In every organization that is not absolutely monolithic (and what org really is) you are going to find leaders who try to arrogate more authority to themselves than they should. You are going to find people who believe only they are right, only they are to be listened to, only they have the pure teaching and that their students or members or whatever should even look with suspicion upon other leaders in the same organization. It is a shame when this happens, but it does. It is the kind of territorialityof the animal realm, or the pride of the fighting demon realm, or the craving for personal power at all costs of the hungry ghost realm, or even the self-destructive paranoia of the hell realm. All of these worlds are in each of us and in each organization. And woe to those who find themselves in a group where the leader has knowingly or more likely unknowingly given him or herself over to these lower realms in their leadership stye.

The only way that ordinary members can protect themselves is to follow Nichiren's own criteria which he learned from the Nirvana Sutra (it is also in the Vimalakirti Sutra btw) Follow the Dharma and not the person. This means follow the Truth as best you can discern it in your own life, and don't invest yourself in the teacher or the messenger. It is the truth which must be followed, not a personality. And when a person claims that they alone can give you the truth and that the student should shut themselves off from other input or perspectives, that is when one should beware. If something is true, then it can stand up to other perspectives so what reason is there to fear? If truth can not be owned or monopolized then why would only one person have it?

I have been very very fortunate in this lifetime to have had great parents, teachers, and mentors who all encouraged me to think for myself, to look things up and not just take their word for anything, and to trust myself and my own good sense. My parents and teachers and mentors empowered me - they trusted me to be an adult and to take responsibility for myself. They did not presume that they could tell me how to think, or what to think, or what to read or not read, or who I could talk to, or what places I could or could not go to. In fact, my parent's, teachers, and mentors have all encouraged me to investigate, reflect, and test things for myself. This is the way to really become wise and awake and aware and to make wisdom, awakening, and even compassion a vital and real part of oneself and not just something imposed by some guru from without.

I hope that people will come to have the kind of courage and self-confidence that my parents, teachers, and mentors have tried to instill in me. I hope that rather than be disempowered by overinvesting and overidentifying with a priest, or senior leader, or minister, or president, or school, sect, church, or temple that people will instead follow the Dharma and learn how to be a light unto themselves and a refuge unto themselves as the Buddha taught - not in a selfish, self-involved sense, but in the sense of being empowered and responsible for oneself and thereby capable of empowering and liberating others.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei