The good news is that SGI-USA is not a poor little religious sect. No, we’re rolling in dough. SGI-USA is a multi-million-dollar religious corporation.
According to LA County tax records, SGI Plaza dead link and adjacent properties dead linkaround Sixth and Wilshire in Santa Monica are valued at over $20 million. Just across the street, the World Culture Center dead link and Ikeda Auditorium (and the house behind the WCC dead link) are valued at more than $7 million. SGI-USA’s Malibu Training Center, with a tax valuation of $1.4 million, was on the market in June 2003 for $21 million.
The Denver Culture Center dead link ($2.5 million), the New York Culture Center ($5.7 million), the Florida Nature and Culture Center dead link ($3 million) are all listed in tax records as being owned by Soka Gakkai International-USA. There are more properties in Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Hawaii, etc., but you get the idea.
In other words, SGI-USA has millions of dollars at its disposal. Yet many members are surprised to hear this. For all these years, most of us thought that SGI-USA was barely squeaking by.
The pamphlet, “Contributing to the Future,” published by SGI-USA in 2003, tells us that our financial contributions make it possible to turn on the lights, keep copy machines running and pay the rent for meeting places. These examples give the impression of a small ministry struggling to make ends meet.
Strangely, the pamphlet fails to mention SGI-USA’s millions of dollars worth of appreciating assets. In fact, SGI-USA declines to tell members anything substantive about the corporation’s finances. The leadership keeps quiet and smiles like the Buddha…or like the cat who ate the canary….
It’s none of your business
Legally, I’m not entitled to know what SGI-USA does with the money I contribute; the corporation is under no legal obligation to provide members with information about expenditures, sources of income and real estate holdings.
So, shouldn’t we give the leadership the benefit of the doubt and trust them to handle the money in a way that’s best for everyone? Don’t they know better than us or anyone else?
Substitute “Nichiren Shoshu” for SGI-USA and “High Priest” for leadership, and maybe you’ll see why “don’t ask, don’t tell” is the worst way to approach organizational finances.
To refresh your memory: The SGI has charged, among other things, that the priests of Nichiren Shoshu took advantage of the financial generosity of SGI members, spending contributions lavishly and with no accountability to the members. Nichiren Shoshu tells a different story, of course; they claim that it was SGI President Ikeda, not High Priest Nikken, who developed a penchant for lavish spending.
Consider the possibility that both Ikeda and Nikken may have been corrupted by wealth and power, and that the “Temple Issue” has been essentially thirteen years of the pot calling the kettle black. Even if you vehemently disagree that this could ever possibly be true, how do you know? What financial records can you show to prove or disprove the allegations?
This is why financial disclosure matters. As long as SGI-USA’s corporate finances remain a mystery -- as long as they decline to disclose the specifics of their financial dealings -- the SGI-USA will be vulnerable to charges of corruption, financial mismanagement and manipulation of the members to boost financial contributions. After all, SGI-USA’s vast wealth coupled with its secrecy makes it look as if the corporation has something to hide.
Financial disclosure matters because it can help answer a very basic question: Who owns SGI-USA? Does it belong to the members, or to a handful of leaders, or to one man in Japan? When SGI-USA’s Malibu Training Center sells, for example, where does the $21 million go? To whom and for what? Will it go to settle the Southwell lawsuit against Soka University, by any chance? If the Southwells sign a nondisclosure agreement as part of the settlement, we may never know. It just doesn’t seem right to me that members and contributors should be kept in the dark.
Members should ask questions
The SGI-USA doesn’t run soup kitchens or free clinics -- we’re just not that kind of a religious corporation. Our mission -- to propagate the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism in America -- sounds maybe more abstract. Members have different and sometimes contradictory ideas about how to accomplish this mission. Some might advocate more funding for children’s activities. Some might want an enhanced study program so members can develop a deeper understanding of Nichiren Buddhism and how to relate to other Buddhist denominations.
Then again, other people might want to maintain two multi-million-dollar residences for SGI President Ikeda at the Soka University campuses in Los Angeles, and another house for him in Florida, where he can meet with dignitaries if he’s ever in town.
Shouldn’t all expenditures be on the table for members to examine in detail if they so choose? For example, the Soka University campus in Aliso Viejo opened in 2001 with an endowment of $300 million to teach a class of fewer than 200 students. Meanwhile, the Soka University campus in Calabasas is valued at around $20 million. Were members ever given a chance to question the expenditure of these millions?
Creating a university and spending so much money on so few people strikes me as elitist. By contrast, Nichiren championed the wisdom of the common people and self-motivated Buddhist study among ordinary folk. Is a university the best way to teach others about Nichiren Buddhism?
Is this Buddhism, or spiritual extortion?
And what would Nichiren think of the way that SGI-USA collects money in his name?
In the “Contributing to the Future” pamphlet, SGI-USA tells us, “With all of your contributions, you are making great causes for your own happiness.”
And: “Some members may feel they can improve their financial situation by challenging themselves to contribute more money to the organization. It’s true that when you make offerings, you are making a cause to change your destiny -- just as it’s true that when you chant, you are changing your karma. How this change in karma will manifest, though, no one can readily predict. When we make offerings, we increase our fortune. That doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that we increase our bank balance.”
I wonder who the “we” is in that last sentence, because when you make a contribution to SGI-USA, you are most definitely increasing “their” bank balance.
SGI-USA holds out a promise that many members have been hooked by over the years, including myself: Giving money to SGI-USA will change your life. Naturally, the implication is that you’ll change your life for the better. This assertion may fatten the religious corporation’s accounts, but does it do justice to the teachings of Nichiren? Isn’t our prayer to the Gohonzon -- our faith, practice and study -- they key to real change and spiritual growth?
I think we need to question our own emotions and see if the SGI-USA’s appeal for contributions is playing on our sentiments and exploiting our hopes and dreams. When SGI-USA says that contributing money to SGI will give us benefits just like chanting will, I hope we can all muster some skepticism.
Most of all, we need to look at SGI-USA’s financial condition and ask, “Does SGI-USA really need more money from me? What have they done with the money I already gave them?”
Right now, I know what it feels like to be the canary, and I can’t say that it has put me in a check-writing mood.
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Jan Tyler is a 16-year member of SGI-USA, and contributor of thousands of dollars. Click here to get a downloadable/printable PDF of this article.