In Europe they say "If you speak two languages, you've had a public school education. If you speak five languages you've been to university. If you speak one language, you're an American."
Earlier this year SGI-USA sent a couple of its senior EOL (English as an only language) members to a lecture by Sensei. The lecture was on the meaning of gongyo. Being long-time members, and sincere, they eschewed the use of interpreters, and determined to write down every word they understood.
As Sensei spoke of the protective gods facing the Gohonzon with you as you do gongyo, they understood the word and wrote down "Shoten." Sensei continued and, of course, they understood "gongyo." As the lecture proceeded they paid close attention to all they could understand of the guidance.
When the leaders later reported to the executive committee, they consulted their notes and agreed that the only thing of which they were absolutely sure was that President Ikeda had told them to "Shoten gongyo."
We all know that SGI-USA does not do anything halfway. So we're not done yet. By removing all the redundancy and words too difficult for new members, we're trimming down the silent prayers, too. The first prayer is, naturally going to be "Shoten" followed by sansho, which is the chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo three times.
The second prayer will become, "Thanks BigG," followed by sansho.
The third prayer removes all repetition of "Ni and "Nichi," becoming: "Thanks Ren, Ko and Moku," followed by sansho.
The fourth prayer gives us much to consider. Since Kosen Rufu has been mispronounced as "Cousin Rufus," and no one knows who Cousin Rufus is, that part is being dropped. The next part, which talks about expiating all your negative karma so you attain enlightenment and bring about your happiness, will be replaced with a picture of a smiley face, followed by sansho.
The personal prayers, of course, cannot be dictated. But Men's division members should no longer ask for everything they want. No longer can it be "wine, women and song." Ya gotta pick just one.
Married Women's division members have to pick just one thing to change in their husband.
YMD and YWD members will be allowed to make a list of any length, but all they can say during the fourth prayer is: "The List."
On the fifth prayer, we all know that no American can correctly pronounce Tsunesaburo Makiguchi or Josei Toda, so we'll start out with, "Thanks Gucci and Jo," followed by sansho.
The three-minute bell solo has to be replaced by no more than three rings. (On the fourth ring it gets picked up by the answering machine.) The rings will be followed by sansho, then: "Wow, Universe, Kewl," followed by sansho.
Everyone seems to think this is a shortened version of gongyo. I practiced with the Young Men's division in San Francisco in the early 70s. If there were no guests at the meeting, we did a shortened version of gongyo, then went out and trolled for winos, or whatever else it took to get someone through the door. As I recall, gongyo went something like this:
Myo Ho Renge Kyo
Hobenpon dai ni
Niji seson, ju sanmai
Toku nyuuuuu mujo do
Soku juju bushiiiiiiiiiin
Namrenyo, Namrenyo, Namrenyo, Namrenyo
Namrenyoooooo
THANKOVERYMUUUCH
AAO AAO AAO
The new gongyo books will be out shortly. They will be printed on both sides of 5.5 x 8.5mm plastic card with all your membership information and subscription renewal dates encoded into a magnetic stripe. The Deluxe Card will be printed on an encoded MP3 flash card with audio, or a PCMCIA card (works equally well on a MAC or a Redmond Bit Bucket) with audio.
On the deluxe version you will be able to select the "standard" or "express" versions. The express version has all bits of silence removed compressing Gongyo to 41.832 (rounded up to 42) seconds and an option of five to 42 minutes of daimoku. For long chanting sessions, it can be placed on an infinite loop.
Ask your district leader when it will be available in your area.