source
and espoused doubt. He was the first philosopher to do so. His philosophy,
or Aristotelianism, a word formed on an analogy with Platonism, has played
a major role in the development of the modern natural sciences. There is no
room in a preface of this kind to delve deeply into the history of philosophy.
Nonetheless, we must touch on it if we are to understand fully the lucid
ideals pulsating in the mind of the great leader Daisaku Ikeda.
The brief, thirty-article Universal Declaration of Human Rights indicates
that the world of the new age should be free of all discrimination and
should be a time of the oneness of humanity. In addition, the declaration
suggests solutions to the problems generated by the rapid, information-
driven development of society. Revolutionary in nature, it embodies the
roots of a process of progress, harmony, and integration.
Human life must not stagnate but must move toward satisfying the noble
longing for peace, friendship, and understanding. Nor are these mere empty
words. They are the ideals that, like shepherds, without discrimination or
envy, have guided their flocks – all of humanity – toward the attainment of
high ideals.
Like human beings, gods are born and go out of existence. But truth is
eternal. Furthermore, people survive as long as they seek the ideals of faith.
The supreme social phenomenon, religion is the embodiment of truth-
seekers’ wisdom. People who do not realise this have no understanding of
human life. I feel that in the twenty-first century great philosophical
concepts in the field of religion will clarify the fates of the countless
galaxies of the cosmos – the Andromeda Galaxy, the Canis Venatica
constellation, the Milky Way, and all the others. Beyond all doubt, however,
all these galaxies and time and space themselves are only indications of
eternity.
Against this background, as is apparent from his constantly self-renewing
activities, Daisaku Ikeda has a clear view of our times. This understanding
is reinforced by profound philosophical views. His efforts are certain to
expand with the passage of time.
Preface

by Daisaku Ikeda

I had long been aware of a giant in South America, a person of shining

courage named Austregésilo de Athayde. He was a one-man citadel of
intellect occupying a pinnacle of free speech. Until the end of his life, he
served as president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, an organisation
that made great contributions to the literature and verbal culture of Brazil.
As is needless to say, the whole world recognised him as the conscience of
South America. In times of darkness, he was a lighthouse illuminating a
sure course into the twenty-first century.
Born in Pernambuco in 1898, he experienced virtually the entire
twentieth century and for his soul-felt struggle against unjust authority
earned radiant accolades. With the emergence of Fascism in the 1930s,
dictators who ignored the national constitution seized control of Brazil. As
a young journalist, Mr. Athayde bravely used his pen of justice to promote a
movement for the preservation of the constitution. For these efforts, he was
arrested, imprisoned, and exiled for three years. But the day finally came
for his triumphant return to his homeland.
As a representative of Brazil, he took part in the historical deliberations
that resulted in the undying Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
adopted by the third meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in
1948. The Brazilian René Cassin, the drafter of the declaration, received a
Nobel Peace Award in 1968. At the time, he said he was accepting the
prize, not on his own behalf alone, but on that of the great Brazilian
philosopher Austregésilo de Athayde as well. Mr. Athayde prized the
dignity of humanity above all things and devoted his whole life to human
rights. His achievements will only shine more brightly as history advances.
 I first met him in February 1993, seven months before he passed away.
Although he was then 94 years old, I was deeply impressed by his hearty
attitude and his radiant, compassionate wisdom. It seemed almost as if my
own late mentor Josei Toda, second president of Soka Gakkai, were
meeting me in Brazil. I could barely repress a strong emotional reaction
because, born in 1900, had he been alive in 1993, Mr. Toda would have
been nearly the same age as Mr. Athayde.
In expressing his great expectations to me, Mr. Athayde said that
pursuing happiness for humanity and dedicated action for the protection of
life and the human spirit are deeds appropriate to humankind. Hearing this
caused me to take serious notice because dedication to the happiness of
humanity was one of Mr. Toda’s most deeply held articles of faith. Since
encountering Buddhism, I have adhered to that same belief to the present
day.
For a long time, Mr. Athayde and I eagerly hoped to meet. I am very
happy that we were finally blessed with an opportunity to engage in deeply
spiritual exchanges of opinion and work them up into a dialogue. In it, I
was anxious to discuss the later years of his witness to history. At the same
time, for the sake of making the twenty-first a brilliant century devoted to
human rights, I wanted to work with him to provide posterity with a
testimony to the essence of a profound philosophy.
According to modern astronomy, ever since the Big Bang billions of
years ago, the cosmos has been evolving, in the process creating the
conditions for the emergence of life and the evolution of humanity. By the
middle of the twentieth century, a revolutionary door had opened for further
evolution from discrimination to equality, from bondage to liberty, and from
hatred to compassionate love.
Religion, which exists for the sake of humanity, has been the
undercurrent of human evolution. What can religion do to usher in a golden
age? Buddhism, which has discerned the eternal universal Law, embodies
views of the cosmos, life, and humanity that can promote further human
evolution, bring about a great spiritual flowering, and create a society where
human rights are honoured. It is the role and responsibility of the Buddhist
to engage in practical social activity, founded on Buddhist philosophy, to
bring about the creation of a future society founded on spiritual values. That
is why I resolved to join Mr. Athayde in pursuing a path that is actually my
mission as a Buddhist and a disciple of Josei Toda, who dedicated his life to
the happiness of humanity. This book resulted from the deep connection
between us and from our shared sense of mission. It is structured as
follows:
The first three chapters are an attempt to learn from historical figures and
champions who made possible the human rights struggle of the twenty-first
century, including Mr. Athayde himself, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther
King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. All of them combated the evils of authority
non-violently.
In chapters four to six, Mr. Athayde, who played a major role in its
adoption, relates the background of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights with emphasis on meaning for the present and the future. The
discussion includes a scrupulous treatment of the Grecian philosophical and
Christian doctrinal underpinnings of Western philosophy, of which the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a product.
Chapters seven to nine are an examination of the First Generation (right
to liberty), Second Generation (social rights), and Third Generation
(environmental and developmental rights). In other words, they discuss the
human rights for the twenty-first century from diverse viewpoints:
educational, religious, pacifist and environmental.
Throughout the whole dialogue, I introduce ways in which religious –
especially Buddhist – compassion, freedom, and equality can flower in the
twenty-first century and become sources of power and life for the human
rights movement. In all of this I requested Mr. Athayde to express his own
opinions without reservation. The book is an edited version of written
exchanges based on interviews conducted when I visited Rio de Janeiro.
Mr. Athayde was hospitalised on 27 August, 1993, six days after the final
interview of this dialogue. While in the hospital, he frequently requested
nurses and doctors to discharge him quickly so that, for the sake of the next
century, he could finish his dialogue with me. I was deeply moved by his
concern for the future and his desire to discuss it and struggle for its sake in
spite of his own illness. I understand that in his younger years he typed all
his works himself. In old age, he stopped using the typewriter. But in this
instance, once again as long ago, he sat before it pouring out his whole soul
to write the preface to this book.
One year after Mr. Athayde’s death, his oldest daughter Laura, her
husband Cicero and his second son Roberto travelled all the way from
Brazil to Japan in August 1994, to have a warm talk with me. The three of
them and my own older son Hiromasa conducted a discussion meeting at
the time on the topic ‘Paternal Images’ which appears as the last chapter in
this book and contributes much from a ‘successors’ point of view: a clearer
human image of Mr. Athayde as seen in the eyes of his family members, his
spirit and his beliefs, and the ways in which younger generations – the
creators of the twenty-first century – will carry on his heritage.
To conclude this preface, I should like to express my heartfelt gratitude to
Professor Masato Ninomiya of São Paulo University for Japanese-
Portuguese translations. Finally, I offer my prayers for the repose of Mr.
Athayde’s spirit and my own determination to go on holding aloft the torch
of human rights that he and other world leaders set ablaze.
 CHAPTER 1

Towards the Century of the Renaissance of Human

Rights

Armed with Words

KEDA: I am honoured to be invited to the Brazilian Academy of Letters, one
of the greatest intellectual centres in Latin America, and to meet a great a
champion of human rights like you.
ATHAYDE: We have been looking forward to the chance to meet, at last, a
person I have long wanted to get to know. You are a crucial figure in our
century. If Japan and Brazil combine forces, nothing is impossible. As two
individuals, let us join our own forces in the effort to alter the history of
humanity.
KEDA: As one of the formulators of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, you are both a witness to a major event in world history and one of
the most important people of our century.
ATHAYDE: When we started work on the Declaration, people laughed at us.
Nobody believed us. They all said, ‘Declarations like this have already been
tried time and time again, but they were never reflected.’
KEDA: Noble, pioneering endeavors are too often greeted with scepticism and
mocking. At just about the time you and your associates were undertaking
that great task, my own mentor, and second president of Soka Gakkai, Josei
Toda was propounding a doctrine of globalism transcending the boundaries
of national state and ethnic group and stressing the solidarity of humanity
and the welfare of the whole planet. His contemporaries discounted it as
mere pipe dreams. Today, however, the brilliance of his far-sightedness is
widely recognised.
Your efforts in connection with human rights, too, were far-sighted. And,
especially now at the forty-fifth anniversary (1993) of the enactment of the
Declaration, I am certain our discussion of the issue will uncover promising
 perspectives for the coming century, when human rights are certain to
assume even wider and greater significance.
ATHAYDE: I am delighted to engage in such a discussion with you because you
thoroughly understand the question of human rights.
KEDA: You insist that human rights should be given precedence over political
structures and national systems. In describing their fundamental nature, you
have written that human rights represent supremely noble spiritual values
that recognise the individuality of each human being. I agree and further
insist that the dignity of the individual must be the starting point of all
programmes of human rights.
ATHAYDE: Yes, it must. The heart of all discussions of human rights is the
battle against discrimination. All human beings are equal. No
discrimination is permissible. Absolutely none.
KEDA: The text called the Theragata expresses the joy Shakyamuni’s
disciples felt at having been fortunate enough to encounter the Buddhist
Law. In it occurs this passage: ‘We are all precious children of the Buddha;
none of us is unnecessary.’ As these words imply, as children of the
Buddha, all people are equal, necessary, and possessed of irreplaceable
dignity.
The writings of Nichiren (1222–82), founder of the Buddhism in which
my co-religionists believe, reflect appreciation of the equality and dignity of
all people as based on the dignity of the single individual: ‘Here a single
individual has been used as an example, but the same things applies equally
to all living beings.’1
ATHAYDE: You understand the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
extremely well and translate your understanding into practical action more
than anyone else. Your achievement surpasses that of the people who drew
the declaration up. Of course ideas are important, but action is the true
gauge of a human being.
KEDA: You yourself are an impressive philosopher who puts his thoughts into
action.
ATHAYDE: I have lived for almost a century. I was nearly thirty when you
were born. My experience of the world has taught me many things. But, in
all my years, I have never wanted to meet anyone as much as I have wanted
to meet you. And nothing has ever made me as happy as having this wish
fulfilled. You are possessed of all precious things, of all justice. You are a
spiritual leader with great knowledge of people and human nature. Your
 actions have gradually enlarged the fate of the world. You are transforming
the history of humanity through actions that give concrete and practical
form to your philosophy.
KEDA: Because your life has been conditioned by our tumultuous century, as
a champion of humanity, you are a brilliant guide for humanity as we move
toward the next century.
ATHAYDE: The twenty-first century is going to be a new age for Brazil, Japan,
and the whole world.
KEDA: Your own life has been a struggle in the name of that new age. I, too,
have done what I could to help make it an age in which humanity can live
happily.
ATHAYDE: Though only one Brazilian and one Japanese, we two represent the
joint sentiments of our peoples. Both nations share one future, towards
which we must walk, hand in hand.
KEDA: Your inspiring words ring courageously of profound justice. They are
part of your heritage to posterity.
ATHAYDE: In Latin, verbum means both word and god. Let us make use of the
noble word as a weapon in our struggle.
KEDA: Nichiren has said that ‘the voice carries out the work of the Buddha.’2
Our voices can demonstrate justice and encourage others to follow the right
road. Elsewhere, Nichiren says, ‘Words echo the thoughts of the mind and
find expression through voice.’3 Surely voices that echo the beliefs and
ideals of our inner minds have power to transform our times.

Recollections of Youth
KEDA: I feel certain that all of our readers would be interested in hearing
about your youth and family life.
ATHAYDE: I was born on 25 September 1898; in the city of Caruaru, in the
state of Pernambuco, on the horn of Brazil, which projects into the Atlantic
Ocean. My family moved there for the healthful effects of the clean air. I
am now approaching ninety-five, and my existence has been a testimony to
life in this developing country called Brazil. I hope that my children, too,
will understand Brazil and contribute to her development, as the people of
my generation have.
KEDA: My mentor Josei Toda was born on 11 February 1900. If he were still
alive, he would be almost your age. I cannot help seeing the same kind of
 images in your footsteps as in my mentor’s life. I have a profound feeling to
be able to spend his birthday with you here in Rio de Janeiro.
You were born about a decade after Brazil became a federal republic.
ATHAYDE: Yes. I weighed six kilograms at birth. The midwife carried this
startling information all over town, and people hurried to our house to look
at me. My grandfather, an officer in the army and nearly two metres tall
himself, is said to have picked me up by the leg and exclaimed about my
size. If I’d been able to think at the time, I would probably have felt it was a
great birthday.
When I was a year old, we moved to Fortaleza in the state of Ceará,
where I lived in a tightly-knit, late-nineteenth-century patriarchal family
until I left home to attend the Seminary of Prainha in Fortaleza.
KEDA: What is your most enduring recollection from that part of your life?
ATHAYDE: I remember my father very well. He filled various posts as
prosecutor and judge in our region. When he was thirty-one, he was
transferred to Fortaleza to assume the duties of a high-court justice. He was
also head librarian in our local public library. He was a man of an extremely
high cultural level and spoke seven or eight languages. He took a deep
interest in the education of his children. I remember learning about the
Russo-Japanese war from him.
KEDA: The Russo-Japanese War broke out in February 1904, when you were
five. Your father’s explaining events occurring on the other side of the
world reminds me of something I once heard from Mr. Frederic Warner,
who was then British ambassador to Japan. He said he treated his children
like individuals and explained complicated international affairs to them,
even though they still could not understand them entirely. Exposing
children to information in this way broadens their views of the world.
Childhood is not all happiness for anyone. I assume you, too, had your
share of unhappiness.
ATHAYDE: Losing a loved one is a fearsome experience for very small
children. My first grief was the loss of a brother who was only four. One
day, at twilight, he was praying in front of our family chapel – in those
days, Christian homes usually had a prayer room where candles were kept
lit. My brother began playing with the candles. And, in no time, his clothing
caught fire. He suffered dreadful burns on the lower half of his body and
died twenty-four hours later.
KEDA: That must have caused you immense sorrow. As you say, the loss of a
loved one is a fearsome experience. Indeed, Buddhism counts separation
from the beloved as one of the eight kinds of universal suffering. Occurring
at an early stage in life, such loss makes an indelible impression.
ATHAYDE: I remember my grief vividly. Calling on his last reserves of
strength, my father laid my brother in a gilded coffin, which he saw lowered
into the grave. Back home after the funeral, his strength abandoned him. He
collapsed under his profound grief. Until then, I had always thought he
could preserve his composure no matter what happened. But he shut
himself up in his room, practically howling with sorrow over his son’s
tragic death.
KEDA: I understand fully how a parent who has lost a child feels. But growing
up strong and active, in a way you made up for the loss of your brother. The
sorrow you felt then was sublimated in the power of your later life.
ATHAYDE: Unfortunately, however, I had another encounter with death when I
was six or seven. In those days, I had a playmate named Edith Fortuna, who
was somewhat older than I and who always had chocolates with her. I
remember the fragrance of those chocolates still today.
Suddenly, one day, with no explanation, my mother told me I could not
play with her any more. This plunged me into unforgettable despair.
As it turned out, Edith had contracted tuberculosis, which was considered
incurable in those days. She died, and the tenderness she had given me was
lost forever. The grief I experienced then taught me that death is
irredeemable unhappiness.
KEDA: Possibly because I was sickly, as a child I thought about life and death
all the time. I, too, contracted tuberculosis at an early age – before entering
primary school. I am not sure that was altogether a bad thing because
confronting the possibility of imminent death and overcoming the insecurity
associated with it deepens a person’s insight into the meaning of life itself.
While still a youth, I encountered Buddhist philosophy and its teaching,
‘originally inherent nature of birth and death’, that life and death are two
aspects essentially inherent in the universal force of Life itself.
Josei Toda compared life to waking and death to sleep at the end of a
busy day. Restful sleep assuages weariness so that, in the morning, the
sleeper awakes ready for new activity. Similarly, when life ends, the sleep
of death replenishes and restores the energy of life. My own views on birth
 and death are founded on this teaching. No doubt your tragic experiences
with loss deepened and strengthened your views on the subject, too.
ATHAYDE: Though now very distant, Edith’s last day remains fresh in my
memory. She was in a critical condition. A priest and four others from the
church came to administer the last rites and the holy Eucharist. Driven by
an inexplicable impulse, I joined them and watched the priest as he gave her
ultimate consolation.
KEDA: Did this experience influence your decision to take holy orders?
ATHAYDE: Yes, it did. I told my mother of my strong determination to become
a priest. And this became the driving force that led me to spend eight years
as a dormitory student at the Seminary of Prainha in Fortaleza.
KEDA: How old were you when you entered the seminary?
ATHAYDE: Ten. To interpret the Bible, I had to study Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin,
Greek, French, English and Sanskrit. At the same time, I amassed an
extremely large amount of information on secular as well as religious
subjects. At the age of twelve, I was already delivering addresses at
seminary literary debates. I was interested in astronomy, geometry, physics
and chemistry as well. Later I completed two teacher-training courses and
taught at two high schools.
KEDA: I have heard that you were an outstanding student.
ATHAYDE: I was first in my class in all subjects. But, often, I took delight
more in being first than in learning for its own sake. After thinking about
this a long time, I advised my own children not to study solely for the sake
of being first in class. In a sense, such an attitude makes education barren
and impedes students’ emotional development.
KEDA: Your children were probably relieved to hear you say so. What were
your extracurricular interests?
ATHAYDE: Music. Not many people know that I am an amateur musician. I am
a qualified choral conductor and have spent many hours at the organ.
KEDA: What kind of music do you play mostly?
ATHAYDE: Fugues, the president of our seminary, enjoyed my playing. I once
visited a high school in the state of Ceará. After vespers, all the priests went
to bed, leaving me alone for a while. I went to the chapel and sat down at
the organ. Suddenly I was overcome with an impulse to play some Bach.
The room was dark except for the glow of the red votive lamps. In spite of
apprehensions about disturbing the silence of the night, I started playing.
 And practically all the monks in the place came to the chapel to hear me.
This satisfied my innocent pride.
KEDA: I am an amateur musician too. But sometimes I play the piano for
friends. I have written a few pieces – mostly recollections of my mother, my
home town and my mentor.
ATHAYDE: Splendid.

Holy Orders to Journalism

ATHAYDE: In Rio de Janeiro, where I went after leaving the seminary, I had
little access to instruments in good condition. Much later, when I could
afford it, I bought an organ and held public performances of my own works.
Later, my work as a journalist and as president of the Brazilian Academy of
Letters left me no time to study music. Still, I managed some impromptu
compositions.
KEDA: Good at one art, good at others. Still, whereas most people manifest
talents in a narrow range of fields, your energetic personality has enabled
you to show amazing versatility. Do you still compose?
ATHAYDE: No. As time went by, I lost interest. Inspiration practically never
comes now – even when I am at the organ. My wife used to listen to and
applaud my playing. The curtain fell forever on my career as a performer
when I lost her.
KEDA: A deeply moving thing to say. But to return to your younger years,
why did you leave the seminary and give up the idea of entering holy
orders?
ATHAYDE: It is difficult to explain in a few words. I suppose I decided to
pursue a different course in life. I became involved in problems concerning
the Old and New Testaments. By nature sceptical, I had doubts about the
mystical nature of the Holy Trinity. I stopped feeling I had a vocation. And
I saw great inconsistencies in the history of Christianity. Throughout the
eight-year course at the seminary, these questions perplexed me. Much later,
I wrote an article in the form of a short story connecting my own attitude
toward the priesthood and religion and childish fickleness with
disappointment in the ministry.
At one time, becoming a priest had seemed natural. Later, I gave the idea
up because I doubted it was the correct thing to do.
KEDA: Did any single event exercise a determining influence on your
decision?
ATHAYDE: Yes. When I was twelve, we, students, attended monthly
assemblies in the Culture Center. On one occasion, I made a speech
supporting Rui Barbosa and opposing Field Marshal Hermes Rodrigues da
Fonseca. No sooner had he heard me than the president of the seminary
ordered me down from the speaker’s platform and thundered out that priests
must not meddle in political activity. I could not understand why making a
statement from a humanitarian standpoint was wrong.
KEDA: Of course, a vigorous champion of liberty like you could not be
expected to submit willingly to such restrictions.
ATHAYDE: I have always doubted things. Though born and bred a Catholic, I
could not merely accept restrictions on the kind of people eligible for the
‘universal and supreme position’ of pope. I doubted their acceptability.
I felt betrayed. Then I began thinking that the military profession was
superior to the clerical profession. Crossing the Heracles Bridge, I began
dreaming of being as free as Napoleon when he set out to conquer the
world.
KEDA: What led you to become a journalist?
ATHAYDE: When I went in to bid him goodbye, Father Guilherme Wassem,
president of our seminary, surprised me by saying, ‘In the sense that we will
be without a person who might have become a fine clergyman, you’re a loss
to us. But you’re a born journalist with innate talent as a public speaker.’
These fateful words led me to devote my life to journalism and lecturing.
KEDA: In 1918, you entered the law and social-sciences departments of the
Law College [today The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro], in Rio de
Janeiro, which was the national capital at the time, and you received a
degree in 1921. How would you describe your life at the time?
ATHAYDE: I had youthful dreams of giving my best to my country and of
finding an opportunity of participating actively in its development. Rui
Barbosa realised those dreams for me. His lectures attracted many young
people to the liberal movement. In journalism, I saw great possibilities for
cooperating with that movement.
At the age of twenty-two, when I was a literary columnist for the
newspaper Correio da Manhã, the director of the paper, the famous
Edmundo Bittencourt, entrusted me with writing a full-page article on the
sixth centennial of the death of Dante Alighieri.
KEDA: I read Dante when I was young and fondly remember the discussion I
had of him with the late Arnold J. Toynbee.
ATHAYDE: I think Dante’s most memorable remark was made when he was
given permission to return to Florence from political exile: ‘I will never
return.’ Noble, immortal words spoken by a supreme poet.
KEDA: Yes, he would not give in to the wicked authorities that had exiled
him. He converted his own tragic experience into artistic creative power
that has shone brightly down the ages.
After becoming a journalist, you remained one for many years.
ATHAYDE: I have been a journalist now for seventy-five years. I am sure I
have worked longer as an editorial writer for the same company than
anybody else in the journalism business. That company is Diários
Associados founded by the well-known Assis Chateaubriand. I wrote a
column on international politics there for thirty years. And I was on the
editorial board of the news agency.
KEDA: Chateaubriand is famous as the founder of the São Paulo Museum of
Art. He once said that his mission was not to lead but to educate leaders. He
must have been gratified to observe your activities.
ATHAYDE: Thank you for saying so.

Recollections of Parents and Wife

KEDA: Now a few more questions about your family. What was your mother
like?
ATHAYDE: My mother [Constância Adelaide Austregésilo de Athayde] was a
music lover too. She was very good with her hands. She grew flowers. And,
working from the latest fashions from Rio de Janeiro, did excellent
tailoring. In those days, people in Brazil slavishly followed foreign cultural
trends. There was a great demand for high-quality French perfumes and
expensive wines. And, as a direct reflection of centuries of colonisation,
Brazilian education was Portuguese in style.
My mother had a sunny disposition and laughed all the time. She was a
pianist and a poet and helped father train us children.
KEDA: In a speech I made in Rio de Janeiro, I quoted you as having once
said, ‘The thing that made my mother strong was finding her happiness in
caring for and teaching the joy of life to her own twelve children, to more
than twice that number of grandchildren, and to the children of complete
 strangers.’ The spirit of motherhood glows in women who find happiness in
making others happy. Now, please tell us more about your father.
ATHAYDE: Without doubt, my father had the greatest influence on the
development of my personality. He taught my brothers and me something
every day. He was very eager for me to attend the seminary. He wanted me
to become a priest and to have my own parish so I could help the family.
My mother did not share his eagerness. She was very devout but had strong
opinions of her own. She said, ‘No member of the Athayde family has ever
been a priest.’
KEDA: Your cheerful, understanding mother and your strict but
compassionate father impress me afresh with the importance of the family.
Everyone in your family seems to live a long time – for instance, your
father to ninety-five and your mother to a hundred and five. What is the
secret of your longevity?
ATHAYDE: There is no secret. My father smoked and never moved a finger in
the way of exercise for the sake of his health. He died because medical
science at the time was backward.
Personally, I am a light eater. I have lunch but never dinner. And I eat
only simple, healthful things. I believe we eat to live, not live to eat.
KEDA: A way of living approved by Benjamin Franklin and a good example
for many people today. At the age of ninety-four, you work sixteen hours
daily and write two newspaper columns a day. Do you have any special
health system?
ATHAYDE: None in particular. But I do pay attention to three things. As I said,
I have a small appetite and eat little. Second, I try to get a suitable amount
of exercise. For instance, I run or walk on the spot and do push-ups every
night before going to sleep. Third, I love women. When all is said and done,
I think my own personality has enabled me to preserve a sense of purpose
and stick to the same work for all these years.
KEDA: Your way of life is a mental and physical good-health system in itself.
Henri Bergson once described the way to good spiritual health in this way:
‘Have the will to act, adapt flexibly to social life and preserve the ideal of
historical creativity.’
Did your friends and associates influence your choice of career?
ATHAYDE: People urged me to enter the world of politics, but I had no desire
to become a politician. I was asked to become an ambassador, but I did not
 want that either. At present I have considerable social influence and have no
need of assuming public office. I have reaped the harvest of my own efforts.
KEDA: As the great Brazilian leader of the day, you are loved and revered by
all kinds of people in many places.
ATHAYDE: Recently at a barber shop in São Paulo, the customers were
debating the relative merits of the parliamentary and presidential systems.
Suddenly the barber himself said, ‘Presidential or parliamentary – it makes
no difference to me. All I want is for Athayde to become king and take care
of Brazil.’
KEDA: The people speak the truth and support only leaders who have gained
their trust.
According to one Buddhist text, a moral man who had the confidence of
the people was once selected to serve the monarch. Interestingly, in
Japanese, his name was Minshu, written with the two Chinese characters
that form the first half of the word democracy: minshushugi.
ATHAYDE: My debut in politics occurred in 1932, when I was arrested for
taking part in a revolution. I was exiled and compelled to live abroad for
three years. This gave me a chance to observe other cultures, legal systems,
and behavioural patterns. I visited practically all the European countries and
had an opportunity to see what the world is like.
KEDA: As I learned from my mentor Josei Toda, people who have suffered
imprisonment or, as in your case, banishment for their beliefs often win the
confidence of their compatriots. I and my predecessors have, in a sense,
shared the fate unjustly meted to you. During the Second World War, the
Japanese militarists threw Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, first president of Soka
Gakkai into prison, where he died. Mr. Toda, too, was imprisoned for two
years. And I myself was put in jail for a crime I did not commit.
You were married at age thirty-four. What kind of person was your wife?
ATHAYDE: My marriage was the happiest event of my young life. Beautiful
and highly intelligent, my wife was a rare person who helped me in many
ways. She could type, prepare documents as well as any librarian and
maintain a filing system. My records were well kept because of her
enthusiasm. She was chairman of the Brazil Girl Scouts and administrative
director of the Pró-Matre obstetric hospital.
She was everything to me. As one of her friends said, ‘Maria José and
Athayde are one in mind and body.’ And as she herself often remarked, ‘I
 say what you want and want what you want.’ I lived happily with her for
fifty-one years. She was never out of my thoughts for a moment.
KEDA: She must have been a wonderful wife. And I am sure that she found
great pride and happiness in her life with you. I have heard that she died
just before her seventy-third birthday. I wonder what our dialogue would be
like if she were present with us.
ATHAYDE: Her death was the most sorrowful thing that ever happened to me.
It was a blow from which I shall never recover. I have never had her off my
mind for more than ten or twenty minutes.
Just before her death, she told me she hoped I would continue performing
my public duties and go on living just as I had done. I can never forget a
person as self-sacrificing as she was.
She has been dead for eight years. I am nearly ninety-five now, and I
hope to meet her in the same grave where we can praise the beauty that was
our life together. Since she died, I have done nothing but fulfill my mission
on earth.

The Brazilian Academy of Letters

KEDA: But your mission has been very significant. Your achievements at the
Brazilian Academy of Letters alone will last eternally in the history of
Brazil and all humanity.
ATHAYDE: I became president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters forty years
ago. Since then, without a day’s rest, I have directed the top literary group
in Brazil, in other words, I have managed the organisation where the genius
of our country can express itself. I have made it a glorious organisation.
One of the most authoritative groups in the world. In addition, we have built
the immense cultural center of Brazil.
KEDA: A really splendid achievement. What are your future goals?
ATHAYDE: Education. The training of personnel for the coming age.
KEDA: I share that goal. Education is the process of creating the humanity of
the future. It is the most important of all undertakings. Similar feelings
inspired Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, an educator himself, to write his
Education for Creative Living. Josei Toda, too, was an educator. And
following in their stead, I devote maximum effort to education, for instance,
by founding the Soka schools and Soka University.
ATHAYDE: At present, I am working hard to found a school to train politicians,
in the city of Campos. We must teach people who are prospective
politicians to be faithful to the communal body and inform them of the
nature of the field they are entering.
KEDA: Success in all activities depends on the quality of the people
undertaking them. To ensure a better tomorrow, leaders today must
inculcate in their juniors a sense of responsibility for the future.
ATHAYDE: At ninety-four, I know it is time for me to retire and to pass the
baton to younger people, who can carry on the work of myself and my
compatriots. Heirs to more than material property, today’s young people
inherit the task of making the next century one to be proud of. After a
century, the world has found, in you, one of the great leaders of the age.
Young people must follow the path you set for them.
KEDA: Words of praise from a person of your achievements and calibre make
me feel humble.
In all our considerations of the future, human rights deserve first
precedence. Without proper concern for human rights, there can be neither
peace nor happiness. We must all work together for the global triumph of
human rights in the coming century.
ATHAYDE: I agree.
 CHAPTER 2

Continuing the Fervent Spirit of Humanism

Champions of Human Rights

ATHAYDE: The importance of our dialogue lies in the attempt to discover how
to respect human rights and how to put that respect into practical
application in the twenty-first century. As one of the compilers of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I consider our major goal to be the
realisation of the ideal of human rights in the spiritual history of humanity.
KEDA: Countless people have given their sweat and blood to achieve the
respect afforded human rights today. The devoted struggle of our forebears
was not confined to ideals: it took place in the realm of practical action.
Each human-rights champion has contributed something precious.
ATHAYDE: From the days of the Code of Hammurabi to the present, humanity
has waged a ceaseless heroic battle in the effort to create new spiritual
values. As in the distant past, so today, epoch-making people passionately
continue the struggle.
KEDA: In our own century, three passionate struggles in the name of human
rights come immediately to mind: Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent struggle
for Indian independence, Nelson Mandela’s battle against apartheid and
Martin Luther King’s campaign for the elimination of racial discrimination
and for the civil rights of black people in the United States.
ATHAYDE: All three deserve special mention as heroes of humanity and
warriors in the name of human rights.
KEDA: On a beautiful, sunny 31 October 1990, at the Tokyo offices of the
newspaper Seikyo Shimbun, I had a chance to talk with Mr. Mandela, who
had only recently been released after twenty-eight years in prison. On the
occasion, I joined about five hundred students from Soka University in
singing a South African song, ‘Rolishasa Mandela’, for him. He smiled
 benignly in response to the sincerity of the young people who honoured him
in this way.
ATHAYDE: It must have been a very moving scene.
KEDA: He was seventy-one at the time of his release on 11 February 1990. In
honour of our meeting, I composed a poem called ‘The Banner of
Humanity, the Road of Justice’, which I read and presented to him.
With universal support and approval, his courageous stand against
apartheid encouraged people engaged in similar battles all over the world. I
immensely respect the conviction that inspired him to begin a vigorous,
worldwide, anti-apartheid campaign immediately after his release.
ATHAYDE: Mandela’s dauntless endurance has become a worldwide symbol of
respect for human rights. Having learned that I am a promoter of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he came to see me. Our meeting
was unforgettable for him and for me.
KEDA: Yes, he met you during a visit to Brazil in August 1991. What are your
impressions of the meeting?
ATHAYDE: My own hope was strengthened by the modesty of his words. The
elegance of his way of speaking and his lively expression, which reflect his
humanism, made a profound impression on me.
KEDA: I feel the same way. He is, as they say, ‘the real thing’. Distinctive
authenticity like his has its own modes of expression that strike deep chords
of sympathy in the hearts of everyone who meets him, even if only briefly.

Five Concrete Proposals

KEDA: One hundred and seventy-four nations and regions participated in the
1992 Barcelona Olympics, the first to take place after the end of the Cold
War. At last, after thirty-two years, South African athletes were also there.
Watching the opening ceremonies on television, I was profoundly
impressed by the look of happiness on Mr. Mandela’s face as he rose to
applaud the South Africans marching in. The elimination, after fifty years,
of apartheid made their participation possible. At the time, I thought that
perhaps the world had made a bold move in a hopeful direction.
ATHAYDE: Yes, the South African group was conspicuous among the
Olympics teams. Nelson Mandela enabled his nation to take part in this
world sports festival on an equal footing with other nations.
 Unquestionably, in doing so, he opened a door that might lead to the
destruction of long-standing barriers of discrimination and inequality.
KEDA: We must hope that such will prove to be the case. My friend the
novelist Chingiz Aitmatov, who was born in Kirgistan (the former Kirgiz
S.S.R), says, ‘At present, we need constructive people. The world is moving
away from the age of opposition and conflict in the direction of a new age
of constructivity.’ Nelson Mandela is just such a constructive person.
ATHAYDE: Important people like Nelson Mandela and Daisaku Ikeda illustrate
the constructive principle in the world today. The constructive philosophy
and the will of constructive people like you are decisive elements in the
move toward the day when we can proclaim all people to be equal and free.
KEDA: In my discussions with him, I made five concrete proposals to Nelson
Mandela:
First, I proposed sending exchange students from the African National
Congress to Japan to study at Soka University.
Second, I suggested having the Min-On association arrange performances
by African artists in Japan, in the hope of increasing Japanese
understanding of and sympathy for the Republic of South Africa.
Third, I recommended the production of an exhibition entitled ‘Apartheid
and Human Rights’, which would tour as many countries as possible.
Fourth, in order to make the inhumanity of the system more widely
known, I should like to see an anti-apartheid photographic exhibition held
in Japan.
Fifth, I should like to have arranged a series of lectures on diverse human
rights issues, including apartheid, held in various parts of Japan.
ATHAYDE: After his many years of uncouth treatment in prison, Mandela must
have felt very honoured by your presenting him with proposals of that kind.
KEDA: If realised, the projects I suggest could intensify understanding of the
importance of human rights in Japan and throughout the world. Though
undeniably important, political and economic changes require the
underpinning provided by people-to-people contacts on the person-to-
person level. Eight months after meeting with Nelson Mandela, on 16 June
1991, the Soka Gakkai Peace Committee sponsored the ‘Human Rights
Photography Exhibition’, at the Toda Peace Memorial Hall in Yokohama. In
this project we enjoyed the cooperation of the ANC and the United Nations
Apartheid Center. Symbolically significant, the exhibition opened on the
fifteenth anniversary of the Soweto uprisings against compulsory use of the
 Afrikaans language in schools. The remaining projects are scheduled for
implementation in turn.
ATHAYDE: Enabling South African students to study in Japan should stimulate
worldwide awareness of equality. The great significance of the project is
consonant with the lofty aims of those South Africans who opposed
authoritarianism.

Mandela University
KEDA: The desire to learn is one of the things that make us human. We are so
insatiably hungry to learn that education is possible anywhere. Nelson
Mandela even converted prison into a place of learning – the Mandela
University.
ATHAYDE: Even the violence and oppression inflicted on him could not
suppress his ability to lead or stifle his desire to generate new wisdom and
novel forms of spirituality by turning prison into a learning place.
KEDA: Mahatma Gandhi did much the same thing. The mere knowledge of
his presence in the same prison put all other prisoners there – even serious
offenders – on their best behaviour. Even while incarcerated, the undaunted
Gandhi continued to lead the non-violence movement and to carry on an
extensive, spiritual correspondence with such people as Rabindranath
Tagore.
ATHAYDE: No injustice or oppression can break the courage of people with the
lofty mission of creating a noble spiritual order for the new century.
KEDA: Shōin Yoshida provides a good example of such an indomitable spirit
among nineteenth-century political reformers. He, too, was imprisoned at
one time. While in jail, he gave instructions in various disciplines to his
fellow prisoners. Perhaps revolutionaries must be educators.
I find Mandela’s prison education policies especially interesting. He set
up a system whereby prisoners educated each other in their particular fields
of expertise.
ATHAYDE: Mandela University vividly demonstrates an outstanding man’s
ability to convert a place of detention into a school providing models for the
spirit.
KEDA: Yes, Mandela resisted authority. But, insofar as it helps individuals
manifest their best abilities and characteristics, education must be a struggle
against the dehumanisation of power and authority. At the time of its
 formation, Soka Gakkai was called Soka Kyōiku Gakkai (The Value-
creating Educational Society). We members of Soka Gakkai today remain
devoted to education as a good that endures for centuries.
ATHAYDE: Yes, the mission of education is to innovate in ways that advance
the cause of good.
KEDA: I hope to offer Mandela support in connection with education in South
Africa. But he is not the only South African with whom I see eye-to-eye on
many educational issues. At a meeting in June 1992, former president
Frederik W. de Klerk and I found our ideas coinciding on the importance of
exchanges in the fields of learning and education.
ATHAYDE: The unexpected resurrection of South Africa portends something
new and wonderful. Since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the
Soviet Union, our world has changed dramatically. The foundation is now
being laid for the equality and liberty that were the blazon of the French
Revolution.

The Practice of Satyāgraha

KEDA: Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King were both strongly
influenced by the thoughts and deeds of Mahatma Gandhi, the fountainhead
of a global non-violence movement. In a speech at the Gandhi Memorial
Hall, Mandela declared himself a Gandhi-ist. Professor Harvey Cox of
Harvard has told me that King’s non-violence formed under Gandhi’s
influence. I believe that the source of Gandhi’s non-violence can be traced
to Shakyamuni Buddha.
ATHAYDE: Much of history has its deepest roots in Buddhism.
KEDA: Maritzburg, in South Africa, is the place where Gandhi started his
struggle against racial discrimination – especially of his fellow Indians in
that country. His experiences in South Africa led him to formulate
principles of non-violence.
In Japan, it is often thought that non-violent disobedience is the essential
element of his movement, when actually Gandhi himself described his
approach as satyāgraha, or insistence on truth. He maintained that non-
violent disobedience and satyāgraha were the two sides of the same coin.
Still, non-violence was never more than the means to the goal of grasping
truth. Satyā in satyāgraha means truth, or the way things – human and non-
human – ought to be and behave. Graha means having a firm hold on
 something. In Gandhi’s case, this ‘something’ was the source of both faith
and an attitude toward living. Gandhi believed that, since truth is eternal,
the joy arising from it, too, is eternal.
The Chinese character representing satyā and truth as the word is used in
Buddhist philosophy is pronounced di (tai in Japanese). It is the character
that appears in shitai or the Four Noble Truths, a fundamental Buddhist
doctrine.
Steeped in the joy of his belief in the innate equality and dignity of all
peoples, Gandhi struggled against discrimination. The perilous battle of
non-violent resistance was possible because the people of India shared the
joy of eternal truth with him. In a similar way, Shakyamuni and his
disciples gave practical application to their firm belief in the Four Noble
Truths. This empowered and encouraged them to resist the authority of
arrogant Brahmans and the unjust interference of monarchical power.

Transcending Obsession with Differences

KEDA: Human beings are obsessed by the differences they sense between the
self and the other. We are all different in many respects – economic, cultural
and class. But why should we be obsessed with these differences? The
Buddhist scripture called the Suttanipāta contains a splendid explanation.
According to it, Shakyamuni said that an ugly arrow lodged in the heart
drives us to act and makes us suffer: ‘I saw the ugly arrow of earthly desires
sunk in the hearts [of living beings].’ This ‘ugly arrow’ stands for self-
obsession or egoism.
ATHAYDE: Buddhist teachings have a familiarity that conveys itself to anyone.
KEDA: Shakyamuni laid great stress on the importance of dialogue because he
knew that a truly great religion must explain its teachings in a way that is
comprehensible to everybody.
One such teaching, the doctrine of Nine Consciousnesses, clearly
analyses the inner depths of life and explains in lucid fashion the meaning
of racial, religious, ethnic and cultural discrimination from the standpoint of
life as a universal force. According to it, the characteristics motivating
egoism are found in what is called the seventh, or mano-conscious. The
great Buddhist scholar Vasubandhu says that the man-consciousness is
always accompanied by the Four Delusions:
 (One) The delusion arising from obsession with the small, exclusive self
and ignorance of the larger universally accessible self.
(Two) The delusion that the small self is the true self; this delusion
generates biased views and comparisons between the self and others.
(Three) The conceited delusion that the small self is equal, superior, or
not greatly inferior to others. Envy and hunger for control, wealth, and
power always accompany such conceit. People swept away by it lose sight
of justice and act unfairly.
(Four) Obsession with the self obscured by the other three delusions. In
Japanese, this fourth delusion is called ga-ai or self-love. The word love in
this context expresses desire and all kinds of greed. Discrimination rooted
in such greed leads to unjust domination over others through power or
authority.
ATHAYDE: What you say reveals the kind of brilliant intellect essential to
people who must bear the burden of the twenty-first century. Buddhism is
founded on the essential principles of a kind of justice that conveys itself
unrestrictedly to all people. It can become the foundation for great human
development.
KEDA: In contemporary terms, self-obsession is exclusive absorption in
differences between the self and others. Extracting the ugly arrow that
Shakyamuni saw lodged in each of us amounts to overcoming such
obsession. Ethnic and racial discrimination and all kinds of prejudices –
against members of the opposite sex as well as against people of different
ages or cultural and religious groups – originate in the mano-consciousness.
Universal observation of the human rights of all peoples can be achieved
only when we have triumphed over the small self and, motivated by
enlightenment to our inherent Buddha natures, learn to follow the non-
violent, compassionate way of the greater self.
Lives enlightened to the greater self are free of the Four Delusions and
fully embody the essential equality (called byōdō-shō-chi in Japanese) of all
peoples. Once this equality is understood and respected, all peoples can live
in a symbiosis free of discriminations. The study of this Buddhist
philosophy can help us achieve this desirable goal.
ATHAYDE: You certainly belong in the ranks of the great modern champions of
human rights with Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela.
Indeed I would rank you above the others because your creative spirit
generates great hope for the coming century and sets forth the kind of
discipline such work requires.
 CHAPTER 3

Carrying the Banner of Humanism

Mentors and Disciples Find Each Other

KEDA: Among those talks I have had with leading thinkers all over the world,
the ones I have shared with you and with Dr. Bishambhar Nath Pande of
India have special significance.
ATHAYDE: I am honoured. In advocating dialogue in place of force, you are
leading humanity toward harmony. Your actions teach us that the power of
mutual understanding and solidarity arising from dialogue can triumph over
threats of evil.
KEDA: Actions sometimes determine a person’s value. Throughout his more
than four score years, Dr. Pande has been a person of action. One of
Mahatma Gandhi’s direct disciples, he is now [this dialogue was held in
1993] vice-director of the Gandhi Memorial Hall in New Delhi. I met him
twice in 1992, once in India and once in Japan.
You and he are both in the age group my mentor Josei Toda would be in
if he were alive today. Like Mr. Toda, Dr. Pande devotes himself to the
ordinary people and the struggle for their human rights. He, too, was
imprisoned by unjust authorities. Overcoming hardships in their own ways,
both men worked to build a new age for the peoples of their nations. Both
witnessed much of the turmoil of our century; the achievements of both are
precious to humanity in general. Leaders like them are indispensable to the
battle against unjust authority and the protection of human dignity.
ATHAYDE: The conspicuous wars and revolutions of our century have brought
no salvation and no knowledge of how to overcome the obstacles in our
way. Still, looking back, I think we can say that humanism has in general
triumphed. Humanism is going to be the supreme spiritual index of the
twenty-first century.
KEDA: Your words have special significance precisely because they come
from you.
But to get back to Dr. Pande, he describes his first meeting with Gandhi
in a fresh, detailed and very touching fashion. In 1921, when he was only
fourteen, he decided to join the non-violence movement as a champion of
satyāgraha. At the time, he was a student at a school run by Rabindranath
Tagore, the great Indian poet. Tagore gave him a letter of introduction,
which Pande took with him when he went to join Gandhi’s ashram. After
reading the letter and looking the youth over from head to foot, Gandhi
asked,
‘Are you a Brahman?’
‘Yes.’ replied Pande.
‘Brahmans get special work to do here. Is that all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re really willing to do any kind of work at all?’
‘Any kind at all.’
With a look of satisfaction, Gandhi took Pande to the head of the ashram
and said, ‘I want you to see that this young man is well trained. Tomorrow
morning put him to work cleaning lavatories.’
Gandhi understood the suffering caused by the caste system. To break
down the sense of superiority ingrained in Pande by his Brahman
upbringing, he set him to cleaning lavatories. For similar reasons, to help
inspire their sense of dignity and equality, he referred to the social outcasts
called untouchables as harijan, or children of Vishnu.

Gandhi’s Heritage from Shakyamuni

KEDA: According to Dr. Pande, ‘Gandhi was a practitioner of Shakyamuni’s
message. As a Buddhist, in spreading the Gandhi spirit in India, Mr. Ikeda
is establishing a contact between Gandhi and Shakyamuni.’
ATHAYDE: You are teaching the world that the discriminatory attitude inherent
in human nature can be eliminated.
KEDA: In India, in February 1992, then President Ramaswamy Venkataraman
expressed his firm belief that Gandhi’s philosophy was formulated on the
basis of indigenous Indian philosophy, specifically Shakyamuni’s teachings.
President Shankar Dayal Sharma, who was vice-president at the time of our
conversation, commented that Gandhi once referred respectfully to
 Shakyamuni as one of the greatest of all proponents of peace. Gandhi
himself called Shakyamuni’s doctrines teachings of love.
ATHAYDE: The spirit of humanism can be found in Buddhism, one of the
oldest of the great religions. This leads me to believe that Buddhism will be
one of the fundamental elements of the future of humanity. In the
inspiration it has provided them, Buddhist philosophy is the source of many
other philosophies and religions.
KEDA: Shakyamuni’s philosophy of equality and freedom based on respect
for humanity, inherited by Mahatma Gandhi, blossomed in the form of the
universal human-rights movement.
Brahmanism, which preceded Buddhism, created and emphasised the
discriminatory hereditary caste system – at the pinnacle of which stood the
Brahmans themselves. Its insistence on the equality and freedom of all
peoples clearly sets Buddhism apart from Brahmanism.
In the Suttanipāta, Shakyamuni instructs his followers to disregard a
person’s birth and to concentrate on his deeds. It is action, not birth, that
makes a true Brahman. Nobility and the respect it gains, not membership in
the priestly caste, are what count. No one before him had ever made so
clear a statement of the importance of individual human rights.
ATHAYDE: Shakyamuni’s actions constitute excellences of a kind not to be
found in other religions. The religiously ignorant know neither who
Shakyamuni Buddha was nor why his life was praiseworthy. The reasons
for the great esteem afforded him, however, are very clear. Born long before
Jesus Christ, Shakyamuni showed humanity how to live. Devoted to the
peace and happiness of others, he voluntarily gave up the life and
advantages of a princely position.
KEDA: Yes. Before becoming a shramana, or one who abandons the secular
world for the life of religion, Shakyamuni enjoyed great material wealth
and comfort. His willingness to give up this position greatly influenced a
people suppressed by the Indian caste system.
ATHAYDE: He was the first religious leader in history to break down social
classes. No other religion can claim a founder like him. This is the source of
the greatness of Buddhism.
KEDA: Talking about his young life brings to mind certain traditions
surrounding Mahamaya, Shakyamuni’s mother. During her pregnancy, she
had a dream, which her husband King Shuddodana asked some Brahmans
to interpret. They prophesied that, if the child remained in the palace, he
 would rule the world as a Chakravartin king. If he became an ascetic,
however, he would lift the veil of delusion from the people of the world.
Behind this tradition seems to be a general belief that Shakyamuni would
become a secular ruler. In fact, of course, he devoted himself to the
enlightenment and happiness of the ordinary people. His choice had an
enormous impact.
ATHAYDE: In the name of high-sounding ideals, religious authorities often
seize power and authority to pursue the satisfaction of their own vulgar
desires. Once they have attained them, corrupt clergymen cling to their
positions of power. In contrast to them, Shakyamuni abandoned the princely
life to become a beggar.

The Enlightenment
KEDA: His reasons for doing this have been interpreted from various angles. I
prefer to describe his motivation in terms of human rights. The desire to
combat and triumph over the Four Sufferings of Birth, Aging, Illness and
Death are generally given as the reason for his leaving his father’s palace to
resolve these difficulties and find true liberation. I suspect that knowledge
of the agony of the ordinary people in a time of tumultuous social change
influenced his decision. He wanted to search for the fundamental truth of
the Four Sufferings as they appeared to ordinary people.
Attachment to worldly authority, power, position, wealth and success
hampers the search for profound truth. Shakyamuni abandoned palace,
diadem and luxury, and – devoid of all possessions – plumbed the depths of
his own inner universe. Shakyamuni selected the forest as the location for
the meditation that led to a philosophy that shed the combined light of
reason and intuition on the inner universe of life itself. Interestingly,
Rabindranath Tagore said that, whereas Greek civilisation was born of clay
bricks, Indian civilisation was born in the forest.
In essence, a single human life can encompass the whole universe. The
light of wisdom that Shakyamuni refined through discipline and training
illuminates the universe contained in life. He saw compassion and trust in
its profound depths. He also observed, however, that deluded desires arising
from those same depths spawn discriminations that oppress and constrain
others. He boldly confronted and conquered those desires and the egoism
associated with them, thus becoming one with the fundamental eternal, wise
 and compassionate universal Law. Various Buddhist scriptures relate his
conflict and triumph.
ATHAYDE: Nothing in other religions approaches the nobility of the life and
teachings of Shakyamuni, the beggar prince, who became the guide of
multitudes. His teachings assumed absolute authority by triumphing over
the unsettled conditions of his time.
KEDA: Inherent in all human beings to an equal degree, the fundamental
Universal Law transcends ephemeral distinction of race, ethnic group and
class. In Buddhist terms, this law is referred to as the Buddha Nature.
Shakyamuni was enlightened to the equality and freedom of each individual
on this fundamental universal level and launched his teaching mission to
battle with the evil that strives to discriminate among and enslave people.
He continued his mission, in close association with the masses, until his
death at eighty.
ATHAYDE: All of the teachings he propounded during that struggle reveal
great understanding of the spirit of compassion and justice.
KEDA: He advocated pitting justice and compassion against the evil source of
discrimination, lust for power and violence.
ATHAYDE: In the twenty-first century, we must not mistake our course.
Difficulties are sure to arise. But we can triumph over them as long as we
preserve our sense of justice and our love for a supreme being.
KEDA: Like all historical conversions, Mahatma Gandhi’s battle against
violence in the name of satyāgraha was carried out in the spirit of justice
and love. Indeed, he equated non-violence with boundless love, to which he
ascribed the power to withstand all ordeals. In his eyes, the power of love
was the power of truth.
The source of the doctrine of non-violence, or ahimsā, can be traced to
Shakyamuni’s teachings. Ahimsā means avoiding the shedding of blood and
taking of life. All Buddhist laymen are expected to do their best to abide by
the Five Precepts, the first of which is to take no life.
ATHAYDE: Buddhism teaches an ideal humanism. With splendid clarity, it sets
a model which human beings should endeavor to realise.
KEDA: Shakyamuni believed in the infinite possibilities of the ordinary
people, whom he said, in the Lotus Sutra, can be made equal to himself.1
He devoted his life to saving ordinary people by enabling them to manifest
their inherent Buddha natures and reach the state equal to the one he
himself had attained. He sympathised with their hardships. The precept
 against taking life is a practical expression of his desire to help them
overcome suffering.
Gandhi’s non-violence movement evolved from Shakyamuni’s
admonition against taking life. The support he derived from spiritual wealth
and breadth of the masses enabled Gandhi to claim invincibility for non-
violence. He described himself as an incorrigibly optimistic believer in the
individual’s limitless possibilities for practising nonviolence.

Loving and Trusting

ATHAYDE: Shakyamuni’s teachings evoke love for human beings and
dedication to making the poor happy and to cultivating children to bear the
responsibilities of the future.
KEDA: Practical compassion founded on impartial love for humanity arises
from sympathy with the sufferings of those who are discriminated against,
deprived of freedom, impoverished and oppressed. In the Shrīmālā Sutra,
the pious Lady Shrīmālā makes the following vow to Shakyamuni:
‘Whenever I encounter them, I will never abandon the lonely, those who are
imprisoned and deprived of liberty, those who suffer from illness, those
who suffer from disaster and the poor. I will always make such people
tranquil and wealthy and will free them from suffering.’
I believe that all people who suffer and undergo persecution have the
innate right to find strength and happiness. Lives dedicated to improving
the lot of such people find radiant, complete fulfillment.
ATHAYDE: I have good examples of this lofty dedication and sympathy around
me. Two young maids at our house are Buddhist believers and members of
Soka Gakkai International of Brazil. Other religions failed to satisfy their
souls. As soon as they discovered Buddhism, however, all their doubts
vanished. In Buddhism, they found something they had long sought. They
are now happy. They joyfully told me that, from you, they have derived
peace of the spirit and lofty values enabling them to live happily with all
humanity.
KEDA: I am very grateful for their demonstration of warm understanding. In
spite of the vast distance between our countries, the many SGI members in
Brazil are highly active. Buddhism teaches that human greatness is to be
found in human action. Enlightened work is of the greatest importance –
especially when it is carried out by ordinary people.
 Nichiren himself was outspoken about his own humble origins: ‘I,
Nichiren, am the son of a humble family, born along the shore in Kataumi
of Tojo in the province of Awa, a person who has neither authority nor
virtue.’2
ATHAYDE: Only people who recognise humanity regardless of nationality and
birth are worthy to bear lofty responsibilities. Buddhism teaches humanity
the duty of fighting for liberty and against discrimination. This teaching is a
driving force for idealism.
KEDA: As I have said, at Gandhi’s ashram, social position and caste counted
for nothing: everyone was equal. In Shakyamuni’s sangha too, all were
completely equal, no matter what their social backgrounds. The sangha was
a model for egalitarian society – a model it was hoped would be emulated
in society in general.
In his Risshō Ankoku-ron (On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the
Peace of the Land), addressed to the supreme Japanese authorities of the
time, Nichiren too advocated building an ideal society founded on the spirit
of Buddhism. Japanese society in his day suffered severely. He aimed to
realise in that society ideals that had existed since the time of Shakyamuni.
To this end he directly opposed political authorities, who persecuted him on
numerous occasions. Risshō Ankokuron transcends the national state in the
search for universal values. On one level, those values correspond to liberty,
equality, solidarity and peace, the rights to which are common to all people.
ATHAYDE: As the heir to his struggle, in word and deed, you constantly work
to create peace, equality and freedom and to prevent infractions of human
rights in walks of life.
KEDA: I love and trust human beings. I want always to follow the way of
humanism. We today must fight to eliminate discrimination and the
suffering it causes. Posterity must build a world where all human beings can
live in a way consonant with the best of their humanity. To help achieve
these aims, I continue participating in dialogues with leading thinkers and
intellectuals like you and strive to create a network for the sake of the
happiness of humankind.
ATHAYDE: That gives me hope. Your activities embody all the great Buddhist
teachings. You are a great champion of human liberty, equality and faith.
You have converted apparent impossibility into sources of hope. You give
us the confidence of living at the summit of a great revolution. Society,
politics and economics in our time are uncertain and change at a fierce
pace. In these conditions, you permit us to look forward to a light-filled
century in which human rights are supreme.
 CHAPTER 4

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: An

Eternal Guiding Light for All Peoples

Not to Repeat the Tragedy of the Second World War

KEDA: Throughout the more than forty years that have passed since its
adoption, the issues set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
have never lost their pertinence and importance. One of the most important
drafters of this great document, you have consistently advocated its
universal significance. Indeed, your work has been the fountain whereby
the spirit of the declaration has benefited humankind.
ATHAYDE: Though predating it, the American and French bills of rights
pertain mostly to rights in individual nations. The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights represented the first attempt to enumerate the rights and
dignity of humanity everywhere.
KEDA: The worldwide desire to establish lasting peace and to prevent the
recurrence of tragedies like the Second World War stimulated the creation
of the declaration.
ATHAYDE: Precisely. In the past, the rights of ordinary people have often been
ignored and infringed upon. The systematic cruelty of its violations made
the Second World War the biggest and most horrendous calamity in history.
KEDA: Yes, during the Second World War, human history experienced horrors
that must never be forgotten. The Japanese militarists caused the peoples of
Asia and the Pacific incalculable suffering. Nazi Germany under Hitler and
Fascist Italy under Mussolini invaded their neighbours, trampling on human
rights.
ATHAYDE: Hiroshima and Nagasaki symbolise the crisis to which the war
brought the fate of all humankind. The Second World War taught us that we
must eliminate even the possibility of military use of nuclear force and must
strive with all our wisdom and might to prevent the outbreak of another
 global conflict. Regardless of their nationality or laws, all people possess
irreplaceable rights and deserve the protections of their countries, due to the
very fact that they are all human beings.
KEDA: During the Second World War, human beings treated their fellows
with cruelty that defies belief. I was overcome with indignation by the
evidence I saw of this when, in January 1993, I visited an exhibition
revealing the atrocities of the Holocaust at the Museum of Tolerance at the
Simon Wiesenthal Centre. The exhibit included reconstructions of the iron
gates and the gas chamber of Auschwitz. The horror of what I saw
stimulated me to renew my own vow to promote peace with all the energy
at my disposal.
ATHAYDE: Such atrocities as the massacre of millions of Jews opened the eyes
of all humankind to the vital need to protect human rights as the supreme
rational and spiritual characteristics of our humanity. Inherent in our very
existence, these rights manifest our loftiest traits. Superior to political
systems, nationality and historical setting, they are eternal and universal.
We must exert all our effort to see that tragedies like world wars are never
allowed to violate human rights again.
KEDA: The leaders of Soka Gakkai have consistently struggled against
political authorities who would infringe on innate human rights. For
confronting the militarists in the name of humanitarianism and justice,
Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, our first president, was thrown into prison, where
he died. For similar reasons and at the same time, our second president,
Josei Toda was unjustly incarcerated for two years. Their experiences
supplied the initial impetus for the Soka Gakkai fight for human rights.
When the Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance presented me with the
International Tolerance Award, I accepted it as a tribute to my predecessors
– presidents Makiguchi and Toda – and to all those others who, throughout
the ages, have struggled to protect the rights of the ordinary people.
ATHAYDE: If the whole can esteem your Buddhism as it deserves and emulate
your philosophical rejection of all discrimination – whether on the basis of
race, sex, or any other trait – the twenty-first will be a brighter century.
People from many countries who actually witnessed the horrors of the
Second World War played leading roles in the compilation of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. They were all fully aware of their great
responsibility and of the importance of the declaration for the future. Today,
 with your great spirituality, you elevate the declaration, which, on the basis
of our shared ideals, you and I have vowed to keep forever inviolable.

Friendships with Mrs. Roosevelt and Dr. Cassin

ATHAYDE: In San Francisco, in April 1945, when Allied victory was
practically assured, delegates from fifty nations convened the United
Nations Conference on International Organisation to deliberate a draft of
the United Nations Charter. The document was completed and signed on the
last day of the conference, 26 June, and became effective in October of the
same year.
Section three of the first article of the charter establishes as one of the
United Nations’ most significant duties the solution of humanitarian
problems arising in international society and the promotion of international
efforts to abolish discrimination and respect fundamental human dignity.
KEDA: By making human rights an international, not merely a national, issue,
the United Nations Charter imposes legal obligations on the nation state.
Though achieved at the cost of the tremendous sacrifices of the Second
World War, this was an epoch-making achievement. With its expanded,
global scope, the charter strives to guarantee respect for liberty and human
rights from a universal standpoint.
ATHAYDE: It represents the respect for peace and justice shared by all United
Nations members and expresses the organisation’s goal and its enduring
theoretical basis.
KEDA: Established by Article 62 of the charter, the Economic and Social
Council is responsible for promoting respect for human rights. To this end,
it is empowered to conclude treaties and summon international conferences.
In accordance with Article 68 of the charter, on 21 June, 1946, it set up the
Human Rights Committee to draft the International Declaration of Human
Rights. Committee Three was established by the Human Rights Committee
to draft the text. Before the final version was ready for adoption, this group
met many times to discuss and debate an exhaustive range of topics.
ATHAYDE: Your mentioning Committee Three brings it all back to me. I was
one of its eighteen members, as was Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.
KEDA: I respect Mrs. Roosevelt’s achievements so deeply that I frequently
recommend her as a role model for the students of Soka University and
Soka Women’s College.
ATHAYDE: People all over the world share your sentiment.
KEDA: During the extended dialogue we shared, the late Norman Cousins – a
man whose qualities as a journalist inspired people to call him ‘the
conscience of the United States’ – related his own impression of Mrs.
Roosevelt, saying that everyone who knew her, or had seen her, thought she
was the most beautiful person they had ever encountered and that she taught
him a great deal about human compassion and mercy.
As a young girl, however, she considered herself very plain and was
resigned to remaining single. I have heard that at social functions some
people made fun of her appearance. Such people were blind to the inner
radiance of the true beauty that earned Mrs. Roosevelt the respect of people
everywhere.
ATHAYDE: Yes, everyone respected her – including all the members of
Committee Three, the whole United Nations and even passers-by on the
streets of Paris.
While guiding the work of our group, she was lecturing on human rights
at the Sorbonne. Hundreds of people crowded her lecture hall and
overflowed into neighbouring rooms. It was not just her reputation that
drew large audiences. As an outstanding journalist, she wrote articles that
were carried by news media everywhere. Attracted by the noble populist
spirit and concern for the happiness of humanity that filled her writings,
everyone was eager to hear what she had to say.
KEDA: Chairing the Declaration Committee was one of Mrs. Roosevelt’s
greatest tasks. Members of the committee came from Belgium, Norway,
Peru, India, the People’s Republic of China, Brazil – of course – and
France, which was represented by Dr. René Cassin.
ATHAYDE: Professor Cassin was the most famous of the writers of the
declaration. In 1968, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of its
completion, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the draft
and for his efforts to disseminate the declaration’s ideals. At the time, he
told a press conference that, while honoured by it, he felt he ought to share
the prize with the great Brazilian thinker Austregésilo de Athayde.
KEDA: Certainly as friends and warriors for human rights and the future of
our race, you both deserve recognition and praise.
A working subcommittee composed of Dr. Cassin and representatives
from Lebanon and England did most of the original draft, which consisted
of thirty-three articles. Then the whole Human Rights Committee discussed
 and revised it. In September 1948, the Economic and Social Council
presented the committee’s final version to the third General Assembly.
ATHAYDE: Political views at that General Assembly were highly diverse since
representatives of all nations that had taken part in the Second World War,
including the Soviet Union, were on hand.

Committee Three
KEDA: Perhaps for that reason, the General Assembly immediately returned
the draft to Committee Three for reconsideration. I believe Charles Malik,
from Lebanon, was chairman of this committee, on which you also served.
ATHAYDE: Yes. During our early meetings, held in Geneva, differences in
political, social and cultural backgrounds, coupled with the variance in the
levels of development of the countries they represented, caused some
conflict among the delegates. But the hope we derived from our common
universal goal enabled us to overcome those differences. We all knew that
completing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was indispensable
to the peace-keeping work of the United Nations.
KEDA: Never before in history had representatives of diverse cultures and
traditions assembled to work for the sake of all humanity. Its very universal
nature made your task both harder and more meaningful. You are an
invaluable witness to the whole process.
ATHAYDE: The work was hard. In about three months, we held eighty-five
meetings, no longer in Geneva but in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. More
than a thousand speeches were delivered. Revisions were proposed for
nearly two hundred points in the document.
KEDA: I understand that the local press made acid criticisms of the
committee’s leisurely pace and lack of progress. But they were perhaps not
entirely fair. After all, many different viewpoints had to be expressed and
many conflicts resolved. In spite of this, a sense of their duty as world
citizens inspired the committee members with the enthusiasm that enabled
them to achieve brilliant, praiseworthy results.
ATHAYDE: Our success in reaching essential agreement was thanks to Mrs.
Roosevelt’s efforts.
KEDA: She must have been a very energetic person. Indeed she once said that
living means movement and that, since we either go forward or we regress,
 human life is interesting as long as we grow. But other women, too, played
a lively part in your committee’s work.
ATHAYDE: There were more than fifty women among the representatives in
the General Assembly. Prime Minister Nehru’s daughter was one of them.
Three of the fifteen women members of Committee Three were talkative.
The others were more reticent. All of them attended every meeting
conscientiously and always arrived early. As soon as Chairman Malik lifted
his gavel to call the meeting to order, they donned headphones and gave full
attention to every word of deliberations that lasted for three hours in the
morning and continued for three more hours in the afternoon. Mrs.
Roosevelt attended every day and made spirited comments. Whenever the
debate bogged down and the mood became oppressive, the lady from
England and the lady from the Dominican Republic restored calm with a
few soothing words. In an unusual departure, the men were noisiest at the
Palais de Chaillot.
KEDA: I can imagine how it must have been.

Proposing and Revising

KEDA: With its preamble and thirty articles, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights is a full-scale charter. Its preamble begins with a dignified
statement of the fundamental nature of the rights of all human beings:
‘Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights
of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice
and peace in the world.’
Article One, which extols liberty and equality, and Article Two, which
calls for the elimination of all discrimination, lay the ground for all that
follows. Dr. Cassin compared them to the foundation of a building, and you
had a great deal to do with their formulation.
More than half of the thirty articles of the declaration deal with the so-
called liberties. Articles Three (the right to life, liberty and security of
person) to 21 (the right of political participation) concentrate on civic and
political rights. Perhaps the role that German, Italian, and Japanese neglect
of such rights had in bringing on the Second World War influenced this
emphasis. Articles 22 to 27 define social rights like the right to social
security, the right to work and make a living and the right to education.
ATHAYDE: I participated in the vigorous debates that preceded the formulation
of the final version of each article. Conducted in a spirit of enterprising
fairness, our discussions examined the many values human wisdom has
cultivated from the distant past and examined all conceivable philosophical,
political, ethical and religious stipulations and efforts to improve relations
among nations, individuals and peoples. In this sense, ours was an
unprecedented undertaking.
KEDA: No doubt participation by representatives of diverse historical and
spiritual traditions and political systems made for heated debate on Article
One.
ATHAYDE: Oh yes. Initial philosophical collisions began the minute
Committee Three got down to work. The Declaration was intended to set an
eternal model for all nations and political, social and economic systems.
The committee members rallied to the cause, but their philosophical
viewpoints differed. My job was to spark controversies arising from these
differences.
KEDA: Exhaustive debate in which everybody had his say generated a new
consensus and established the Declaration’s overall orientation. I should be
interested to know some of the controversial points.
ATHAYDE: Article One of the Human Rights Committee draft began, ‘All
human beings are born free and are born equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one
another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ I objected to this. To guarantee respect
for the rights we were setting forth, we needed a statement closer than this
to the feelings of all peoples. The language should be less abstract. In
addition to rights, the preamble should mention ‘God’ as the absolute origin
of all rights. Article One should encourage us to act in a brotherly way
because God created us in his image and endowed us with conscience and
reason.
All human beings are free and equal. Reason and conscience propel them
in the direction of brotherly cooperation. Human beings have reason and
conscience because they are pre-eminent among God’s creatures. The rest
of the Declaration arises from this statement of the essential nature and
fundamental element of all rights.
KEDA: You interpret humanity in terms of an image – from Latin imago – that
is a universal, indestructible entity transcending time and space. The draft
version of the preamble speaks of innate endowments, thus suggesting that
 conscience and reason start at birth and are limited in terms of time and
space. You perceived that this is not true and that reason and conscience are
common to all humanity and are universal in both time and space.
ATHAYDE: That is what I think. And, in time, the whole world paid attention
to my idea. We of the Brazilian delegation did not make this proposal for
the sake of philosophical or speculative dispute. We did so because we felt
it was in accord with the intentions of the United Nations as an assembly of
peoples from many nations of the world.

The Buddhist Viewpoint

KEDA: The point you raised was important enough to establish the underlying
tone and basic orientation of the Declaration, and I should like to examine it
in some detail from the Buddhist viewpoint.
A Buddha is a being wisely enlightened to the universal truth and
endowed with all-embracing compassion. Conscience and reason are
founded on such wisdom and compassion, which Buddhas teach to others.
Mahayana Buddhism holds that ultimately the Buddha – the being
worthy of limitless respect and the manifestation of conscience and reason –
is the same thing as the Buddha nature, or Buddha Life, inherent in every
sentient being. The Lotus Sutra is the pinnacle of all Mahayana teachings.
The appearance of the Treasure Tower in its eleventh chapter, called
‘Emergence of the Treasure Tower’, symbolises this teaching. After
emerging from the Earth, the magnificent tower hovers suspended in the air.
It is said to be 500 yojana tall and 250 yojana from side to side. This vast
building has been described as being as much as one half as wide as the
circumference of the Earth. Adorned with the seven kinds of treasures, it
emits wonderful fragrances from all four sides. Opinion various about the
identification of the seven kinds of treasures; but, when it said that they are
often listed as gold, silver, sea shell, carnelian, pearl, agate, and lapis lazuli,
the sumptuousness of the tower decoration becomes apparent. In its entire
splendour, the tower represents the Buddha Life, which, though universal in
scale, is inherent in each human being.
ATHAYDE: More than a pragmatic recipe for happiness, Buddhism
demonstrates with compassion the way to maximize the characteristics that
embellish human dignity.
KEDA: Nichiren identified the splendid Treasure Tower as the Life Force
inherent in each individual and endowed with inner dignity. In addition,
however, the tower represents human beings who correctly practise the
Buddhism that teaches this identification. He compares the seven kinds of
treasures with the seven virtuous practices; that is, hearing the teachings,
believing them, embracing them, meditating on them, assiduously
practising them, devoting oneself to them, and constant self-examination for
the sake of self-improvement.
Listening to and understanding the correct teachings enrich the
personality by generating the desire for enlightenment. Believing in the
correct teachings cultivates a correct outlook toward life and fundamental
human trust. Embracing the teachings fosters self-control, which in turn
leads to self-perfection by minimising the influence of desire. Meditating on
correct teachings promotes the development of true wisdom by enabling us
to concentrate on our faith and our mission without being distracted by
extraneous factors. Assiduous practise of correct teachings entails
courageous and valiant discipline. A powerful driving force for self-
perfection, such effort stimulates development of wisdom and compassion.
Devoting oneself means ungrudgingly giving oneself to charity and to the
good of others, society and all humanity. The person who practises such
compassion defeats egoism. Constant self-examination promotes humility,
thus preventing the pride that hinders the attainment of enlightenment,
cultivates condescension and sows seeds of discrimination.
Performed for the good of humanity, these seven virtuous practices help
us to grow into the kind of people we essentially ought to be; that is, people
endowed with inner dignity and as radiant and splendid as the Treasure
Tower. As is said in the second chapter of the Lotus Sutra ‘Expedient
Means’, helping all human beings develop their inner dignity was the real
reason why the Buddha appeared in this world. All people are possessed of
such dignity because, as is said in the third chapter of the Lotus Sutra,
‘Simile and Parable’, they are all equally the Buddha’s children.
ATHAYDE: The individual human being is the supreme, unalterable value. All
others are only relative because they are temporary and variable according
to changing circumstances. All our debates of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights were made from the viewpoint of the individual human
being.
KEDA: That is why the Declaration has become an eternal light to all
humankind.
Moreover, as it is said in the ‘Simile and Parable’ chapter of the Lotus
Sutra that ‘living beings are all my sons’, Buddhism regards human life as
the absolute and inviolable dignity. We see here the inviolability of human
life, the absolute respect for human life that should be preserved.
ATHAYDE: Indeed, Buddhism is religion or philosophy. Perhaps, you could say
it is the way the human soul should be.
 CHAPTER 5

Towards a Spiritually United World; Tracing Human

Rights Thought

Philosophical Foundation
ATHAYDE: With great pleasure, I remember how work on the Declaration
allowed me to meet Eve Curie, daughter of Madame Marie Curie, the
celebrated scientist and Nobel Prize laureate. While we were working in
Paris, I called at her house and had a chat with her in her study.
Encouraging a younger, more gallant me, she compared my enthusiasm for
the Declaration with her mother’s passionate convictions. She expressed her
determination to visit Brazil at some time in the future. She kept her
promise. We did indeed meet later in Brazil. And, after she had returned, I
was honoured to learn from her daughter that she continued to speak of me
often.
KEDA: In her preface to Madame Curie, Eve Curie said that the most precious
thing about her mother had been, not her brilliant achievements, but the
ability to maintain her innocence of soul throughout everything – success,
unhappiness and adversity. You, too, have that innocent humanism of the
soul.
ATHAYDE: To recall another personal incident that I remember fondly, in
December 1948, our work over, we were getting ready to go home. Just
before her own departure for the United States, Mrs. Roosevelt invited me
to have lunch with her at the Hotel de Crillon. To my delight, she spoke
very highly of Brazil.
KEDA: I can imagine how heartwarming you must have found that. Together
with the Declaration itself, your achievements and those of Mrs. Roosevelt
and all the other people who took part in its compilation are an eternally
laudable monument to human harmony. Mrs. Roosevelt was fully justified
in speaking highly of your country. Brazil and its people are praiseworthy in
 numerous connections, as others also have observed. For example, the
Austrian writer Stefan Zweig once observed in his 1941 book, Brazil: Land
of the Future, ‘And so we are no longer willing to judge a country by its
industrial, financial, and military strength, but rather by its peaceful way of
thinking and its humane attitude. In this sense, which I believe to be the
most important, Brazil seems to me one of the most worthy of emulation,
and therefore one of the most lovable countries of our world.’1
ATHAYDE: Because it is truly multiracial, Brazil can be called a world cultural
centre. With your great vision, you also have played a part in the evolution
of Brazilian culture.
KEDA: Such high praise from a person as distinguished as yourself makes me
feel very humble. Harmony in diversity is what humanity requires for the
creation of a new global civilisation. Brazil has a great role to play in this
process.
ATHAYDE: Among the various problems we of Committee Three encountered
in our discussions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I was
most concerned with the need to promote spiritual bonds among the peoples
of the world; that is to say, the promotion of spiritual globalism. Economic
and political ties are too fragile to hold people together long. The fate of
humanity depends on our being able to create loftier, more inclusive,
stronger bonds.
KEDA: What you so skillfully define as spiritual globalism is what we of Soka
Gakkai International consistently strive for. It is what we must develop for
the sake of the twenty-first century.
But be good enough to relate some more of the controversial aspects of
the discussions on the Declaration.
ATHAYDE: As I have said, I objected to the wording of the first article, with its
atheistic or naturalistic approach, which I felt was incompatible with the
beliefs and feelings of the majority of the peoples of the world. I therefore
wanted to reflect religious beliefs and avoid the cold, agnostic stand that
rejects God because his existence is beyond human knowledge. I was
convinced that doing this would relate much more deeply to the wishes and
hopes of all peoples.
KEDA: In other words, you wanted to define the philosophical foundation for
a document intended to establish a worldwide basis for the observation of
human rights.
ATHAYDE: My proposal surprised some committee members but won the
support of all the Latin American nations except Mexico, and Belgium and
the Netherlands among the European nations. Some of the other
representatives demonstrated no interest in it all. It was attacked from the
standpoint of Marxist-Leninist materialism and atheism. The Soviet
representative, a famous scholar named Alexei Pavlov, said, ‘The Brazilian
representative advances a religious viewpoint that is as remote from
actuality as a human trip to the moon.’ Of course, at a later time, Neil
Armstrong and his comrades were indeed to take first, hesitating steps on
the surface of the moon.
KEDA: In those days, with its atheistic creed, the Soviet Union cruelly
persecuted dissident religionists. It took courage for you to stand up to the
Soviet representative by insisting on the mention of God and the
introduction of a super-national, universal humanism.

Two Currents
KEDA: In the hope of substantiating inclusion of universality and religious
views in the Declaration, let us try to trace the evolution of the idea of
human rights throughout the history of human philosophy.
ATHAYDE: Committee Three went as far back in history as the Code of
Hammurabi. From that point, we worked our way to the present, always
searching for correct substantiation for the basis of the Declaration.
In getting ready for the big night and the third General Assembly, we
examined and discussed an immense range of such reference material as
Buddhist philosophy, the Koran, and the whole Western tradition, including
Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics. The United States Declaration of
Independence and the French Declaration des Droits de l’Homme
confirmed the value of incorporating local spiritual values in such
documents. We of the Brazilian delegation wanted to do precisely this in
order to stimulate the development of individual peoples and to maintain
international cooperation.
KEDA: The philosophical basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
incorporates many currents of human thought. Pre-eminent is the
rationalistic thought of the Enlightenment as embodied in the thought of
such men as Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. Isolating themselves from
Medieval theology, philosophers of the Enlightenment shifted their
 attention from God to Man, thereby avoiding excess emphasis on the
absolute creator transcending human knowledge. During the Middle Ages,
obedience to God was transformed into blind obedience to the Church as
God’s representative on Earth. Such subservience bred ecclesiastical
corruption and authoritarianism. In more modern times, monarchical power
outstripped clerical authority, giving rise to concepts like the divine right of
kings, justification for which God was supposed to provide. Exercising their
divine rights, autocrats sacrificed the rights of the people for the sake of
expanding royal authority.
The American and French revolutions, however, dealt a devastating blow
to autocracy. And the spiritual and physical freedoms won because of those
revolutions became the core of the great human-rights struggle waged on
the basis of post-Enlightenment philosophy.
ATHAYDE: Essential to the modern period, the Enlightenment, can be said to
have started with the science of Bacon and Newton, and with the
philosophies of such outstanding Englishmen as Hobbes and Locke. The
achievements of these men were closely related to the brilliant rationalists
like Rousseau and Voltaire and by Encyclopedists like D’Alembert and
Diderot.
Ironically, the broad perspectives of the Enlightenment led to revolutions
that brought immense suffering. The human rights movement emerged as a
consequence of that suffering.
KEDA: The Enlightenment represents the rationalist current in Western
thought. A second current examined human rights by questioning the
meaning of the Christian Cosmic Creator. Representative of this trend were
Levi Carneiro of Brazil and Jacques Maritain of France.
ATHAYDE: Yes, history records many ethical and political attempts to define
human rights and obligations, beginning with the Ten Commandments of
Moses and including such other milestones as the Magna Carta, of 1215,
and the English Bill of Rights of 1689, drawn up by Parliament on the
occasion of the accession to the throne of William III and his consort Queen
Mary.
KEDA: The Magna Carta begins with thanks for God’s grace. The English Bill
of Rights is based on Christian doctrine. These associations with divinity
imply a belief that human rights themselves are universal. As we have seen,
however, the Enlightenment aimed to liberate humanity from its medieval
subservience to God and the Church.
 In the eyes of some thinkers, the influence of Enlightenment thinking
was not always laudable. Indeed, there are those who trace the horrors of
Nazism and Fascism – both led by popularly elected men who later
assumed dictatorial powers – to the Enlightenment’s dissolution of
medieval ties with God. Since the end of the Second World War, serious
reflection on this possibility has inspired a movement dedicated to
overcoming selfish interest and to promoting universal rights.
ATHAYDE: Numerous historians have pointed out the crisis modern society is
in because the bonds with God have been severed. The work of Committee
Three in connection with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gains
added significance because of this crisis.
KEDA: I do not entirely reject the Enlightenment attempt to establish a system
of human rights without a religious basis. On the other hand, I believe a
religious element must be incorporated if observance of human rights is to
be truly universal.

Confronting Ignorance
KEDA: As we have already said, concern with human rights can be traced
back as far as the Code of Hammurabi, the oldest organised legal code to
survive to the present time.
ATHAYDE: According to tradition, Hammurabi received the stone stela on
which the code is inscribed from the sun god Samas. Of course, ancient
statesmen and legislators in most civilisations customarily reinforce the
authority of their pronouncements by assigning divine origins to them.
Nonetheless, the Code of Hammurabi represents a very ancient
concentration of immense wisdom.
KEDA: In Hammurabi’s time, society was unsettled. Debts frequently
compelled free citizens to sell themselves into slavery. Conceivably, the
king enacted his legal code to protect citizen rights and thereby to promote
social stability. From the modern viewpoint, the code is not completely fair.
For the same crime, it imposes lighter punishments on people who occupy
high rungs on the social ladder. Still, like you, I find the king’s lofty ideals
laudable.
ATHAYDE: The Mosaic Law, or the Ten Commandments, though later in time
and briefer in form than the Code of Hammurabi, is similarly founded on
 lofty ideals. As a symbolic model of rights and obligations, it has exerted an
enormous influence on Western philosophy.
KEDA: For Buddhist, the Five Precepts and the Ten Good Precepts, which all
believers are expected to observe, serve the kind of basic ethical role that
the Ten Commandments serve in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. There are,
of course, significant differences between the Buddhist and the Judaeo-
Christian approach. Obedience to God consistently comes first in the Ten
Commandments. In contrast, the Buddhist Five Precepts begin with a
commandment against taking life, thus giving pre-eminence to non-violence
(ahimsā). All the remaining precepts, too, stress respect for the dignity of
life: Condemning theft – the taking of what is not given – protects property,
which supports life. Debauched relations between the sexes amount to
blasphemy against life; therefore, adultery is prohibited. Lying and drinking
are forbidden because they lead to violence and the taking of life.
The Ten Good Precepts are a more detailed code providing guidance in
respect for life.
Both codes arose from profound ethical consideration of the innermost
meanings of life and teach how to counter the basic delusions of greed,
anger and false views.
As you point out, the Ten Commandments played an important early role
in formulating Western ideas about human rights. Similarly, the Five
Precepts and the Ten Good Precepts were the origins of the same kind of
philosophy within Buddhism.
Nichiren agreed that respect for the dignity of life must come first since
life is incomparably more precious than all the treasures of the universe:
‘Life is the foremost of all treasures . . . Even the treasures that fill the
major world system are no substitute for life.’2 Throughout his life, which
was a struggle between a Buddha eager to guide humanity to happiness and
the forces of evil that lead to suffering, Nichiren battled unyieldingly with
attempts by secular and religious authorities to trample on human rights.
Life is supremely important. Buddhism personifies the forces that take
life as devils, or māra. When those forces kill, they simultaneously snuff
out the plentiful possibilities with which life is endowed. In this sense,
māra violates innate human liberties and rights. Whereas divinely imposed
Law is the source of Western thought on the subject, Buddhist ethics
defines as good those things that cultivate life’s limitless possibilities and as
 evil those things that hinder them. The two approaches define Western and
Buddhist attitudes toward human rights.
ATHAYDE: Since Hammurabi’s time, people have put their trust in laws. By
eating the forbidden fruit, Eve transgressed God’s Law. Ironically, however,
her infraction stimulated human development. Expelled from paradise and
forced to make their way on their own, human beings developed self-
awareness.
KEDA: You interpret the expulsion from the Garden of Eden as the starting
point of the process whereby human beings were given a chance – therefore
the right – to live up to their best potential. Human rights, then, begin with
the expulsion?
ATHAYDE: Yes, at least in the Judaeo-Christian cultural sphere. Buddhism has
its own version of the evolution of human rights.
KEDA: That is true. As I have already pointed out, Buddhist thought has its
own philosophical foundation for human rights. The four sufferings – birth,
aging, sickness and death – symbolise the sufferings of the human
condition. The task of confronting them constitutes the origin of the
Buddhist concept of human rights. In contrast to Christian original sin, in
Buddhist thought, ignorance – mumyo in Japanese – negates the dignity
inherent in life and therefore is the source of all suffering. In different
terms, ignorance may be defined as tireless obsession with the minor self.
Shakyamuni saw ignorance as the source of desire and taught that
overcoming it is the only way to happiness. His explanation of the
operations of ignorance employs colourful expressions drawn from the
richly vital Indian natural environment. For instance, Chapter XXIV of the
Dhammapada contains the following passage, in which what I have called
obsession with the minor self is expressed as thirst:

334. The thirst of a thoughtless man grows like a creeper; he runs from life
to life, like a monkey seeking fruit in the forest.
335. Whomsoever this fierce thirst overcomes, full of poison, in this world,
his sufferings increase like the abounding Birana grass.
336. He who overcomes this fierce thirst, difficult to be conquered in this
world, sufferings fall off from him, like water-drops from a lotus leaf . . .
.
337. This salutary word I tell you, Do ye, as many as are here assembled,
dig up the root of thirst, as he who wants the sweet-scented Usira root
 must dig up the Birana grass, that Mara [the tempter] may not crush you
again and again, as the stream crushes the reeds.
338. As a tree, even though it has been cut down, is firm so long as its root
is safe, and grows again, thus, unless the feeders of thirst are destroyed,
this pain [of life] will return again and again.3

Ignorance, or mumyō, is the feeder of obsession with the minor self.

Unless it is uprooted, suffering will recur time and time again. Essentially,
we are all equal. But, unbeknownst to us, obsession with the petty self gives
rise to senses of supposed superiority and inferiority, love and hate, and
discrimination and jealousy. People enthralled by this deluded attitude
eventually must suffer as much as they make others suffer.
ATHAYDE: From Buddhism, a creative and sensible leader can learn a great
deal that is essential to ethical, political and social development.
KEDA: If the origin of suffering is the inner life, so is the starting point of a
solution to the problem. Developing wisdom to overthrow ignorance is the
first step. A Buddha, or an Enlightened One, is a person who has developed
such wisdom and lives according to the Truth – the Law (Dharma).
Shakyamuni became an Enlightened One twenty-five centuries ago. Shortly
before his death, he instructed his disciples to put trust only in themselves
and in the Law. By this he meant that living according to the universal law
of cause and effect is the fundamental structure of the Buddhist faith.
ATHAYDE: To the Christian, the God who punishes humanity is ‘Our Father
who art in heaven’. His envoy to Earth and the founder of a new ethical
order was Jesus Christ, who, dying the shameful death of crucifixion on
Golgotha, opened a new chapter in human history.
KEDA: Jesus taught a humane morality and castigated the formalism of
pharisaic concentration on observing religious rules. The Apostles put his
teachings in systematic form.
ATHAYDE: Then Saint Paul initiated a missionary movement that eventually
made Christianity a worldwide religion. Paul said, ‘Fight the good fight of
faith.’4 And it was the fight of faith that, thousands of years after the
expulsion from the Garden of Eden, culminated in the creation of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
KEDA: In primitive Christian philosophy, all people were equal before the one
almighty God. Differences of sex, wealth, or occupation meant nothing. The
belief that political authority is impotent to interfere in equality before God
 constitutes the core of the Western egalitarianism from which evolved
respect for human dignity.
The emergence of Christianity signaled a shift in emphasis from pharisaic
formalism to egalitarian concern with mercy and forgiveness. A similar
transition accounts for the changes Buddhism worked in the Indian
religious tradition. In pre-Shakyamuni India, the truths of Brahmanism—
and the happiness associated with them—were not for everyone. They were
transmitted only among certain special people—and then in secret. The
basics of those truths are expounded in the Upanishads. Indicative of the
exclusivism of Brahmanism, the very word Upanishad means a session at
the feet of a master who transmits esoteric doctrines. In contrast, as is said
in the Vinaya, Shakyamuni and his disciples taught everybody, not just
select groups of people, things that bring benefit, happiness, and ease. With
revolutionary courage, they changed the nature of their times by traveling
from country to country (Suttanipāta) on this mission. Shakyamuni himself
described his mission in the following way: ‘Everywhere, into all places the
wide world over, his heart overflowing with Compassion streams forth
ample, expanded, limitless, free from enmity, free from all ill-will.’5 As this
passage makes clear, Shakyamuni taught that all human beings are equally
precious and equally endowed with the right to happiness. He strove to
imbue all people with the spirit of compassion. The combination of this
great philanthropic philosophy, and a practical programme to disseminate it,
made Buddhism a worldwide religion.
ATHAYDE: That’s a deeply interesting story.

Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophers

KEDA: Yes, it is a monument to human harmony. I am certain that the efforts
that went into its enactment will always be praised.
Saint Augustine put the Law of God, the Eternal Law, above national
laws. In fact, he believed that the divine law was the criterion against which
national laws were to be judged. Since the Middle Ages, Western legal
thought has been based on two traditions, the Judaeo-Christian tradition of
divine law and the classical Greek and Roman tradition. Obviously, the
three giants of ancient Greek philosophy were Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle. Aristotle believed that justice is realised through obedience to the
law.
ATHAYDE: In a striking way, Greek and Roman philosophers sought to create
a peaceful society by means of strong laws, which ultimately assumed the
form of an entire Greco-Roman legal system. In the pre-Socratic period,
thinkers like the so-called Seven Sages (usually, though not always, given
as Solon of Athens, Thales of Miletus, Pittacles of Metylene, Cleobulus of
Rhodes, Chilon of Sparta, Bias of Priene and Periander of Corinth)
addressed numerous issues in a way that created the soil in which the
artistic and political order of Greco-Roman civilisation grew. Using ironic
methods, Socrates was the first philosopher to identify truth as the supreme
value.
KEDA: Sophocles, of course, was tried and condemned for rejecting the state
gods and leading youth astray.
ATHAYDE: And, before lifting the cup of deadly hemlock to his lips, he
ordered a friend and disciple to sacrifice a cock to Asclepius, the Greek god
of healing.
KEDA: Shortly before that, he resisted his friend Crito’s efforts to persuade
him to flee. Socrates clearly was determined to abide by the laws of the
land, even though doing so meant his own death. The climax of Plato’s
Phaedo, the scene we are talking about, is one of the most dramatic and
moving in ancient literature.
Asclepius, the son of the god Apollo and the mortal Coronis, was greatly
revered by the Athenians. One of the great ironies of history is the way
Socrates, by requesting that a cock be sacrificed to him, disproves the
court’s condemnation of him as impious. He insisted that to die bravely is
the fundamental choice of a knowledge-seeker. By dying courageously he
made his own greatness eternal.
ATHAYDE: Although Aristotle studied at the Academy, his philosophy differs
greatly from that of his teacher Plato.
KEDA: Yes, in contrast to Plato’s concept of Ideas or Forms, for Aristotle,
experience is the sole source of human knowledge. In Nicomachean Ethics,
he says that justice, as it existed in the Greek city state (polis), derived from
two sources: natural law and man-made law. Natural law prevails in all
situations. Human beings themselves, however, created man-made law and
therefore are compelled to abide by it. Aristotle was the first to assert the
superiority of natural over man-made law.
ATHAYDE: Moreover, he was the first philosopher to examine natural
phenomena empirically. The empirical practicality with which you devote
 yourself to the protection of human rights marks you as a true – and
outstanding – Aristotelian.
KEDA: Thank you, but in my view, your own devotion to human rights –
notably in the Universal Declaration – has been far more impressive.
But to return to our discussion, after Aristotle, ancient Greek philosophy
ramified into numerous schools of thought, among which the Stoics were
especially important in connection with law and therefore with the
evolution of awareness of human rights. The Stoics believed nature (that is,
everything) to be controlled by reason. From their standpoint, natural law
constitutes justice and rights based on human reason. Since human reason
was believed to derive from universal reason, natural law was thought to be
the same for everyone everywhere. Himself a Stoic, Cicero believed natural
law to be synonymous with reason. Against such a background, the Romans
evolved a legal code applicable to all peoples – not merely to Roman
citizens. Roman law, considered identical with natural law, ultimately
evolved into the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) compiled under
the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian (reigned 527-65 C.E.).
As time passed, the idea of the superiority of universal law – the Law of
God in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and natural law in the Greco-Roman
tradition – over man-made law gained increasingly wide acceptance.
Human rights came to be seen as arising from natural law and therefore not
to be violated by the man-made laws of governing bodies like nation states.
ATHAYDE: Our goal now is the globalisation of respect for human rights.
Nation states must never be allowed to deprive citizens of their rights. By
the same token, individuals and groups must never attempt to violate the
human rights of other individuals and groups.
KEDA: In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas incorporated the concept of
natural law into Christian legal thought.
ATHAYDE: The work of Thomas Aquinas was the first element in my
philosophical education. And, although many other kinds of knowledge
transformed my education in later years, his Summa Theologiae has always
influenced my thinking on social and political issues.
KEDA: Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics wedded Stoic concepts to
Christian theology. The Stoics believed that all things depended on
universal reason. The Scholastics identified Stoic universal reason with
God, who, they maintained, created all nature. Thomas Aquinas divided law
into three categories: divine law, natural law and human law and rejected
 the validity of any human law that violates natural law. The concept of
natural law has continued to be influential and was the philosophical
foundation of such milestone documents as the Magna Carta.

Power from Within

KEDA: Your own intensive studies of such milestones have helped you
generate from within yourself the energy for your work in the name of the
happiness of humanity. To be truly effective, work like yours must always
be inwardly generated. Otherwise it can degenerate into perfunctory
busyness or even mischief. For, if driven solely by calculated self-interest,
human activity can deviate from courses plotted by lofty ideals.
Ancient prophecies foresaw such degeneration for Buddhism itself. It
was visualised as occurring in three phases. First, in the Former Day of the
Law (shōhō in Japanese), believers righteously put the teachings of the
Buddha into practise. Then, in the second phase, called the Middle Day of
the Law (zōhō), although perfunctory disciplines and rituals are observed,
the teachings are reduced to a hollow shell. And finally, in the Latter Day of
the Law (mappō), under the sway of unbridled self-interest, all kinds of
doctrines, even those of the lowest calibre, run rife. The true mission of
religion is to stimulate the emergence of believers’ inner power for the sake
of constant spiritual renewal that prevents both the descent into moribund
perfunctoriness and unbridled self-interest.
ATHAYDE: As we are entering the third millennium [1993], your influence on
the future of culture and education is greater than anybody else’s.
KEDA: Walt Whitman expressed his ideas as follows: ‘I say at the core of
democracy, finally, is the religious element’ and said that a sublime faith
that is deeper and more liberal than anything that has gone before must be
revived by a new force. He saw that democracy demands the kind of living
faith that stimulates people to formulate internal standards. Just such a
religious approach gives human rights themselves and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights their universality.
ATHAYDE: As I have said, I insisted on recognition of a universal entity as the
well-spring of all human rights. After that had been accepted, I withdrew
my insistence on mention of humanity’s having been created in the image
of God.
 At the time, the world was still too suspicious and fearful to pay much
attention to our work. But we planted a seed that will grow into a great
blossoming and fruit-bearing tree. In the future, people will come to realise
the value of our achievement.

Equality Arising from the Universal Law

KEDA: According to Buddhist thought, the law (dharma, from the verb dhri,
to preserve, maintain, or uphold) on which the universe is founded imparts
worth and dignity to all forms of life, human and non-human. Certain rights
are universal because they spring from this ubiquitous dignity. Whereas
Christianity claims that all people are equal in the eyes of God, Buddhism
teaches that our equality arises from the internal, universal law of cause and
effect inherent in each individual. We are all equal because we are all
equally capable of attaining enlightenment to the universal law. In its
Buddhist context, the word ‘equal’ (samata in Sanskrit) indicates
impartiality transcending emotional attachments like hatred and love,
affection and disaffection. Arising from the universal law, Buddhist equality
triumphs over all discrimination.
ATHAYDE: I sympathise with this Buddhist view because I am convinced that
appreciation for the dignity of humanity cannot gain wide acceptance unless
we become aware of the sacred element within ourselves.
KEDA: Precisely. We Buddhists interpret this ‘sacred’ as the radiant presence
of the universal law in everyone of all racial and cultural backgrounds.
Awareness of the commonly shared law inspires sympathy and compassion
that expand the self and stimulate participation in the battle for justice,
equality and the recognition of the rights of all human beings.
 CHAPTER 6

Expanding the Network of Humanism Around the

Globe

Dialogue with Patience

KEDA: Your comments show that the process of preparing the basic text for
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights hit some rough patches. I am
certain that you were often called upon to play the role of peace-maker.
ATHAYDE: There were plenty of time-consuming problems. A month after we
convened, we had covered only three of the twenty-seven articles of the
Declaration draft. But this was not necessarily discouraging. The principles
we were discussing were of fundamental importance to humanity in
general. We wanted our efforts to produce lasting results. And that would
obviously take time.
KEDA: The fruits of haste are soon destroyed. Lasting results can only be
attained by perseverance. Gradualism and persevering dialogue are essential
to the creation of new, universal-humanistic values.
ATHAYDE: I do not claim that we members of the Third Committee solved all
the world’s problems. Nonetheless, our work can be counted among the
most significant achievements of history because in the end, we got the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights enacted.
One by one, we overcame the obstacles in our path, the most troublesome
of which was diversity of opinion. We deliberated and then revised to
eliminate obscurity, but I stubbornly resisted all corrections aimed at
weakening the content.
KEDA: I have heard of considerable conflict between representatives of the
United States and the Soviet Union over Article 19, which deals with
freedom of opinion and expression.
ATHAYDE: Yes. The Soviet representative argued for restriction of news
freedom. He severely criticised American newspapers for not truly
 reflecting public opinion and claimed that freedom of the press actually
deprived the populace of the liberty to express their opinions clearly.
According to him, while protected by law, freedom of publication and the
press ought to be used to prevent the spreading of fascist and bellicose
publicity. He also insisted that recognition of such freedoms should depend
on state security and welfare.
KEDA: The issue of freedom of expression is one about which we feel very
strongly because of the effects its suppression had on the founders of our
organisation. During the Second World War, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and
the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai, of which he was president, published a newspaper
called Kachi Sōzō (Value Creation). In May 1942, it was mercilessly shut
down by the oppressive public-peace authorities. About a year later, Mr.
Makiguchi was imprisoned. As early as 1903, in his book Jinsei Chirigaku
(A Geography of Human Life), he had said that the freedoms of conscience,
thought, religion and expression are sacred and inviolable.
ATHAYDE: Whenever democracy is being threatened, the freedoms of opinion
and expression are the first to be violated. I appealed to my fellow
committee members by saying that democracy is impossible without the
freedoms set forth in Article 19 and that they were in jeopardy as we did
our work on the Declaration. In an atmosphere of growing tension, Mrs.
Roosevelt courageously refuted the Soviet representative’s criticism of
American newspapers: ‘That is not a fact. Quite the reverse of what you
say, in my country, the people control both the government and the
newspapers!’ On several occasions, she and I tried to define the Soviet
representative’s true attitude to the Declaration. Ultimately, she believed we
could come to understand each other, but I never did.

Passionate Self-sacrifice
ATHAYDE: From time to time, debate grew very heated. But passion rarely
carried over into off-duty hours. One communist often condemned the evils
of capitalism, while shaking his mane of hair and pounding his desk with
his fist. Capitalists always responded with equal acerbity. But, at end of the
day, the same men who, only a few minutes earlier had seemed ready to rip
each other’s throats out, were usually to be found seated in the bar genially
laughing and chatting together.
KEDA: People are the same all over. That is why we can accomplish more
when we abandon ideological poses and meet, face to face, on the footing
of shared humanity.
ATHAYDE: That is true. Throughout the three months of our debates, time and
time again, conflicts caused what might have become irreconcilable
imbroglios. But, always, enthusiasm for our shared humanity and for the
importance of our task enabled us to pull back from the brink and resolve
our differences.
KEDA: I have heard that the speech you made to the General Assembly when
the draft was submitted for final discussion was brilliant.
ATHAYDE: Immediately before the vote, I said, ‘This Declaration does not
represent the specific viewpoint of any one nation or group of nations. It is
not an expression of any specific political creed or philosophical system. It
is the result of joint intellectual and moral work on the part of a large
number of countries . . . Here in the General Assembly, it should be passed
as proof of the common sense of all peoples.’
After my speech, Robert Schuman, French minister of foreign affairs at
the time, rose from his seat to embrace all of us Brazilian representatives.
Observing my surprise at his gesture, he said, ‘You are the most eloquent
person I have ever heard in my life.’
KEDA: I can envision the enthusiasm that must have reigned. Your eloquence,
convincing evidence of how cogent a weapon the word can be, impressed
the whole audience because it arose from your exalted spirit and your
dedication to the future of humanity.

ATHAYDE: The occasion was very exciting. I was still under the influence of
the emotions it stirred up when, that evening, I received a letter from Mrs.
Roosevelt, saying that democracy cannot survive without the pure and lofty
thought of passionate self-sacrificing people, and the words of the
representative from Brazil recalled to her mind Abraham Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address.
To my way of thinking, you epitomise what Mrs. Roosevelt meant by
passionate, self-sacrificing people. Soka Gakkai International is a supreme
example of your philosophy of affording maximum support to the values of
the ordinary people.
KEDA: It is my hope that, on the basis of Buddhist teachings, Soka Gakkai
International can become a powerful force for global peace and prosperity.
That was what I had in mind when, in an address I gave on the occasion of
the fifteenth SGI Day (26 January, 1990), I reaffirmed the three
fundamental ideals of our organisation:
One. As good citizens, the members of Soka Gakkai International resolve
to contribute to the prosperity of their respective societies and countries,
while respecting individual cultures, customs and laws.
Two. The members of Soka Gakkai International resolve to aim for the
realisation of eternal peace and the prosperity of humanistic culture and
education, based on the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin, which clearly
defines the dignity of human life.
Three. The Members of Soka Gakkai International resolve to contribute
to the happiness of humankind and the prosperity of the world, while
strongly eschewing war and violence of any kind; to support the spirit of the
Charter of the United Nations; and to take positive steps toward cooperating
with its endeavors to keep world peace, with the abolition of nuclear
weapons and the realisation of a warless world as their supreme purpose.

Integrated Rights
KEDA: On that crucial day in the General Assembly, the voting turned out
eighty-four in favour and none opposed with eight abstentions from the
Soviet Union and East bloc nations. This means that the declaration was
passed without any actual opposition votes.
ATHAYDE: The Union of South Africa, as the country was called then, joined
the Soviet Union and other East bloc nations in abstaining. Afterwards, the
chairman of the General Assembly called the adoption of so important a
declaration without direct opposition an epoch-making achievement. The
Declaration resolved the conflict between materialists and idealists by
integrating classical Western political and civic rights with formerly
inconceivable economic and cultural rights.
KEDA: In other words, it integrated first and second-generation human rights.
ATHAYDE: Yes. The American and French revolutions had already won
political and civil rights. The liberty, equality, and fraternity – or
philanthropy – embodied in such historical documents as the Virginia Bill
of Rights, the Constitution of the United States and the French Declaration
 des Droits de l’Homme formed the political foundation of modern
democracy.
KEDA: The first generation of human rights – mostly related to liberty and
equality – were formulated and gained wide recognition in the eighteenth
and early nineteenth century. But they were often violated because they
failed to ensure social and economic security. For instance, inhuman
working conditions for the very poor robbed life of most of its dignity. But
awareness gradually lead to activism that ultimately secured a range of
economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to labour. These
rights were found in places in the German Weimar Constitution of 1919 and
in constitutions written for nations in the Americas in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Integration of social – or second-generation –
rights with what you have called classical rights and liberties in the
Universal Declaration indicates considerable advance in human-rights
philosophies of the nations of the free world.
ATHAYDE: American and British democracy long held that the passive
liberties are irreplaceable. The vigorous and vital liberal traditions in these
countries precluded rejection of active rights like those pertaining to labour,
individual property, justice, health, culture and welfare.

KEDA: Your distinction between active and passive rights deserves comment.
Passive rights involve liberation from oppression; they are freedoms ‘from
something’. Active rights relate to active social, political and economic
participation and are therefore freedoms ‘to do something’.
Conflict and harmony are inherent in the two elements of this active-
passive dichotomy. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was
controversial because, by ensuring both kinds of rights, it embodies both
harmony and conflict. The Western nations in the modern period have
looked on the state as a necessary evil and have jealously guarded liberties
from its interference. More concerned with social rights, the Soviet-bloc
nations have encouraged interference by the state in all aspects of life –
social and economic.
In a sense, during this century, two global conflicts have arisen because
nation states have given precedence to considerations other than the basic
rights of their citizens. Reflections on the horrors of those wars influenced
the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which
 therefore naturally stresses the need to protect the individual from the state.
This may in part account for the Soviet bloc’s refusal to vote in favour.

ATHAYDE: Possibly. But other factors, too, must be considered. Political

freedoms of information, assembly and movement as well as regulations
against discrimination were irreconcilable with the totalitarian Soviet
system. I once asked the celebrated scientist Alexei Pavlov, who was the
Soviet representative on the Third Committee, how I should interpret rigid
Soviet opposition to everything in the declaration draft dealing with civic
prerogatives. He frankly replied, ‘If those articles were approved and put
into effect in my country, the Soviet system wouldn’t last another six
months.’
In spite of political interests, however, the Universal Declaration is one of
the most outstanding advances in the field in the last century because it
embodies the will of all peoples by encompassing both political and social
rights.
KEDA: The liberties, or first-generation rights, are covered in Articles three to
21. Social, or second-generation, rights are set forth in Articles 22 to 27.
Articles 28 to 30 set forth attitudes individuals must adopt toward the
guarantee of the liberties and social rights and establish an international
basis for them, thus transcending the responsibilities of single states and
putting the human-rights issue on a truly global footing.
ATHAYDE: These articles define the individual’s obligations in relation to the
social body. The eternal, immutable greatness of our work derives largely
from the noble ideas expressed in articles 29 and 30.
KEDA: The two articles you cite looked forward to later developments in the
area of social and economic rights. Serious infringements of the rights of
the poor, especially in the developing nations, stimulated awareness of
development itself as a human right and of the need for transnational
protection of human rights. The obvious outcome of the process was the
emergence of a third generation of human rights involving international
development, environmental protection, peace and the common human
cultural heritage.

Respect for the Dignity of All Life Forms

 KEDA: The path you have followed in your struggle for the happiness of
humanity and respect for the human rights of all people has much in
common with the way of the bodhisattva especially as set forth in the
celebrated Vimalakīrti Sutra. Whereas many Buddhist sutras are considered
difficult reading, this one is notable for its literary quality and for the wit
and drama with which it makes profound truths readily accessible to
everyone.
In it, Vimalakīrti has fallen ill and Shakyamuni Buddha requests that
someone from among the prominent bodhisattvas or his own ten major
disciples pay him a sick call. None is willing to go because, in the past,
Vimalakīrti has consistently bested all of them in their own fields of
expertise and pre-eminence. Finally, however, the bodhisattva Manjushrī,
who has never met the layman before, agrees to pay his condolences.
To Manjushrī’s inquiries about the cause and duration of his illness,
Vimalakīrti replied, ‘This illness of mine is born of ignorance and feelings
of attachment. Because all living beings are sick, therefore I am sick,’ and
‘It is like the case of a rich man who has only one child. If the child falls ill,
then the father and mother too will be ill, but if the child’s illness is cured,
the father and mother too will be cured. The bodhisattva is like this, for he
loves living beings as though they were his children. If living beings ae
sick, the bodhisattva will be sick, but if living beings are cured, the
bodhisattva too will be cured. You ask what cause this illness arises from –
the illness of bodhisattva arises from great compassion.’1
As this passage indicates, Vimalakīrti is the compassionate man of
wisdom and action who puts his love for all suffering sentient beings – the
Buddha’s true heirs – into assiduous practise.
ATHAYDE: He embodies wisdom practically applied in contrast to mere
knowledge. No matter how learned, the scientific specialist cannot always
reach the great heights of humanity.

KEDA: Quite true. Shakyamuni Buddha himself put his wisdom to

compassionate use in diligently caring for the sick and by telling his
disciples, ‘Exerting your best for suffering people earns the same merit as
exerting yourself for the Buddha.’ In the Nirvana Sutra, too, he says, ‘The
varied sufferings that all living beings undergo – all these are the sufferings
of the Thus Come One’s own sufferings.’
 In terms of human rights, this kind of bodhisattva and Buddha empathy
with the sufferings of others springs from respect for the dignity of all
forms of life. This respect naturally engenders respect for fundamental
rights. Protecting those rights is the mission of the bodhisattva; that is, the
mission of all Buddhists who correctly apply the teachings in all aspects of
life.

Global Influence
ATHAYDE: When the work of the Third Committee was concluded, the
representatives parted with mutual congratulations for successful and
diligent effort. I exchanged some words with both Professor René Cassin
and Mrs. Roosevelt about our optimism at beginning a new age of respect
for fundamental rights and awareness of the long, rough road ahead.

KEDA: Yes, the road is long, and it never really ends. The attainment of each
goal is the starting point for efforts targeted toward the next. This never-
ending process is illustrated by the way the Declaration has influenced
formulations of human-rights-protection structures and their inclusion in
new constitutions and bills of rights throughout Europe and Africa.
For example, the preamble of the European Convention on Human
Rights adopted in November 1950, mentions the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
adopted by the United Nations in 1966, emphasises its first and second-
generation rights. Accords and structures of these kinds have helped orient
rights-protection efforts in Africa and the Americas. For instance, the
American Convention on Human Rights, adopted in San José, California, in
November 1969, declares the ideal of free men enjoying freedom from fear
and want, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Charter of the Organisation of African Unity, adopted in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, in May 1963, declares as one of its goals the promotion of
international cooperation, with full respect to the United Nations Charter
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, the Declaration
has influenced the drafting of several new constitutions, like those of
Guinea (1958) and Madagascar (1959).
ATHAYDE: Everyone today is enthusiastic about protecting basic human rights.
The Universal Declaration has succeeded because its content is broad
 enough to make further additions and deletions unnecessary. There is no
room in it for change of any kind.

The Universality of the Declaration

KEDA: Let us now consider what forms the universality of the Declaration.
The core of the Declaration is humanity. Instead of defining human rights
based on national circumstances, the Declaration focuses on humanity
itself, each individual of which constitutes global community. Because of
its universality, the Declaration is applicable to all humanity for all time.
ATHAYDE: I touched on that very idea in my address to the General Assembly
when I said, ‘We solemnly declare in the name of international justice, that
all peoples must protect the rights of every man and woman in the world.’
KEDA: In speaking of every man and woman in the world you implied that
the declaration is unlimited in terms of space. Its spatial universality is
symbolically expressed in the stipulation against discrimination in the
second clause of Article Two. Other bills of rights and constitutions have
dealt with rights within separate and limited ranges. For the first time in
history, the Universal Declaration covers them all – even those defying
provision within the nation-state framework – and codifies them on the
basis of the spiritual element of universality. For example, Article 15 says:
‘One. Everyone has the right to a nationality. Two. No one shall be
arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his
nationality.’
ATHAYDE: Humanity itself is enough to earn protection of rights under its
provisions.
KEDA: The long centuries through which the Declaration is going to evolve in
the future will impart to it universality in terms of time as well as space.
ATHAYDE: Under the influence of devotion to justice and liberty, which we
hope will guide humanity in coming centuries, the Declaration will attain
temporal universality as it makes contributions to the well-being of all
peoples of all social, political or economic origins.

Human Rights in the Light of the Three Realms of Existence and the
Theory of Eshōfuni
KEDA: Over the course of historical development, support for basic human
rights has broadened and deepened. The broader, second-generation rights
constitute the foundation of the first-generation rights. And both other
generations rest on the still broader third generation. This widening of
recognition entails respect not only for the individual human being, but also
for that individual’s cultural, social and natural environments. The Buddhist
teaching of the three realms of existence explains relations between the
individual and his social and natural environments, thus providing a
philosophical basis for deepening and broadening appreciation for human
rights.
The three realms are the realm of the five components (go-on seken in
Japanese), the realm of living beings (shujō-seken) and the realm of the
environment (kokudo-seken). The five components are the five elements
composing the human being; that is, shiki, physical forms perceptible to the
eye; ju, perceptual, emotional and volitional psychological aspects; sō,
conceptualisation; gyō, the will to act and shiki, consciousness. The realm
of the five components manifests the diverse differences apparent in the
physical and psychological aspects of human life. The individual
contemplates this realm in relation to himself, not to emphasise differences,
but to detect the essential Buddha nature transcending the diversity of
phenomenal reality. Because all life is endowed with the dignity arising
from the Buddha nature, all manifestations of life are equally to be
treasured and respected. The doctrine shares much in common with the
essence of Articles One and Two of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
ATHAYDE: Buddhism is the very philosophy to stimulate worldwide
observation of human rights in the coming century because it teaches how
to make equality, liberty and affection major elements in daily life. No other
teaching has ever surpassed its doctrines of faith and love.

KEDA: Buddhism goes beyond the discrepancies characteristic of the world of

the five components to seek the realm of complete liberty. This quest relates
Buddhist teachings to first-generation human rights, especially the liberties
set forth in Articles Three to 21 of the Declaration.
Like individuals, environments, too, differ markedly from each other.
Beyond their inherent differences, they are affected – for good or bad – by
human behaviour. At the same time, various environments – natural,
 psychological, social and cultural – play a formative part in human
development. Buddhism teaches that, within the context of the three realms,
the living subject (shōhō in Japanese) and its environment (ehō) are
indivisibly one. The source of the unity is a cause-and-effect formula most
eloquently expressed by Nichiren as the Mystic Law that pervades the
universe, past, present and future.
ATHAYDE: As you imply, social circumstances and living environments vary
widely from country to country. The very identity of some peoples is
directly bound to their national environment. The people of Brazil are
deeply and fundamentally Brazilian. Similarly, the Japanese nation derives
its dignity from an innate Japanese quality.

KEDA: The Vimalakīrti Sutra, which I mentioned earlier, makes some

interesting points about the environment. In it, Shakyamuni Buddha says
that the land (environment) of the bodhisattvas and the environment of
ordinary sentient beings are one and the same. In a sense, then, sentient
beings themselves constitute the bodhisattva’s proper environment. Just as
human beings are partly formed by their environments, the bodhisattva is
formed and cultivated by his work on behalf of sentient beings. This work
includes the so-called Three Attitudes (sincerity, profound faith, and the
determination to attain enlightenment); the six wise practices (pāramitās);
and the four infinite virtues. These characteristics indicate the breadth with
which the Buddhist concept of environment embraces cultural and social
factors.
In his comments on the environment and our relations to it, Nichiren
says, ‘if the minds of the living beings are impure, their land is also impure,
but if their minds are pure, so is their land. There are not two lands, pure or
impure in themselves. The difference lies solely in the good or evil of our
minds.’ In other words, a truly humane society is impossible unless its
members develop spiritually.
The French philosopher and diplomat Jacques Maritain said that, in order
to fulfill the responsibility of ensuring observation of human rights,
humanity must become a single, open totality. This means that each
individual must be such a totality and participate in a universal totality.
Furthermore, all individuals must be open to contact with all others.
Enlightenment to the Buddhist Law (Dharma) merges us all into universal
totality.
 The Dharma exists only within human beings and their environments.
But all humans are equally endowed with it and therefore equal among
themselves and worthy of respect. Awareness of this equality, as we have
said, eliminates discrimination and the violations of human rights they
cause.
ATHAYDE: Ideally, we should all be equal and enjoy the full range of human
rights in any environment. Your work has done much to break down
discriminatory barriers by building bridges of amity among cultures. The
more people we have like you, the surer will be lasting peace and
worldwide respect for human rights.
 CHAPTER 7

Treasuring the Dignity of Each Individual

Freedom of the Spirit

KEDA: As the historical experience of the Japanese people proves, the noblest
codifications of human rights are empty without the spiritual freedoms of
conscience, thought and faith. In 1925, in Japan, a great step in the direction
of democracy seemed to have been taken with the passing of the Popular-
Vote Law permitting adult males to participate in government. The
illusoriness of the appearance was cast into sharp relief, however, by the
virtually simultaneous passing of the pernicious Peace Preservation Law,
which restricted the freedoms of expression, association, thought and belief.
Legislation of this kind paved the way for the emergence of Japanese
militarism and for such bellicose measures as the National Mobilisation
Law.
ATHAYDE: Certainly such spiritual liberties as freedom of faith deserve
maximum protection in modern society.

KEDA: For very many people, religion constitutes the center of life. Indeed,
because the religious sense is an integral part of human nature, rejecting the
right to its manifestation amounts to a rejection of humanity itself.
Recognising freedom of faith and its unrestricted exercise helps us cultivate
attitudes conducive to full self-expression in activities essential to such
tasks as preserving peace and protecting the natural environment.
In the past, some socialist countries, while pretending to guarantee
freedom of faith, adhered to the philosophy that branded religion an opiate.
In spite of official disapproval, however, the religious attitude survived in
those countries to be liberated by then President Gorbachev’s perestroika
programme. And, on 1 October, 1990, still under the Gorbachev regime, a
 law concerning freedom of conscience and religious organisations went into
effect.
ATHAYDE: My highly cultivated father fostered a profound interest in religious
freedom in all our family. Perhaps influenced by his teachings, during work
on the draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I did all I could
to convince my fellow committee members that the freedom of religion is,
as you say, the most fundamental of all human rights.

KEDA: I believe you had something very convincing to say during the
discussion of Article 18 [sixteenth in the draft version]. The conclusion of
that article says, ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and
freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private,
to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practise, worship and
observance.’
The minutes of your meetings show that Mr. Abadi, the representative
from Iraq, elaborated this text into three elements: (One) freedom of
expression expanded to embrace religious and philosophical convictions
and scientific opinions; (Two) freedom of religion, which entails relations
between human beings and ‘God’; and (Three) freedom of worship, which
deals with relations between the individual and society.
ATHAYDE: From my viewpoint, the article as set forth in the draft was in need
of no correction. Its philosophical quintessence was to be found in its stated
principles and detailed provisions. But not everyone agreed. Dr. Pavlov, the
Soviet representative, proposed including in the list only freedom of
thought and eliminating freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.

Freedom of Thought in Peril

KEDA: I dare say his proposal provoked controversy.

ATHAYDE: Yes, for example Mr. Peng Chun Chang of China, said, ‘In the
West, since the eighteenth century, freedom of thought has been considered
one of the indispensable human liberties. This freedom, of course, includes
freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. The Soviet delegate has
proposed that we refrain from clearly expressing these freedoms in this
declaration, which is being compiled for the majority of the population of
the world. I find his proposal incorrect.’
 Prior to Mr. Chang’s remarks, the Saudi Arabia representative had said
that, during the Western colonisation of Asia during the nineteenth century,
Christian missionaries had exceeded their proper role by acting as advance
forces with political and economic aims. Mr. Chang agreed but refused to
recognise these objections as sufficient grounds for limiting freedom of
thought.
KEDA: Perhaps Mr. Chang was attempting to follow your advice by assuming
a viewpoint transcending strictly Eastern and Western opinions.
ATHAYDE: Perhaps he was. Nor was he the only delegate to disagree with Dr.
Pavlov. Other delegates, too, were in favour of a broad interpretation of
freedom of thought. Mr. Plaza of Venezuela objected that, while ostensibly
championing it, the Soviet delegate was ready to allow political authorities
to apply legal restrictions to freedom of conscience. Mr. Anze Matienzo of
Bolivia underscored the importance of Article 18 to human spirituality in
connection with credos and mutual tolerance.

KEDA: The delegate from Venezuela was hinting at the fearsome danger
always latent in legal restrictions on freedom of thought.
Regimes that impose legal restrictions on thought and action cripple
religions. Brave and faithful people oppose such oppression, as the
experiences of the first two presidents of Soka Gakkai prove. Obviously,
however, not all governments are oppressive. Some brilliant examples of
cultural and spiritual flourishing under wise and tolerant rulers are to be
found in human history. One of the most outstanding is that of King
Ashoka, whose regime was founded on the Buddhist Law, which he
understood well and applied wisely and tolerantly. As is shown in the edicts
he had carved on stone pillars throughout India, instead of authoritatively
oppressing them, he actively protected other religions. He encouraged open
and free dialogue among religious thinkers. When granted freedom of
expression, excellent religions always demonstrate their supremacy over
inferior teachings.
Nichiren, too, favoured open discussions among representatives of
different schools of thought. In his Risshō Ankoku-ron (On Establishing the
Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land), he urged political authorities
to permit public debates with priests of other sects, like the powerful
Ninshō (Ryōkan; 1217-1303). He knew that, given a chance to hear all
arguments clearly stated, the people could choose the righteous faith for
 themselves. Although his collected works contain numerous criticisms of
other sects, Nichiren always understood his opponents’ views and never
merely refuted them out of hand.
As long as people refuse to be confined within narrow sectarian views
and engage in dialogues with the true happiness of all humanity in mind,
correct conclusions are certain to be forthcoming. The ordinary people are
too wise to be fooled for long. They will spy out authoritarian oppression
and abandon teachings whose inferiority is revealed to them. Nonetheless,
we must always be on guard against mischievous official interference in
spiritual matters and must jealously maintain separation of state and
religion.
ATHAYDE: The third General Assembly of the United Nations insisted on
governmental neutrality in religious affairs.

Separation of State and Religion

KEDA: To prevent biased patronage of any one faith, governments must
remain neutral. State and religion must be strictly separated. Historical
developments in France illustrate how separation can be accomplished after
a long period of excessively close contact between the two. In the Middle
Ages, of course, France had been thoroughly Roman Catholic, a
handmaiden of the Church, so to speak. Officially, the French Revolution of
1789 divorced Church and state. Actually, however, for practical purposes,
Catholicism remained virtually a state religion. But the relationship was
never placid. The fall of the ancien régime, which had enthusiastically
supported the Catholic Church, and the adoption of a republican system of
government aggravated friction between the two. Nonetheless, restricted
state support of the Church continued until a law ending it was finally
passed in 1905.
ATHAYDE: At the beginning of the twentieth century, the issue of funding for
educational institutions was especially troublesome in France. Such funding
must be impartial.
KEDA: Many French schools had promoted religiously-oriented educations
because they were founded by religious institution. At the beginning of the
century, the French government provided no financial support for schools
conducting religious education. Because this meant that the adherents of
 specific religious faiths were denied adequate education, the system
violated the human right of equal educational opportunities.
ATHAYDE: The authorities’ uncompromising attitude in this case even led to
the downfall of the president’s cabinet.

KEDA: Now the French adopt a more flexible stance. If they wish, parents can
send their children to boarding schools where priests are assigned to the
dormitories.
While not recognising a state religion, Germany protects religious
organisations, some of which actually receive tax money. In medieval
German society, people paid taxes to their local churches. Today, in what
amounts to a relic of that system, the state collects such taxes and
distributes them to churches.
ATHAYDE: By nature, Brazilians are tolerant, and our nation is noted for a
broad-minded approach to religion. Historically, ours has been an open
society providing maximum protection for freedom of faith. Some
Brazilians, however, have abused that tolerance by screening criminal
activities behind a front of religion. Such people deserve punishment.

Corrupt Buddhist Priesthood

KEDA: Greedy self-seekers have destroyed religions before. Nor has

Buddhism been immune to this plague. Buddhist priests have been known
to appropriate, for their own use and aggrandisement, offerings made by
sincere believers. It is often said that Indian lay believers who made the
offerings, on which an isolated, cloistered clergy lived, lost faith in the
priesthood, and that this spelled ruin for Buddhism in India.
Similarly, documentary evidence suggests that a corrupt Buddhist
priesthood, sometimes resorting to usury, afflicted the local population
severely enough to cause the downfall of Dunhuang in China, once a
prosperous oasis trade center sophisticated enough to create an ensemble of
cave temples that today are the only survivors of a brilliant past.
ATHAYDE: Examples of that kind of thing abound. A growing number of
members of clerical groups seem to be interested only in fattening
themselves. These people cannot see things clearly and deserve criticism.
Nor should censure of them be interpreted as religious oppression.
KEDA: They are, indeed, everywhere. Founders of religious organisations are
usually high-minded people concerned about the happiness of humanity.
But their followers sometimes lose sight of founders’ noble aims and
submit to secular authority for the sake of improving their own positions. In
spite of such people, however, human beings need to believe, and they
require a sound religion that enables them to manifest and develop their
best potentials. This is why we have always insisted on a just and fair
evaluation of religion. Spiritual freedom is the only thing that can help us
be what we, as human beings, should be.

ATHAYDE: You yourself are a world-class educator and supremely creative

global reformer. I agree fully with your insistence on a just, fair evaluation
of religion, because spiritual freedom is essential to transmitting the spirit
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the next century.
In this dialogue, we are striving to define the optimum form for a new
humanism founded on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Your
innate discernment makes you a born world-reformer. Your goal is to
contribute to the welfare and improvement of humanity through constant
dialogue and numerous written works. Mine has been to do the same thing
by means of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The two aims
coincide.
 CHAPTER 8

Path to the New Century of Human Rights

Education: The First Prerequisite of Progress

KEDA: It is impossible to over-emphasise the importance of education to the
preservation and dissemination of the great human heritage embodied in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
ATHAYDE: Children are heirs both to the future and past human heritage.
Article 26 of the Declaration deals with education. During our debates on it,
I said that the right to an education is beyond questioning and that the right
to joint possession of the human heritage constituted the foundation of our
culture.
KEDA: All great thinkers as well have stressed the need to educate young
people carefully. In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo, one of my favourite
authors from my young years, insists that education is the source of
everything valuable in society, including advances in science, culture and
art. Sound educational policies are the only way to guarantee that human
rights are afforded pre-eminence above all other considerations in the
coming century.
ATHAYDE: That is true. I remember saying to fellow members of the Third
Committee, ‘Enriching the human personality is the goal of life and the
solid foundation of society. This is impossible without education, the first
prerequisite of progress.’

KEDA: It is the first prerequisite of all growth. Educating is comparable to the

sowing of seeds in the field of the mind. The gatha of the text called ‘The
Ploughing’ relates how Shakyamuni regarded this act of intellectual
cultivation.
‘Thus have I heard: – The Exalted One was once staying on South Hill, at
Ekanala, a brahmin village . . . Now Farmer Bharadvaja saw the Exalted
 One standing there for alms, and thereat he said: “Now I, recluse, plough
and sow, and when I have ploughed and sown I eat. Do thou also, recluse,
plough and sow, and when thou hast ploughed and sown, eat.”
“But I too, brahmin, plough and sow, and when I have ploughed and
sown, I eat.” . . .
“Faith is the seed, and rain the discipline. Insight for me is plough fitted
with yoke, My pole is conscience and sense-mind the tie, And mindfulness
my ploughshare and my goad.”’1
Faith is the seed sown in the field of the mind, where, watered by the rain
of physical and mental self-discipline and cultivated by the plow of insight
(wisdom), it germinates, later to bring to fruition the limitless possibilities
inherent within life itself. The path set forth by this series of equations is the
fundamental way to overcome suffering and build indestructible happiness.
The supremely important thing is to seed the fallow ground of the spirit to
bring forth the harvest of a happy life.
The American William S. Clark, who contributed much to the growth of
modern education in Japan in the late nineteenth century, said that any
nation depends first and foremost on a people with heart and aspirations.
Education cultivates both.
ATHAYDE: Of course, a people and a nation can prosper neither economically
nor socially without a good educational system. Education is the product of
two major factors: cultural customs and study. Neither is superior to the
other, but initiating the latter necessitates prior consideration of the former.
In keeping with social consensus and usages, the two should operate in
parallel.

KEDA: Education is cultivation. The etymology of the very word expands the
metaphor of sowing knowledge in the field of the mind since cultivation
derives from the Latin infinitive cultivare, which in turn is related to cultus,
which means tilling.
Buddhist scriptures consistently proclaim the importance of planting in
the mind seeds of supreme value and indestructible happiness. For instance,
Nichiren’s ‘The Selection of the Time’ says, ‘How fortunate, how joyous, to
think that with this unworthy body I have received in my heart the seeds of
Buddhahood!’2
We must first be enlightened to the Buddha seed planted in ourselves and
thus to our own limitless potentialities. With this awareness, we are ready to
 be educated to work for the good of humanity. The Universal Declaration
makes education a basic human right deserving jealous protection. In this
way, it is the pioneer in the whole process of human development.
ATHAYDE: The Declaration will manifest its true value when all human beings
are ready to serve as its champions.

New Perspectives and Ideals

KEDA: Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, who was affectionately devoted to his
students’ welfare, asked the teachers, ‘To begin with, what is the purpose of
national education? Instead of following the way of the educators and
beginning with philosophy and theory and introducing complicated
interpretations, I consider it more suitable to begin with this question: “How
can these charming children, entrusted to your care, be helped to lead the
happiest possible lives in the future?”’3
ATHAYDE: The futures of their students must be always uppermost in teachers’
minds. Just as in Mr. Makiguchi’s time, so today, grave threats hang over
the heads of the young – threats that concerned teachers cannot overlook.
For instance, I have heard that, within the next decade, about ten million
Brazilian children may fall victim to AIDS. How can we save them from
this unfair death? Leaders everywhere are devoting themselves to this
question and to finding ways of alleviating the lot of the poor, the
unfortunate and the legally underprivileged. I should like to be a leader of
such leaders.
KEDA: Leaders of leaders of that kind have the philosophical strength and
force of character to change the world.
ATHAYDE: But to do so, we require new perspectives and ideals. To find them
requires carefully sifting and selecting from human achievements of the
past.

KEDA: I am certain that some of those new perspectives can be found in the
philosophy of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi. In commenting on Makiguchi’s
original approach to education, Dr. Dayle M. Bethel said that he knew the
work of many educators whose achievements are likely to survive in
history. But the more he studied Makiguchi, the more he was impressed
with his determination to keep humanity at the heart of education and his
 emphasis on practical action. This was the ideal education Dr. Bethel had
been looking for.
Makiguchi completed his Education for Creative Living while working
as a primary-school principal. Profoundly concerned about his pupils’
happiness, he always tried to see things from their standpoint and argued
that education isolated from daily life is unworthy of the name. The first
principle of his system is to cultivate children’s sensitivities and intuitive
powers and develop in them the ability to create value. He strove to achieve
this by refining innate creative wisdom. He wrote, ‘The aim of education is
not to transfer knowledge; it is to guide the learning process, to put the
responsibility for study into the students’ own hands. It is not the piecemeal
merchandising of information but the provision of keys that will allow
people to unlock the vault of knowledge on their own. It does not consist in
pilfering the intellectual property amassed by others through no additional
efforts of one’s own; it would rather place people on their own path of
discovery and invention.’
ATHAYDE: I agree of course; but, unfortunately, too many teachers fail to
inspire their students to experience intellectual discovery and invention.

KEDA: You go straight to the heart of the matter. In his short story, ‘Conto de
Escola’, the great Brazilian writer Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
describes student apathy in the classroom. Pilar, the quick-witted, clever
hero of the story, is an outstanding student with a flair for creative writing.
But, in his heart, he would rather be playing in the fields and hills than
studying in class.
One day, the teacher assigns a task in original composition. Pilar quickly
polishes it off. Engrossed in the newspaper, the teacher fails to observe how
his son Raimundo, a backward pupil in the same class, offers Pilar a coin to
help him with his task. Another student, however, observes the transaction
and informs on them. The teacher punishes both culprits by caning their
hands until they are red and swollen. In this way, it was in the classroom
where Pilar first got to know about cheaters and squealers.
Teachers who neglect their duties – by, for instance, reading the
newspaper in class – do not stimulate their students’ minds and cannot hope
to keep their attention. Connecting study with daily life is perhaps the best
way to achieve both aims. To his great credit, with his value-creating
system, Makiguchi removed learning from the ivory tower and assimilated
 it into the needs and deeds of everyday life. He constantly sought ways to
relate the things children learned at home and the things they were taught in
school. His concept of the kyōdo-ka, or hometown course, enabled children
to apply classroom knowledge to practical situations and to order jumbled,
fragmented items of knowledge in a way that clarified the inter-relations
among them.
It must not be thought, however, that Makiguchi’s hometown approach
was parochial in any way. His aim was to expand the natural affection
people feel for their home into devotion to the welfare of the whole planet.
In his first book Jinsei Chirigaku (A Geography of Human Life), he called
on children to realise their membership of their nation and of the worldwide
family of humanity. He hoped to educate the kind of true citizens of the
world who are indispensable to democracy.

The Pursuit of Happiness

ATHAYDE: Secure, conscientiously constructed, thoroughly satisfying
democracy relies on popular education. Thomas Jefferson understood that
the fate of the newborn American democracy depended on protection of
human rights and liberties and on sound popular education, both of which
are fundamental to the maintenance of democratic government.

KEDA: Jefferson’s achievements were great. John Locke set forth the rights to
life, liberty and property. Thomas Jefferson added depth and universality to
the Declaration of Independence by altering these to rights to life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness.
Happiness, the pursuit of which is a universal human right, is also the
goal of education. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi believed that, tersely put, the
goal of human life is happiness. By this he meant not mere self-gratification
that ignores the well-being of others, but happiness that, though self-
interested, is founded on the realisation that life is not happy unless the
happiness is shared with others.
ATHAYDE: That is true happiness. Education creates a foundation for
overcoming life’s difficulties and for attaining the true happiness Mr.
Makiguchi had in mind. At the same time, it must teach us to live in
harmony with society and strive for the prosperity of society at large.
 KEDA: Makiguchi insisted that the goals of education and the goals of life
must be consistent with each other. A system of education that cultivates
people capable of generating great value verifiably demonstrates maximum
respect for the right to life.
ATHAYDE: The quality and scale of education provided free of charge and
indiscriminately to all levels of society determine the quality of a
democracy. John Adams, another of the American Founding Fathers,
insisted that guaranteeing education to all social classes, rich and poor alike,
is an indispensable condition to proper government and the preservation of
union. Historians generally agree in according praise to the American
government for providing high-quality education during the remarkably
brilliant period distinguished by men like Jefferson and Adams.
KEDA: Truly, the stature of a nation depends largely on the scope, depth and
fairness of its educational policies. Thomas Jefferson achieved astounding
things, including, of course, his concise expression of the American spirit in
the text of the Declaration of Independence. But I think his educational
work goes a long way to account for his greatness.

ATHAYDE: Yes. He not only founded the University of Virginia, considered

one of the most beautiful and harmonious educationalarchitectural
ensembles in the United States, but also planned it and designed some of its
buildings, and this when he was already over eighty years of age.
As you imply, the time he dedicated to education helps account for his
greatness. He was responsible for a government ordinance requiring that
land be set aside in the West for schools. His own library formed the
nucleus around which developed the Library of Congress, one of the most
famous institutions of its kind in the world. Values of democracy should be
measured by the quality and the scale of education provided to people of all
ranks gratis and equally.
KEDA: You yourself have founded an educational institution.

ATHAYDE: Yes, the Institute of Political Studies in the city of Campos,

northeast of Rio de Janeiro, a region famous for sugar, alcohol and
petroleum and for having been the first place in Brazil to enjoy electric
lights.
The high quality of cultural life in Campos is epitomised by its spacious
International Cultural Institute. Thousands of people visit the Solar da
 Baronesa Museum, located on the institute’s grounds. The Institute of
Political Studies that I founded stands next to the museum and was
modelled on the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Thanks to hard work and perseverance, the classroom building – 10,600
square metres in total – has been completed.
We believe that, by turning out well-trained people of a high moral
calibre and humane spirit, the school can help rectify the disorder and error
prevailing today, protect Brazilian democracy and prevent a return to
military rule. I established this political training center in the hope of
stimulating Brazil to become a free society rigidly opposed to all kinds of
discrimination.

KEDA: Like you, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi was opposed to militarism and

devoted his life to the belief in education’s power to create character values.
His successor, Josei Toda, worked strenuously as a practical educator.
Having inherited the mission from both of them, I have given my utmost
to education and intend to devote the rest of my life to this important cause.
In 1968, I founded the Soka Junior High and High Schools. Later I founded
other primary schools and kindergartens.
Soka University, which I founded in 1971, maintains exchange
programmes with about fifty other universities throughout the world.
Anticipating that, in the twenty-first century, its graduates will contribute
greatly to global peace, I drew up the following goals for the university:
(One) Be the highest seat of learning for humanistic education.
(Two) Be the cradle of a new culture.
(Three) Be a fortress for the peace of humankind.

ATHAYDE: I established the Institute of Political Studies at Campos with the

same high aims that inspired you to establish Soka University. Because I,
too, worked and worried over the project, I fully understand the greatness of
your achievement as an educator.
The institutes we have founded are destined to foster the spread of a new,
universal idealism and the emergence of a united world working together in
the pursuit of peace. The fulfillment of these goals is assured as long as
democracy survives.

Brazilian Education
ATHAYDE: Today Brazil is a land of diverse cultural values.
KEDA: Yes. Brazil leads most of the world in harmonious relations among
races and ethnic groups. As Machado succinctly put it, racial intermixing is
Brazil’s greatest contribution to humanism and mixed blood Brazil’s
greatest asset.
ATHAYDE: The educational system that ultimately resulted in that diversity
started with the efforts and initiative of Jesuit priests in São Paulo, notably
those of Father José de Anchieta.
KEDA: The energetic work of six members of the Society of Jesus in the
middle of the sixteenth century is well known. Many European colonists
were out only to subdue and loot Brazil and its native peoples. In the words
of Stefan Zweig, ‘Instead of civilising the country, it is first of all the
colonists themselves who run wild.’4 Inspired by their religious creed,
however, the Jesuits built schools for natives and children of mixed blood,
thus helping lay the foundations for the later evolution of a single, united
Brazil.

ATHAYDE: During the colonial period, Portugal, wary of indigenous cultural

advances, commanded all Brazilians of Portuguese descent to study in
Portugal at the University of Coimbra, a policy that produced an elite class
of scholars trained abroad instead of at home.
With independence, which came in the early nineteenth century, we
Brazilians opened new specialised colleges throughout the country. Among
them were the famous Recife School of Law, the equally prestigious São
Paulo College of Law, the Bahia School of Medicine, and Ouro Preto
School of Mining. It was not until the republican period of the late
nineteenth century that we began establishing departments of literature,
science and art. And the first full-scale university – Federal University of
Rio de Janeiro – was not founded until 1930. Other fine universities were to
come in the succeeding years.
Today Brazilians generally understand that economic and social
evolution depends on the quality of the education we provide our children.
Specialists struggling with illiteracy have made this abundantly clear over
the past fifty years. But even their hard work has not solved the problem. In
terms of illiteracy, Brazil is the most backward country in Latin America.
The very magnitude of the task has defeated many organisations.
 In spite of its literacy problems, however, Brazil is justly proud of its
vital literary tradition. I might cite a number of highly influential and
important Brazilian writers. For instance, Jorge Amado created an
unparalleled position for himself.
The great novelist Machado de Assis, as I have already said, was the first
director of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. And the long works of José de
Alencar, which deal with ethnic themes, contributed greatly to cultural and
philosophical dissemination. Famous throughout the world, the writings of
these men stimulated the development of their country.
KEDA: With so brilliant a literary legacy, the high Brazilian illiteracy rate is
all the more lamentable. But the problem is not limited to Brazil. One out of
every four adults in the world today – or about a billion people – cannot
read or write. I feel that Doctor Paulo Freire, the author of such works as
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, approached the problem in an original and
promising fashion. Believing that many adult, poverty-stricken, and
oppressed Brazilians had been robbed of educational opportunities, instead
of merely trying to make them literate, he attempted a whole humanisation
process through dialogue and study. By helping them acquire the abilities to
read and write, he hoped to intensify their awareness and make them
capable of interpreting and positively influencing society. His method
achieved epoch-making results. For example, in one case, three hundred
labourers learned to read and write in a mere forty-five days. In June, 1963,
the Brazilian Ministry of Education instituted an overall plan employing Dr.
Freire’s method. But, the military coup d’etat of 1 April 1964, frustrated it.
ATHAYDE: Vigorous educational policies, beginning with effective plans for
combating illiteracy, are essential if we are to transmit our cultural heritage
into a future age of circumstances likely to be very different from the ones
we have known hitherto.
KEDA: Illiteracy is crippling. The illiterate are barred from the written aspects
of their cultural heritage. They can neither find nor fulfill better kinds of
jobs. And this makes the acquisition of property difficult for them. There
have even been cases of tragic deaths resulting from the inability to read
instructions on bottles of medicine and so on. Although the illiterate have
the same rights as all other human beings, it is hard for them to understand
or protect them.
ATHAYDE: What you say is undeniable. But financially pinched governments
invariably scrimp on cultural affairs, including education. In the persisting
 Brazilian economic crisis, education at all levels has been subjected to
austere governmental monetary policies.

KEDA: Basic educational needs go wanting in many developing countries

today. Of course, industrialised nations must continue their programmes of
financial support to developing and impoverished nations. But international
aid targeted specifically to education is essential. Now that the Cold War is
over, in spite of recessions and unemployment problems, industrial nations
must devote part of the money saved by reducing military expenditures to
coping with universal problems like environmental conservation and
education. In this matter, we have no alternatives.
For some years, I have advocated steps to strengthen the position of
educational interests in such a way as to protect them from budget cutting.
For instance, I suggested expanding the current, widely applied
governmental structure of three branches – executive, legislative and
judicial – to include a fourth branch dealing exclusively with education. In
addition, to deal with the problem on an international scale, I recommend
the formation of a United Nations for Education. Such an organisation
could protect education from the kinds of squabbling among sovereign
states and interest groups that have long hampered the United Nations. By
guaranteeing the right of education internationally it could help ensure that,
in the twenty-first century, this and all other fundamental human rights
receive due respect. Seeing that all peoples everywhere enjoy the right to a
good education is the best way to prevent the reoccurrence of the miseries
two world conflicts have afflicted on humankind in our own century.
ATHAYDE: After the Second World War, we came to understand the supreme
importance of education in solving outstanding problems. We now grasp the
peril of trying to deal with pressing moral and economic difficulties on an
exclusively materialistic basis.

KEDA: I agree: materialism is not the answer. That is why I should like to say
some words about the Buddhist approach to teaching. Education must lead
forth the best in a student’s potentialities. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi identified
these best potentials as the incipient ability to generate the values of profit,
good and beauty. He found the philosophical key to its evocation in the
Lotus Sutra teaching about the Buddha’s reason for appearing in this world.
 As is explained in the second chapter of the Lotus Sutra, entitled
‘Expedient Means,’ one great reason (Ichidaiji Innen in Japanese) why the
Buddha appeared in this world was to evoke and develop the dignity
equally inherent in each human being. In another place in the same chapter,
this purpose is analysed into four elements: (One) to open the door to the
Buddha wisdom inherent in each sentient being; (Two) to reveal that
wisdom; (Three) to enlighten people to it; and (Four) to cause them to enter
the Buddha path in actual life. The compassionate Buddha wisdom is
equivalent to the Buddha nature, another word for precious life.
By bringing them into contact with his own wisdom and compassion, the
Buddha shows sentient beings that they manifest traits identical with his
own. Nichiren says, ‘When teacher and disciples have fully responded to
one another and the disciples have received the teaching, so that they gain
the awakening referred to where the sutra says, “I took a vow/ hoping to
make all persons/ equal to me, without any distinction between us” [chapter
two], this is what the sutra calls “causing living beings to awaken to the
Buddha wisdom.”’5 This means that living beings awaken to wisdom equal
to the Buddha’s, when mentor and disciples agree in sympathetic response.
Finally, the Buddha shows living beings how to use inherent wisdom and
compassion to pursue in daily life the way leading to perfection.
The Lotus Sutra posits the dignity of all life; its teachings are designed to
help human beings attain a happiness transcending life and death by
manifesting their dignity and abilities freely and to the maximum extent.
The same thing can be said of the goals of education. The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, too, is a statement of the rights without
which such self-manifestation and consequent happiness are difficult to
attain.
ATHAYDE: Guaranteeing respect for rights consonant with the Buddhist
teachings you so clearly expound requires liberty and the absence of all
discrimination.

KEDA: An acute observation. Because all are equally endowed with inherent
dignity in the form of the Buddha life, all individuals are equally capable of
attaining Buddhahood. The equality between Buddha and sentient beings
set forth in the chapter ‘Expedient Means’ leaves no room for
discrimination. To further substantiate the dignity of human life, the third
chapter of the sutra, ‘Simile and Parable’, clearly refers to sentient beings as
the Buddha’s children.
Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that all
people are innately free and equal in terms of dignity and rights, that all are
endowed with reason and conscience and should act in the spirit of
brotherhood. Since the end of the Cold War, ultranationalism and racism
have trampled on human dignity in some parts of the world.
Halting this cruel trend entails the stubborn protection of the dignity and
rights of all peoples. Education is the way to reveal the nature of the
problem and point the way to its resolution.
 CHAPTER 9

Towards the New Millennium

Proof of the Possibility of Peace

KEDA: Our epoch has witnessed beneficial and hope-giving achievements in
many fields. But in addition to such light, it has been marred by great
darkness. Two disastrous world wars and the rise and fall of communism
have occasioned humanity tremendous suffering. Nuclear weapons and
their cataclysmic potential have entitled ours to be called an age of
megadeath. If we have seen advances in the direction of recognition of the
fundamental rights of all human people, we have also been horrified at the
extent to which those rights have been trampled under foot. Now we can
only hope that the twenty-first century will profit from our mistakes to
become an age of light, peace and social and economic justice.
ATHAYDE: Supported by the lofty principles and practises of Soka Gakkai
International, you are already contributing to the creation of just that kind of
environment in the coming century. The things you and Mikhail S.
Gorbachev have achieved by turning your acute powers of discernment on
political and social thought deserve special commendation.
KEDA: Mr. Gorbachev, whom I have met and talked with on many occasions,
shares your love of action. He is never content with the status quo but
always exerts his utmost for the sake of a better future for humankind.
While undertaking an unprecedented series of domestic reforms, he helped
bring the Cold War to an end. Undoubtedly he was born to pioneer a new
age for our planet.

ATHAYDE: During his visit to Brazil in 1992, Mr. Gorbachev called at the
Brazilian Academy of Letters, where he was awarded the Order of Supreme
Honour in recognition of his achievements. I presided over the ceremony
and made a speech in which I said, ‘You have fought with peerless bravery
 to promote the peace that all people of good-will long for . . . More than
fulfilling the duties of a head of state, you have restored hope to liberty-
seeking, ordinary people of our time.’
He replied, ‘Everything I have done has been, not for my own glory, but
for the sake of our children and grandchildren . . . I am grateful for
President Athayde’s splendid words. He is the conscience of Brazil. I am
more aware of my own responsibility now than ever before. Moreover, I
feel that I enjoy greater understanding and support than I have ever done in
the past.’
KEDA: Profound words. What is your evaluation of the reform carried out by
Mr. Gorbachev?
ATHAYDE: A materialisation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
his perestroika pre-supposed internationalisation as a fundamental. It
attempted to promote solidarity advantageous to all nations. The nation-
state boundaries of the past are now fading away, making it necessary for us
to devise a new international structure entailing global spiritual and material
cooperation. We must replace outmoded concepts of sovereignty with
methods conducive to greater liberty, security and love. By opening the way
for the abolition of nuclear arms, Mr. Gorbachev’s new diplomacy became
the harbinger of the dawn of a new century.

KEDA: By the time of the summit held at his initiative in November 1985,
relations between the Soviet Union and the United States had reached an
impasse. But the meeting changed everything. I was especially gratified,
since it represented the kind of step I had long urged the leaders of both
nations to take.
Two years later, the United States and the Soviet Union eliminated an
entire class of nuclear-weapons delivery systems by signing the historic
Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Thereafter, Mr.
Gorbachev’s persistent hard work led to the end of the Cold War that had
divided East and West for more than forty years.
ATHAYDE: His policies of glasnost and perestroika helped create a world in
which tragedies like those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are unlikely to recur.
We have learned how to combat the threats of evil with the power of
dialogue, concord, good-will, mutual understanding and solidarity. The
possibilities thus opened to us to relieve our anxieties about the future. In
my view, even more impressive than Mr. Gorbachev’s achievements is the
 way you have employed the convincing powers of dialogue to alleviate the
insecurity inspired by the threat of armed conflict. You have shown us that,
far from stagnating, human life moves forward towards new discoveries in
the light of hope for peace, brotherhood and mutual understanding.
KEDA: The Gorbachev approach is similar to mine in this respect. When we
met at the Kremlin, in 1990, he proposed creating a world free of nuclear
weapons and praised the power of dialogue over force. He countered
criticism of his supposed Utopianism by pointing to the actual and
imminent results of his work. Mr. Gorbachev is proof that nuclear weapons
can be eliminated and man’s age-old dream of peace can come true. Peace
is the foundation of humanity. Once war, nuclear war in particular, breaks
out, no one’s human dignity is safe.

The Right to Live in Peace

KEDA: We have already seen how concern for human rights has passed
through two stages – or generations – to reach a third in which interest
concentrates on preservation of the natural and social environments. The
right to live in peace, a third-generation right, subsumes all the other
constitutionally recognised ones.
In September 1957, my mentor Josei Toda presented a declaration for the
abolishment of nuclear weapons. Because he believed that all peoples on
earth have the right to live in peace, Josei Toda issued a scathing
denunciation of nuclear weapons as absolute evil and accused anyone who
would use them – no matter how high-sounding the cause they pretended to
serve – as guilty of crimes against humanity. All citizens of the world want
to live in happiness – this is an eternal wish of humankind.
ATHAYDE: As Soka Gakkai consistently and vigorously asserts, reason, not
violence, is the only way to happiness. We must oppose false values and set
lofty goals for the twenty-first century. The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights is a platform from which to begin this work.

KEDA: It is important to observe the way in which successive generations of

human rights have evolved from their predecessors. At an earlier stage,
guaranteeing liberty and freedom from governmental oppression were the
major aims. But, once acquired, liberty alone proved insufficient to the
protection of the weak and the disabled. Unbridled liberty was a mixed
 blessing. Western laissez-faire policies in the eighteenth and nineteenth
century widened the gap between the rich and the poor and condoned
serious social injustices. A ruthlessly competitive society ignored the weak,
disabled and unsuccessful.
To rectify the situation, it became necessary to formulate new human
rights to guard the victims of unrestrained economic and social license. In
other words, once individual liberties had been ensured, it became
necessary to define governments’ responsibilities to their citizens:
assistance to the weak, a minimal level of health-care, cultural advantages,
education, occupational opportunities and so on. This led to the creation of
social security systems intended to ensure the right of each person to live in
a fashion worthy of his human dignity. Such attempts succeeded in some
places and failed in others. The Weimar Republic, for example, formulated
an ideal programme of social rights only to see it all scrapped by the Nazis.
ATHAYDE: Undeniably, living a fulfilled, truly human life depends on the
material and social security net you speak of. Nonetheless, the rights set
forth in the Universal Declaration are so broad in scope that it is neither
right nor practical to rely on nation states to protect them. Their observation
must be global and must arise from the conscience and sense of
brotherhood of each individual. Whoever ignores or denies human rights of
others, thereby violating or denying the fundamental elements of liberty,
equality and fraternity, should be considered a criminal.
KEDA: The right to a fulfilled life lived in peace that Mr. Toda proclaimed
transcends nation-state boundaries. He condemned the would-be users of
nuclear weapons as the worst criminals because, in our mad age of
hydrogen bombs, they threaten the entire human race. For the first time in
history, humanity is armed with weapons that can terminate not only the
best-devised social-security nets but also human history itself. From Mr.
Toda’s standpoint, the right to a fulfilled life lived in peace takes
precedence over everything. No national interests or theories of deterrence
can compete with it.
ATHAYDE: Today, it is sometimes capriciously maintained that any nation with
the capability is entitled to produce and stockpile nuclear weapons. I do not
agree. Nor can I condone the notion that possession of these fearsome
weapons somehow elevates a nation’s position in international society.
KEDA: Mr. Toda’s right to live in peace obviously means freedom from the
threat of destruction by nuclear weapons. He was eager to protect
 humankind as a whole from the fires of war. In February 1952, at a meeting
of young people, he defined his own philosophy as global citizenship. In
spite of cultural, educational and racial differences, we are all inhabitants of
the planet Earth. He stressed both our equality and the importance of our
realising our shared humanity. And this, of course, is related to his attitude
toward the ‘peoples of the world’ and their right to live in peace, which
were further stressed in the condemnation of nuclear weapons he made five
years later. The current of human rights, having gone through civil
revolutions, advanced from first-generation rights aimed at establishing
fundamental liberties, such as the right to property and freedom to choose
one’s occupation and freedom of thought, conscience, expression, assembly,
association and so on, to second-generation rights that attempted to
establish fundamental social rights intended to sustain lives worth living.
What Mr. Toda called the right to live means the right to live in happiness.
ATHAYDE: If the twenty-first is to be a century in which human rights are
broadly honoured, we must abandon violence as a means of attaining ends.
The essence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the realisation
that equality, liberty and brotherhood are the sacred rights of all human
beings, regardless of secondary considerations like race and citizenship. In
other words, the Declaration is essentially humanistic ideals.

KEDA: The preamble to the Declaration says, ‘Recognition of the inherent

dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the family
is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.’ Article One
says, ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one
another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ None of this is possible, however,
without peace. Whereas peace depends on our recognising the universal
equality of human dignity and rights, war is diametrically opposed to both.
Consequently, all other rights depend on the right to live a fulfilled life in
peace. In this context, peace means more than the mere absence of
belligerence or the threat of nuclear attack. It must be a condition
stimulating the full flowering of human dignity.

Symbiosis of Humanity and Nature

KEDA: Technological advances have empowered human beings to the
detriment of the non-human environment of the planet. Exploitation and
wastefulness on our part have created global environmental problems. In
official association with the highly significant Environment Summit – the
United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development – held in
Brazil, in June 1992, SGI sponsored an Environment and Development
Exhibition on the theme ‘Symbiosis of Humanity and Nature’. The aim of
the exhibit was twofold: to demonstrate the abundance and resources of the
Amazon environment and to seek ways to facilitate sustainable
development there. I should like to take this chance to thank you again for
being a member of the exhibition honorary executive committee.
ATHAYDE: It is humanity that is important – this is my unwavering belief. To
deal successfully with pressing environmental problems, we must realise
our responsibilities as guardians of the Earth. Henry Ford once called
development of the Amazon humanity’s ultimate drama. I agree. In time of
food crises, the Amazon region can function as a bread basket for the whole
world. I hope the Amazon will be treated in a way that enables it to
contribute to the well-being of all humanity.

KEDA: Of course, development of the Amazon must not be confined to

economic factors. It must be conducted in ways that protect the rights of
indigenous populations and promote the advantages of humanity in general.
Human survival in the next century may depend on our ability to divert our
energies from exclusive concentration on economics and national
sovereignty and toward promotion of the general well-being of all peoples.
In fact, the Environment and Development Exhibition focused on the
symbiosis of humanity and nature. The Amazon Tropical Rain Forest
Regeneration Research Project, undertaken by SGI Brazil and, the Natural
Environmental Research Center of Soka University and the Amazonas
Environmental Science Bureau, is expected to promote, sustainable
development not only in Brazil but in the whole world as well.

Human Development
KEDA: The people of some poverty-stricken, developing nations, lack the
minimal food, clothing and shelter to which their very humanity entitles
them. Obviously, to provide the basics, nations must develop economically.
 But such development alone is insufficient. As we gradually come to
understand, human beings require more than bare economic necessities.
Social and cultural factors, too, contribute to the creation of a way of life
worthy of our humanity. Creating the right social and cultural environment
requires full awareness of human dignity plus sound philosophical views
and an educational system encouraging people to believe in and realise their
best potentials.
ATHAYDE: Human happiness does to an extent depend on the social and
cultural milieu. The constituents of the right kind of environment may be
modest. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy says that all happy families are alike. A
certain magazine has described this state of happiness in the following way:
life ruled by tranquillity and calm where children are born in the midst of
love and harmony and where, from the days of their births, they are
surrounded by beauty and goodness.
KEDA: In the happy family that Tolstoy implies, the happiness of the
individual contributes to the happiness of the whole group. Johan Galtung,
the originator of peace research, insists that development of any kind must
contribute to the advantage – that is, to the happiness – not only of a given
local population, but also to the whole family of humanity. He considers
national growth, or the production and distribution of material goods, only a
means toward the end of development for all of humanity. The means must
not be confused with the end. Human rights have to be considered our right
to the cultivation of the whole person for us to live happily.
ATHAYDE: The most important task of the twenty-first century will be to
create a world in which the principles of that declaration are respected. As
the frequent reports of violations issued by Amnesty International clearly
show, worldwide guarantee of human rights remains a dream that we hope
will come true in the next century. The Universal Declaration is a peak
achievement, but it is not final. The people of the twenty-first century must
see to its completion and just observance.

KEDA: I once had a dialogue with Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, who devoted

his life to the ideal of Pan-Europeanism. Our dialogue was published in
May 1972 with the title Civilisation, East and West. In it, I proposed my
idea to call the new century a century of life. By a century of life, I meant
the era, society and civilisation in which the dignity of life becomes
fundamental and people’s lives, personalities and individual happiness are
 considered ends themselves and, thus, at no time become means or
sacrifices for anything.
The great tragedies of our own century arose from bad means used in the
name of attaining ends that were not always evil in themselves. The Fascists
were avid to promote the glory and prosperity of their own national group –
not necessarily an evil aim. But to attain it, they committed the evil of
victimising countless innocent people. Today, nation states – or blocs of
states – stockpile nuclear weapons, thus threatening the survival of
humanity for their own political purposes, which may be good, bad, or
indifferent. Means and ends must be consistent and must be evaluated in the
light of the good of the whole human race. Because of the breadth of its
basis, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights breaks narrow political
structures and points the way to respect for the rights and well-being of all
peoples.

A Model Bodhisattva

KEDA: The solidarity of humanity transcending national framework, toward

which the U.N. is oriented, is indispensable to the realisation of true human
rights. Karel Vasak, who served as the director of the Division of Human
Rights and Peace of UNESCO, listed the right to solidarity among the third-
generation human rights.
Jean Jacques Rousseau taught that, in addition to self-love, human beings
innately experience compassion, which is a manifestation of the sense of
brotherhood – fraternity as in the famous French liberty, equality and
fraternity – and of a desire to minimise the unhappiness and promote the
happiness of others. Buddhism stresses compassion and goes so far as to
hold that the happiness of the self is dependent on bringing happiness to
others.
The bodhisattva is an embodiment of compassion. The word compassion
itself (jihi in Japanese) is a translation of two Pali terms. The first is mettā,
which means friendship. The second is anukampana, which means pity and
sympathy. Taken together, they mean the elimination of others’ suffering by
the removal of anxiety and fear and the imparting of happiness to others in
the form of joy, security and hope.
 Altruistic effort for the sake of imparting such happiness characterises the
innermost nature of the bodhisattva. Although all of them devote
themselves to saving sentient beings from suffering, each of the many
different bodhisattvas appearing in Buddhist texts has special
characteristics. Among some of the best known are Manjushirī, whom I
have already mentioned, Samantabhadra, Maitreya, Avalokiteshvara and
Bhaishajyarāja. From all the bodhisattvas, however, Nichiren elected as
prime model for practical behaviour the one called Sadāparibhūta, who
appears in the twentieth chapter of the Lotus Sutra. His name, which means
Never Disparaging, symbolises the profound respect he demonstrated for
the Buddha nature within each person he met. In the Sutra, he is quoted as
saying to those he encounters, ‘I have profound reverence for you, I would
never dare treat you with disparagement or arrogance. Why? Because you
are all practising the bodhisattva way and are certain to attain
Buddhahood.’1 His attitude is a concentration of the respect for humanity
pervading the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren said, ‘The heart of the Buddha’s
lifetime of teaching is the Lotus Sutra, and the heart of the practise of the
Lotus Sutra is found in the “Never Disparaging” chapter.’2 The behaviour
of the bodhisattva Never Disparaging, is rooted in his belief that all living
beings have dignity because they all have buddhahood in their lives. Any
human beings can open the path of supreme life by revealing the
buddhahood – universal dignity – inherent in their lives. Practising the
boddisattva way is to live this way for oneself and others.
ATHAYDE: A polished sense of equality that eliminates any kinds of
discrimination accords with subtle religious sense and sublime principles.
Your perspectives for the twenty-first century will relieve humanity of fear
and make people awake to the new world. It is by confronting
discrimination and respecting equality that we can protect our valuable
world.

KEDA: Manifesting the inner Buddha nature – universal dignity – opens the
path leading to happiness resulting from self-realisation, the epitome of all
the third-generation rights. As he progresses along this path, the bodhisattva
combines the interests of the self and of others. To the scorn and
maltreatment he met on all sides, the bodhisattva Never Disparaging
returned only non-violence and compassion. His attitude convinced even
his revilers to join him in working to relieve suffering. His behaviour – a
 model for humanrights advocates of the future – may be summarised as
follows:
. Firm belief in absolute equality;
. Unwavering reliance on non-violent, compassionate dialogue;
3. Earnest, courageous challenge to achieving the self-realisation of oneself
and others.
Firm belief in absolute equality means to believe that all living beings are
equally endowed with buddhahood, which is universal dignity. Unwavering
reliance on non-violent, compassionate dialogue is the battle to extirpate
evils such as anger, greed and foolishness and to evoke the spirit of
compassion and justice, by means of dialogue without resorting to violent
means. Earnest, courageous challenge to realisation of oneself and others is
made possible by the boddhisattva’s courageous struggles. Oneself, from
the Buddhist perspective, is nothing but buddhahood. It is possible to build
happy lives when each person makes his or her own particular personality
bloom by bringing forth their buddhahood.
ATHAYDE: As what you say proves, your thoughts and deeds are all future-
oriented. You teach new value criteria to shake humanity from its conceited
assurance of being the lord of creation and, on the level of the faith our
humanity requires, stimulate the development of a new human history.

The Advent of a New Humanism

ATHAYDE: In 1925, Albert Einstein visited Rio de Janeiro. Assis
Chateaubriand and Azevedo Amaral had luncheon with him, and, at their
invitation, I joined the party. It was not the place to discuss science, but,
listening to him respectfully, we enjoyed what he had to say about art,
Brazil and the Brazilians. Einstein was deeply impressed by the way so
many different races live together peacefully in our country and by our lack
of racial discrimination and anti-Semitism. Appreciative of the accuracy of
his observation, we commented that a basically tolerant educational system
formed the national characteristics he discerned.
KEDA: A few years after Einstein’s journey to South America, the Nazis
began persecuting the Jews. Some of Einstein’s relatives were victims. His
own villa was subjected to a house search. The announcement he made at
the time moved the consciences of people all over the world and revealed
clearly his evaluation of societies. He said ‘As long as I have any choice in
 the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance and
equality of all citizens before the law prevail . . . Humanity is more
important than national citizenship.’ He put the highest value on protecting
humanity and insisted that the society where people can live as human
beings beyond their nationality is the most important. His words are worth
consideration, thinking of the human rights of global citizens.
ATHAYDE: When I met him again, in New York in 1952, he said that, though
he had a hypothesis, as of yet he had reached no final conclusion about the
nature of the universe. He was the successor to a long line of great thinkers
including Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Kepler and Newton,
about all of whom he said, ‘They did not lean toward single, absolute and
certain interpretations. Instead, they proceeded in understanding step by
step. Together with the developments of the time and emerging technology,
they modified their ways of thinking. You see we are not proposers of
absolutely certain dogma.’
KEDA: In 1925, when you first met him, Einstein was pondering the
significance of his General Theory of Relativity and the nature of the
universe indicated by it. Wolfgang Pauli, who worked with him, said that, in
his late years, Einstein devoted much thought to a unifying theory. The
universe he observed was vast and included an element of the mystical.
Buddhism, too, discovers mystical elements in the universe and considers
the very existence of humanity a manifestation of miraculous universal
power. For Einstein, ultimate scientific knowledge should reveal a universal
cosmic law (the unifying principle). From the Buddhist standpoint, the
universal cosmic law is the Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra, formulated by
Nichiren as Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, the operations of which take the form
of magnificent compassion. On the basis of the statement ‘All beings and
their environments in any of the Ten Worlds are themselves entities of
Myoho-renge-kyo’,3 my mentor Josei Toda proclaimed the Buddha to be
the substance of the whole universe and said all phenomena arise from the
operations of compassion.
ATHAYDE: Religion is the realisation of human wisdom in search of truth. In
the twenty-first century, enlightenment resulting from great religious
concepts will probably reveal the structure of the universe.
KEDA: Many astronauts and cosmonauts have commented not only on the
beauty, but also on the mystical quality of Earth seen from space and have
expressed a religious reverence for the dignity of our planet and the life it
 fosters. Captain Gerald P. Carr of Skylab III told me of his own feeling of
the harmony permeating all phenomena in the universe. Contemplating that
religious harmony inspires in us awareness of the immense good fortune we
share in living on an oasis of life in cosmic vastness.
ATHAYDE: A sense of our blessedness should inspire understanding of the
need to live harmoniously with all our fellows, even those with whom we
do not see eye to eye. When we live in harmony with others, accept co-
existence with even those in opposition and understand each other, we can
realise the great community indicated by the Universal Declaration.

KEDA: Yes, and rights to happiness and self-realisation are the primary focus
of third-generation human rights and must be regarded as global,
transcending national boundaries. As human beings travel into outer space,
they will take respect for and observation of fundamental rights with them.
When this happens, ultimate reverence will be afforded to the ‘religious’
element inherent in the cosmos and, as the Buddha nature, in each
individual human life as well.
The radiance of dignity of the universe must have moved Einstein and
astronomers by something cosmic and universal. The wish of each single
individual – the small universe – for the right to live in happiness will
prompt them to awakening of the buddhahood inherent in their lives. The
radiance of human dignity will unite with the dignity of the universe, and
people will realise that universal religious elements are the source of their
radiance. In the new century of human rights, a brilliant new humanism will
emerge, rooted in universal religious elements. In memory of my own
mentor’s behest and to keep my vow to you, who make me feel as if my
mentor were still alive, I am determined to do all I can do to help this
radiant perspective unfold.
ATHAYDE: History will remember you and the deeds of the movement you
lead. I feel certain that the twenty-first century will see the historic
realisation of the new humanism you envisage.
CHAPTER 10

Paternal Images

Laura Sandroni (Author of children’s books)

The eldest daughter of the Athayde family, Mrs. Sandroni was born in Rio
de Janeiro in 1934. After graduating from Getúlio Vargas Foundation, she
acquired a master’s degree in Brazilian literature from the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro. Since 1975 she has written a column on young
peoples literature for the newspaper O Globo. In addition, she is director of
the Roberto Marinho Foundation for the Promotion of Reading. A member
of the Brazil Pen Club and the Brazil Federal Cultural Policy Committee,
she is the author of such books as De Lobato a Bojunga: as reinações
renovadas (From Lobato to Bojunga: the New Generation).
Cícero Sandroni (Journalist)

Born in São Paulo, in 1935, Mr. Sandroni majored in journalism at

Pontifical University Catholic of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). He married
Laura Athayde in 1958. At about the same time, he began writing for the
newspaper Correio da Manhã, where he is now head of the news
department. In addition, he actively participates in the work of other leading
Brazilian journalistic media, including the newspapers O Globo and Jornal
do Brasil and the magazine Manchete. In 1993, he became director of the
Culture and Arts Foundation of the Brazil Ministry of Culture and head of
the Bureau of Cultural Activities. He is the author of such books as O diabo
só chega ao meio-dia (The Devil Arrives at Noon) and O Vidro no Brasil
(Brazil and Glass).
Roberto Athayde (Dramatist)
 The second son in the family, Mr. Athayde was born in Rio de Janeiro in
1949. He studied French literature at the Sorbonne and music at the
University of Michigan. His play The Advent of Margarita, about an
eccentric woman teacher, brought him recognition as a dramatist. The lead
role in the play was initially performed by the celebrated actress Marília
Pêra. It has been produced in more than thirty countries. His other dramatic
works include O Jardim Da Fada Morgana (The Garden of the Sprite
Mangana) and Confissões do Comissãrio de Bordo Vladimir da Braniff
(Confessions of Vladimir, In-flight Purser on Braniff Airways).
Hiromasa Ikeda (Vice-president of Soka Gakkai International)

Mr. Ikeda, who was born in Tokyo in 1953, graduated from the Department
of Law and the Department of Literature of Keio University and, beginning
in 1978, taught at the Kansai Soka high school, where he later became a
director. He began working at the Soka Gakkai headquarters in 1989. At
present, he is vice general director of Soka Gakkai, trustee of Soka
University, and head councilor to the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum. He is
especially active in international scholarly and cultural exchanges and
represents his father, Daisaku Ikeda, president of SGI, in many overseas
events.

Immortal Achievements of a Champion of Human Rights

HIROMASA IKEDA: In welcoming you here I feel as if I were welcoming your
father, Austregésilo de Athayde, too. The last time I met him was at the
Brazilian Academy of Letters in February 1993.
CÍCERO SANDRONI: It was at that same Brazilian academy that I first heard
President Daisaku Ikeda speak. His message on ‘Dawn of Hope in Human
Civilisation’ deeply moved both me and my father-in-law, who was seated
next to me on the platform.
HIROMASA: You were all very kind to us at the time. I shall never forget how
intently all the Brazilian members of the audience listened to my father’s
words.

CÍCERO: My acquaintance with the dialogues he published with Arnold

Toynbee and René Huyghe has familiarised me with the breadth and depth
of Mr. Ikeda’s philosophy.
 My father-in-law had the greatest respect for Mr. Ikeda’s thought and was
deeply gratified by their dialogue because of its importance to the human
rights struggle, in which he was a perpetual combatant.
HIROMASA: Among the many great people my father has met, he entertained
especially deep respect for Mr. Athayde. The opportunity of seeing him was
one of the major reasons why he made a two-month trip throughout the
Americas in 1993.

The Meaning of Life

HIROMASA: With the death of Mr. Athayde on 13 September, 1993, the
human-rights movement lost one of its most treasured stars. The attendance
of five hundred mourners, including the former president of Brazil José
Sarney and governor of the State of Rio, Leonel Brizola, bore witness to the
great love and respect the people of Brazil felt for him.
AURA SANDRONI: It is kind of you to say so. The long telegram of
condolence we received from President Ikeda greatly encouraged the whole
family.

HIROMASA: Word of Mr. Athayde’s death reached my father just as he was

preparing to leave for the United States to deliver a speech at Harvard. The
day before, SGI members who had just returned from Brazil told him of
your father’s condition. We had all been hoping he would soon recover and
be able to leave the hospital.
Although he is now gone, the achievements of his life are immortal. We
would be very happy if those of you who were closest to him would share
your images and memories with us.
AURA: Gladly. But we should like to hear about your father, too. President
Ikeda was our father’s good friend, and their dialogue can be called our
father’s last will and testament. Knowing more about the two men will help
us understand their dialogue better and make it easier to transmit our
father’s philosophy to our own generation and to generations to come.
HIROMASA: Shall we begin by hearing about your father’s last days?
AURA: His will to live never deserted him, even at the very last. My oldest
brother Antonio and I were in the waiting room of the intensive-care unit of
the Santa Lúcia Hospital in Rio de Janeiro when we heard about his death.
ROBERTO ATAYDE: When I left his side at five-thirty on the last day, he had
been resting calmly. Then, on my way home, at seven o’clock, I got word of
his death. Until the very end, he had been resolved not to die until the
Institute of Political Studies was finished and President Ikeda and he had
completed their dialogue.
HIROMASA: The integrity and sincerity of his efforts on the dialogue
impressed me profoundly. I have heard that he was at work on it until a few
days before his final hospitalisation. My father is honoured to have been
able to help preserve Mr. Athayde’s philosophy and the history of his
human rights struggle for future generations the world over.
AURA: My father was very happy to have found someone willing to
undertake that task.

HIROMASA: Death is inescapable, but philosophy is everlasting. Knowing that

one’s thoughts will be preserved for posterity is a source of great happiness.
Upon receiving word of Mr. Athayde’s death, Brazilian President Itamar
Franco said, ‘Today the curtain has fallen on a chapter in Brazilian culture.
His achievements made him more a citizen of Brazil than anyone else. Mr.
Athayde’s humanity and greatness will live forever.’ The president’s words
symbolise the respect the entire nation felt for your father.
AURA: Father used to say that he had lived long enough and was not afraid of
death.
HIROMASA: That is just the attitude we could expect from a great leader like
him. Mr. Athayde devoted nearly a century to an immense range of fields of
action, including human rights, literature, culture and education. What
aspect of his work was his greatest source of pride?
AURA: Without question, his having represented Brazil as a signatory to the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But he was proud of other things,
too: for example, his work at the Brazilian Academy of Letters, the many
years he devoted to journalism, his oratorical talents and his family.
ROBERTO: And we might add to the list the letter he received from former
U.S. president, Jimmy Carter, praising his activities in the United Nations,
his dream of setting up the Institute of Political Studies, the support he
enjoyed from the people, and the respect society afforded him.

CÍCERO: Perhaps because I am a member of the same profession, I felt that he

was proudest of being a journalist. For seventy years he never gave up
 striving to protect liberty, even in the face of opposition on the part of
newspaper policy makers, imprisonment and even exile. He kept writing his
columns up until the day he was hospitalised. In his last years, he was
director of the board of councillors of the Newspaper Association, of which
he had been a member years before. On one occasion, in an address to the
association, he said, ‘I’m a lifelong journalist. I got my start as a journalist
and I have lived as a journalist. What’s more, I have remained true to my
convictions. I’m proud of the life I’ve lived.’
I was especially moved by this statement because it was made at a time
when public opinion was not favourable to journalists.
HIROMASA: Firm convictions give a person strength. It was Mr. Athayde’s
firm convictions that struck a cord of response in my father’s heart.
CÍCERO: Universal optimism was the foundation of all my father-in-law’s
work. As he frequently said, he believed in the future, no matter how bad
the present might be. Nonetheless, society directed darts of criticism at him,
just as it has, no doubt, at Mr. Ikeda.
HIROMASA: In spite of all criticism, Mr. Athayde’s great achievements in the
human rights struggle guarantee him a place in history. The path he
followed was bathed in the light of humanism.

At Life’s Major Stages

HIROMASA: His being a great philosopher no doubt made Mr. Athayde a great
father and husband as well. Was he indulgent or strict as a rule?
AURA: Not all that indulgent. I was the oldest girl in the family; in fact, for
eleven years, I was the only child. Father rigorously insisted on my making
good grades, probably because he wanted me to understand the importance
of learning to absorb knowledge.
ROBERTO: Father was certainly strict but he never coerced us. Of course, this
may have been because he was very busy.
HIROMASA: I understand. My father, too, was so busy that I, as a child, rarely
had a chance to spend a lot of time with him. When he became president of
Soka Gakkai, his work involved extensive activity both at home and abroad.
I was only seven at the time. That is why, like you, I considered him strict.
Because our house was small, we three children had to be quiet whenever
he was at home. But I do not recall his ever having scolded me harshly.
AURA: Did he advise you about education?
HIROMASA: Not in particular. Mother was in charge of our daily training. But,
when the time came, he did recommend my entering the Keio Gijuku
Middle School. Founded by Yukichi Fukuzawa and the oldest private
school in Japan, Keio Gijuku employs a system integrated from elementary
school through university. Father thought going there would be useful from
the standpoint of Soka education, which uses a similar integrated system
too.
AURA: We visited Soka University the other day. Father, who devoted his late
years to education, would have been very happy to see how splendidly
humanistic an institution it is. Mr. Ikeda is the founder of elementary,
middle and high schools and a university. Perhaps you have some
interesting stories to tell in connection with his educational activities.
HIROMASA: When I was still in elementary school, the whole family visited
the site of the future Soka Gakuen. It was a grove of trees along the
waterway called the Tamagawa Josui. Mother packed lunches for us, and
father told us a school would be in that place someday. The many Soka
Gakuen and Soka University matriculation and graduation ceremonies we
took part in gradually awakened interest in Soka education in all three of us
children. I am the oldest. I have served on the faculties of the Kansai Soka
junior and senior high schools. My second brother has served on the faculty
of Soka University, and the youngest is on the staff of the Kansai Soka
Elementary School. Taken together, we three in a way stand for integrated
Soka education. Father, who always calls education his ultimate work,
influenced our decision to enter the educational field.
AURA: I know your father has always been very busy, but, as children, did
you spend much time with him?
HIROMASA: From as long ago as I can remember, he was away most of the
time. In a report on our fathers I had to write as a third-grader, I candidly
said that my own father often did not come home. This worried my teacher
so much that she paid a house call on our family.
AURA: Our father also was too active in other works to correct us or lay
down the law about family matters. He chose to guide us through the
example of his own activities. He respected our individual rights in all
things and had little to say about things like university exams, jobs or
marriage. He left everything up to us but always supported our judgment.
HIROMASA: Obviously, in all aspects of life, he respected your human rights.
Do you have some fond recollections of him in connection with such major
 stages in life as school promotions, finding jobs and getting married?
CÍCERO: When I asked him for Laura’s hand in marriage, he refused. The
Athayde family already has one journalist, he said. That was enough.
HIROMASA: Well, giving their daughters away in marriage makes most fathers
sad. My own father often discusses such matters with women about to get
married.
CÍCERO: Of course, ultimately, he gave his permission. At our wedding he
said, ‘Let love be the foundation on which to build deep mutual
understanding. Then let that grow into comradely affection.’ That is what
we have done and continue doing today.
AURA: In college, I majored in classical literature. At graduation, father gave
me a book, in which he wrote, ‘The end of one duty marks the beginning of
another still greater obligation.’ He was trying to teach me to challenge
whatever life brought my way. Sincere in everything, he gave himself
entirely to the attainment of every goal he set. He believed that the
important thing is to triumph over each of the series of challenges life puts
in our way. He wanted me to know that university graduation is only one
step. I had to have the strength to persevere to the end of the way.
HIROMASA: Yes, and cultivating that strength in young people is the
fundamental goal of education.

Hardships in Youth
AURA: My father’s young years were spent in poverty in the back country of
the State of Ceará. In 1918, he left for a life in Rio de Janeiro that, as he
frequently told us, was hard until he finally became a journalist.
HIROMASA: My own father often calls the hardships of youth life’s greatest
treasure. But please tell us more about Mr. Athayde’s youthful struggles.
AURA: He became a journalist at about the age of twenty. Until then, he
depended on help from our grandfather Antonio Austregésilo. Father
worked from morning until night – as a private tutor in the daytime and at
the offices of the United Press in the evenings. At about that time, in São
Paulo, an armed constitutional-protection movement rose up against the
dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas.
HIROMASA: Yes, your father joined it and was imprisoned and exiled as a
result. In fact, I believe he and your mother postponed their wedding on that
account.
ROBERTO: That is right. They got engaged in 1931, the year before the
constitutional-protection movement. My father was imprisoned twice
during the following year.

AURA: He put his wedding off for three months so that he could devote
himself completely to the revolutionary struggle in São Paulo. Mother was
so worried because the two of them could not get in touch that she lost ten
kilogrammes. Father used to call this period the greatest trial he and she
ever had to endure.
In 1944, he was put in prison for about ten days – over the New Year
holiday – for writing an article critical of the Vargas regime. I have heard
that Mr. Ikeda, too, was once unjustly imprisoned.

HIROMASA: Yes, in July 1957. I was only four at the time. All I remember
about it was that my mother went to Osaka to meet him when he got out.
An election campaign the year before led up to his imprisonment. The
whole thing is related in the tenth volume of father’s novel The Human
Revolution. The volume came out in book form in 1967, just as I was
getting ready to go to the Osaka-Kyoto district to join the faculty of the
Kansai Soka Gakuen. That may be why the book impressed me strongly
with a sense of reality.

Treasured People, Treasured Beloved Books

HIROMASA: Who were some of the people that Mr. Athayde respected most?
AURA: He entertained the greatest respect for the abolitionists Nabuco and
Patrocínio. He also highly esteemed the eloquent legal scholar and
politician Rui Barbosa and the celebrated author Joaquim Maria Machado
de Assis. Because of his own devotion to the cause of human rights, from
an early stage, father sympathised with and respected Nabuco and
Patrocínio for their efforts to free the slaves. Regarded as one of the great
lights of Brazilian literature, Assis was also first president of the Brazilian
Academy of Letters. His concise prose probably exerted a great influence
on father’s own style. Whom does Mr. Ikeda respect most highly?
HIROMASA: Without question, Josei Toda, the second president of Soka
Gakkai influenced my father most strongly and is the object of his greatest
respect. An outstanding educator, Mr. Toda was my father’s teacher and
mentor in the world of Buddhism. Not long ago, the morning edition of the
 Asahi Shimbun newspaper carried a list of 1,603 people most prominent in
the modern age. Mr. Toda was listed in the very first rank of those born in
and around 1900. As a matter of fact Mr. Toda and your father were of
about the same age. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why they tend to
merge in my father’s mind.
ROBERTO: How well do you remember Mr. Toda?

HIROMASA: Not well. I was only five when he died. I do remember that he
treated me affectionately. For instance, he always said that I must not grow
up being picky about food. Then, to make it more appetising, he would
sprinkle sugar on whatever it was that I objected to eating at the moment.
He gave me the name Hiromasa. The Hiro part means broad and
indicates breadth of study. Masa means just and upright. I am afraid I do not
live up to my name, though.
AURA: I suppose your father told you many impressive things about Mr.
Toda.

HIROMASA: Actually, my father always has Mr. Toda in his heart. On the
eleventh of February, 1993 – which would have been Mr. Toda’s ninety-
third birthday – father completed the last of the twelve volumes of his
serialised novel, The Human Revolution. On that day, as, in the presence of
Mr. Athayde, he received an honorary doctorate from the Federal
University of Brazil, he remarked that he felt as if Mr. Toda were with him
in Rio de Janeiro.
Incidentally, I hear that Mr. Athayde’s library contains forty thousand
volumes. What kinds of books did he like reading most?
AURA: He was a voracious reader in many fields. As a journalist, he was
very sensitive to information. His open personality aroused his interest in
everything. He read the works of Machado de Assis and the French classics
over and over and was very fond of Baudelaire and Victor Hugo.
HIROMASA: From his youth, my father also loved Hugo. To help preserve his
spiritual heritage for the future, he created the Victor Hugo House of
Literature in a region of France closely associated with the great writer. Did
your father recommend any particular books to you?
AURA: No. But, when I was twenty, he told me that every book in his library
was filled with human wisdom, and that I was free to read anything I liked
there.
CÍCERO: He recommended that I read Greek and Roman classics like the
Odyssey and Plato and Virgil’s Aeneid, which he considered an essential
foundation for human morality.

ROBERTO: He told me to read the works of the leading emancipationist

Nabuco, whose highly moral way of life father thought might help form my
own character.
Did Mr. Ikeda recommend books for you to read?

HIROMASA: He once gave me a 1931 first-edition copy of Naporeon

(Napoleon) by Yūsuke Tsurumi. The marginal notes and red-underlined
passages in it made me suspect he had bought and read it himself when he
was young. He did recommend that I read books on Japanese history, which
became my major in college.
Then, when we were in elementary school, he used to let my two brothers
and me periodically buy a certain number of books on any subject we liked.
Of course, we all three chose something different. But we acquired the habit
of selecting books for ourselves.
Laura, you are an author of children’s books. Did your father ever
comment on your work in that field?

AURA: Once he was invited to address a commemorative meeting of a certain

foundation, which I had helped establish. My joy at hearing him praise my
work and discuss the importance of reading to character formation kept me
in tears throughout his speech.
My job is to suggest what parents and teachers ought to do for children.
Reading is more than a way of acquiring information. Young people must
become accustomed to reading because it broadens their outlook. Teaching
them how to interpret the contents of books cultivates the ability to think
and to interpret human life correctly.
I once wrote a review of Mr. Ikeda’s wonderful book The Snow Country
Prince, which is rich in the kinds of spiritual teachings that are very
important for children. Which of your father’s written works do you
consider most impressive?

HIROMASA: His collection of essays Watashi no Jinsei-kan (My views of life),

which was published, not as a serial, but originally in book form in October
1970. Those were hard times. Soka Gakkai was being maliciously
 criticised. He suffered from continual fevers. In spite of all this, he wrote a
page or two a day, keeping a record in a notebook, until the book was
finished. He was convinced the task would sooner or later be finished as
long as he wrote a little at a time. His perseverance impressed me deeply.
But The Human Revolution, a vast panorama of the lives of the ordinary
people that relates both the history of Soka Gakkai and the recovery of
Japan after the Second World War, is his life work. He is now writing a
sequel.

Unforgettable Encounters
HIROMASA: I have heard that, in the evening, Mr. Athayde often sat on a
bench in front of the Academy of Letters, under a bust of first president
Assis, and talked sociably with passers-by.
AURA: Yes, he loved conversations with ordinary people. I have known him
to spend hours talking with fishermen on the island of Itacuruçá, where he
had a weekend house. In language they could understand, he would discuss
all kinds of topics, including political issues. Sitting on the bench outside
the academy brought him into contact with citizens who respected his work
as a journalist and his academic activities.
CÍCERO: Once I sat there with him, listening as he gave advice to people who
had family troubles, to parents who had difficulties with children, and to
couples whose marriages were almost on the rocks. For him, talking with
ordinary people was a relaxing way of staying in touch with reality.
HIROMASA: He was a truly democratic leader who cheered the distressed,
encouraged the suffering and gave hope to the young. In its obituary, a
leading Rio de Janeiro newspaper said that Mr. Athayde got along well with
everyone and was everyone’s friend. It added that he treated everyone –
intellectuals, diplomats, businessmen, artists, the old, the young, the poor
and the sick – equally and without prejudice or discrimination.
ROBERTO: Being popular with non-intellectuals made him both happy and
proud.
HIROMASA: Young people seemed to have been especially attracted to him.
According to a 1990 questionnaire, he was extremely popular with women
students at São Paulo University.
AURA: He loved talking with young people, and they loved listening to
humorous and optimistic comments. And young people enjoy hearing
 intelligent old people who make them laugh.
ROBERTO: Once his humorous treatment of a shrewd female finance minister
won a round of hearty applause from a young crowd. This woman had
adopted the policy of freezing all bank accounts for a year. My father told
her that, if he were younger, he would have proposed to her. Then she
would have learned both the mistake of marrying an old man and the error
of her fiscal policies.
AURA: I would be interested to know who among the many people you must
have met made the most lasting impression on you.

HIROMASA: To tell the truth, meeting Mr. Athayde made the biggest
impression. From the outset, his brimming vitality and humanity attracted
me. At our first meeting, he gave me a Portuguese dictionary and instructed
me to learn his language. He was already too old, he said, to learn Japanese.
I shall never forget the candour and friendliness with which he treated me. I
am embarrassed to say, however, that I still have made so little progress in
Portuguese that we need the services of an interpreter today.
Another person who impressed me deeply was Dr. Bishambhar Nath
Pande, vice-chairman of the Gandhi Memorial Hall and direct disciple of
Mahatma Gandhi. Although he is old enough to be my grandfather, he
talked about Gandhi with me as if I were his equal. Like Mr. Athayde, the
indomitable Dr. Pande refuses to bow to authority and has courageously
struggled to survive in the face of oppression.
AURA: You seem to understand my father very well. I am honoured.
HIROMASA: Your father continued his struggle for human rights even at the
advanced ages of eighty and even ninety. In the same way, Dr. Pande
perseveringly carries on Gandhi’s teachings. The willingness of both men to
take the initiative in actions accounts for their understanding of and
sympathy with my father and the work of SGI.
AURA: Father often told our family how greatly he respected Mr. Ikeda.
HIROMASA: Other people who have impressed me include Rosa Parks the so-
called mother of the American civil-rights movement and, in my own age
group, Fábio Magalhães, curator of the São Paulo Museum of Art, and his
friend the composer Amaral Vieira, who has composed a widely performed
symphony inspired by my father’s philosophy.
 A Wholesome, Active Way of Life
HIROMASA: They say your father went fishing and camped out in a tent in
Pantanaru, in the western part of Brazil, when he was already ninety-one.
He never smoked and drank no strong spirits. Even when quite old, he
apparently lived the active life of a man in his forties.

AURA: His capacity for work was well known. He wrote six newspaper
articles daily until his last years, when he reduced the number to three. At
the end of his academy work day, at six in the evening, he almost always
had a lecture or reception to attend. He ate dinner out every day and often
went to the theatre or the movies. He was unbelievably active.
His long walks alone indicate his great vigour. Even in his seventies, he
and mother walked four kilometres to a park every day. In his bachelor
days, he and Chateaubriand often went for long swims. Later, he and
mother enjoyed swimming and swam across the straits between the
mainland and Itacuruçá Island on several occasions.
ROBERTO: For many years he refused to use a loud speaker because he was
proud of his own strong voice. Does Mr. Ikeda include a health-promoting
programme in his daily activities?

HIROMASA: Unlike Mr. Athayde, my father was far from robust in his youth.
But his health improved largely because he consistently put all his strength
into everything he did. After a hospitalisation nine years ago, he returned
his daily-life rhythm to normal by carefully following doctor’s orders.
Like Mr. Athayde, he drinks practically no alcohol. For many years, he
smoked. Mother tried to get him to stop. And finally, after his bout in the
hospital, he did break the habit completely. When at home and while
traveling, too, he regularly exercises a few minutes daily. Away from home,
he works out lightly in his hotel room or in nearby parks or plazas where
the companionship of young people has a rejuvenating effect on him. In
this, too, he is like Mr. Athayde.

Fervour Bordering on Obstinacy

HIROMASA: Mr. Athayde challenged himself in an astonishing way. Dr. Josué
Montello, his successor at the Brazilian Academy of Letters, praised his
four years’ leadership there, describing his achievements as of everlasting
 merit, and considers having had a chance to work with him a great honour.
What aspect of your father impressed you the most?
CÍCERO: During his tenure at the academy, he never missed a day’s work and
was never absent from a single conference. He was the kind of person who
invariably carries out whatever he sets his mind on. Brazilian journalism is
what it is today because of his long years of hard work and careful
nurturing. He lived for nearly a century, and his life is a beacon to the
future.
AURA: His integrity and the almost obstinate fervour with which he pursued
his ideals made the most lasting impression on me. For instance, he
promoted the construction of a new building for the Brazilian Academy of
Letters and the creation of the Brazil Culture Center with utmost tenacity.
At the time, the academy was penniless. Still father raised the necessary
funds by interviewing the president of the country and continually pounding
the importance of the project into politicians’ heads. The same thing was
true in the case of the Institute of Political Studies at Campos. If he had
lived, he would most certainly have seen that project, too, accomplished
exactly according to his plans.
HIROMASA: Josei Toda set his heart on the creation of a Soka University, and
my father put his whole soul into making his mentor’s dream come true by
establishing both the university and Soka Gakuen. Today its achievements
are spectacular, but twenty years ago no one thought it would ever develop
as it has.
ROBERTO: Our father believed ideas should be given tangible form. The
thoroughness with which he imbued the Brazilian Academy of Letters with
this belief made possible the creation of the Brazil Culture Center.
HIROMASA: Anyone can criticise or express opinions. But few are capable of
giving their ideas concrete form. Mr. Athayde had that ability. Using it, he
lighted a humanistic torch that will burn bright for many years, a guiding
light for youth as it advances along the road to a new era.

Like Long-lost Comrades

HIROMASA: The meeting between my father and Mr. Athayde at Galeão

International Airport, in Rio de Janeiro, on 9 February, 1993, made a
tremendous impact on me. Mr. Athayde arrived at the airport two hours
 before the plane was due. To concerned companions who urged him to rest
in the lounge, he replied genially, ‘I have been waiting for ninety-four years
to meet SGI President Ikeda. Two hours more is nothing.’
My direct contacts with Mr. Athayde began in January 1992, when he
served as honorary chairman of the executive committee for an exhibition
of my father’s photographs in São Paulo. Actually, I met him for the first
time at a committee meeting held in Rio de Janeiro. His large brilliant eyes
and firm handshake belied his ninety-three years. His eagerness to meet my
father as soon as possible was immediately apparent in his words: ‘Ever
since I read his dialogue with Arnold J. Toynbee, your father has been on
my mind. When is he coming to Brazil?’ Their meeting was filled with
emotions suggesting two comrades who have finally come together again
after years of separation.

Supporting the United Nations

CÍCERO: My father-in-law always thought internationally, in terms of how all
peoples can combine forces for the building of a better world. His cherished
wish was to facilitate cooperation and development among all peoples by
reinforcing such United Nations functions as the Food and Agricultural
Organisation and the International Labour Organisation. He considered the
United Nations a great source of hope for the future and strength for the
protection of our planet. He insisted that it deserves the support of all
nations, including, of course, Brazil.
HIROMASA: Josei Toda, too, put great hopes in the United Nations from its
very inception. My father is convinced that world peace is possible only
through the United Nations and, yearly, proposes concrete ideas for the
achievement of this goal. In such undertakings, of course, governmental
support is important. But more important still is spontaneous activity at the
individual and grassroots level. That is why, as a non-governmental
organisation (NGO), SGI cooperates extensively with the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the United
Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Work like this
lights a torch of hope in the hearts of the masses, without whose direct
involvement lasting peace cannot be achieved.
CÍCERO: When I was its chairman, the NGO called the Society for
International Development (SID) designated December tenth – the day on
which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted – Human
Rights Day. On one occasion, we invited my father-in-law to address the
group. His participation in the Universal Declaration was not well known at
the time. Indeed, in spite of his having been minister of justice at the time,
now former-president Geisel, who was present on the day in question, was
unaware of it. In those days, little attention was paid to human rights in
Brazil, where they were frequently violated. My father-in-law devoted his
life to writing and working to rectify this situation.
HIROMASA: Perhaps you could give us some examples of the human rights
problems he encountered in Brazil.

CÍCERO: One of the earliest was the issue of the aboriginal populations. He
featured the Indians in the inner Amazon for the journal O Cruzeiro – the
very first attempt at publicising the problem in Brazil. In his article, he
described the disappearance of some seventy aboriginal languages as the
loss of a part of the human heritage.
He brought the problem of street children to light ten years ago, when
their numbers were still fairly small. Today Brazilian street children number
five million. My father-in-law, who said that, at the time of writing, only the
tip of the iceberg was visible, called the problem a bomb waiting to go off.
He insisted that measures on a much larger scale than mere social welfare
were essential if a solution was to be found. By this he meant a sweeping
revision of the whole educational system.

Fighting Against Unjust Authority and Power

CÍCERO: He saw culture and education as indispensable to the acquisition of
liberty and the solution of the problems confronting humanity. He used to
end his public speeches with Goethe’s words that only culture and
education can safeguard liberty; humanity’s innate right.
HIROMASA: That accords perfectly with SGI convictions and beliefs.
CÍCERO: My father-in-law always advocated education as a way of
encouraging the rights and responsibilities of the masses of the people. He
felt that true democracy is impossible unless education is taken into
consideration.
ROBERTO: I am proud of my father for his resolute stand in relation to
democracy.
CÍCERO: Yes, he firmly believed that free expression is the most effective way
of combating anti-democratic forces. That is why, throughout his life, he
wrote articles and columns, appeared on television and radio, and lectured
continuously in the name of popular education. All told, he wrote fifty
thousand articles. He appeared on television once a week for twenty years
and spoke on the radio once a week for thirty years. And, for forty years, he
delivered a lecture about once a week. The goal of all this activity was to
improve the country’s educational level as much as possible and to provide
the people with a maximum amount of information on democracy. His
eagerness to train democratically inclined leaders inspired him to found the
Institute of Political Studies at Campos.

Hope and Courage for the People

HIROMASA: Until the very last, Mr. Athayde remained true to his convictions
and devoted his utmost to the ordinary people.
CÍCERO: The strength of his relation with the people increased as his hair
grew whiter. In his last years, whenever he attended the theatre, a loud-
speaker announced his presence, and tremendous applause always greeted
the announcement. Once, his appearance at Carnival, at the invitation of the
mayor of Rio de Janeiro, won a standing ovation.
AURA: As their leader, Mr. Ikeda, too, meets and talks with the ordinary
people everyday.
HIROMASA: Yes, he is convinced that a leader must impart hope and courage
to the people. He often says he is their tonic: he gives them pep. He
encourages and heartens impartially and without ceremony, no matter
whether he is dealing with the man in the street or with heads of state or
celebrated scholars.
CÍCERO: The people of Brazil held my father-in-law in love and respect
because he never took advantage of his position. Everything he did was for
literature, the academy, or other people.
ROBERTO: Josué Montello once compared him to a priest named San Manuel
Bueno Mártir, who occurs in a story by Miguel de Unamuno. He did good
but could not believe in God.
 AURA: Though he claimed not to believe in him, father spoke of God in his
own work and in the debates on the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. This suggests that his idea of God was more profound than, and
different from, the ordinary conception.

ROBERTO: In an interview, father asked Albert Einstein, ‘Is there a place in the
universe for God?’ Einstein answered that, since every effect has a cause
and since everything results from causes and effects, there must be a reason
for the existence of the universe. In this sense, according to Einstein, the
existence of God seems likely.
I think father asked the question because he sought the cause of the
universe in the concept of God.
HIROMASA: His intuitive grasp closely approximates the fundamentals of
Buddhism, which originated with the discovery of cause-and-effect
relations in all things. The Law of Cause and Effect permeates the universe
and transcends time and space.
ROBERTO: Father memorised some of the works of the famous Portuguese
poet Abilio Manuel Guerra Junqueiro. Following his example, I learned
some too. One poem can be paraphrased this way. A certain priest kept a
bird in a cage. The bird wanted to escape into the expanses of the sky. In
desperation at its imprisonment, it threw itself against the bars of the cage
and died. But its soul flew up, free, into the heavens. The message, of
course, is that though the body may be caged, nothing can imprison the
spirit – the soul.
HIROMASA: Our very humanity depends on freedom of the spirit, the
quintessential element of religious faith. Throughout his entire life, Mr.
Athayde battled those evil forces that hinder human happiness. We must
carry on his struggle and, by securing freedom of the spirit, heighten the
lustre of the meritorious heritage he left us.

ROBERTO: Three factors characterised father’s convictions and actions: first,

awareness of religious issues, second, pragmatic judgement, and third, the
pursuit of truth. He sincerely devoted his life to journalism and was indeed
a great journalist, whose achievements are clear for all to see. But I believe
people will remember him best for impartiality and for small acts
expressive of his love for ordinary people.
 He often told us to transcend ourselves. First we must know our own
limitations. Then we must strive to overcome them. Instead of merely
dreaming, we must understand our actual limitations and then pursue ideals
beyond them.

Free Expression
HIROMASA: What principles guided Mr. Athayde as a reporter, columnist and
editorialist constantly doing battle with injustice?
CÍCERO: Strong convictions. From his youth he immersed himself in Greek
and Latin classics in the search for the best kind of world view. He studied
the evolution of English parliamentary democracy and the ideas that
influenced the American Revolutionary War. During his visit to the United
States in about 1930 he came into contact with many cultural leaders. As an
outcome of these experiences, he became convinced that development for
Brazil must begin with thoroughgoing protection of liberty. And, as was
rare in the constantly changing Brazil of his time, he never wavered from
this conviction.
HIROMASA: In his early years, my father, too, used journalism as a means of
championing free thought and expression. Shortly after the end of the
Second World War, when he was in his twenties, he edited a young peoples’
magazine called Boken Shonen (Adventure Boy), which was the offshoot of
another magazine called Shogakusei Nihon (Primary-school-pupils’ Japan),
founded in 1940 by Josei Toda. At the time, most magazines outdid each
other in glorifying the Sino-Japanese war. Shogakusei Nihon, however, tried
hard to help children expand their views and to grow into cultivated citizens
of the world. It did this by carrying reports on outstanding aspects of the
civilisation and industry of other nations, by including special features like
its ‘Mother of Science’ series, and by warning young people of the danger
of believing things they did not understand.

CÍCERO: Making the most of the freedom of expression and speech, my

father-in-law kept writing for the newspaper under any circumstances and
got arrested and exiled for that.
In 1964, when a military regime was set up in Brazil, he wrote articles
criticising the military government, but the military could not imprison him,
 because the people supported him. He was sometimes brought to trial, but,
of course, he won every time.
AURA: Father always fought for ethical behaviour in journalism and
criticised publishers who put popularity and sales ahead of the provision of
information and the honest expression of columnists’ views.
HIROMASA: Their irresponsible attitude that is concerned only with their sales
amounts to the suicide of journalism itself.

The Most Beautiful Woman in Rio de Janeiro

HIROMASA: I have heard that Mr. Athayde described your mother as the most
beautiful woman in Rio de Janeiro.
AURA: Our mother, Maria José, was really lovely, inside and out. She had
very fair, beautiful skin and lively sky-blue eyes. Her cheerful personality
infected everyone around her with a feeling of warmth and tranquillity. She
helped father in his public activities. Every day of their fifty-two years of
married life, she typed father’s articles and speeches as he composed them
aloud, walking about the room. She kept files of clippings of all his articles.
HIROMASA: My mother, too, often takes down father’s speeches and poems
from dictation as they eat their meals or travel from place to place by car.
CÍCERO: In a way, your mother reminds me of my mother-in-law. Mrs.
Athayde never put herself forward. She always stayed in the background, a
reliable support for Mr. Athayde. In this respect, your father and mother
remind me of my in-laws.

HIROMASA: Thank you. I know mother would be happy to hear that. Mother
was nineteen when she and father got married. They have been together for
forty-two years. Although perhaps I should not say it, mother had her hands
full raising us three boys. She has always been in charge of everything at
home, father, us and household affairs. She used to say, ‘Our house is full of
men. Plenty of feet, but no helping hands!’
After we boys grew up, mother began accompanying father on his trips.
Because he was not physically strong, she saw to it that he took good care
of himself. Of course, especially overseas, wives are expected to be present
at various official functions.
AURA: As a daughter, I could tell just how much support mother gave father.
When he was suggested as the Brazilian representative to the United
 Nations Third Committee for debating the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, he was not very enthusiastic. He was unwilling to neglect his
journalistic work. Then too, he did like travelling. Mr. Chateaubriand, who
was chairman of the board of directors of the newspaper company where
father worked, told him he could combine both tasks by writing articles on
Paris while he was there. And mother strongly encouraged him by agreeing
to go along. Finally he agreed. His work in Paris became one of his major
achievements. Fourteen at the time, I was enraptured at the chance of going
with them and spending three months in Paris.

Strength from Trees and Stars

HIROMASA: I, too, enjoy being in Paris. To me, the most impressive of the
many people I have met during my several visits to France is René Huyghe,
member of the Académie Française and curator of the Jacquemart-André
Museum in Paris. He and Mr. Athayde met in Rio de Janeiro on the
occasion of the completion of the Brazil Culture Center.
Mr. Huyghe praised my father’s photographs very highly as ‘poetry
composed by his eyes’ and helped arrange a showing of his ‘Dialogue with
Nature’ at the Malle museum. Many distinguished guests, including Senator
Alain Poher, attended the opening on 3 May, 1988. Mr. Huyghe himself
selected the photographs and saw to the framing, the layout and the
lighting. In spite of his advanced age, the night before the opening, he
worked right beside the people he was supervising. The sight of him doing
this touched me deeply.
ROBERTO: What are your favourites among your father’s photographs?

HIROMASA: There is a beautiful one of crimson maples in Kyoto. The

diagonal line of a gate roof cuts in front of the foliage. Though the
composition is unusual, the picture expresses traditional Japanese ideas of
loveliness. It is often used in posters and catalogue covers for overseas
exhibitions.
As the title ‘Dialogue with Nature’ suggests, father’s photographs rarely
include human figures. Usually they are of scenery or cities and towns. But
to a surprising extent, they capture things in casual scenes that most of us
tend to overlook.
 Mr. Athayde, too, loved nature deeply and was interested in observing
the heavens.
AURA: He loved looking up at the night sky. I imagine the deep impression
made on him by seeing Halley’s comet when he was a child of twelve, in
1910, inspired his interest in the cosmos. This attraction led him to buy a
telescope, which he took to the island of Itacuruçá, where he would spend
hour after hour observing the sky and pointing out things like the moon and
the rings of Saturn, first to his own children and later to his grandchildren.
CÍCERO: He showed the moon to me, too. He felt human beings can find
boundless strength in observing the heavens. Probably he believed
observations of this kind would deepen and expand his own ideas about the
mysteries of the universe.
HIROMASA: My father has discussed the romance of the universe with several
celebrated astronomers, including Professor Robert Jastrow of the United
States, Professor Fred Hoyle of England and Dr. Chandra Wickramasinghe
of Sri Lanka. When I was a child, he used to explain to me, in easy terms,
the Buddhist views of the cosmos and nature and how a world of universal
dimensions is contained within each human life. I was especially impressed
by his Buddhist metaphors for relations between the human body and
certain natural phenomena. For instance, the head is round in agreement
with the shape of the sky, human skin represents the surface of the earth,
hair grows on our bodies like trees on the Earth, our blood flows like rivers
and our breath is comparable to the winds of mountain and valley.
CÍCERO: Even at the age of ninety-one, Mr. Athayde would spend a week at a
time at Pantanal, a virtual treasure house of natural beauty, thinking about
the integration of humanity and nature. He was convinced that human
beings can meld with nature, with which they are capable of living in a
symbiotic, non-destructive relationship.
HIROMASA: What were his thoughts on the Amazon?
AURA: He always said, ‘The Amazon is the lungs of the world, and human
beings are destroying them. They’re chasing the indigenous peoples out and
ruining the Amazon for money. This problem affects more than Brazil: it
affects the whole world. The Amazon must be protected.’
CÍCERO: He also used to tell us that, though development is necessary,
destruction must be avoided. It is important to improve the ways of life of
the Amazonian peoples without devastating the environment.
HIROMASA: Buddhism teaches that human beings and their environment
influence each other mutually and are by no means separate. This kind of
philosophy of symbiosis is essential today.
At present, at Manaus, Brazil, SGI and the Soka University Ecological
Research Center are cooperating with the local environmental-science
bureau in the State of Amazonas on a project intended to restore the
Amazon tropical rain forest in the hope of bringing enduring prosperity to
Mr. Athayde’s beloved land of Brazil.

No Linguistic or Racial Barriers

AURA: I was amazed to see the truly first-rate works of art on display at the
Tokyo Fuji Art Museum. What inspired Mr. Ikeda to make a great
contribution to world art by founding this splendid museum?
HIROMASA: My father believes that art stored away in warehouses is of no
use. Its value emerges only when it is seen by as many people as possible.
He is convinced that art and culture must be redeemed by the people for the
sake of the people. Although he first made the concept public in 1961, the
museum did not actually open until 1983. Many years of preparations were
needed. The aim of the Fuji Museum is to speak about and to the whole
world. Consequently, it engages in an extensive and active programme with
other art museums and cultural organisations everywhere.
AURA: The Fuji museum held an exhibition of famous works from the São
Paulo Art Museum in 1995. Mr. Chateaubriand, its founder, ordered famous
works of art from all over the world for the São Paulo Museum. Some of
them were sent to Rio de Janeiro, where they were temporarily stored at our
house. I remember how having priceless art works casually put here and
there in our rooms worried my mother.
HIROMASA: Since 1988, the Fuji museum has sponsored exhibitions in ten
cities in nine countries, including France, England, Argentina, Columbia
and Spain. As you know, works of Japanese art from the Fuji Museum
collection were displayed at the São Paulo Museum in 1990. As the first
real exhibit of Japanese art in Brazil since the start of Japanese immigration
there, the São Paulo show was very well received. My father thought of it
as a way of repaying Brazil for the great kindness it has shown people from
Japan. Speaking directly to the spirit, art knows no linguistic or racial
barriers.
 AURA: What are your main goals in your work as your father’s
representative?
HIROMASA: Today Japan is usually thought of in economic terms only. To
help others understand that there is more to our country than this, I hope to
intensify international exchanges in connection with culture and education.
At no time in the past has it been more important for human beings to
transcend national borders and understand and sympathise with each other. I
hope to promote mutual understanding on the social and cultural planes.
The ultimate aim of these exchanges is the global recognition of basic
human rights and the creation of lasting peace. The two are inseparable.

Peace and Human Rights are Inseparable

AURA: His work for peace often stimulated father to talk about war and
especially of the Holocaust. The way the Nazis lost all normal human
reason grieved him. Brazil participated in the war against the Nazis, and
from the outset, father sympathised with the Allies.
ROBERTO: The Nazis never fooled him for a moment. He worked against them
from the very beginning. For his courageous efforts on behalf of the Allies,
Great Britain awarded him the King’s Medal.
AURA: He said the experiences of the Second World War must be part of the
task of doing away with war for all time. This goal can be attained only
through intensified people-to-people exchanges.
HIROMASA: The exhibition ‘The Courage to Remember: Anne Frank and the
Holocaust’ caused a great stir when, sponsored by the Simon Weisenthal
Center and Soka University, it opened in Tokyo in May, 1995. The
Weisenthal Center had wanted to show it in Japan for some time but, owing
to tepid interest in human rights in our country, had been unable to find a
suitable co-sponsor. During a visit to the center, in 1994, my father agreed
to cooperate in the project.
ROBERTO: Mr. Ikeda’s uncompromising struggle for the protection of human
rights has immense significance for the whole world.
HIROMASA: Thank you for saying so. It might be said that Soka Gakkai and
SGI started with a struggle against oppression and in the name of human
rights. When all of Japan was engaged in a war of aggression, Tsunesaburo
Makiguchi courageously opposed the militarist government. Both he and
Josei Toda were thrown in prison as a consequence of their efforts. After
 two years’ incarceration, Mr. Toda was released to become second president
of Soka Gakkai. Mr. Makiguchi died in prison. The legacy of his two
predecessors inspires my father’s work against war and for peace. Its
history of brave pacifist activism has won the SGI the trust of people all
over the world.
AURA: Did you hear anything about war from your father?

HIROMASA: He was the fifth of nine children. All four of his older brothers
went off to war, leaving their parents and the younger children at home for
father to look after. His oldest brother was killed in the fighting. The family
house was burned in an air raid, and my father’s state of health deteriorated
seriously. His anti-war attitudes originated from these experiences.
The twenty-first century will tell whether human rights gain full global
recognition, whether peace or war will prevail, whether happiness or
unhappiness awaits humankind.
Itself a kind of constitution, the Universal Declaration addresses these
issues straight on. A pioneering worker for the good of humanity, Mr.
Athayde contributed appreciably to its creation. It is for us now to realise
the ideals it sets forth.
Our mission, as heirs to Mr. Athayde’s spiritual heritage and
achievements, is to create a new beacon of human rights. At the conclusion
of our discussion, I am sure all of you join me in vowing to see this mission
fulfilled.
 Glossary

Adams, John (1735–1826), served as U.S. vice-president under George

Washington; became second president in 1797
African National Congress, founded in 1912 as the South African Natives
National Congress for the sake of freeing and uniting all peoples by non-
violent methods; the name African National Congress was adopted in 1923
Agnosticism, the philosophy holding that human intelligence can know
nothing of the existence of an ultimate being like God
Aitmatov, Chingiz (1928–2008), novelist and close associate of former
Soviet president Mikhail S. Gorbachev; exerted a great influence on the
perestroika policy; author of The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years
Alencar, José Martiniano de (1829–77), Brazilian writer; worked to
establish a national literature; developed the so-called aboriginal style
dealing with the lives of the native peoples; author of The Guarani Indian
Amado, Jorge (1912–2001), Brazilian novelist, member of the Brazil Culture
Academy; author of The Violent Land, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon and
Home Is the Sailor
Amaral, Azevedo (1883–1950), Brazilian mathematician, sociologist,
journalist, educator, and chancellor of the Federal University of Rio de
Janeiro
Anger, in Buddhism, one of the three poisons, or three sources of vice and
suffering, the other two being greed and foolishness; refers particularly to
malice born of hatred; regarded as a great obstacle to Buddhist practice
Apartheid, system of racial segregation practised in the Republic of South
Africa; was dismantled in 1991 with the repeal of the racial registration law
Aquinas, Thomas (Thomas of Aquino; 1225–74), Christian theologian;
philosopher who attempted to reconcile reason and faith and to incorporate
Aristotelian thought into the Christian system; the main driving force
behind the golden age of the Scholastics; author of Summa Theologiae
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), studied under Plato at the Academy for 20 years;
his writings on a wide range of philosophical topics including logic,
biology, psychology, ethics, politics and aesthetics exerted an enormous
influence on later ages
Armstrong, Neil Alden (1930–), American astronaut; commander of the
Apollo 11 mission in which Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. and Michael Collins also
participated; the mission blasted off on 16 July and returned to Earth on 21
July, 1969; one of the first human beings to set foot on the moon
Augustine of Hippo (354–430), one of the Fathers of the Church; attempted
to merge Platonic ideas with Christian theology
Auschwitz, located at Oswiecim in Poland; the largest of the Nazi
concentration camps
Avalokiteshvara (the bodhisattva Freely Perceiving, Kanzeon-bosatsu in
Japanese); revered as the bodhisattva of infinite compassion
ach, Johann Sebastian (1685–1750), Great German composer of the late
Baroque period
acon, Francis (1561–1626), English politician, philosopher; stressed the
scientific method; considered a founder of modern philosophy with
Descartes
arbosa, Rui (1849–1923), active as a private citizen in the establishment of
the Brazilian federal republican system in 1889; minister of finance in the
provisional republican government
audelaire, Charles (1821–65), French poet; pioneered the way for modern
French poetry; author of Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil)
ergson, Henri-Louis (1859–1941), French philosopher; winner of a Nobel
Prize for literature; author of Creative Evolution and The Two Sources of
Morality and Religion
haishajyarāja (the bodhisattva Medicine King, Yakuō-bosatsu in Japanese),
a bodhisattva said to possess the power to cure physical and mental diseases
rahe, Tycho (1546–1601), Danish astronomer; teacher of Johannes Kepler;
the records of his sixteen years’ observations of Mars were passed on to
Kepler and became the foundation of the theory of planetary revolution
rahman, the highest of the Hindu castes; traditionally priests
rahmanism, predecessor of Hinduism; founded on holy writings called
Vedas, especially the Rig Veda; the priests who conducted its ceremonies
were called Brahmans
 razilian Academy of Letters, one of the most important intellectual centers
in South America; consists of forty domestic and twenty overseas members;
promotes a programme devoted to enlightened educational and social
activities; founded in 1897
uddha nature, the essential nature of a Buddha or the Buddha seed inherent
in all sentient beings; operating as the cause for the attainment of
Buddhahood
uddha’s children, a Buddhist term embracing all people; the Buddha is
endowed with the three virtues of sovereign, teacher and parent, thus all
sentient beings in the world are his children and the Buddha regards them
all with parental compassion
Carneiro, Levi (1882–1971), Brazilian legal scholar; lawyer and president of
the Brazil Association of Lawyers; judge on the International Judicial
Court; member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters
Carter, James Earl (1924–), American politician; president of the United
States (1976–80)
Cassin, René (1887–1976), one of the members of Committee Three, which
was responsible for drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
served as governor of the European Court of Human Rights; awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1968
Caste system, the Indian system was made up of four castes – brahmans or
priests, kshatriyas or warriors, vaishyas or merchants and shudras or serfs
Chakravartin King (or wheel-turning king), ideal rulers in Indian mythology;
subjugated the four directions with a wheel (chakra) and established peace
in the world
Chateaubriand, Francisco de Assis (1891–1968), called the Brazilian
newspaper king; proposed the creation of the São Paulo Museum of Art in
1947, the foremost museum of its kind in South America
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106–43 B.C.), Roman orator, philosopher and author
Clark, William S. (1826–86), American scientist, educator; took charge of
the Sapporo Agricultural College (later Hokkaido University) at the
invitation of the Japanese government; made great contributions to the
development of Hokkaido by training indispensable personnel
Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy; circa: 100–170), Greek astronomer,
mathematician, geographer active in Alexandria; author of the Almagest, a
synthesis of Greek astronomical knowledge of the day
Code of Hammurabi, the oldest of all legal codes; formulated in the
eighteenth century B.C.; attributed to the king of that name, who was the
sixth monarch in the first Babylonian dynasty
Copernicus, Nicolaus (1473–1543), Polish astronomer whose theory that the
Earth rotates around the sun contradicted the Ptolemaic geocentric theory
then widely accepted and supported by the Roman Catholic Church
Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), great compendium of Roman Law
and legal philosophy consisting of the Codex, Digest, Institutes and
Novellae Constitutiones
Courageous and valiant discipline, used in the second chapter ‘Expedient
Means’ of the Lotus Sutra; this phrase indicates the courage with which the
mind triumphs over hardship and exerts all effort in the name of Buddhist
discipline
Cousins, Norman (1915–90), journalist; professor of literature and
philosophy at the School of Medicine of California University; awarded the
United Nations Peace Prize in 1971; co-author of Dialogue Between
Citizens of the World (Japanese edition) with Daisaku Ikeda
Crito, in Plato’s dialogue Kriton; old friend of Socrates; suggested that
Socrates flee
Curie, Marie (1867–1934), Polish-born physicist; discovered radium during
research on radiation with her husband Pierre; the two of them shared the
Nobel Prize for physics with Henri Becquerel in 1903; awarded the Nobel
Prize for chemistry in 1911
D’Alembert, Jean (1717–83), French mathematician, philosopher;
cooperated with Diderot in the editing and publication of the Encyclopédie
Dante (1265–1321), Italian poet and a pioneer in Renaissance literature;
author of La Divina Commedia
e Klerk, Frederik W. (1936–), president of the Republic of South Africa
(1989–94); cooperated with Nelson Mandela and abolished the apartheid
system in 1991
Devoid of all possessions, a stage in the life of Shakyamuni Buddha;
Shakyamuni, clad in rags and eating only food offered to him by others,
rejected the accumulation of wealth and property and forbade such things to
his disciples
Diderot, Denis (1713–84), French philosopher and writer; together with
D’Alembert, undertook the completion of the Encyclopédie
Divine Right of Kings: especially prevalent in Europe during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, this concept held that monarchical power was
absolute because it was divinely conferred
arthly Desires (Sanskrit klesha, Japanese bonnō): desires that cause physical
or mental pain and consequent physical and mental delusions hindering the
attainment of true freedom
ight Sufferings (hakku in Japanese): eight kinds of universal suffering in
human life; the four sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death, plus the
suffering of having to part from those whom one loves, the suffering of
having to meet with those whom one hates, the suffering of being unable to
obtain what one desires, and the suffering arising from the five components
that constitute one’s body and mind
goism: the egoistic pursuit of nothing but one’s own advantages and the
satisfaction of desires while paying no attention to the trouble one’s actions
cause others and society in general
instein, Albert (1879–1955), German-born American physicist; formulated
the theory of relativity; awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921
ncyclopedists and the celebrated Encyclopédie; a 28-volume literary and
philosophical compendium devoted to the concepts and ideas of the
Enlightenment movement; produced by 24 authors under the editorial
guidance of Diderot and D’Alembert; an attempt to re-order knowledge by
breaking with older God-oriented European cultural traditions
nglish Bill of Rights, the foundation of constitutional monarchy; enacted in
1689; ‘an act declaring the rights and liberties of the subject and settling the
succession of the crown’
nlightenment, critical reaction to domination by the Church and Scholastic
philosophy in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries;
advocates of the Enlightenment emphasised the supreme importance of
reason and rational self-control
ssential Equality, non-discriminating wisdom of the Buddhist; observes the
essential equality of all things without discrimination
Expedient Means’, the second chapter of the Lotus Sutra; explains that all
teachings revealed before the Lotus Sutra were expedients, whereas the
Lotus Sutra itself is the full, complete truth
alse Views, views that reject the principle of cause and effect
ather José de Anchieta (1534–97), Spanish born Brazilian member of the
Society of Jesus; worked for the instruction, protection and welfare of
 indigenous Brazilian populations
ive Precepts, from the Hinayana tradition; Buddhist lay persons of both
sexes are expected to abide by these precepts: (One) not to kill, (Two) not to
steal, (Three) not to engage in sexual misconduct, (Four) not to lie, and
(Five) not to consume intoxicants
onseca, Field Marshal Hermes Rodrigues da (1855–1923), President of
Brazil (1910–14)
ord, Henry (1863–1947), industrialist; created the modern massproduction
system by introducing the assembly line into the production of the Model T
automobile; known as the American Car King
our Infinite Virtues, the four kinds of compassion for sentient beings: to
bring happiness to others, to eliminate suffering, to rejoice at others’
happiness and relief from suffering, and total impartiality free from
affectionate or inimical attachments
our Noble Truths (Sanskrit Chatur-arya-satya), a fundamental doctrine of
Buddhism clarifying the cause of suffering and the way of emancipation;
suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path to
the cessation of suffering
our Sufferings, the four fundamental sufferings common to all people: birth,
aging, sickness and death
ranklin, Benjamin (1706–90), American politician, author and scientist;
took part in drafting the Declaration of Independence
reire, Paulo (1921–97), an advocate of an educational theory based on
cultivating awareness; took the lead in the campaign to combat illiteracy in
Brazil; recipient of the UNESCO Peace Education Award
ugue, a polyphonic musical form widely used for instrumental compositions
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the word fugue derives from
the Latin fugere, to flee
ukuzawa, Yukichi (1835–1901), Japanese educator, philosopher; founded
Keio University
Galilei, Galileo (1564–1642), Italian physicist; astronomer who
mathematically verified the experimental method, thus establishing modern
scientific methodology
Galtung, Johan (1930–), peace scholar; born in Oslo, Norway; professor at
Oslo University; pioneered the study of peace as a field of scholarship by
founding the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, in 1959; author
of Essays in Peace Research (six vols.)
Gandhi Memorial Hall, established in New Delhi in 1984; publicises
information on the life, philosophy, and achievements of Mahatma Gandhi
with support of the Indian Ministry of Culture
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869–1948), Indian politician and the
leader of the non-violent, non-cooperative movement that won Indian
independence; assassinated by a fanatic Hindu supremist; called the father
of Indian Independence
Gatha, verses praising the virtues of the Buddha
Carr, Gerald P. (1932–), American Astronaut; in 1973, as commander of
Skylab III, established a record for duration in space: 2,000 hours
Gettysburg Address, delivered by President Lincoln on November 19, 1853;
symbolises the spirit of American democracy, especially in its final words:
‘. . . government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’
Glasnost, means giving voice to something in Russian; the policy of openness
of information in connection with Soviet president Gorbachev’s perestroika
Gorbachev, Mikhail S. (1931–), a graduate of the School of Law, Moscow
State University; became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union in 1952; named secretary-general of the party in 1985, head of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1988 and president in 1990; awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991
Greed, considered the most basic of all delusions; greedy craving is defined
as the working of a mind obsessively attached to the desires arising from
the five sense objects: form, sound, smell, taste and the tangible
Greek and Roman tradition, one of the two major currents of European
thought; derived mainly from Greek ideas
Hammurabi (reigned 1792–50 B.C.), sixth king in the first Babylonian
dynasty; the legal code that bears his name exerted a great influence on
subsequent ages
Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679), English philosopher, political theorist;
believed constant conflict to be the natural human condition; advocated the
idea of a state founded on contracts that control bellicosity; established the
basic principles of the idea of a social contract; author of Leviathan
Holocaust, the term used to designate the deliberate, planned extermination of
more than five million Jews by the Nazi Germans during the Second World
War
Hoyle, Fred (1915–2001), English astronomer noted for his research on the
evolution of stars and the Steady State Theory; director of the Institute of
 Astronomy, Cambridge, and a member of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Hugo, Victor Marie (1802–85), French poet, playwright, novelist, and leader
of the Romantic movement; exiled for having supported the Republic and
for having violently opposed the Second Empire and Napoleon III after the
Revolution of 1848; author of Les Misérables
Huyghe, René (1906–97), French aesthetic critic; director of the Painting
Department at the Louvre Museum, professor at the College de France,
president of the Artistic Council of National Museums; author of Formes et
Forces.
deas, central to Platonic philosophy; everything in the actual world is a
reflection of its perfect form in the world of Ideas
nnermost Depths of Life, according to the doctrine of the Nine
Consciousnesses, all the seeds of good and bad actions are stored in the
eighth level, or ālaya, consciousness; these seeds determine the birth and
growth of life and are the causal seeds of delusion and egoism producing
suffering
ntermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiations for which began in
November 1981; signed at the summit meeting between Ronald Reagan and
Mikhail S. Gorbachev in December, 1987; eliminates all land-launched
intermediate-range strategic nuclear forces
astrow, Robert (1925–2008), American astronomer; participant in the
United States’ first satellite project, Vanguard; former director of the
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies; director of the Mount Wilson
Observatory
efferson, Thomas (1743–1826), third president of the United States; drafter
of the Declaration of Independence
udaeo-Christian tradition, one of the two major currents of European
thought; stresses the importance of divine revelation to human culture;
founded on Hebrew and Christian ideas
unqueiro, Abilio Manuel Guerra (1850–1923), Portuguese poet; his satires
against the establishment and the Catholic Church helped bring about the
collapse of the old governmental system; author of A morte de dom João
(The Death of Don Juan) and A velhice do Padre Eterno (The Old Age of
the Eternal Father).
Kepler, Johannes (1571–1630), German astronomer; made use of the
observations of Mars made by his teacher Tycho Brahe to evolve what are
 known as Kepler’s Laws concerning planetary motion; laid the foundation
of Newton’s discovery of the law of universal gravitation
King, Jr., Martin Luther (1929–1968), American black civil rights leader;
introduced Gandhian non-violence into the civil-rights movement; winner
of Nobel Peace Prize in 1964
iberties, rights establishing the region of personal freedoms state authorities
must not violate; they encompass freedom of person and such spiritual
liberties as freedom of thought, faith, expression, and learning; economic
liberties relating to freedom of choice of employment and the right to own
property
incoln, Abraham (1809–65), sixteenth president of the United States;
elected in 1860; in April 1861, the secession of South Carolina from the
Union marked the beginning of the Civil War (1861–65); proved an
effective commander-in-chief; his Emancipation Proclamation freed the
slaves; launched a program of rebuilding the Union after the war but was
assassinated before he could see it through to completion
ocke, John (1632–1704), English philosopher; evolved a theory of the
nation state in which experience was given precedence over abstract
concepts and in which politics was expected to protect basic individual
rights
otus Sutra, one of the most important of the Mahayana sutras; consists of
twenty-eight chapters extending from the Introduction to the chapter
entitled ‘The Encouragements of the Bodhisattva Universal Worthy’;
thought to reveal the true intentions of Shakyamuni
Machado de Assis, Joaquim Maria (1839–1908), Brazilian writer, newspaper
columnist, poet, playwright and novelist; the first president of the Brazilian
Academy of Letters; author of Posthumous Memories of Bras Cubas and
Quincas Borba
Magna Carta, considered the basis of constitutional government and a part of
the British constitution; consists of sixty-three articles; signed by King John
(1167–1216) in 1215; by compelling him to sign it against his will, the
English barons put restrictions on despotic monarchical powers
Mahamaya, wife of King Shuddodana of Kapilavastu and the mother of
Shakyamuni
Mahayana Buddhism, Buddhism of the Great Vehicle; the Sanskrit mahā
means great and yāna vehicle; emphasises altruistic practise – called the
 bodhisattva practise – as a means to attain enlightenment for oneself and
help others attain it as well
Maitreya (Miroku-bosatsu in Japanese), predicted to succeed Shakyamuni as
a future Buddha; rendered as Compassionate One
Makiguchi, Tsunesaburo (1871–1944), educator and first president of Soka
Gakkai; worked for educational reforms and founded Soka Kyōiku Gakkai
(Value-creating Educational Society); later, as an active religious reformer,
opposed the state Shintoism sponsored by the militarist government and
was imprisoned for violating the peace preservation law; author of A
Geography of Human Life and Education for Creative Living
Mandela, Nelson Bolihlahla (1918–), supreme leader of the antiapartheid and
black-liberation movement in South Africa; imprisoned from 1962 until
1990; became chairman of the African National Congress in 1991; shared
Nobel Peace Prize with then South African President Frederik W. de Klerk
in 1993
Manjushrī, a bodhisattva regarded as symbolic of perfect wisdom
Mano-consciousness, the seventh of the Nine Consciousnesses; the Sanskrit
word mano means the mind, thought, perception, etc.; performs the function
of abstract thought and discerns the inner world; awareness of itself is said
to originate at this level; the passionate attachment to the ego that helps
create evil karma is also viewed as the working of this consciousness
Maritain, Jacques (1882–1973), French philosopher; played a major role in
the French Catholic reform movement
Maritzburg Incident: when Gandhi travelled to Maritzburg in South Africa in
1893, which was a British colony at the time, he was forcibly removed from
a first-class train carriage by a white police officer, and this incident
inspired him to undertake the struggle against racial discrimination
Marxism-Leninism: advocates scientific socialism; takes the
historicalmaterialist stand; symbolised by the insistence that religion is an
opiate
Min-On (democratic music association), founded by Daisaku Ikeda in 1963
with the aim of promoting musical culture and worldwide cultural
exchanges
Montesquieu Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de (1689–1755), French
political philosopher, historian; following in the footsteps of Locke, laid the
foundation of modern political principles by proposing the establishment of
 three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial; author of
The Spirit of the Laws
Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, founded with the
aim of promoting global mutual understanding; displays the histories of
racial discrimination and the Nazi treatment of Jews
Mussolini, Benito (1883–1945), Italian politician, leader of the Fascist Party,
prime minister; ruled as a dictator for twenty years
Mystic Law (Myōhō in Japanese); the fundamental universal law to which
Shakyamuni was enlightened; the same law to which Buddhas of the past
had been enlightened and to which Buddhas of the future will be
enlightened; formulated by Nichiren as Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in 1253
Nabuco, Joaquim (1849–1910), Brazilian diplomat; leader of the
emancipation movement; author of Abolitionism
National Mobilisation Law: empowered the Japanese government to channel
all social and economic forces into the war effort
Newton, Isaac (1642–1727), physicist, mathematician; the most important
figure in the seventeenth-century scientific revolution; famous for his
discovery of the law of gravitation
Nine Consciousnesses: Buddhist philosophy divides human sentience into
nine stages known as the Nine Consciousnesses: (One) sightconsciousness,
(Two) hearing-consciousness, (Three) smellconsciousness, (Four) taste-
consciousness, (Five) touch-consciousness, (Six) mind-consciousness,
(Seven) mano-consciousness, (Eight) ālaya consciousness, and (Nine)
amala-consciousness
Originally Inherent Nature of Birth and Death (hon’nu no shōji in
Japanese): a Buddhist doctrine that the force of life itself is eternal, and life
and death are two aspects essentially inherent in the universal force of life
itself
ande, Bishambhar Nath (1906–98), member of the Upper House of the
Indian Parliament; vice-chairman of the Gandhi Memorial; became one of
Mahatma Gandhi’s disciples when fourteen on the strength of an
introduction from Rabindranath Tagore
arks, Rosa (1913–2005), American civil rights activist; arrested for refusing
to move to the rear of a bus, as was then required of black persons
throughout the Southern states of the United States; inspired black people
throughout the country to stand up for their civil rights
 atrocínio, José do (1853–1905), Brazilian journalist, advocate of the
emancipation movement
aul (Saul) of Tarsus (circa: 10–67), the first Christian missionary and the
author of thirteen letters of instruction, the Epistles of Paul, in the New
Testament
auli, Wolfgang (1900–58), Swiss physicist, professor at the University of
Zurich, discoverer of Pauli’s exclusion principle; foresaw the existence of
the neutrino; awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1945
eace Preservation Law, enacted in 1925; intended to control thought and
association with the specific aim of hindering the formation of organisations
bent on revolutionising the Japanese state and overturning the social system
based on private property
erestroika, Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s bold program of political, economic,
social and cultural reforms; a Russian word meaning reconstruction
eriander of Corinth (–560?), second tyrant sole ruler of Corinth; began his
rule in Corinth moderately but became tyrannical later; promoted
commerce, encouraged the arts and did much to stimulate Corinthian
prosperity
lato (427–347 B.C.), a pupil of Socrates; appears in several of his famous
dialogues including the Republic and the Apologia; founded the celebrated
Academy where many important people, including Aristotle, studied
opular Vote Law; a law pertaining to elections of members of the lower
house of the Diet and in general recognising the voting rights of adult males
Real Reason for the Buddha’s Appearance on Earth, in the chapter ‘Simile
and Parable’, the third chapter of the Lotus Sutra; uses parables like the
famous story of the blazing house and the three carts to explain profoundly
true teachings
Risshō Ankoku-ron (On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of
the Land), a remonstrance written by Nichiren in 1260; presented to Hojo
Tokiyori, the most powerful person in the Kamakura shogunate, which
ruled Japan at the time
Roosevelt, (Anna) Eleanor (1884–1962), wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt;
delegate to the United Nations; chairperson of the committee on the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights; played a leading part in the
composition of the declaration
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1631–1778), French philosopher; advocated
republicanism based on civic rights; had an enormous influence on the
 French Revolution; author of The Social Contract
adāparibhūta (the bodhisattva Never Disparaging, Jōfukyō-bosatsu in
Japanese), a bodhisattva described in the twentieth chapter (Never
Disparaging) of the Lotus Sutra; out of respect for their inherent Buddha
nature, this bodhisattva greeted all comers with reverence; said to be
Shakyamuni Buddha in an earlier life
amantabhadra (the bodhisattva Universal Worthy, Fugen-bosatsu in
Japanese), depicted in various sutras and thought to symbolise the virtues of
truth and practice
cholastics, thirteenth century masters of philosophy; the Scholastic
philosophers tried to effect a synthesis of Platonic and Aristotelian
philosophy with Christian doctrine and to reconcile reason and faith
chuman, Robert (1886–1963), French politician; served as minister of
foreign affairs, minister of finance, and prime minister; advocate of
European union; proposed the formation of the European Coal and Steel
Community in 1950
imon Wiesenthal Centre, formed in 1977 and devoted to the protection of
human rights; with headquarters in Los Angeles, maintains offices in the
United States and in Canada, France and Israel
ix Wise Practices (pāramitās), disciplines (pāramitās imposed on the
bodhisattva according to Mahayana teachings; they include alms giving,
keeping the precepts, forbearance, assiduousness, meditation, and the
attainment of wisdom
ocial Rights, human rights going beyond traditional liberties and equalities;
the development of capitalist economy generated serious social problems
like unemployment and disparities in wealth, and so guaranteeing social
rights to education, work and living standards is an attempt to solve these
problems
ociety of Jesus (Jesuits), an order for the training of priests within the
Catholic Church; founded by Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556); engaged in
extensive overseas missionary work
ocrates (469–399 B.C.), Greek philosopher; known for his use of dialogue in
the search for basic truths; put on trial and forced to commit suicide for the
offence of neglecting the gods and corrupting young people
oka Kyōiku Gakkai (Value-creating Educational Society), the predecessor
of Soka Gakkai; originated as an educational reform group; founded by
Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda in 1930
olon of Athens (640–540 B.C.), Athenian poet, politician; reformed the polis
in the hope of ending the constant strife between the common people and
the aristocracy; effected a great deal of legislation, including laws
regulating currency and weights and measures
oweto Uprisings: on June 16, 1976, about 20,000 people vigorously
protested against the compulsory introduction of teaching in the Afrikaans
language in middle and high schools in the Soweto black township in the
Johannesburg suburbs. Police opened fire, causing numerous deaths and
injuries
toics, founded in Athens by Zeno in about 300 B.C.; the Stoic school of
philosophy exerted great influence until the second century B.C.
agore, Rabindranath (1861–1941), poet; one of the greatest figures in
modern Indian literature and a spiritual supporter of the Indian
independence movement; author of Gitanjali
en Good Precepts: prohibit commission of the ten evil acts, which are
killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, flattery or indiscriminate and
irresponsible speech, defamation, duplicity, greed, anger and foolishness or
the holding of mistaken views
en Major Disciples, Shakyamuni’s ten principle followers: Shāriputra,
Mahākāshyapa, Ānanda, Subhūti, Pūrna, Maudgalyāyana, Kātyāyana,
Aniruddha, Upāli and Rāhula
hales of Miletus (circa: 640–546 B.C.), founder of Greek natural
philosophy; studied mathematics and astronomy in Egypt; predicted a
complete solar eclipse in 585 B.C.; believed that all things are
modifications of a single substance, which he identified as water
heragata, an early compilation of verses by Buddhist monks; only a Pali
text exists
olstoy, Leo N. (1828–1910), Russian writer; author of War and Peace, Anna
Karenina and Resurrection
oynbee, Arnold J. (1889–1975), English historian; professor at such
institutes as London University; author of A Study of History
reasure Tower, a tower or stupa adorned with treasures or jewels; in the
eleventh chapter ‘Treasure Tower’ of the Lotus Sutra, a great assembly of
Buddhas, bodhisattvas and other beings watch as an immense Treasure
Tower rises from within the Earth; Nichiren viewed the treasure tower as an
allegory for human life in its enlightened state achieved through the
chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
Unamuno, Miguel de (1864–1936), Spanish philosopher, author; professor of
Greek at the University of Salamanca; strove to bring about a spiritual
revolution in Spain; author of Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida (The
Tragic Sense of Life).
United Nations Charter, consisting of 11 articles; sets forth the goals, basic
principles, membership and principal departments of the organisation;
defines the means whereby international conflicts shall be resolved
United Nations Conference on International Organisation, a convention of
delegates from 50 Allied nations which took place from April 25 to June
26, 1945, in San Francisco; resulted in the creation of the United Nations
Charter; signified the formal establishment of the United Nations
United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, held
between June 3 and 15, 1992, in Rio de Janeiro; representatives from about
170 nations attended this conference; in addition to working out the Rio
Declaration on the Environment and Development plus a set of action plans
for the coming century entitled ‘Agenda 21,’ the delegates signed treaties
on climatic changes and biodiversity
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sets forth human-rights standards
that all peoples and nations ought to strive to attain; adopted on December
10, 1948, at the third General Assembly of the United Nations
Upanishad (Collections of Esoteric Equations), commentaries on the Vedas
composed between 1000 and 500 B.C.; a major source of ancient Indian
philosophy; the fundamental Upanishadic doctrine is the essential oneness
of Brahman, the supreme being of the universe, and the individual human
soul, or atman
Vasubandhu (thought to have lived in the fourth or fifth century of the
Common Era), brilliant Buddhist scholar born in northern India; at first a
Hinayanist, later, under the influence of his older brother Asanga, converted
to Mahayana; the thousand books attributed to him were instrumental in
spreading Mahayana teachings throughout Asia
Vimalakīrti Sutra: the leading figure of this important Mahayana sutra is the
wealthy, learned, lay Buddhist layman Vimalakīrti whose great mastery of
the essential teachings enables him to refute the views of bodhisattvas and
of Shakyamuni’s disciples
Virginia Bill of Rights: the Colony of Virginia asked the Continental
Congress for a declaration of independence in May 1776, and passed this
celebrated bill of rights, compiled by George Mason, on 21 June, 1776
Voltaire (De Secondat, Charles-Louis; 1694–1778), French playwright,
philosopher and poet; strenuously criticised both the Catholic Church and
the ancien régime; laid the philosophical groundwork for the French
Revolution
Weimar Constitution, the constitution of the Weimar Republic; came into
being in Germany after the First World War; consisted of a preamble and
eighteen articles; had considerable international influence as a new
twentieth-century constitution guaranteeing such basic human rights as the
right to life
Whitman, Walt (1819–92), American poet; extolled freedom, equality and
the spirit of friendship on the basis of democratic principles; author of
Leaves of Grass
Wickramasinghe, Chandra (1939- ), Sri Lankan astronomer; adviser to the
United Nations on development planning
Yojana, an ancient Indian unit of linear measurement variously given as 64,
120, or 160 kilometres and said to be the distance a king’s army could
march in a day
Yoshida, Shōin (1830–59), Japanese educator; born in Chōshū domain of the
present-day Yamagucki Prefecture; studied under Sakuma Shōzan;
imprisoned when his plans to stowaway on a ship bound for the United
States were discovered; established a school called Shōka Sonjuku which
educated many political leaders
weig, Stefan (1881–1942), Austrian Jewish pacifist, writer; persecuted by
the Nazis and fled to Brazil
 Notes

Chapter 1

. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Volume II, trans. Soka Gakkai (Tokyo:
Soka Gakkai, 2006), p.844
. The Records of the Orally Transmitted Teachings, trans. Burton Watson
(Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 2004), p.4
. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Volume II, p.843
Chapter 3

. The Lotus Sutra, trans. Burton Watson (New York, Columbia University
Press, 1993), p.36
. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, trans. Soka Gakkai (Tokyo: Soka
Gakkai, 1999), p.169
Chapter 5

. Zweig, Stefan, Brazil: Land of the Future, trans. Andrew St. James (New
York: The Viking Press, 1941), p.12
. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, trans. Soka Gakkai (Tokyo: Soka
Gakkai, 1999), p.1125
. The Dhammapada, trans. Friedrich Max Müller (from Pali) (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1973)
. I Timothy, 6:12.
. The Majjhima Nikāya, rendered and abridged from the Pali by Bhikkuh
Silacra (London: Probsthain and Co., 1912), p.39
Chapter 6
. The Vimalakīrti Sutra, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1997), pp.65–66
Chapter 8
. The Book of the Kindred Sayings (Samyutta-Nikāya), trans. Rhys Davids
(London, Luzac & Company Ltd., 1971)
. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, trans. Soka Gakkai (Tokyo: Soka
Gakkai, 1999), p.578
. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, Chirigaku Kyoju no Hoho oyobi Naiyo no Kenkyu
(Research in the methods and content of geographical instruction), included
in The Complete Works of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, Vol.4 (Tokyo, Daisan
bunmei-sha, 1981)
. Zweig, Stefan, Brazil—Land of the Future (New York: The Viking Press,
1941), p.35.
. The Records of the Orally Transmitted Teachings, trans. Burton Watson
(Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 2004), p.30
Chapter 9

. The Lotus Sutra, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1993), pp.266–267
. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, trans. Soka Gakkai (Tokyo: Soka
Gakkai, 1999), p.851–852
. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p.417

Daisaku Ikeda
President
Soka Gakkai International

Born in Tokyo on January 2, 1928, Mr. Ikeda graduated from Fuji Junior
College. He is Honorary President of Soka Gakkai and President of Soka
Gakkai International (SGI). Over a period of years, he has conducted
dialogues with outstanding thinkers from all over the world in connection
with his efforts to promote education, culture and global peace on the basis
of the Buddhist philosophy. His efforts have won him numerous awards,
including the United Nations Peace Prize and the Brazilian State Order of
the Southern Cross. His numerous literary works have been translated into
many languages.
 Austregésilo de Athayde
Former President
Brazilian Academy of Letters

Mr. Athayde, who was born in Pernambuco in 1898, became a journalist

after graduating from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. As Brazilian
representative to the third General Assembly of the United Nations, he
played an important part in drawing up the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. He became president of the Brazilian
Academy of Letters in 1959 and continued to occupy that post until his death
on September 13, 1993. His published works include Histórias amargas.