I asked Cris to talk about his latest project, Conversation for Change, and how it relates to Nichiren Buddhism.

Take it away, Cris...
Conversation for Change is totally based on my study of Adlerian psychology which, in turn was totally catalyzed by my 40-year practice of Nichiren's teachings.

For the past three decades, ever since I left the Gakkai and what I thought was my "mission," I have pondered only one thing -- how to communicate the Daishonin's teachings to an English speaking, judeo-christian-based culture. I became convinced that it had to be done in a NON-academic, NON-esoteric way that had to be presented almost completely in English and without the intellectual mumbo-jumbo that so often accompanies Buddhist teaching in the West.

Many of those who try to present Nichiren's teachings -- seems to me they much too often get all tied up with "how many bodhisattvas can dance on the head of a pin...." Way too dogmatic and the dogma itself becomes the source of so much friction between Nichiren believers.

My own take is that Nichiren's teachings are truly universal in both applicability and efficacy. Therefore, Wal-Mart shoppers (my slang for "the great unwashed") should have easy, simple access to the practice the Daishonin invented, without all the pedantic rigmarole.

To that end, I talk a lot to people about Jesus as a provisional Buddha and have come to believe that I personally, through my vocational pursuit of psychotherapy, can help to make psychology a real, viable way to communicate Buddhism to this non-Buddhist culture by talking about Nichiren's view of the human condition, but without mentioning him and couching ideas such as ichinen sanzen (the philosophical core of both his teaching and his Gohonzon) within the context of great psychological teachers such as Alfred Adler.

Adler, in case you don't know, was one of two main disciples (the other being Karl Jung -- whom I also love, but find a bit obtuse and mystical for general consumption) who broke away from the medical model, coke-skewed excesses of Freud and taught that mental health is an incredibly complex and unique process for each individual and that a totally holistic process needs to be engendered in the treatment of any mentally ill or dysfunctional human being.  He would recoil at the modern-day rush to pigeon-hole diagnosis and psychopharmaceuticals.

Anyway, to prove to you that I have given this some thought, I am attaching my MA thesis, entitled, "The Buddha and Alfred Adler:  Exploring the similarity of the Mahayana Buddhist Tradition with Adlerian Notions of Individual Psychology and Social Interest." [See link below.]

Understand that "Mahayana Buddhist Tradition" here exclusively means Nichiren's teachings and that the whole point is to talk about a psychology that aims at actualizing each individual's full potential -- read Buddha-nature -- and encouraging that individual to carve out his or her unique destiny as a Bodhisattva within the context of society as a whole.

This latter is what Adler called "social interest" or gemeinschaftesgefuhl. When I first learned about this Adlerian concept, I became convinced I had found the psychological teaching most allied with Nichiren's teaching.

Okay, I've digressed long enough.  Long story short -- Conversation for Change is just an operational process aimed at helping those uninitiated in both Buddhism and psychology to uncover the truths about their relationship to the world around them and the reality of their infinite potential within.  

It involves psychotherapeutic technique, but mainly is about using dialogue -- truly honest, empathic and engaged conversation in the therapeutic setting -- to hopefully initiate a process of synthesis that will lead people to both discover what their "bliss" is (a la Joseph Campbell) and how they already possess the innate wisdom -- read Buddha-wisdom -- within.

Bonus: Read Cris' thesis, The Buddha and Alfred Adler:Exploring the Similarity of the Mahayana Buddhist Tradition with Adlerian Notions of Individual Psychology and Social Interest (pdf.) Wow.