I love reading!

I have bought many books. I love reading!

I have read a book called " Daisaku Ikeda's Philosophy of Peace - Dialogue, transformation and Global Citizenship by Oliver Urbain. The book is amazing and I have learnt a lot.

Oliver is Director of the Intitute of Global Peace and Policy Research, Tokyo and Honolulu, and holds doctorates in both French Literature and peace studies. he decided to systematize the philosophy of peace of Daisaku Ikeda because he is deeply grateful for his warm encouragement over the last 24 years, and for his work for peace for over six decades. In this book, Oliver explore Daisaku's essays and he satudied all Daisaku 's Peace Proposal.

I really want to share his introduction in this book. It is so inspiring!

" As a member of the lay Buddhist organization headed by Daisaku Ikeda, I have experienced the positive results of the practice his Buddhist humanist philosophy. I joined the SGI in 1985. At the time, I was 24 years old graduate student in Los Angeles, California, freshly arrived from Belgium with great hopes of becoming a successful immigrant. However, I was facing serious obstacles, one of them being my incapacity to study for long hours due to psychosomatic headache. With meager resources and on a student visa, failure in my studies would have meant going back to Belgium a loser, a prospect that substantially increased the stressfulness of the situation. Another problem was that my underdeveloped social skills did not allow me to quickly build the support network I needed in order to succeed in a huge and dynamic city where I had arrived alone.

After a few months after desperate struggles, I began practicing Buddhism with the SGI...

The power of prayer and chanting were unfamiliar to me. The first results were convincing and, for instance, I was able to use my mind freely and study as much as I wanted without suffering from headache and others ailments. To me, this was a spectacular change that opened up new horizons. Since I was now able to study hard, the sky was the limit.

The first time I met Daisaku Ikeda in person was in Los Angeles, USA, in1987. The occasion was the official opening of the first campus of Soka University of America ( SUA), and I was playing the vibraphone in the local SGI band. At some point I found myself looking straight into Ikedas's deep brown eyes, and even though he did not say anything and was only smiling and raising his arms in a welcoming gesture, I was overwhelmed with the very distinct feeling of hearing someone telling me: ' Please study hard and never give up!' I had just started my first PhD at the time and I was indeed in need of this type of encouragement, preoccupied as I was with my new endeavours. Why I gained the impression that Ikeda was responding to this need is still a mystery to me, but the fact remains that I was able to make a renewed and more profound commitment to my studies at that moment. the memory of this episode is still much alive today."

Oliver Urbain

The first time I read it, I decided to win in my studies too because I had the same difficulties of concentration and believe in myself. I am still chanting to believe that I can break my limits every day. It is a hard work but I want to see until where I can go. As Oliver said, the sky is my limit now.

Thank you Oliver! Thank you Sensei!