Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century: A Dialogue 9780755620531, 9781845119881

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Preface by Austregésilo de Athayde This dialogue is more than an encounter between two human-rights advocates. It presents posterity with a book by Daisaku Ikeda who, like me, has dedicated his utmost energies to the essential, indispensable, noble work of protecting the rights of all humanity. The two of us equally have shared the struggle. Emerging from the experiences of that struggle, this dialogue sets out to bring to flower humanity’s historic, long held, cherished wish. Accomplishing this in the twenty-first century will rewrite philosophical, social, and political history. As trusting, steadfast comrades, we both hope that our passionate dedication will be the determining factor in ushering in a day of salvation and of equality for men and women of all ages. Such equality will be free of prejudices and respectful of all religious sensibilities and creeds and will assure the basic principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Daisaku Ikeda strives to unite the East and the West. His wise teachings embody the noblest ideals of that declaration. The path he points out for the twenty-first century leads to freedom from fear and the preservation of a priceless world where non-discrimination and equality are respected and where families and homes enjoy tranquillity. He is like a shepherd walking side by side with the sheep he guides. The idea of dialogue has a venerable history. Cicero engaged in dialogues with his friends. Samuel Johnson might be said to have conducted an extended dialogue with his biographer James Boswell. And, of course, the dialogue between Goethe and his friend Johan Peter Eckermann is famous. Mr. Ikeda has conducted many dialogues, including one with Arnold J. Toynbee, one of the most prominent British historians of

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modern times. Dialogue as a form enables people with great ideas to exchange opinions and bequeath to the world their richly inspiring discussions. In addition, though the participants may speak different languages and belong to different cultural spheres, dialogue enables them to transmit to each other the national spirits as reflected in their social, economic and political concepts. In accumulation, these characteristics determine the course of history and reveal a picture of the evolution of humanity. Dialogues are remembered into the future to identify our time and space as well as the philosophy, outlook, and plans for the future of the individuals taking part in them. A dialogue with a modern leader like Daisaku Ikeda, whose actions originate in profound reflections, is bound to blaze the way forward and will always be remembered. The heritage of great lessons embodied in his numerous dialogues and his expanding influence on spiritual evolution prove Mr. Ikeda’s greatness. The creativity characteristic of humanity since its very emergence is a never-ending process that began when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. The process includes the Code of Hamurabi, which has a history of millennia and which was later reflected in condensed form in the pronouncements of Moses and the twelve Hebrew heroes of the Book of Judges. As is the case with Buddhism, through their philosophical concepts, these fundamentally religious works continue to influence people and nations. In the time of Socrates, the so called Seven Sages – Thales of Miletus, Solon, Bias, Chiron, Cleobulus, Pittacus, and Periander – publicly argued over the meanings of many different problems on the basis of the same kind of inspiration that was behind the profound, diverse thought of Socrates and Plato. Without flattery of any kind, I can mention in this context Daisaku Ikeda, whom I consider an heir to Aristotle. As we know from his great works, Aristotle relied, not on ideas, but on experiential vision as his source and espoused doubt. He was the first philosopher to do so. His philosophy, or Aristotelianism, a word formed on an analogy with Platonism, has played a major role in the development of the modern natural sciences. There is no room in a preface of this kind to delve deeply into the history of philosophy. Nonetheless, we must touch on it if we are to understand fully the lucid ideals pulsating in the mind of the great leader Daisaku Ikeda.

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The brief, thirty-article Universal Declaration of Human Rights indicates that the world of the new age should be free of all discrimination and should be a time of the oneness of humanity. In addition, the declaration suggests solutions to the problems generated by the rapid, information-driven development of society. Revolutionary in nature, it embodies the roots of a process of progress, harmony, and integration. Human life must not stagnate but must move toward satisfying the noble longing for peace, friendship, and understanding. Nor are these mere empty words. They are the ideals that, like shepherds, without discrimination or envy, have guided their flocks – all of humanity – toward the attainment of high ideals. Like human beings, gods are born and go out of existence. But truth is eternal. Furthermore, people survive as long as they seek the ideals of faith. The supreme social phenomenon, religion is the embodiment of truth-seekers’ wisdom. People who do not realise this have no understanding of human life. I feel that in the twenty-first century great philosophical concepts in the field of religion will clarify the fates of the countless galaxies of the cosmos – the Andromeda Galaxy, the Canis Venatica constellation, the Milky Way, and all the others. Beyond all doubt, however, all these galaxies and time and space themselves are only indications of eternity. Against this background, as is apparent from his constantly selfrenewing activities, Daisaku Ikeda has a clear view of our times. This understanding is reinforced by profound philosophical views. His efforts are certain to expand with the passage of time.

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Preface by Daisaku Ikeda I had long been aware of a giant in South America, a person of shining courage named Austregésilo de Athayde. He was a one-man citadel of intellect occupying a pinnacle of free speech. Until the end of his life, he served as president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, an organisation that made great contributions to the literature and verbal culture of Brazil. As is needless to say, the whole world recognised him as the conscience of South America. In times of darkness, he was a lighthouse illuminating a sure course into the twenty-first century. Born in Pernambuco in 1898, he experienced virtually the entire twentieth century and for his soul-felt struggle against unjust authority earned radiant accolades. With the emergence of Fascism in the 1930s, dictators who ignored the national constitution seized control of Brazil. As a young journalist, Mr. Athayde bravely used his pen of justice to promote a movement for the preservation of the constitution. For these efforts, he was arrested, imprisoned, and exiled for three years. But the day finally came for his triumphant return to his homeland. As a representative of Brazil, he took part in the historical deliberations that resulted in the undying Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the third meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The Brazilian René Cassin, the drafter of the declaration, received a Nobel Peace Award in 1968. At the time, he said he was accepting the prize, not on his own behalf alone, but on that of the great Brazilian philosopher Austregésilo de Athayde as well. Mr. Athayde prized the dignity of humanity above all things and devoted his whole life to human rights. His achievements will only shine more brightly as history advances.

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I first met him in February 1993, seven months before he passed away. Although he was then 94 years old, I was deeply impressed by his hearty attitude and his radiant, compassionate wisdom. It seemed almost as if my own late mentor Josei Toda, second president of Soka Gakkai, were meeting me in Brazil. I could barely repress a strong emotional reaction because, born in 1900, had he been alive in 1993, Mr. Toda would have been nearly the same age as Mr. Athayde. In expressing his great expectations to me, Mr. Athayde said that pursuing happiness for humanity and dedicated action for the protection of life and the human spirit are deeds appropriate to humankind. Hearing this caused me to take serious notice because dedication to the happiness of humanity was one of Mr. Toda’s most deeply held articles of faith. Since encountering Buddhism, I have adhered to that same belief to the present day. For a long time, Mr. Athayde and I eagerly hoped to meet. I am very happy that we were finally blessed with an opportunity to engage in deeply spiritual exchanges of opinion and work them up into a dialogue. In it, I was anxious to discuss the later years of his witness to history. At the same time, for the sake of making the twenty-first a brilliant century devoted to human rights, I wanted to work with him to provide posterity with a testimony to the essence of a profound philosophy. According to modern astronomy, ever since the Big Bang billions of years ago, the cosmos has been evolving, in the process creating the conditions for the emergence of life and the evolution of humanity. By the middle of the twentieth century, a revolutionary door had opened for further evolution from discrimination to equality, from bondage to liberty, and from hatred to compassionate love. Religion, which exists for the sake of humanity, has been the undercurrent of human evolution. What can religion do to usher in a golden age? Buddhism, which has discerned the eternal universal Law, embodies views of the cosmos, life, and humanity that can promote further human evolution, bring about a great spiritual flowering, and create a society where human rights are honoured. It is the role and responsibility of the Buddhist to engage in practical social activity, founded on Buddhist philosophy, to bring about the creation of a future society founded on spiritual values. That is why I resolved to join Mr.

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Athayde in pursuing a path that is actually my mission as a Buddhist and a disciple of Josei Toda, who dedicated his life to the happiness of humanity. This book resulted from the deep connection between us and from our shared sense of mission. It is structured as follows: The first three chapters are an attempt to learn from historical figures and champions who made possible the human rights struggle of the twenty-first century, including Mr. Athayde himself, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. All of them combated the evils of authority non-violently. In chapters four to six, Mr. Athayde, who played a major role in its adoption, relates the background of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with emphasis on meaning for the present and the future. The discussion includes a scrupulous treatment of the Grecian philosophical and Christian doctrinal underpinnings of Western philosophy, of which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a product. Chapters seven to nine are an examination of the First Generation (right to liberty), Second Generation (social rights), and Third Generation (environmental and developmental rights). In other words, they discuss the human rights for the twenty-first century from diverse viewpoints: educational, religious, pacifist and environmental. Throughout the whole dialogue, I introduce ways in which religious – especially Buddhist – compassion, freedom, and equality can flower in the twenty-first century and become sources of power and life for the human rights movement. In all of this I requested Mr. Athayde to express his own opinions without reservation. The book is an edited version of written exchanges based on interviews conducted when I visited Rio de Janeiro. Mr. Athayde was hospitalised on 27 August, 1993, six days after the final interview of this dialogue. While in the hospital, he frequently requested nurses and doctors to discharge him quickly so that, for the sake of the next century, he could finish his dialogue with me. I was deeply moved by his concern for the future and his desire to discuss it and struggle for its sake in spite of his own illness. I understand that in his younger years he typed all his works himself. In old age, he stopped using the typewriter. But in this instance, once again as long ago, he sat before it pouring out his whole soul to write the preface to this book.

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One year after Mr. Athayde’s death, his oldest daughter Laura, her husband Cicero and his second son Roberto travelled all the way from Brazil to Japan in August 1994, to have a warm talk with me. The three of them and my own older son Hiromasa conducted a discussion meeting at the time on the topic ‘Paternal Images’ which appears as the last chapter in this book and contributes much from a ‘successors’ point of view: a clearer human image of Mr. Athayde as seen in the eyes of his family members, his spirit and his beliefs, and the ways in which younger generations – the creators of the twenty-first century – will carry on his heritage. To conclude this preface, I should like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Professor Masato Ninomiya of São Paulo University for JapanesePortuguese translations. Finally, I offer my prayers for the repose of Mr. Athayde’s spirit and my own determination to go on holding aloft the torch of human rights that he and other world leaders set ablaze.

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C HAPTER 1

Towards the Century of the Renaissance of Human Rights Armed with Words

I KEDA : I am honoured to be invited to the Brazilian Academy of Letters, one of the greatest intellectual centres in Latin America, and to meet a great a champion of human rights like you.

A THAYDE : We have been looking forward to the chance to meet, at last, a person I have long wanted to get to know. You are a crucial figure in our century. If Japan and Brazil combine forces, nothing is impossible. As two individuals, let us join our own forces in the effort to alter the history of humanity.

I KEDA : As one of the formulators of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you are both a witness to a major event in world history and one of the most important people of our century.

A THAYDE : When we started work on the Declaration, people laughed at us. Nobody believed us. They all said, ‘Declarations like this have already been tried time and time again, but they were never reflected.’

I KEDA : Noble, pioneering endeavors are too often greeted with scepticism and mocking. At just about the time you and your associates were undertaking that great task, my own mentor, and second president of Soka Gakkai, Josei Toda was propounding a doctrine of globalism transcending the boundaries of national state and ethnic group and stressing the solidarity of humanity and the welfare of the whole

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planet. His contemporaries discounted it as mere pipe dreams. Today, however, the brilliance of his far-sightedness is widely recognised. Your efforts in connection with human rights, too, were far-sighted. And, especially now at the forty-fifth anniversary (1993) of the enactment of the Declaration, I am certain our discussion of the issue will uncover promising perspectives for the coming century, when human rights are certain to assume even wider and greater significance.

A THAYDE : I am delighted to engage in such a discussion with you because you thoroughly understand the question of human rights.

I KEDA : You insist that human rights should be given precedence over political structures and national systems. In describing their fundamental nature, you have written that human rights represent supremely noble spiritual values that recognise the individuality of each human being. I agree and further insist that the dignity of the individual must be the starting point of all programmes of human rights.

A THAYDE : Yes, it must. The heart of all discussions of human rights is the battle against discrimination. All human beings are equal. No discrimination is permissible. Absolutely none.

I KEDA : The text called the Theragata expresses the joy Shakyamuni’s disciples felt at having been fortunate enough to encounter the Buddhist Law. In it occurs this passage: ‘We are all precious children of the Buddha; none of us is unnecessary.’ As these words imply, as children of the Buddha, all people are equal, necessary, and possessed of irreplaceable dignity. The writings of Nichiren (1222–82), founder of the Buddhism in which my co-religionists believe, reflect appreciation of the equality and dignity of all people as based on the dignity of the single individual: ‘Here a single individual has been used as an example, but the same things applies equally to all living beings.’1

A THAYDE : You understand the Universal Declaration of Human Rights extremely well and translate your understanding into practical action

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more than anyone else. Your achievement surpasses that of the people who drew the declaration up. Of course ideas are important, but action is the true gauge of a human being.

I KEDA : You yourself are an impressive philosopher who puts his thoughts into action.

A THAYDE : I have lived for almost a century. I was nearly thirty when you were born. My experience of the world has taught me many things. But, in all my years, I have never wanted to meet anyone as much as I have wanted to meet you. And nothing has ever made me as happy as having this wish fulfilled. You are possessed of all precious things, of all justice. You are a spiritual leader with great knowledge of people and human nature. Your actions have gradually enlarged the fate of the world. You are transforming the history of humanity through actions that give concrete and practical form to your philosophy.

I KEDA : Because your life has been conditioned by our tumultuous century, as a champion of humanity, you are a brilliant guide for humanity as we move toward the next century.

A THAYDE : The twenty-first century is going to be a new age for Brazil, Japan, and the whole world.

I KEDA : Your own life has been a struggle in the name of that new age. I, too, have done what I could to help make it an age in which humanity can live happily.

A THAYDE : Though only one Brazilian and one Japanese, we two represent the joint sentiments of our peoples. Both nations share one future, towards which we must walk, hand in hand.

I KEDA : Your inspiring words ring courageously of profound justice. They are part of your heritage to posterity.

A THAYDE : In Latin, verbum means both word and god. Let us make use of the noble word as a weapon in our struggle.

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I KEDA : Nichiren has said that ‘the voice carries out the work of the Buddha.’2 Our voices can demonstrate justice and encourage others to follow the right road. Elsewhere, Nichiren says, ‘Words echo the thoughts of the mind and find expression through voice.’3 Surely voices that echo the beliefs and ideals of our inner minds have power to transform our times.

Recollections of Youth

I KEDA : I feel certain that all of our readers would be interested in hearing about your youth and family life.

A THAYDE : I was born on 25 September 1898; in the city of Caruaru, in the state of Pernambuco, on the horn of Brazil, which projects into the Atlantic Ocean. My family moved there for the healthful effects of the clean air. I am now approaching ninety-five, and my existence has been a testimony to life in this developing country called Brazil. I hope that my children, too, will understand Brazil and contribute to her development, as the people of my generation have.

I KEDA : My mentor Josei Toda was born on 11 February 1900. If he were still alive, he would be almost your age. I cannot help seeing the same kind of images in your footsteps as in my mentor’s life. I have a profound feeling to be able to spend his birthday with you here in Rio de Janeiro. You were born about a decade after Brazil became a federal republic.

A THAYDE : Yes. I weighed six kilograms at birth. The midwife carried this startling information all over town, and people hurried to our house to look at me. My grandfather, an officer in the army and nearly two metres tall himself, is said to have picked me up by the leg and exclaimed about my size. If I’d been able to think at the time, I would probably have felt it was a great birthday. When I was a year old, we moved to Fortaleza in the state of Ceará, where I lived in a tightly-knit, late-nineteenth-century patriarchal family until I left home to attend the Seminary of Prainha in Fortaleza.

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I KEDA : What is your most enduring recollection from that part of your life?

A THAYDE : I remember my father very well. He filled various posts as prosecutor and judge in our region. When he was thirty-one, he was transferred to Fortaleza to assume the duties of a high-court justice. He was also head librarian in our local public library. He was a man of an extremely high cultural level and spoke seven or eight languages. He took a deep interest in the education of his children. I remember learning about the Russo-Japanese war from him.

I KEDA : The Russo-Japanese War broke out in February 1904, when you were five. Your father’s explaining events occurring on the other side of the world reminds me of something I once heard from Mr. Frederic Warner, who was then British ambassador to Japan. He said he treated his children like individuals and explained complicated international affairs to them, even though they still could not understand them entirely. Exposing children to information in this way broadens their views of the world. Childhood is not all happiness for anyone. I assume you, too, had your share of unhappiness.

A THAYDE : Losing a loved one is a fearsome experience for very small children. My first grief was the loss of a brother who was only four. One day, at twilight, he was praying in front of our family chapel – in those days, Christian homes usually had a prayer room where candles were kept lit. My brother began playing with the candles. And, in no time, his clothing caught fire. He suffered dreadful burns on the lower half of his body and died twenty-four hours later.

I KEDA : That must have caused you immense sorrow. As you say, the loss of a loved one is a fearsome experience. Indeed, Buddhism counts separation from the beloved as one of the eight kinds of universal suffering. Occurring at an early stage in life, such loss makes an indelible impression.

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A THAYDE : I remember my grief vividly. Calling on his last reserves of strength, my father laid my brother in a gilded coffin, which he saw lowered into the grave. Back home after the funeral, his strength abandoned him. He collapsed under his profound grief. Until then, I had always thought he could preserve his composure no matter what happened. But he shut himself up in his room, practically howling with sorrow over his son’s tragic death.

I KEDA : I understand fully how a parent who has lost a child feels. But growing up strong and active, in a way you made up for the loss of your brother. The sorrow you felt then was sublimated in the power of your later life.

A THAYDE : Unfortunately, however, I had another encounter with death when I was six or seven. In those days, I had a playmate named Edith Fortuna, who was somewhat older than I and who always had chocolates with her. I remember the fragrance of those chocolates still today. Suddenly, one day, with no explanation, my mother told me I could not play with her any more. This plunged me into unforgettable despair. As it turned out, Edith had contracted tuberculosis, which was considered incurable in those days. She died, and the tenderness she had given me was lost forever. The grief I experienced then taught me that death is irredeemable unhappiness.

I KEDA : Possibly because I was sickly, as a child I thought about life and death all the time. I, too, contracted tuberculosis at an early age – before entering primary school. I am not sure that was altogether a bad thing because confronting the possibility of imminent death and overcoming the insecurity associated with it deepens a person’s insight into the meaning of life itself. While still a youth, I encountered Buddhist philosophy and its teaching, ‘originally inherent nature of birth and death’, that life and death are two aspects essentially inherent in the universal force of Life itself. Josei Toda compared life to waking and death to sleep at the end of a busy day. Restful sleep assuages weariness so that, in the morning,

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the sleeper awakes ready for new activity. Similarly, when life ends, the sleep of death replenishes and restores the energy of life. My own views on birth and death are founded on this teaching. No doubt your tragic experiences with loss deepened and strengthened your views on the subject, too.

A THAYDE : Though now very distant, Edith’s last day remains fresh in my memory. She was in a critical condition. A priest and four others from the church came to administer the last rites and the holy Eucharist. Driven by an inexplicable impulse, I joined them and watched the priest as he gave her ultimate consolation.

I KEDA : Did this experience influence your decision to take holy orders? A THAYDE : Yes, it did. I told my mother of my strong determination to become a priest. And this became the driving force that led me to spend eight years as a dormitory student at the Seminary of Prainha in Fortaleza.

I KEDA : How old were you when you entered the seminary? A THAYDE : Ten. To interpret the Bible, I had to study Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, French, English and Sanskrit. At the same time, I amassed an extremely large amount of information on secular as well as religious subjects. At the age of twelve, I was already delivering addresses at seminary literary debates. I was interested in astronomy, geometry, physics and chemistry as well. Later I completed two teachertraining courses and taught at two high schools.

I KEDA : I have heard that you were an outstanding student. A THAYDE : I was first in my class in all subjects. But, often, I took delight more in being first than in learning for its own sake. After thinking about this a long time, I advised my own children not to study solely for the sake of being first in class. In a sense, such an attitude makes education barren and impedes students’ emotional development.

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I KEDA : Your children were probably relieved to hear you say so. What were your extracurricular interests?

A THAYDE : Music. Not many people know that I am an amateur musician. I am a qualified choral conductor and have spent many hours at the organ.

I KEDA : What kind of music do you play mostly? A THAYDE : Fugues, the president of our seminary, enjoyed my playing. I once visited a high school in the state of Ceará. After vespers, all the priests went to bed, leaving me alone for a while. I went to the chapel and sat down at the organ. Suddenly I was overcome with an impulse to play some Bach. The room was dark except for the glow of the red votive lamps. In spite of apprehensions about disturbing the silence of the night, I started playing. And practically all the monks in the place came to the chapel to hear me. This satisfied my innocent pride.

I KEDA : I am an amateur musician too. But sometimes I play the piano for friends. I have written a few pieces – mostly recollections of my mother, my home town and my mentor.

A THAYDE : Splendid. Holy Orders to Journalism

A THAYDE : In Rio de Janeiro, where I went after leaving the seminary, I had little access to instruments in good condition. Much later, when I could afford it, I bought an organ and held public performances of my own works. Later, my work as a journalist and as president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters left me no time to study music. Still, I managed some impromptu compositions.

I KEDA : Good at one art, good at others. Still, whereas most people manifest talents in a narrow range of fields, your energetic personality has enabled you to show amazing versatility. Do you still compose?

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A THAYDE : No. As time went by, I lost interest. Inspiration practically never comes now – even when I am at the organ. My wife used to listen to and applaud my playing. The curtain fell forever on my career as a performer when I lost her.

I KEDA : A deeply moving thing to say. But to return to your younger years, why did you leave the seminary and give up the idea of entering holy orders?

A THAYDE : It is difficult to explain in a few words. I suppose I decided to pursue a different course in life. I became involved in problems concerning the Old and New Testaments. By nature sceptical, I had doubts about the mystical nature of the Holy Trinity. I stopped feeling I had a vocation. And I saw great inconsistencies in the history of Christianity. Throughout the eight-year course at the seminary, these questions perplexed me. Much later, I wrote an article in the form of a short story connecting my own attitude toward the priesthood and religion and childish fickleness with disappointment in the ministry. At one time, becoming a priest had seemed natural. Later, I gave the idea up because I doubted it was the correct thing to do.

I KEDA : Did any single event exercise a determining influence on your decision?

A THAYDE : Yes. When I was twelve, we, students, attended monthly assemblies in the Culture Center. On one occasion, I made a speech supporting Rui Barbosa and opposing Field Marshal Hermes Rodrigues da Fonseca. No sooner had he heard me than the president of the seminary ordered me down from the speaker’s platform and thundered out that priests must not meddle in political activity. I could not understand why making a statement from a humanitarian standpoint was wrong.

I KEDA : Of course, a vigorous champion of liberty like you could not be expected to submit willingly to such restrictions.

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A THAYDE : I have always doubted things. Though born and bred a Catholic, I could not merely accept restrictions on the kind of people eligible for the ‘universal and supreme position’ of pope. I doubted their acceptability. I felt betrayed. Then I began thinking that the military profession was superior to the clerical profession. Crossing the Heracles Bridge, I began dreaming of being as free as Napoleon when he set out to conquer the world.

I KEDA : What led you to become a journalist? A THAYDE : When I went in to bid him goodbye, Father Guilherme Wassem, president of our seminary, surprised me by saying, ‘In the sense that we will be without a person who might have become a fine clergyman, you’re a loss to us. But you’re a born journalist with innate talent as a public speaker.’ These fateful words led me to devote my life to journalism and lecturing.

I KEDA : In 1918, you entered the law and social-sciences departments of the Law College [today The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro], in Rio de Janeiro, which was the national capital at the time, and you received a degree in 1921. How would you describe your life at the time?

A THAYDE : I had youthful dreams of giving my best to my country and of finding an opportunity of participating actively in its development. Rui Barbosa realised those dreams for me. His lectures attracted many young people to the liberal movement. In journalism, I saw great possibilities for cooperating with that movement. At the age of twenty-two, when I was a literary columnist for the newspaper Correio da Manhã, the director of the paper, the famous Edmundo Bittencourt, entrusted me with writing a full-page article on the sixth centennial of the death of Dante Alighieri.

I KEDA : I read Dante when I was young and fondly remember the discussion I had of him with the late Arnold J. Toynbee.

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A THAYDE : I think Dante’s most memorable remark was made when he was given permission to return to Florence from political exile: ‘I will never return.’ Noble, immortal words spoken by a supreme poet.

I KEDA : Yes, he would not give in to the wicked authorities that had exiled him. He converted his own tragic experience into artistic creative power that has shone brightly down the ages. After becoming a journalist, you remained one for many years.

A THAYDE : I have been a journalist now for seventy-five years. I am sure I have worked longer as an editorial writer for the same company than anybody else in the journalism business. That company is Diários Associados founded by the well-known Assis Chateaubriand. I wrote a column on international politics there for thirty years. And I was on the editorial board of the news agency.

I KEDA : Chateaubriand is famous as the founder of the São Paulo Museum of Art. He once said that his mission was not to lead but to educate leaders. He must have been gratified to observe your activities.

A THAYDE : Thank you for saying so. Recollections of Parents and Wife

I KEDA : Now a few more questions about your family. What was your mother like?

A THAYDE : My mother [Constância Adelaide Austregésilo de Athayde] was a music lover too. She was very good with her hands. She grew flowers. And, working from the latest fashions from Rio de Janeiro, did excellent tailoring. In those days, people in Brazil slavishly followed foreign cultural trends. There was a great demand for high-quality French perfumes and expensive wines. And, as a direct reflection of centuries of colonisation, Brazilian education was Portuguese in style. My mother had a sunny disposition and laughed all the time. She was a pianist and a poet and helped father train us children.

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I KEDA : In a speech I made in Rio de Janeiro, I quoted you as having once said, ‘The thing that made my mother strong was finding her happiness in caring for and teaching the joy of life to her own twelve children, to more than twice that number of grandchildren, and to the children of complete strangers.’ The spirit of motherhood glows in women who find happiness in making others happy. Now, please tell us more about your father.

A THAYDE : Without doubt, my father had the greatest influence on the development of my personality. He taught my brothers and me something every day. He was very eager for me to attend the seminary. He wanted me to become a priest and to have my own parish so I could help the family. My mother did not share his eagerness. She was very devout but had strong opinions of her own. She said, ‘No member of the Athayde family has ever been a priest.’

I KEDA : Your cheerful, understanding mother and your strict but compassionate father impress me afresh with the importance of the family. Everyone in your family seems to live a long time – for instance, your father to ninety-five and your mother to a hundred and five. What is the secret of your longevity?

A THAYDE : There is no secret. My father smoked and never moved a finger in the way of exercise for the sake of his health. He died because medical science at the time was backward. Personally, I am a light eater. I have lunch but never dinner. And I eat only simple, healthful things. I believe we eat to live, not live to eat.

I KEDA : A way of living approved by Benjamin Franklin and a good example for many people today. At the age of ninety-four, you work sixteen hours daily and write two newspaper columns a day. Do you have any special health system?

A THAYDE : None in particular. But I do pay attention to three things. As I said, I have a small appetite and eat little. Second, I try to get

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a suitable amount of exercise. For instance, I run or walk on the spot and do push-ups every night before going to sleep. Third, I love women. When all is said and done, I think my own personality has enabled me to preserve a sense of purpose and stick to the same work for all these years.

I KEDA : Your way of life is a mental and physical good-health system in itself. Henri Bergson once described the way to good spiritual health in this way: ‘Have the will to act, adapt flexibly to social life and preserve the ideal of historical creativity.’ Did your friends and associates influence your choice of career?

A THAYDE : People urged me to enter the world of politics, but I had no desire to become a politician. I was asked to become an ambassador, but I did not want that either. At present I have considerable social influence and have no need of assuming public office. I have reaped the harvest of my own efforts.

I KEDA : As the great Brazilian leader of the day, you are loved and revered by all kinds of people in many places.

A THAYDE : Recently at a barber shop in São Paulo, the customers were debating the relative merits of the parliamentary and presidential systems. Suddenly the barber himself said, ‘Presidential or parliamentary – it makes no difference to me. All I want is for Athayde to become king and take care of Brazil.’

I KEDA : The people speak the truth and support only leaders who have gained their trust. According to one Buddhist text, a moral man who had the confidence of the people was once selected to serve the monarch. Interestingly, in Japanese, his name was Minshu, written with the two Chinese characters that form the first half of the word democracy: minshushugi.

A THAYDE : My debut in politics occurred in 1932, when I was arrested for taking part in a revolution. I was exiled and compelled to live

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abroad for three years. This gave me a chance to observe other cultures, legal systems, and behavioural patterns. I visited practically all the European countries and had an opportunity to see what the world is like.

I KEDA : As I learned from my mentor Josei Toda, people who have suffered imprisonment or, as in your case, banishment for their beliefs often win the confidence of their compatriots. I and my predecessors have, in a sense, shared the fate unjustly meted to you. During the Second World War, the Japanese militarists threw Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, first president of Soka Gakkai into prison, where he died. Mr. Toda, too, was imprisoned for two years. And I myself was put in jail for a crime I did not commit. You were married at age thirty-four. What kind of person was your wife?

A THAYDE : My marriage was the happiest event of my young life. Beautiful and highly intelligent, my wife was a rare person who helped me in many ways. She could type, prepare documents as well as any librarian and maintain a filing system. My records were well kept because of her enthusiasm. She was chairman of the Brazil Girl Scouts and administrative director of the Pró-Matre obstetric hospital. She was everything to me. As one of her friends said, ‘Maria José and Athayde are one in mind and body.’ And as she herself often remarked, ‘I say what you want and want what you want.’ I lived happily with her for fifty-one years. She was never out of my thoughts for a moment.

I KEDA : She must have been a wonderful wife. And I am sure that she found great pride and happiness in her life with you. I have heard that she died just before her seventy-third birthday. I wonder what our dialogue would be like if she were present with us.

A THAYDE : Her death was the most sorrowful thing that ever happened to me. It was a blow from which I shall never recover. I have never had her off my mind for more than ten or twenty minutes. Just before her death, she told me she hoped I would continue

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performing my public duties and go on living just as I had done. I can never forget a person as self-sacrificing as she was. She has been dead for eight years. I am nearly ninety-five now, and I hope to meet her in the same grave where we can praise the beauty that was our life together. Since she died, I have done nothing but fulfill my mission on earth.

The Brazilian Academy of Letters

I KEDA : But your mission has been very significant. Your achievements at the Brazilian Academy of Letters alone will last eternally in the history of Brazil and all humanity.

A THAYDE : I became president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters forty years ago. Since then, without a day’s rest, I have directed the top literary group in Brazil, in other words, I have managed the organisation where the genius of our country can express itself. I have made it a glorious organisation. One of the most authoritative groups in the world. In addition, we have built the immense cultural center of Brazil.

I KEDA : A really splendid achievement. What are your future goals? A THAYDE : Education. The training of personnel for the coming age. I KEDA : I share that goal. Education is the process of creating the humanity of the future. It is the most important of all undertakings. Similar feelings inspired Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, an educator himself, to write his Education for Creative Living. Josei Toda, too, was an educator. And following in their stead, I devote maximum effort to education, for instance, by founding the Soka schools and Soka University.

A THAYDE : At present, I am working hard to found a school to train politicians, in the city of Campos. We must teach people who are prospective politicians to be faithful to the communal body and inform them of the nature of the field they are entering.

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I KEDA : Success in all activities depends on the quality of the people undertaking them. To ensure a better tomorrow, leaders today must inculcate in their juniors a sense of responsibility for the future.

A THAYDE : At ninety-four, I know it is time for me to retire and to pass the baton to younger people, who can carry on the work of myself and my compatriots. Heirs to more than material property, today’s young people inherit the task of making the next century one to be proud of. After a century, the world has found, in you, one of the great leaders of the age. Young people must follow the path you set for them.

I KEDA : Words of praise from a person of your achievements and calibre make me feel humble. In all our considerations of the future, human rights deserve first precedence. Without proper concern for human rights, there can be neither peace nor happiness. We must all work together for the global triumph of human rights in the coming century.

A THAYDE : I agree.

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C HAPTER 2

Continuing the Fervent Spirit of Humanism Champions of Human Rights

A THAYDE : The importance of our dialogue lies in the attempt to discover how to respect human rights and how to put that respect into practical application in the twenty-first century. As one of the compilers of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I consider our major goal to be the realisation of the ideal of human rights in the spiritual history of humanity.

I KEDA : Countless people have given their sweat and blood to achieve the respect afforded human rights today. The devoted struggle of our forebears was not confined to ideals: it took place in the realm of practical action. Each human-rights champion has contributed something precious.

A THAYDE : From the days of the Code of Hammurabi to the present, humanity has waged a ceaseless heroic battle in the effort to create new spiritual values. As in the distant past, so today, epoch-making people passionately continue the struggle.

I KEDA : In our own century, three passionate struggles in the name of human rights come immediately to mind: Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent struggle for Indian independence, Nelson Mandela’s battle against apartheid and Martin Luther King’s campaign for the elimination of racial discrimination and for the civil rights of black people in the United States.

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A THAYDE : All three deserve special mention as heroes of humanity and warriors in the name of human rights.

I KEDA : On a beautiful, sunny 31 October 1990, at the Tokyo offices of the newspaper Seikyo Shimbun, I had a chance to talk with Mr. Mandela, who had only recently been released after twenty-eight years in prison. On the occasion, I joined about five hundred students from Soka University in singing a South African song, ‘Rolishasa Mandela’, for him. He smiled benignly in response to the sincerity of the young people who honoured him in this way.

A THAYDE : It must have been a very moving scene. I KEDA : He was seventy-one at the time of his release on 11 February 1990. In honour of our meeting, I composed a poem called ‘The Banner of Humanity, the Road of Justice’, which I read and presented to him. With universal support and approval, his courageous stand against apartheid encouraged people engaged in similar battles all over the world. I immensely respect the conviction that inspired him to begin a vigorous, worldwide, anti-apartheid campaign immediately after his release.

A THAYDE : Mandela’s dauntless endurance has become a worldwide symbol of respect for human rights. Having learned that I am a promoter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he came to see me. Our meeting was unforgettable for him and for me.

I KEDA : Yes, he met you during a visit to Brazil in August 1991. What are your impressions of the meeting?

A THAYDE : My own hope was strengthened by the modesty of his words. The elegance of his way of speaking and his lively expression, which reflect his humanism, made a profound impression on me.

I KEDA : I feel the same way. He is, as they say, ‘the real thing’. Distinctive authenticity like his has its own modes of expression that strike deep

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chords of sympathy in the hearts of everyone who meets him, even if only briefly.

Five Concrete Proposals

I KEDA : One hundred and seventy-four nations and regions participated in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the first to take place after the end of the Cold War. At last, after thirty-two years, South African athletes were also there. Watching the opening ceremonies on television, I was profoundly impressed by the look of happiness on Mr. Mandela’s face as he rose to applaud the South Africans marching in. The elimination, after fifty years, of apartheid made their participation possible. At the time, I thought that perhaps the world had made a bold move in a hopeful direction.

A THAYDE : Yes, the South African group was conspicuous among the Olympics teams. Nelson Mandela enabled his nation to take part in this world sports festival on an equal footing with other nations. Unquestionably, in doing so, he opened a door that might lead to the destruction of long-standing barriers of discrimination and inequality.

I KEDA : We must hope that such will prove to be the case. My friend the novelist Chingiz Aitmatov, who was born in Kirgistan (the former Kirgiz S.S.R), says, ‘At present, we need constructive people. The world is moving away from the age of opposition and conflict in the direction of a new age of constructivity.’ Nelson Mandela is just such a constructive person.

A THAYDE : Important people like Nelson Mandela and Daisaku Ikeda illustrate the constructive principle in the world today. The constructive philosophy and the will of constructive people like you are decisive elements in the move toward the day when we can proclaim all people to be equal and free.

I KEDA : In my discussions with him, I made five concrete proposals to Nelson Mandela:

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First, I proposed sending exchange students from the African National Congress to Japan to study at Soka University. Second, I suggested having the Min-On association arrange performances by African artists in Japan, in the hope of increasing Japanese understanding of and sympathy for the Republic of South Africa. Third, I recommended the production of an exhibition entitled ‘Apartheid and Human Rights’, which would tour as many countries as possible. Fourth, in order to make the inhumanity of the system more widely known, I should like to see an anti-apartheid photographic exhibition held in Japan. Fifth, I should like to have arranged a series of lectures on diverse human rights issues, including apartheid, held in various parts of Japan.

A THAYDE : After his many years of uncouth treatment in prison, Mandela must have felt very honoured by your presenting him with proposals of that kind.

I KEDA : If realised, the projects I suggest could intensify understanding of the importance of human rights in Japan and throughout the world. Though undeniably important, political and economic changes require the underpinning provided by people-to-people contacts on the person-to-person level. Eight months after meeting with Nelson Mandela, on 16 June 1991, the Soka Gakkai Peace Committee sponsored the ‘Human Rights Photography Exhibition’, at the Toda Peace Memorial Hall in Yokohama. In this project we enjoyed the cooperation of the ANC and the United Nations Apartheid Center. Symbolically significant, the exhibition opened on the fifteenth anniversary of the Soweto uprisings against compulsory use of the Afrikaans language in schools. The remaining projects are scheduled for implementation in turn.

A THAYDE : Enabling South African students to study in Japan should stimulate worldwide awareness of equality. The great significance of the project is consonant with the lofty aims of those South Africans who opposed authoritarianism.

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Mandela University

I KEDA : The desire to learn is one of the things that make us human. We are so insatiably hungry to learn that education is possible anywhere. Nelson Mandela even converted prison into a place of learning – the Mandela University.

A THAYDE : Even the violence and oppression inflicted on him could not suppress his ability to lead or stifle his desire to generate new wisdom and novel forms of spirituality by turning prison into a learning place.

I KEDA : Mahatma Gandhi did much the same thing. The mere knowledge of his presence in the same prison put all other prisoners there – even serious offenders – on their best behaviour. Even while incarcerated, the undaunted Gandhi continued to lead the non-violence movement and to carry on an extensive, spiritual correspondence with such people as Rabindranath Tagore.

A THAYDE : No injustice or oppression can break the courage of people with the lofty mission of creating a noble spiritual order for the new century.

I KEDA : Sho¯in Yoshida provides a good example of such an indomitable spirit among nineteenth-century political reformers. He, too, was imprisoned at one time. While in jail, he gave instructions in various disciplines to his fellow prisoners. Perhaps revolutionaries must be educators. I find Mandela’s prison education policies especially interesting. He set up a system whereby prisoners educated each other in their particular fields of expertise.

A THAYDE : Mandela University vividly demonstrates an outstanding man’s ability to convert a place of detention into a school providing models for the spirit.

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I KEDA : Yes, Mandela resisted authority. But, insofar as it helps individuals manifest their best abilities and characteristics, education must be a struggle against the dehumanisation of power and authority. At the time of its formation, Soka Gakkai was called Soka Kyo¯iku Gakkai (The Value-creating Educational Society). We members of Soka Gakkai today remain devoted to education as a good that endures for centuries.

A THAYDE : Yes, the mission of education is to innovate in ways that advance the cause of good.

I KEDA : I hope to offer Mandela support in connection with education in South Africa. But he is not the only South African with whom I see eye-to-eye on many educational issues. At a meeting in June 1992, former president Frederik W. de Klerk and I found our ideas coinciding on the importance of exchanges in the fields of learning and education.

A THAYDE : The unexpected resurrection of South Africa portends something new and wonderful. Since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, our world has changed dramatically. The foundation is now being laid for the equality and liberty that were the blazon of the French Revolution.

The Practice of Satya¯graha

I KEDA : Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King were both strongly influenced by the thoughts and deeds of Mahatma Gandhi, the fountainhead of a global non-violence movement. In a speech at the Gandhi Memorial Hall, Mandela declared himself a Gandhi-ist. Professor Harvey Cox of Harvard has told me that King’s non-violence formed under Gandhi’s influence. I believe that the source of Gandhi’s non-violence can be traced to Shakyamuni Buddha.

A THAYDE : Much of history has its deepest roots in Buddhism. I KEDA : Maritzburg, in South Africa, is the place where Gandhi started his struggle against racial discrimination – especially of his fellow

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Indians in that country. His experiences in South Africa led him to formulate principles of non-violence. In Japan, it is often thought that non-violent disobedience is the essential element of his movement, when actually Gandhi himself described his approach as satya¯graha, or insistence on truth. He maintained that non-violent disobedience and satya¯graha were the two sides of the same coin. Still, non-violence was never more than the means to the goal of grasping truth. Satya¯ in satya¯graha means truth, or the way things – human and non-human – ought to be and behave. Graha means having a firm hold on something. In Gandhi’s case, this ‘something’ was the source of both faith and an attitude toward living. Gandhi believed that, since truth is eternal, the joy arising from it, too, is eternal. The Chinese character representing satya¯ and truth as the word is used in Buddhist philosophy is pronounced di (tai in Japanese). It is the character that appears in shitai or the Four Noble Truths, a fundamental Buddhist doctrine. Steeped in the joy of his belief in the innate equality and dignity of all peoples, Gandhi struggled against discrimination. The perilous battle of non-violent resistance was possible because the people of India shared the joy of eternal truth with him. In a similar way, Shakyamuni and his disciples gave practical application to their firm belief in the Four Noble Truths. This empowered and encouraged them to resist the authority of arrogant Brahmans and the unjust interference of monarchical power.

Transcending Obsession with Differences

I KEDA : Human beings are obsessed by the differences they sense between the self and the other. We are all different in many respects – economic, cultural and class. But why should we be obsessed with these differences? The Buddhist scripture called the Suttanip¯ata contains a splendid explanation. According to it, Shakyamuni said that an ugly arrow lodged in the heart drives us to act and makes us suffer: ‘I saw the ugly arrow of earthly desires sunk in the hearts [of living beings].’ This ‘ugly arrow’ stands for self-obsession or egoism.

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A THAYDE : Buddhist teachings have a familiarity that conveys itself to anyone.

I KEDA : Shakyamuni laid great stress on the importance of dialogue because he knew that a truly great religion must explain its teachings in a way that is comprehensible to everybody. One such teaching, the doctrine of Nine Consciousnesses, clearly analyses the inner depths of life and explains in lucid fashion the meaning of racial, religious, ethnic and cultural discrimination from the standpoint of life as a universal force. According to it, the characteristics motivating egoism are found in what is called the seventh, or mano-conscious. The great Buddhist scholar Vasubandhu says that the mano-consciousness is always accompanied by the Four Delusions: (One) The delusion arising from obsession with the small, exclusive self and ignorance of the larger universally accessible self. (Two) The delusion that the small self is the true self; this delusion generates biased views and comparisons between the self and others. (Three) The conceited delusion that the small self is equal, superior, or not greatly inferior to others. Envy and hunger for control, wealth, and power always accompany such conceit. People swept away by it lose sight of justice and act unfairly. (Four) Obsession with the self obscured by the other three delusions. In Japanese, this fourth delusion is called ga-ai or self-love. The word love in this context expresses desire and all kinds of greed. Discrimination rooted in such greed leads to unjust domination over others through power or authority.

A THAYDE : What you say reveals the kind of brilliant intellect essential to people who must bear the burden of the twenty-first century. Buddhism is founded on the essential principles of a kind of justice that conveys itself unrestrictedly to all people. It can become the foundation for great human development.

I KEDA : In contemporary terms, self-obsession is exclusive absorption in differences between the self and others. Extracting the ugly arrow that Shakyamuni saw lodged in each of us amounts to overcoming

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such obsession. Ethnic and racial discrimination and all kinds of prejudices – against members of the opposite sex as well as against people of different ages or cultural and religious groups – originate in the mano-consciousness. Universal observation of the human rights of all peoples can be achieved only when we have triumphed over the small self and, motivated by enlightenment to our inherent Buddha natures, learn to follow the non-violent, compassionate way of the greater self. Lives enlightened to the greater self are free of the Four Delusions and fully embody the essential equality (called byo¯do¯-sho¯-chi in Japanese) of all peoples. Once this equality is understood and respected, all peoples can live in a symbiosis free of discriminations. The study of this Buddhist philosophy can help us achieve this desirable goal.

A THAYDE : You certainly belong in the ranks of the great modern champions of human rights with Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela. Indeed I would rank you above the others because your creative spirit generates great hope for the coming century and sets forth the kind of discipline such work requires.

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C HAPTER 3

Carrying the Banner of Humanism Mentors and Disciples Find Each Other

I KEDA : Among those talks I have had with leading thinkers all over the world, the ones I have shared with you and with Dr. Bishambhar Nath Pande of India have special significance.

A THAYDE : I am honoured. In advocating dialogue in place of force, you are leading humanity toward harmony. Your actions teach us that the power of mutual understanding and solidarity arising from dialogue can triumph over threats of evil.

I KEDA : Actions sometimes determine a person’s value. Throughout his more than four score years, Dr. Pande has been a person of action. One of Mahatma Gandhi’s direct disciples, he is now [this dialogue was held in 1993] vice-director of the Gandhi Memorial Hall in New Delhi. I met him twice in 1992, once in India and once in Japan. You and he are both in the age group my mentor Josei Toda would be in if he were alive today. Like Mr. Toda, Dr. Pande devotes himself to the ordinary people and the struggle for their human rights. He, too, was imprisoned by unjust authorities. Overcoming hardships in their own ways, both men worked to build a new age for the peoples of their nations. Both witnessed much of the turmoil of our century; the achievements of both are precious to humanity in general. Leaders like them are indispensable to the battle against unjust authority and the protection of human dignity.

A THAYDE : The conspicuous wars and revolutions of our century have brought no salvation and no knowledge of how to overcome the

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obstacles in our way. Still, looking back, I think we can say that humanism has in general triumphed. Humanism is going to be the supreme spiritual index of the twenty-first century.

I KEDA : Your words have special significance precisely because they come from you. But to get back to Dr. Pande, he describes his first meeting with Gandhi in a fresh, detailed and very touching fashion. In 1921, when he was only fourteen, he decided to join the non-violence movement as a champion of satya¯graha. At the time, he was a student at a school run by Rabindranath Tagore, the great Indian poet. Tagore gave him a letter of introduction, which Pande took with him when he went to join Gandhi’s ashram. After reading the letter and looking the youth over from head to foot, Gandhi asked, ‘Are you a Brahman?’ ‘Yes.’ replied Pande. ‘Brahmans get special work to do here. Is that all right?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You’re really willing to do any kind of work at all?’ ‘Any kind at all.’ With a look of satisfaction, Gandhi took Pande to the head of the ashram and said, ‘I want you to see that this young man is well trained. Tomorrow morning put him to work cleaning lavatories.’ Gandhi understood the suffering caused by the caste system. To break down the sense of superiority ingrained in Pande by his Brahman upbringing, he set him to cleaning lavatories. For similar reasons, to help inspire their sense of dignity and equality, he referred to the social outcasts called untouchables as harijan, or children of Vishnu.

Gandhi’s Heritage from Shakyamuni

I KEDA : According to Dr. Pande, ‘Gandhi was a practitioner of Shakyamuni’s message. As a Buddhist, in spreading the Gandhi spirit in India, Mr. Ikeda is establishing a contact between Gandhi and Shakyamuni.’

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A THAYDE : You are teaching the world that the discriminatory attitude inherent in human nature can be eliminated.

I KEDA : In India, in February 1992, then President Ramaswamy Venkataraman expressed his firm belief that Gandhi’s philosophy was formulated on the basis of indigenous Indian philosophy, specifically Shakyamuni’s teachings. President Shankar Dayal Sharma, who was vice-president at the time of our conversation, commented that Gandhi once referred respectfully to Shakyamuni as one of the greatest of all proponents of peace. Gandhi himself called Shakyamuni’s doctrines teachings of love.

A THAYDE : The spirit of humanism can be found in Buddhism, one of the oldest of the great religions. This leads me to believe that Buddhism will be one of the fundamental elements of the future of humanity. In the inspiration it has provided them, Buddhist philosophy is the source of many other philosophies and religions.

I KEDA : Shakyamuni’s philosophy of equality and freedom based on respect for humanity, inherited by Mahatma Gandhi, blossomed in the form of the universal human-rights movement. Brahmanism, which preceded Buddhism, created and emphasised the discriminatory hereditary caste system – at the pinnacle of which stood the Brahmans themselves. Its insistence on the equality and freedom of all peoples clearly sets Buddhism apart from Brahmanism. In the Suttanipa¯ta, Shakyamuni instructs his followers to disregard a person’s birth and to concentrate on his deeds. It is action, not birth, that makes a true Brahman. Nobility and the respect it gains, not membership in the priestly caste, are what count. No one before him had ever made so clear a statement of the importance of individual human rights.

A THAYDE : Shakyamuni’s actions constitute excellences of a kind not to be found in other religions. The religiously ignorant know neither who Shakyamuni Buddha was nor why his life was praiseworthy. The reasons for the great esteem afforded him, however, are very clear. Born long before Jesus Christ, Shakyamuni showed humanity how to

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live. Devoted to the peace and happiness of others, he voluntarily gave up the life and advantages of a princely position.

I KEDA : Yes. Before becoming a shramana, or one who abandons the secular world for the life of religion, Shakyamuni enjoyed great material wealth and comfort. His willingness to give up this position greatly influenced a people suppressed by the Indian caste system.

A THAYDE : He was the first religious leader in history to break down social classes. No other religion can claim a founder like him. This is the source of the greatness of Buddhism.

I KEDA : Talking about his young life brings to mind certain traditions surrounding Mahamaya, Shakyamuni’s mother. During her pregnancy, she had a dream, which her husband King Shuddodana asked some Brahmans to interpret. They prophesied that, if the child remained in the palace, he would rule the world as a Chakravartin king. If he became an ascetic, however, he would lift the veil of delusion from the people of the world. Behind this tradition seems to be a general belief that Shakyamuni would become a secular ruler. In fact, of course, he devoted himself to the enlightenment and happiness of the ordinary people. His choice had an enormous impact.

A THAYDE : In the name of high-sounding ideals, religious authorities often seize power and authority to pursue the satisfaction of their own vulgar desires. Once they have attained them, corrupt clergymen cling to their positions of power. In contrast to them, Shakyamuni abandoned the princely life to become a beggar.

The Enlightenment

I KEDA : His reasons for doing this have been interpreted from various angles. I prefer to describe his motivation in terms of human rights. The desire to combat and triumph over the Four Sufferings of Birth, Aging, Illness and Death are generally given as the reason for his leaving his father’s palace to resolve these difficulties and find true liberation. I suspect that knowledge of the agony of the ordinary

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people in a time of tumultuous social change influenced his decision. He wanted to search for the fundamental truth of the Four Sufferings as they appeared to ordinary people. Attachment to worldly authority, power, position, wealth and success hampers the search for profound truth. Shakyamuni abandoned palace, diadem and luxury, and – devoid of all possessions – plumbed the depths of his own inner universe. Shakyamuni selected the forest as the location for the meditation that led to a philosophy that shed the combined light of reason and intuition on the inner universe of life itself. Interestingly, Rabindranath Tagore said that, whereas Greek civilisation was born of clay bricks, Indian civilisation was born in the forest. In essence, a single human life can encompass the whole universe. The light of wisdom that Shakyamuni refined through discipline and training illuminates the universe contained in life. He saw compassion and trust in its profound depths. He also observed, however, that deluded desires arising from those same depths spawn discriminations that oppress and constrain others. He boldly confronted and conquered those desires and the egoism associated with them, thus becoming one with the fundamental eternal, wise and compassionate universal Law. Various Buddhist scriptures relate his conflict and triumph.

A THAYDE : Nothing in other religions approaches the nobility of the life and teachings of Shakyamuni, the beggar prince, who became the guide of multitudes. His teachings assumed absolute authority by triumphing over the unsettled conditions of his time.

I KEDA : Inherent in all human beings to an equal degree, the fundamental Universal Law transcends ephemeral distinction of race, ethnic group and class. In Buddhist terms, this law is referred to as the Buddha Nature. Shakyamuni was enlightened to the equality and freedom of each individual on this fundamental universal level and launched his teaching mission to battle with the evil that strives to discriminate among and enslave people. He continued his mission, in close association with the masses, until his death at eighty.

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A THAYDE : All of the teachings he propounded during that struggle reveal great understanding of the spirit of compassion and justice.

I KEDA : He advocated pitting justice and compassion against the evil source of discrimination, lust for power and violence.

A THAYDE : In the twenty-first century, we must not mistake our course. Difficulties are sure to arise. But we can triumph over them as long as we preserve our sense of justice and our love for a supreme being.

I KEDA : Like all historical conversions, Mahatma Gandhi’s battle against violence in the name of satya¯graha was carried out in the spirit of justice and love. Indeed, he equated non-violence with boundless love, to which he ascribed the power to withstand all ordeals. In his eyes, the power of love was the power of truth. The source of the doctrine of non-violence, or ahimsa¯, can be traced to Shakyamuni’s teachings. Ahimsa¯ means avoiding the shedding of blood and taking of life. All Buddhist laymen are expected to do their best to abide by the Five Precepts, the first of which is to take no life.

A THAYDE : Buddhism teaches an ideal humanism. With splendid clarity, it sets a model which human beings should endeavor to realise.

I KEDA : Shakyamuni believed in the infinite possibilities of the ordinary people, whom he said, in the Lotus Sutra, can be made equal to himself.1 He devoted his life to saving ordinary people by enabling them to manifest their inherent Buddha natures and reach the state equal to the one he himself had attained. He sympathised with their hardships. The precept against taking life is a practical expression of his desire to help them overcome suffering. Gandhi’s non-violence movement evolved from Shakyamuni’s admonition against taking life. The support he derived from spiritual wealth and breadth of the masses enabled Gandhi to claim invincibility for non-violence. He described himself as an incorrigibly optimistic

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believer in the individual’s limitless possibilities for practising nonviolence.

Loving and Trusting

A THAYDE : Shakyamuni’s teachings evoke love for human beings and dedication to making the poor happy and to cultivating children to bear the responsibilities of the future.

I KEDA : Practical compassion founded on impartial love for humanity arises from sympathy with the sufferings of those who are discriminated against, deprived of freedom, impoverished and oppressed. In the Shrı¯ma¯la¯ Sutra, the pious Lady Shrı¯ma¯la¯ makes the following vow to Shakyamuni: ‘Whenever I encounter them, I will never abandon the lonely, those who are imprisoned and deprived of liberty, those who suffer from illness, those who suffer from disaster and the poor. I will always make such people tranquil and wealthy and will free them from suffering.’ I believe that all people who suffer and undergo persecution have the innate right to find strength and happiness. Lives dedicated to improving the lot of such people find radiant, complete fulfillment.

A THAYDE : I have good examples of this lofty dedication and sympathy around me. Two young maids at our house are Buddhist believers and members of Soka Gakkai International of Brazil. Other religions failed to satisfy their souls. As soon as they discovered Buddhism, however, all their doubts vanished. In Buddhism, they found something they had long sought. They are now happy. They joyfully told me that, from you, they have derived peace of the spirit and lofty values enabling them to live happily with all humanity.

I KEDA : I am very grateful for their demonstration of warm understanding. In spite of the vast distance between our countries, the many SGI members in Brazil are highly active. Buddhism teaches that human greatness is to be found in human action. Enlightened work is of the greatest importance – especially when it is carried out by ordinary people.

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Nichiren himself was outspoken about his own humble origins: ‘I, Nichiren, am the son of a humble family, born along the shore in Kataumi of Tojo in the province of Awa, a person who has neither authority nor virtue.’2

A THAYDE : Only people who recognise humanity regardless of nationality and birth are worthy to bear lofty responsibilities. Buddhism teaches humanity the duty of fighting for liberty and against discrimination. This teaching is a driving force for idealism.

I KEDA : As I have said, at Gandhi’s ashram, social position and caste counted for nothing: everyone was equal. In Shakyamuni’s sangha too, all were completely equal, no matter what their social backgrounds. The sangha was a model for egalitarian society – a model it was hoped would be emulated in society in general. In his Rissho¯ Ankoku-ron (On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land), addressed to the supreme Japanese authorities of the time, Nichiren too advocated building an ideal society founded on the spirit of Buddhism. Japanese society in his day suffered severely. He aimed to realise in that society ideals that had existed since the time of Shakyamuni. To this end he directly opposed political authorities, who persecuted him on numerous occasions. Rissho¯ Ankokuron transcends the national state in the search for universal values. On one level, those values correspond to liberty, equality, solidarity and peace, the rights to which are common to all people.

A THAYDE : As the heir to his struggle, in word and deed, you constantly work to create peace, equality and freedom and to prevent infractions of human rights in walks of life.

I KEDA : I love and trust human beings. I want always to follow the way of humanism. We today must fight to eliminate discrimination and the suffering it causes. Posterity must build a world where all human beings can live in a way consonant with the best of their humanity. To help achieve these aims, I continue participating in dialogues with leading thinkers and intellectuals like you and strive to create a network for the sake of the happiness of humankind.

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A THAYDE : That gives me hope. Your activities embody all the great Buddhist teachings. You are a great champion of human liberty, equality and faith. You have converted apparent impossibility into sources of hope. You give us the confidence of living at the summit of a great revolution. Society, politics and economics in our time are uncertain and change at a fierce pace. In these conditions, you permit us to look forward to a light-filled century in which human rights are supreme.

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C HAPTER 4

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: An Eternal Guiding Light for All Peoples Not to Repeat the Tragedy of the Second World War

I KEDA : Throughout the more than forty years that have passed since its adoption, the issues set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have never lost their pertinence and importance. One of the most important drafters of this great document, you have consistently advocated its universal significance. Indeed, your work has been the fountain whereby the spirit of the declaration has benefited humankind.

A THAYDE : Though predating it, the American and French bills of rights pertain mostly to rights in individual nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights represented the first attempt to enumerate the rights and dignity of humanity everywhere.

I KEDA : The worldwide desire to establish lasting peace and to prevent the recurrence of tragedies like the Second World War stimulated the creation of the declaration.

A THAYDE : Precisely. In the past, the rights of ordinary people have often been ignored and infringed upon. The systematic cruelty of its violations made the Second World War the biggest and most horrendous calamity in history.

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I KEDA : Yes, during the Second World War, human history experienced horrors that must never be forgotten. The Japanese militarists caused the peoples of Asia and the Pacific incalculable suffering. Nazi Germany under Hitler and Fascist Italy under Mussolini invaded their neighbours, trampling on human rights.

A THAYDE : Hiroshima and Nagasaki symbolise the crisis to which the war brought the fate of all humankind. The Second World War taught us that we must eliminate even the possibility of military use of nuclear force and must strive with all our wisdom and might to prevent the outbreak of another global conflict. Regardless of their nationality or laws, all people possess irreplaceable rights and deserve the protections of their countries, due to the very fact that they are all human beings.

I KEDA : During the Second World War, human beings treated their fellows with cruelty that defies belief. I was overcome with indignation by the evidence I saw of this when, in January 1993, I visited an exhibition revealing the atrocities of the Holocaust at the Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. The exhibit included reconstructions of the iron gates and the gas chamber of Auschwitz. The horror of what I saw stimulated me to renew my own vow to promote peace with all the energy at my disposal.

A THAYDE : Such atrocities as the massacre of millions of Jews opened the eyes of all humankind to the vital need to protect human rights as the supreme rational and spiritual characteristics of our humanity. Inherent in our very existence, these rights manifest our loftiest traits. Superior to political systems, nationality and historical setting, they are eternal and universal. We must exert all our effort to see that tragedies like world wars are never allowed to violate human rights again.

I KEDA : The leaders of Soka Gakkai have consistently struggled against political authorities who would infringe on innate human rights. For confronting the militarists in the name of humanitarianism and justice, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, our first president, was thrown into prison,

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where he died. For similar reasons and at the same time, our second president, Josei Toda was unjustly incarcerated for two years. Their experiences supplied the initial impetus for the Soka Gakkai fight for human rights. When the Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance presented me with the International Tolerance Award, I accepted it as a tribute to my predecessors – presidents Makiguchi and Toda – and to all those others who, throughout the ages, have struggled to protect the rights of the ordinary people.

A THAYDE : If the whole can esteem your Buddhism as it deserves and emulate your philosophical rejection of all discrimination – whether on the basis of race, sex, or any other trait – the twenty-first will be a brighter century. People from many countries who actually witnessed the horrors of the Second World War played leading roles in the compilation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They were all fully aware of their great responsibility and of the importance of the declaration for the future. Today, with your great spirituality, you elevate the declaration, which, on the basis of our shared ideals, you and I have vowed to keep forever inviolable.

Friendships with Mrs. Roosevelt and Dr. Cassin

A THAYDE : In San Francisco, in April 1945, when Allied victory was practically assured, delegates from fifty nations convened the United Nations Conference on International Organisation to deliberate a draft of the United Nations Charter. The document was completed and signed on the last day of the conference, 26 June, and became effective in October of the same year. Section three of the first article of the charter establishes as one of the United Nations’ most significant duties the solution of humanitarian problems arising in international society and the promotion of international efforts to abolish discrimination and respect fundamental human dignity.

I KEDA : By making human rights an international, not merely a national, issue, the United Nations Charter imposes legal obligations on the

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nation state. Though achieved at the cost of the tremendous sacrifices of the Second World War, this was an epoch-making achievement. With its expanded, global scope, the charter strives to guarantee respect for liberty and human rights from a universal standpoint.

A THAYDE : It represents the respect for peace and justice shared by all United Nations members and expresses the organisation’s goal and its enduring theoretical basis.

I KEDA : Established by Article 62 of the charter, the Economic and Social Council is responsible for promoting respect for human rights. To this end, it is empowered to conclude treaties and summon international conferences. In accordance with Article 68 of the charter, on 21 June, 1946, it set up the Human Rights Committee to draft the International Declaration of Human Rights. Committee Three was established by the Human Rights Committee to draft the text. Before the final version was ready for adoption, this group met many times to discuss and debate an exhaustive range of topics.

A THAYDE : Your mentioning Committee Three brings it all back to me. I was one of its eighteen members, as was Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.

I KEDA : I respect Mrs. Roosevelt’s achievements so deeply that I frequently recommend her as a role model for the students of Soka University and Soka Women’s College.

A THAYDE : People all over the world share your sentiment. I KEDA : During the extended dialogue we shared, the late Norman Cousins – a man whose qualities as a journalist inspired people to call him ‘the conscience of the United States’ – related his own impression of Mrs. Roosevelt, saying that everyone who knew her, or had seen her, thought she was the most beautiful person they had ever encountered and that she taught him a great deal about human compassion and mercy. As a young girl, however, she considered herself very plain and

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was resigned to remaining single. I have heard that at social functions some people made fun of her appearance. Such people were blind to the inner radiance of the true beauty that earned Mrs. Roosevelt the respect of people everywhere.

A THAYDE : Yes, everyone respected her – including all the members of Committee Three, the whole United Nations and even passers-by on the streets of Paris. While guiding the work of our group, she was lecturing on human rights at the Sorbonne. Hundreds of people crowded her lecture hall and overflowed into neighbouring rooms. It was not just her reputation that drew large audiences. As an outstanding journalist, she wrote articles that were carried by news media everywhere. Attracted by the noble populist spirit and concern for the happiness of humanity that filled her writings, everyone was eager to hear what she had to say.

I KEDA : Chairing the Declaration Committee was one of Mrs. Roosevelt’s greatest tasks. Members of the committee came from Belgium, Norway, Peru, India, the People’s Republic of China, Brazil – of course – and France, which was represented by Dr. René Cassin.

A THAYDE : Professor Cassin was the most famous of the writers of the declaration. In 1968, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of its completion, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the draft and for his efforts to disseminate the declaration’s ideals. At the time, he told a press conference that, while honoured by it, he felt he ought to share the prize with the great Brazilian thinker Austregésilo de Athayde.

I KEDA : Certainly as friends and warriors for human rights and the future of our race, you both deserve recognition and praise. A working subcommittee composed of Dr. Cassin and representatives from Lebanon and England did most of the original draft, which consisted of thirty-three articles. Then the whole Human Rights Committee discussed and revised it. In September 1948, the Economic and Social Council presented the committee’s final version to the third General Assembly.

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A THAYDE : Political views at that General Assembly were highly diverse since representatives of all nations that had taken part in the Second World War, including the Soviet Union, were on hand.

Committee Three

I KEDA : Perhaps for that reason, the General Assembly immediately returned the draft to Committee Three for reconsideration. I believe Charles Malik, from Lebanon, was chairman of this committee, on which you also served.

A THAYDE : Yes. During our early meetings, held in Geneva, differences in political, social and cultural backgrounds, coupled with the variance in the levels of development of the countries they represented, caused some conflict among the delegates. But the hope we derived from our common universal goal enabled us to overcome those differences. We all knew that completing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was indispensable to the peace-keeping work of the United Nations.

I KEDA : Never before in history had representatives of diverse cultures and traditions assembled to work for the sake of all humanity. Its very universal nature made your task both harder and more meaningful. You are an invaluable witness to the whole process.

A THAYDE : The work was hard. In about three months, we held eightyfive meetings, no longer in Geneva but in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. More than a thousand speeches were delivered. Revisions were proposed for nearly two hundred points in the document.

I KEDA : I understand that the local press made acid criticisms of the committee’s leisurely pace and lack of progress. But they were perhaps not entirely fair. After all, many different viewpoints had to be expressed and many conflicts resolved. In spite of this, a sense of their duty as world citizens inspired the committee members with the enthusiasm that enabled them to achieve brilliant, praiseworthy results.

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A THAYDE : Our success in reaching essential agreement was thanks to Mrs. Roosevelt’s efforts.

I KEDA : She must have been a very energetic person. Indeed she once said that living means movement and that, since we either go forward or we regress, human life is interesting as long as we grow. But other women, too, played a lively part in your committee’s work.

A THAYDE : There were more than fifty women among the representatives in the General Assembly. Prime Minister Nehru’s daughter was one of them. Three of the fifteen women members of Committee Three were talkative. The others were more reticent. All of them attended every meeting conscientiously and always arrived early. As soon as Chairman Malik lifted his gavel to call the meeting to order, they donned headphones and gave full attention to every word of deliberations that lasted for three hours in the morning and continued for three more hours in the afternoon. Mrs. Roosevelt attended every day and made spirited comments. Whenever the debate bogged down and the mood became oppressive, the lady from England and the lady from the Dominican Republic restored calm with a few soothing words. In an unusual departure, the men were noisiest at the Palais de Chaillot.

I KEDA : I can imagine how it must have been. Proposing and Revising

I KEDA : With its preamble and thirty articles, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a full-scale charter. Its preamble begins with a dignified statement of the fundamental nature of the rights of all human beings: ‘Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.’ Article One, which extols liberty and equality, and Article Two, which calls for the elimination of all discrimination, lay the ground for all that follows. Dr. Cassin compared them to the foundation of a building, and you had a great deal to do with their formulation.

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More than half of the thirty articles of the declaration deal with the so-called liberties. Articles Three (the right to life, liberty and security of person) to 21 (the right of political participation) concentrate on civic and political rights. Perhaps the role that German, Italian, and Japanese neglect of such rights had in bringing on the Second World War influenced this emphasis. Articles 22 to 27 define social rights like the right to social security, the right to work and make a living and the right to education.

A THAYDE : I participated in the vigorous debates that preceded the formulation of the final version of each article. Conducted in a spirit of enterprising fairness, our discussions examined the many values human wisdom has cultivated from the distant past and examined all conceivable philosophical, political, ethical and religious stipulations and efforts to improve relations among nations, individuals and peoples. In this sense, ours was an unprecedented undertaking.

I KEDA : No doubt participation by representatives of diverse historical and spiritual traditions and political systems made for heated debate on Article One.

A THAYDE : Oh yes. Initial philosophical collisions began the minute Committee Three got down to work. The Declaration was intended to set an eternal model for all nations and political, social and economic systems. The committee members rallied to the cause, but their philosophical viewpoints differed. My job was to spark controversies arising from these differences.

I KEDA : Exhaustive debate in which everybody had his say generated a new consensus and established the Declaration’s overall orientation. I should be interested to know some of the controversial points.

A THAYDE : Article One of the Human Rights Committee draft began, ‘All human beings are born free and are born equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ I objected to this. To guarantee respect for the rights we were setting forth, we needed

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a statement closer than this to the feelings of all peoples. The language should be less abstract. In addition to rights, the preamble should mention ‘God’ as the absolute origin of all rights. Article One should encourage us to act in a brotherly way because God created us in his image and endowed us with conscience and reason. All human beings are free and equal. Reason and conscience propel them in the direction of brotherly cooperation. Human beings have reason and conscience because they are pre-eminent among God’s creatures. The rest of the Declaration arises from this statement of the essential nature and fundamental element of all rights.

I KEDA : You interpret humanity in terms of an image – from Latin imago – that is a universal, indestructible entity transcending time and space. The draft version of the preamble speaks of innate endowments, thus suggesting that conscience and reason start at birth and are limited in terms of time and space. You perceived that this is not true and that reason and conscience are common to all humanity and are universal in both time and space.

A THAYDE : That is what I think. And, in time, the whole world paid attention to my idea. We of the Brazilian delegation did not make this proposal for the sake of philosophical or speculative dispute. We did so because we felt it was in accord with the intentions of the United Nations as an assembly of peoples from many nations of the world.

The Buddhist Viewpoint

I KEDA : The point you raised was important enough to establish the underlying tone and basic orientation of the Declaration, and I should like to examine it in some detail from the Buddhist viewpoint. A Buddha is a being wisely enlightened to the universal truth and endowed with all-embracing compassion. Conscience and reason are founded on such wisdom and compassion, which Buddhas teach to others. Mahayana Buddhism holds that ultimately the Buddha – the being worthy of limitless respect and the manifestation of conscience and

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reason – is the same thing as the Buddha nature, or Buddha Life, inherent in every sentient being. The Lotus Sutra is the pinnacle of all Mahayana teachings. The appearance of the Treasure Tower in its eleventh chapter, called ‘Emergence of the Treasure Tower’, symbolises this teaching. After emerging from the Earth, the magnificent tower hovers suspended in the air. It is said to be 500 yojana tall and 250 yojana from side to side. This vast building has been described as being as much as one half as wide as the circumference of the Earth. Adorned with the seven kinds of treasures, it emits wonderful fragrances from all four sides. Opinion various about the identification of the seven kinds of treasures; but, when it said that they are often listed as gold, silver, sea shell, carnelian, pearl, agate, and lapis lazuli, the sumptuousness of the tower decoration becomes apparent. In its entire splendour, the tower represents the Buddha Life, which, though universal in scale, is inherent in each human being.

A THAYDE : More than a pragmatic recipe for happiness, Buddhism demonstrates with compassion the way to maximize the characteristics that embellish human dignity.

I KEDA : Nichiren identified the splendid Treasure Tower as the Life Force inherent in each individual and endowed with inner dignity. In addition, however, the tower represents human beings who correctly practise the Buddhism that teaches this identification. He compares the seven kinds of treasures with the seven virtuous practices; that is, hearing the teachings, believing them, embracing them, meditating on them, assiduously practising them, devoting oneself to them, and constant self-examination for the sake of self-improvement. Listening to and understanding the correct teachings enrich the personality by generating the desire for enlightenment. Believing in the correct teachings cultivates a correct outlook toward life and fundamental human trust. Embracing the teachings fosters self-control, which in turn leads to self-perfection by minimising the influence of desire. Meditating on correct teachings promotes the development of true wisdom by enabling us to concentrate on our faith and our mission without being distracted by extraneous factors. Assiduous practise of correct teachings entails courageous and valiant discipline. A powerful

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driving force for self-perfection, such effort stimulates development of wisdom and compassion. Devoting oneself means ungrudgingly giving oneself to charity and to the good of others, society and all humanity. The person who practises such compassion defeats egoism. Constant self-examination promotes humility, thus preventing the pride that hinders the attainment of enlightenment, cultivates condescension and sows seeds of discrimination. Performed for the good of humanity, these seven virtuous practices help us to grow into the kind of people we essentially ought to be; that is, people endowed with inner dignity and as radiant and splendid as the Treasure Tower. As is said in the second chapter of the Lotus Sutra ‘Expedient Means’, helping all human beings develop their inner dignity was the real reason why the Buddha appeared in this world. All people are possessed of such dignity because, as is said in the third chapter of the Lotus Sutra, ‘Simile and Parable’, they are all equally the Buddha’s children.

A THAYDE : The individual human being is the supreme, unalterable value. All others are only relative because they are temporary and variable according to changing circumstances. All our debates of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were made from the viewpoint of the individual human being.

I KEDA : That is why the Declaration has become an eternal light to all humankind. Moreover, as it is said in the ‘Simile and Parable’ chapter of the Lotus Sutra that ‘living beings are all my sons’, Buddhism regards human life as the absolute and inviolable dignity. We see here the inviolability of human life, the absolute respect for human life that should be preserved.

A THAYDE : Indeed, Buddhism is religion or philosophy. Perhaps, you could say it is the way the human soul should be.

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C HAPTER 5

Towards a Spiritually United World; Tracing Human Rights Thought Philosophical Foundation

A THAYDE : With great pleasure, I remember how work on the Declaration allowed me to meet Eve Curie, daughter of Madame Marie Curie, the celebrated scientist and Nobel Prize laureate. While we were working in Paris, I called at her house and had a chat with her in her study. Encouraging a younger, more gallant me, she compared my enthusiasm for the Declaration with her mother’s passionate convictions. She expressed her determination to visit Brazil at some time in the future. She kept her promise. We did indeed meet later in Brazil. And, after she had returned, I was honoured to learn from her daughter that she continued to speak of me often.

I KEDA : In her preface to Madame Curie, Eve Curie said that the most precious thing about her mother had been, not her brilliant achievements, but the ability to maintain her innocence of soul throughout everything – success, unhappiness and adversity. You, too, have that innocent humanism of the soul.

A THAYDE : To recall another personal incident that I remember fondly, in December 1948, our work over, we were getting ready to go home. Just before her own departure for the United States, Mrs. Roosevelt invited me to have lunch with her at the Hotel de Crillon. To my delight, she spoke very highly of Brazil.

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I KEDA : I can imagine how heartwarming you must have found that. Together with the Declaration itself, your achievements and those of Mrs. Roosevelt and all the other people who took part in its compilation are an eternally laudable monument to human harmony. Mrs. Roosevelt was fully justified in speaking highly of your country. Brazil and its people are praiseworthy in numerous connections, as others also have observed. For example, the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig once observed in his 1941 book, Brazil: Land of the Future, ‘And so we are no longer willing to judge a country by its industrial, financial, and military strength, but rather by its peaceful way of thinking and its humane attitude. In this sense, which I believe to be the most important, Brazil seems to me one of the most worthy of emulation, and therefore one of the most lovable countries of our world.’1

A THAYDE : Because it is truly multiracial, Brazil can be called a world cultural centre. With your great vision, you also have played a part in the evolution of Brazilian culture.

I KEDA : Such high praise from a person as distinguished as yourself makes me feel very humble. Harmony in diversity is what humanity requires for the creation of a new global civilisation. Brazil has a great role to play in this process.

A THAYDE : Among the various problems we of Committee Three encountered in our discussions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I was most concerned with the need to promote spiritual bonds among the peoples of the world; that is to say, the promotion of spiritual globalism. Economic and political ties are too fragile to hold people together long. The fate of humanity depends on our being able to create loftier, more inclusive, stronger bonds.

I KEDA : What you so skillfully define as spiritual globalism is what we of Soka Gakkai International consistently strive for. It is what we must develop for the sake of the twenty-first century. But be good enough to relate some more of the controversial aspects of the discussions on the Declaration.

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A THAYDE : As I have said, I objected to the wording of the first article, with its atheistic or naturalistic approach, which I felt was incompatible with the beliefs and feelings of the majority of the peoples of the world. I therefore wanted to reflect religious beliefs and avoid the cold, agnostic stand that rejects God because his existence is beyond human knowledge. I was convinced that doing this would relate much more deeply to the wishes and hopes of all peoples.

I KEDA : In other words, you wanted to define the philosophical foundation for a document intended to establish a worldwide basis for the observation of human rights.

A THAYDE : My proposal surprised some committee members but won the support of all the Latin American nations except Mexico, and Belgium and the Netherlands among the European nations. Some of the other representatives demonstrated no interest in it all. It was attacked from the standpoint of Marxist-Leninist materialism and atheism. The Soviet representative, a famous scholar named Alexei Pavlov, said, ‘The Brazilian representative advances a religious viewpoint that is as remote from actuality as a human trip to the moon.’ Of course, at a later time, Neil Armstrong and his comrades were indeed to take first, hesitating steps on the surface of the moon.

I KEDA : In those days, with its atheistic creed, the Soviet Union cruelly persecuted dissident religionists. It took courage for you to stand up to the Soviet representative by insisting on the mention of God and the introduction of a super-national, universal humanism.

Two Currents

I KEDA : In the hope of substantiating inclusion of universality and religious views in the Declaration, let us try to trace the evolution of the idea of human rights throughout the history of human philosophy.

A THAYDE : Committee Three went as far back in history as the Code of Hammurabi. From that point, we worked our way to the present, always searching for correct substantiation for the basis of the Declaration.

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In getting ready for the big night and the third General Assembly, we examined and discussed an immense range of such reference material as Buddhist philosophy, the Koran, and the whole Western tradition, including Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics. The United States Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration des Droits de l’Homme confirmed the value of incorporating local spiritual values in such documents. We of the Brazilian delegation wanted to do precisely this in order to stimulate the development of individual peoples and to maintain international cooperation.

I KEDA : The philosophical basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights incorporates many currents of human thought. Pre-eminent is the rationalistic thought of the Enlightenment as embodied in the thought of such men as Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. Isolating themselves from Medieval theology, philosophers of the Enlightenment shifted their attention from God to Man, thereby avoiding excess emphasis on the absolute creator transcending human knowledge. During the Middle Ages, obedience to God was transformed into blind obedience to the Church as God’s representative on Earth. Such subservience bred ecclesiastical corruption and authoritarianism. In more modern times, monarchical power outstripped clerical authority, giving rise to concepts like the divine right of kings, justification for which God was supposed to provide. Exercising their divine rights, autocrats sacrificed the rights of the people for the sake of expanding royal authority. The American and French revolutions, however, dealt a devastating blow to autocracy. And the spiritual and physical freedoms won because of those revolutions became the core of the great human-rights struggle waged on the basis of post-Enlightenment philosophy.

A THAYDE : Essential to the modern period, the Enlightenment, can be said to have started with the science of Bacon and Newton, and with the philosophies of such outstanding Englishmen as Hobbes and Locke. The achievements of these men were closely related to the brilliant rationalists like Rousseau and Voltaire and by Encyclopedists like D’Alembert and Diderot.

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Ironically, the broad perspectives of the Enlightenment led to revolutions that brought immense suffering. The human rights movement emerged as a consequence of that suffering.

I KEDA : The Enlightenment represents the rationalist current in Western thought. A second current examined human rights by questioning the meaning of the Christian Cosmic Creator. Representative of this trend were Levi Carneiro of Brazil and Jacques Maritain of France.

A THAYDE : Yes, history records many ethical and political attempts to define human rights and obligations, beginning with the Ten Commandments of Moses and including such other milestones as the Magna Carta, of 1215, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689, drawn up by Parliament on the occasion of the accession to the throne of William III and his consort Queen Mary.

I KEDA : The Magna Carta begins with thanks for God’s grace. The English Bill of Rights is based on Christian doctrine. These associations with divinity imply a belief that human rights themselves are universal. As we have seen, however, the Enlightenment aimed to liberate humanity from its medieval subservience to God and the Church. In the eyes of some thinkers, the influence of Enlightenment thinking was not always laudable. Indeed, there are those who trace the horrors of Nazism and Fascism – both led by popularly elected men who later assumed dictatorial powers – to the Enlightenment’s dissolution of medieval ties with God. Since the end of the Second World War, serious reflection on this possibility has inspired a movement dedicated to overcoming selfish interest and to promoting universal rights.

A THAYDE : Numerous historians have pointed out the crisis modern society is in because the bonds with God have been severed. The work of Committee Three in connection with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gains added significance because of this crisis.

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I KEDA : I do not entirely reject the Enlightenment attempt to establish a system of human rights without a religious basis. On the other hand, I believe a religious element must be incorporated if observance of human rights is to be truly universal.

Confronting Ignorance

I KEDA : As we have already said, concern with human rights can be traced back as far as the Code of Hammurabi, the oldest organised legal code to survive to the present time.

A THAYDE : According to tradition, Hammurabi received the stone stela on which the code is inscribed from the sun god Samas. Of course, ancient statesmen and legislators in most civilisations customarily reinforce the authority of their pronouncements by assigning divine origins to them. Nonetheless, the Code of Hammurabi represents a very ancient concentration of immense wisdom.

I KEDA : In Hammurabi’s time, society was unsettled. Debts frequently compelled free citizens to sell themselves into slavery. Conceivably, the king enacted his legal code to protect citizen rights and thereby to promote social stability. From the modern viewpoint, the code is not completely fair. For the same crime, it imposes lighter punishments on people who occupy high rungs on the social ladder. Still, like you, I find the king’s lofty ideals laudable.

A THAYDE : The Mosaic Law, or the Ten Commandments, though later in time and briefer in form than the Code of Hammurabi, is similarly founded on lofty ideals. As a symbolic model of rights and obligations, it has exerted an enormous influence on Western philosophy.

I KEDA : For Buddhist, the Five Precepts and the Ten Good Precepts, which all believers are expected to observe, serve the kind of basic ethical role that the Ten Commandments serve in the JudaeoChristian tradition. There are, of course, significant differences between the Buddhist and the Judaeo-Christian approach. Obedience to God consistently comes first in the Ten Commandments. In

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contrast, the Buddhist Five Precepts begin with a commandment against taking life, thus giving pre-eminence to non-violence (ahims¯a). All the remaining precepts, too, stress respect for the dignity of life: Condemning theft – the taking of what is not given – protects property, which supports life. Debauched relations between the sexes amount to blasphemy against life; therefore, adultery is prohibited. Lying and drinking are forbidden because they lead to violence and the taking of life. The Ten Good Precepts are a more detailed code providing guidance in respect for life. Both codes arose from profound ethical consideration of the innermost meanings of life and teach how to counter the basic delusions of greed, anger and false views. As you point out, the Ten Commandments played an important early role in formulating Western ideas about human rights. Similarly, the Five Precepts and the Ten Good Precepts were the origins of the same kind of philosophy within Buddhism. Nichiren agreed that respect for the dignity of life must come first since life is incomparably more precious than all the treasures of the universe: ‘Life is the foremost of all treasures . . . Even the treasures that fill the major world system are no substitute for life.’2 Throughout his life, which was a struggle between a Buddha eager to guide humanity to happiness and the forces of evil that lead to suffering, Nichiren battled unyieldingly with attempts by secular and religious authorities to trample on human rights. Life is supremely important. Buddhism personifies the forces that take life as devils, or m¯ara. When those forces kill, they simultaneously snuff out the plentiful possibilities with which life is endowed. In this sense, m¯ara violates innate human liberties and rights. Whereas divinely imposed Law is the source of Western thought on the subject, Buddhist ethics defines as good those things that cultivate life’s limitless possibilities and as evil those things that hinder them. The two approaches define Western and Buddhist attitudes toward human rights.

A THAYDE : Since Hammurabi’s time, people have put their trust in laws. By eating the forbidden fruit, Eve transgressed God’s Law.

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Ironically, however, her infraction stimulated human development. Expelled from paradise and forced to make their way on their own, human beings developed self-awareness.

I KEDA : You interpret the expulsion from the Garden of Eden as the starting point of the process whereby human beings were given a chance – therefore the right – to live up to their best potential. Human rights, then, begin with the expulsion?

A THAYDE : Yes, at least in the Judaeo-Christian cultural sphere. Buddhism has its own version of the evolution of human rights.

I KEDA : That is true. As I have already pointed out, Buddhist thought has its own philosophical foundation for human rights. The four sufferings – birth, aging, sickness and death – symbolise the sufferings of the human condition. The task of confronting them constitutes the origin of the Buddhist concept of human rights. In contrast to Christian original sin, in Buddhist thought, ignorance – mumyo in Japanese – negates the dignity inherent in life and therefore is the source of all suffering. In different terms, ignorance may be defined as tireless obsession with the minor self. Shakyamuni saw ignorance as the source of desire and taught that overcoming it is the only way to happiness. His explanation of the operations of ignorance employs colourful expressions drawn from the richly vital Indian natural environment. For instance, Chapter XXIV of the Dhammapada contains the following passage, in which what I have called obsession with the minor self is expressed as thirst: 334.

The thirst of a thoughtless man grows like a creeper; he runs from life to life, like a monkey seeking fruit in the forest. 335. Whomsoever this fierce thirst overcomes, full of poison, in this world, his sufferings increase like the abounding Birana grass. 336. He who overcomes this fierce thirst, difficult to be conquered in this world, sufferings fall off from him, like water-drops from a lotus leaf . . . . 337. This salutary word I tell you, Do ye, as many as are here

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assembled, dig up the root of thirst, as he who wants the sweet-scented Usira root must dig up the Birana grass, that Mara [the tempter] may not crush you again and again, as the stream crushes the reeds. 338. As a tree, even though it has been cut down, is firm so long as its root is safe, and grows again, thus, unless the feeders of thirst are destroyed, this pain [of life] will return again and again.3 Ignorance, or mumyo¯, is the feeder of obsession with the minor self. Unless it is uprooted, suffering will recur time and time again. Essentially, we are all equal. But, unbeknownst to us, obsession with the petty self gives rise to senses of supposed superiority and inferiority, love and hate, and discrimination and jealousy. People enthralled by this deluded attitude eventually must suffer as much as they make others suffer.

A THAYDE : From Buddhism, a creative and sensible leader can learn a great deal that is essential to ethical, political and social development.

I KEDA : If the origin of suffering is the inner life, so is the starting point of a solution to the problem. Developing wisdom to overthrow ignorance is the first step. A Buddha, or an Enlightened One, is a person who has developed such wisdom and lives according to the Truth – the Law (Dharma). Shakyamuni became an Enlightened One twenty-five centuries ago. Shortly before his death, he instructed his disciples to put trust only in themselves and in the Law. By this he meant that living according to the universal law of cause and effect is the fundamental structure of the Buddhist faith.

A THAYDE : To the Christian, the God who punishes humanity is ‘Our Father who art in heaven’. His envoy to Earth and the founder of a new ethical order was Jesus Christ, who, dying the shameful death of crucifixion on Golgotha, opened a new chapter in human history.

I KEDA : Jesus taught a humane morality and castigated the formalism of pharisaic concentration on observing religious rules. The Apostles put his teachings in systematic form.

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A THAYDE : Then Saint Paul initiated a missionary movement that eventually made Christianity a worldwide religion. Paul said, ‘Fight the good fight of faith.’4 And it was the fight of faith that, thousands of years after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, culminated in the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I KEDA : In primitive Christian philosophy, all people were equal before the one almighty God. Differences of sex, wealth, or occupation meant nothing. The belief that political authority is impotent to interfere in equality before God constitutes the core of the Western egalitarianism from which evolved respect for human dignity. The emergence of Christianity signaled a shift in emphasis from pharisaic formalism to egalitarian concern with mercy and forgiveness. A similar transition accounts for the changes Buddhism worked in the Indian religious tradition. In pre-Shakyamuni India, the truths of Brahmanism—and the happiness associated with them—were not for everyone. They were transmitted only among certain special people—and then in secret. The basics of those truths are expounded in the Upanishads. Indicative of the exclusivism of Brahmanism, the very word Upanishad means a session at the feet of a master who transmits esoteric doctrines. In contrast, as is said in the Vinaya, Shakyamuni and his disciples taught everybody, not just select groups of people, things that bring benefit, happiness, and ease. With revolutionary courage, they changed the nature of their times by traveling from country to country (Suttanip¯ata) on this mission. Shakyamuni himself described his mission in the following way: ‘Everywhere, into all places the wide world over, his heart overflowing with Compassion streams forth ample, expanded, limitless, free from enmity, free from all ill-will.’5 As this passage makes clear, Shakyamuni taught that all human beings are equally precious and equally endowed with the right to happiness. He strove to imbue all people with the spirit of compassion. The combination of this great philanthropic philosophy, and a practical programme to disseminate it, made Buddhism a worldwide religion.

A THAYDE : That’s a deeply interesting story.

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Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophers

I KEDA : Yes, it is a monument to human harmony. I am certain that the efforts that went into its enactment will always be praised. Saint Augustine put the Law of God, the Eternal Law, above national laws. In fact, he believed that the divine law was the criterion against which national laws were to be judged. Since the Middle Ages, Western legal thought has been based on two traditions, the Judaeo-Christian tradition of divine law and the classical Greek and Roman tradition. Obviously, the three giants of ancient Greek philosophy were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Aristotle believed that justice is realised through obedience to the law.

A THAYDE : In a striking way, Greek and Roman philosophers sought to create a peaceful society by means of strong laws, which ultimately assumed the form of an entire Greco-Roman legal system. In the preSocratic period, thinkers like the so-called Seven Sages (usually, though not always, given as Solon of Athens, Thales of Miletus, Pittacles of Metylene, Cleobulus of Rhodes, Chilon of Sparta, Bias of Priene and Periander of Corinth) addressed numerous issues in a way that created the soil in which the artistic and political order of Greco-Roman civilisation grew. Using ironic methods, Socrates was the first philosopher to identify truth as the supreme value.

I KEDA : Sophocles, of course, was tried and condemned for rejecting the state gods and leading youth astray.

A THAYDE : And, before lifting the cup of deadly hemlock to his lips, he ordered a friend and disciple to sacrifice a cock to Asclepius, the Greek god of healing.

I KEDA : Shortly before that, he resisted his friend Crito’s efforts to persuade him to flee. Socrates clearly was determined to abide by the laws of the land, even though doing so meant his own death. The climax of Plato’s Phaedo, the scene we are talking about, is one of the most dramatic and moving in ancient literature. Asclepius, the son of the god Apollo and the mortal Coronis, was

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greatly revered by the Athenians. One of the great ironies of history is the way Socrates, by requesting that a cock be sacrificed to him, disproves the court’s condemnation of him as impious. He insisted that to die bravely is the fundamental choice of a knowledge-seeker. By dying courageously he made his own greatness eternal.

A THAYDE : Although Aristotle studied at the Academy, his philosophy differs greatly from that of his teacher Plato.

I KEDA : Yes, in contrast to Plato’s concept of Ideas or Forms, for Aristotle, experience is the sole source of human knowledge. In Nicomachean Ethics, he says that justice, as it existed in the Greek city state (polis), derived from two sources: natural law and man-made law. Natural law prevails in all situations. Human beings themselves, however, created man-made law and therefore are compelled to abide by it. Aristotle was the first to assert the superiority of natural over man-made law.

A THAYDE : Moreover, he was the first philosopher to examine natural phenomena empirically. The empirical practicality with which you devote yourself to the protection of human rights marks you as a true – and outstanding – Aristotelian.

I KEDA : Thank you, but in my view, your own devotion to human rights – notably in the Universal Declaration – has been far more impressive. But to return to our discussion, after Aristotle, ancient Greek philosophy ramified into numerous schools of thought, among which the Stoics were especially important in connection with law and therefore with the evolution of awareness of human rights. The Stoics believed nature (that is, everything) to be controlled by reason. From their standpoint, natural law constitutes justice and rights based on human reason. Since human reason was believed to derive from universal reason, natural law was thought to be the same for everyone everywhere. Himself a Stoic, Cicero believed natural law to be synonymous with reason. Against such a background, the Romans evolved a legal code applicable to all peoples – not merely to Roman citizens. Roman law, considered identical with natural law, ultimately evolved into the

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Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) compiled under the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian (reigned 527-65 C.E.). As time passed, the idea of the superiority of universal law – the Law of God in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and natural law in the Greco-Roman tradition – over man-made law gained increasingly wide acceptance. Human rights came to be seen as arising from natural law and therefore not to be violated by the man-made laws of governing bodies like nation states.

A THAYDE : Our goal now is the globalisation of respect for human rights. Nation states must never be allowed to deprive citizens of their rights. By the same token, individuals and groups must never attempt to violate the human rights of other individuals and groups.

I KEDA : In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas incorporated the concept of natural law into Christian legal thought.

A THAYDE : The work of Thomas Aquinas was the first element in my philosophical education. And, although many other kinds of knowledge transformed my education in later years, his Summa Theologiae has always influenced my thinking on social and political issues.

I KEDA : Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics wedded Stoic concepts to Christian theology. The Stoics believed that all things depended on universal reason. The Scholastics identified Stoic universal reason with God, who, they maintained, created all nature. Thomas Aquinas divided law into three categories: divine law, natural law and human law and rejected the validity of any human law that violates natural law. The concept of natural law has continued to be influential and was the philosophical foundation of such milestone documents as the Magna Carta.

Power from Within

I KEDA : Your own intensive studies of such milestones have helped you generate from within yourself the energy for your work in the name of the happiness of humanity. To be truly effective, work like yours

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must always be inwardly generated. Otherwise it can degenerate into perfunctory busyness or even mischief. For, if driven solely by calculated self-interest, human activity can deviate from courses plotted by lofty ideals. Ancient prophecies foresaw such degeneration for Buddhism itself. It was visualised as occurring in three phases. First, in the Former Day of the Law (sh¯oh¯o in Japanese), believers righteously put the teachings of the Buddha into practise. Then, in the second phase, called the Middle Day of the Law (z¯oh¯o), although perfunctory disciplines and rituals are observed, the teachings are reduced to a hollow shell. And finally, in the Latter Day of the Law (mappo¯ ), under the sway of unbridled self-interest, all kinds of doctrines, even those of the lowest calibre, run rife. The true mission of religion is to stimulate the emergence of believers’ inner power for the sake of constant spiritual renewal that prevents both the descent into moribund perfunctoriness and unbridled self-interest.

A THAYDE : As we are entering the third millennium [1993], your influence on the future of culture and education is greater than anybody else’s.

I KEDA : Walt Whitman expressed his ideas as follows: ‘I say at the core of democracy, finally, is the religious element’ and said that a sublime faith that is deeper and more liberal than anything that has gone before must be revived by a new force. He saw that democracy demands the kind of living faith that stimulates people to formulate internal standards. Just such a religious approach gives human rights themselves and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights their universality.

A THAYDE : As I have said, I insisted on recognition of a universal entity as the well-spring of all human rights. After that had been accepted, I withdrew my insistence on mention of humanity’s having been created in the image of God. At the time, the world was still too suspicious and fearful to pay much attention to our work. But we planted a seed that will grow into a great blossoming and fruit-bearing tree. In the future, people will come to realise the value of our achievement.

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Equality Arising from the Universal Law

I KEDA : According to Buddhist thought, the law (dharma, from the verb dhri, to preserve, maintain, or uphold) on which the universe is founded imparts worth and dignity to all forms of life, human and non-human. Certain rights are universal because they spring from this ubiquitous dignity. Whereas Christianity claims that all people are equal in the eyes of God, Buddhism teaches that our equality arises from the internal, universal law of cause and effect inherent in each individual. We are all equal because we are all equally capable of attaining enlightenment to the universal law. In its Buddhist context, the word ‘equal’ (samata in Sanskrit) indicates impartiality transcending emotional attachments like hatred and love, affection and disaffection. Arising from the universal law, Buddhist equality triumphs over all discrimination.

A THAYDE : I sympathise with this Buddhist view because I am convinced that appreciation for the dignity of humanity cannot gain wide acceptance unless we become aware of the sacred element within ourselves.

I KEDA : Precisely. We Buddhists interpret this ‘sacred’ as the radiant presence of the universal law in everyone of all racial and cultural backgrounds. Awareness of the commonly shared law inspires sympathy and compassion that expand the self and stimulate participation in the battle for justice, equality and the recognition of the rights of all human beings.

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C HAPTER 6

Expanding the Network of Humanism Around the Globe Dialogue with Patience

I KEDA : Your comments show that the process of preparing the basic text for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights hit some rough patches. I am certain that you were often called upon to play the role of peace-maker.

A THAYDE : There were plenty of time-consuming problems. A month after we convened, we had covered only three of the twenty-seven articles of the Declaration draft. But this was not necessarily discouraging. The principles we were discussing were of fundamental importance to humanity in general. We wanted our efforts to produce lasting results. And that would obviously take time.

I KEDA : The fruits of haste are soon destroyed. Lasting results can only be attained by perseverance. Gradualism and persevering dialogue are essential to the creation of new, universal-humanistic values.

A THAYDE : I do not claim that we members of the Third Committee solved all the world’s problems. Nonetheless, our work can be counted among the most significant achievements of history because in the end, we got the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enacted. One by one, we overcame the obstacles in our path, the most troublesome of which was diversity of opinion. We deliberated and then revised to eliminate obscurity, but I stubbornly resisted all corrections aimed at weakening the content.

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I KEDA : I have heard of considerable conflict between representatives of the United States and the Soviet Union over Article 19, which deals with freedom of opinion and expression.

A THAYDE : Yes. The Soviet representative argued for restriction of news freedom. He severely criticised American newspapers for not truly reflecting public opinion and claimed that freedom of the press actually deprived the populace of the liberty to express their opinions clearly. According to him, while protected by law, freedom of publication and the press ought to be used to prevent the spreading of fascist and bellicose publicity. He also insisted that recognition of such freedoms should depend on state security and welfare.

I KEDA : The issue of freedom of expression is one about which we feel very strongly because of the effects its suppression had on the founders of our organisation. During the Second World War, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai, of which he was president, published a newspaper called Kachi S¯oz¯o (Value Creation). In May 1942, it was mercilessly shut down by the oppressive public-peace authorities. About a year later, Mr. Makiguchi was imprisoned. As early as 1903, in his book Jinsei Chirigaku (A Geography of Human Life), he had said that the freedoms of conscience, thought, religion and expression are sacred and inviolable.

A THAYDE : Whenever democracy is being threatened, the freedoms of opinion and expression are the first to be violated. I appealed to my fellow committee members by saying that democracy is impossible without the freedoms set forth in Article 19 and that they were in jeopardy as we did our work on the Declaration. In an atmosphere of growing tension, Mrs. Roosevelt courageously refuted the Soviet representative’s criticism of American newspapers: ‘That is not a fact. Quite the reverse of what you say, in my country, the people control both the government and the newspapers!’ On several occasions, she and I tried to define the Soviet representative’s true attitude to the Declaration. Ultimately, she believed we could come to understand each other, but I never did.

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Passionate Self-sacrifice

A THAYDE : From time to time, debate grew very heated. But passion rarely carried over into off-duty hours. One communist often condemned the evils of capitalism, while shaking his mane of hair and pounding his desk with his fist. Capitalists always responded with equal acerbity. But, at end of the day, the same men who, only a few minutes earlier had seemed ready to rip each other’s throats out, were usually to be found seated in the bar genially laughing and chatting together.

I KEDA : People are the same all over. That is why we can accomplish more when we abandon ideological poses and meet, face to face, on the footing of shared humanity.

A THAYDE : That is true. Throughout the three months of our debates, time and time again, conflicts caused what might have become irreconcilable imbroglios. But, always, enthusiasm for our shared humanity and for the importance of our task enabled us to pull back from the brink and resolve our differences.

I KEDA : I have heard that the speech you made to the General Assembly when the draft was submitted for final discussion was brilliant.

A THAYDE : Immediately before the vote, I said, ‘This Declaration does not represent the specific viewpoint of any one nation or group of nations. It is not an expression of any specific political creed or philosophical system. It is the result of joint intellectual and moral work on the part of a large number of countries . . . Here in the General Assembly, it should be passed as proof of the common sense of all peoples.’ After my speech, Robert Schuman, French minister of foreign affairs at the time, rose from his seat to embrace all of us Brazilian representatives. Observing my surprise at his gesture, he said, ‘You are the most eloquent person I have ever heard in my life.’

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I KEDA : I can envision the enthusiasm that must have reigned. Your eloquence, convincing evidence of how cogent a weapon the word can be, impressed the whole audience because it arose from your exalted spirit and your dedication to the future of humanity.

A THAYDE : The occasion was very exciting. I was still under the influence of the emotions it stirred up when, that evening, I received a letter from Mrs. Roosevelt, saying that democracy cannot survive without the pure and lofty thought of passionate self-sacrificing people, and the words of the representative from Brazil recalled to her mind Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. To my way of thinking, you epitomise what Mrs. Roosevelt meant by passionate, self-sacrificing people. Soka Gakkai International is a supreme example of your philosophy of affording maximum support to the values of the ordinary people.

I KEDA : It is my hope that, on the basis of Buddhist teachings, Soka Gakkai International can become a powerful force for global peace and prosperity. That was what I had in mind when, in an address I gave on the occasion of the fifteenth SGI Day (26 January, 1990), I reaffirmed the three fundamental ideals of our organisation: One. As good citizens, the members of Soka Gakkai International resolve to contribute to the prosperity of their respective societies and countries, while respecting individual cultures, customs and laws. Two. The members of Soka Gakkai International resolve to aim for the realisation of eternal peace and the prosperity of humanistic culture and education, based on the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin, which clearly defines the dignity of human life. Three. The Members of Soka Gakkai International resolve to contribute to the happiness of humankind and the prosperity of the world, while strongly eschewing war and violence of any kind; to support the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations; and to take positive steps toward cooperating with its endeavors to keep world peace, with the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realisation of a warless world as their supreme purpose.

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Integrated Rights

I KEDA : On that crucial day in the General Assembly, the voting turned out eighty-four in favour and none opposed with eight abstentions from the Soviet Union and East bloc nations. This means that the declaration was passed without any actual opposition votes.

A THAYDE : The Union of South Africa, as the country was called then, joined the Soviet Union and other East bloc nations in abstaining. Afterwards, the chairman of the General Assembly called the adoption of so important a declaration without direct opposition an epochmaking achievement. The Declaration resolved the conflict between materialists and idealists by integrating classical Western political and civic rights with formerly inconceivable economic and cultural rights.

I KEDA : In other words, it integrated first and second-generation human rights.

A THAYDE : Yes. The American and French revolutions had already won political and civil rights. The liberty, equality, and fraternity – or philanthropy – embodied in such historical documents as the Virginia Bill of Rights, the Constitution of the United States and the French Declaration des Droits de l’Homme formed the political foundation of modern democracy.

I KEDA : The first generation of human rights – mostly related to liberty and equality – were formulated and gained wide recognition in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. But they were often violated because they failed to ensure social and economic security. For instance, inhuman working conditions for the very poor robbed life of most of its dignity. But awareness gradually lead to activism that ultimately secured a range of economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to labour. These rights were found in places in the German Weimar Constitution of 1919 and in constitutions written for nations in the Americas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Integration of social – or second-generation – rights with what you

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have called classical rights and liberties in the Universal Declaration indicates considerable advance in human-rights philosophies of the nations of the free world.

A THAYDE : American and British democracy long held that the passive liberties are irreplaceable. The vigorous and vital liberal traditions in these countries precluded rejection of active rights like those pertaining to labour, individual property, justice, health, culture and welfare.

I KEDA : Your distinction between active and passive rights deserves comment. Passive rights involve liberation from oppression; they are freedoms ‘from something’. Active rights relate to active social, political and economic participation and are therefore freedoms ‘to do something’. Conflict and harmony are inherent in the two elements of this active-passive dichotomy. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was controversial because, by ensuring both kinds of rights, it embodies both harmony and conflict. The Western nations in the modern period have looked on the state as a necessary evil and have jealously guarded liberties from its interference. More concerned with social rights, the Soviet-bloc nations have encouraged interference by the state in all aspects of life – social and economic. In a sense, during this century, two global conflicts have arisen because nation states have given precedence to considerations other than the basic rights of their citizens. Reflections on the horrors of those wars influenced the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which therefore naturally stresses the need to protect the individual from the state. This may in part account for the Soviet bloc’s refusal to vote in favour.

A THAYDE : Possibly. But other factors, too, must be considered. Political freedoms of information, assembly and movement as well as regulations against discrimination were irreconcilable with the totalitarian Soviet system. I once asked the celebrated scientist Alexei Pavlov, who was the Soviet representative on the Third Committee, how I should interpret rigid Soviet opposition to everything in the declaration draft dealing with civic prerogatives. He frankly replied, ‘If those articles

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were approved and put into effect in my country, the Soviet system wouldn’t last another six months.’ In spite of political interests, however, the Universal Declaration is one of the most outstanding advances in the field in the last century because it embodies the will of all peoples by encompassing both political and social rights.

I KEDA : The liberties, or first-generation rights, are covered in Articles three to 21. Social, or second-generation, rights are set forth in Articles 22 to 27. Articles 28 to 30 set forth attitudes individuals must adopt toward the guarantee of the liberties and social rights and establish an international basis for them, thus transcending the responsibilities of single states and putting the human-rights issue on a truly global footing.

A THAYDE : These articles define the individual’s obligations in relation to the social body. The eternal, immutable greatness of our work derives largely from the noble ideas expressed in articles 29 and 30.

I KEDA : The two articles you cite looked forward to later developments in the area of social and economic rights. Serious infringements of the rights of the poor, especially in the developing nations, stimulated awareness of development itself as a human right and of the need for transnational protection of human rights. The obvious outcome of the process was the emergence of a third generation of human rights involving international development, environmental protection, peace and the common human cultural heritage.

Respect for the Dignity of All Life Forms

I KEDA : The path you have followed in your struggle for the happiness of humanity and respect for the human rights of all people has much in common with the way of the bodhisattva especially as set forth in the celebrated Vimalakı¯rti Sutra. Whereas many Buddhist sutras are considered difficult reading, this one is notable for its literary quality and for the wit and drama with which it makes profound truths readily accessible to everyone.

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In it, Vimalakı¯rti has fallen ill and Shakyamuni Buddha requests that someone from among the prominent bodhisattvas or his own ten major disciples pay him a sick call. None is willing to go because, in the past, Vimalakı¯rti has consistently bested all of them in their own fields of expertise and pre-eminence. Finally, however, the bodhisattva Manjushrı¯, who has never met the layman before, agrees to pay his condolences. To Manjushrı¯’s inquiries about the cause and duration of his illness, Vimalakı¯rti replied, ‘This illness of mine is born of ignorance and feelings of attachment. Because all living beings are sick, therefore I am sick,’ and ‘It is like the case of a rich man who has only one child. If the child falls ill, then the father and mother too will be ill, but if the child’s illness is cured, the father and mother too will be cured. The bodhisattva is like this, for he loves living beings as though they were his children. If living beings ae sick, the bodhisattva will be sick, but if living beings are cured, the bodhisattva too will be cured. You ask what cause this illness arises from – the illness of bodhisattva arises from great compassion.’1 As this passage indicates, Vimalakı¯rti is the compassionate man of wisdom and action who puts his love for all suffering sentient beings – the Buddha’s true heirs – into assiduous practise.

A THAYDE : He embodies wisdom practically applied in contrast to mere knowledge. No matter how learned, the scientific specialist cannot always reach the great heights of humanity.

I KEDA : Quite true. Shakyamuni Buddha himself put his wisdom to compassionate use in diligently caring for the sick and by telling his disciples, ‘Exerting your best for suffering people earns the same merit as exerting yourself for the Buddha.’ In the Nirvana Sutra, too, he says, ‘The varied sufferings that all living beings undergo – all these are the sufferings of the Thus Come One’s own sufferings.’ In terms of human rights, this kind of bodhisattva and Buddha empathy with the sufferings of others springs from respect for the dignity of all forms of life. This respect naturally engenders respect for fundamental rights. Protecting those rights is the mission of the

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bodhisattva; that is, the mission of all Buddhists who correctly apply the teachings in all aspects of life.

Global Influence

A THAYDE : When the work of the Third Committee was concluded, the representatives parted with mutual congratulations for successful and diligent effort. I exchanged some words with both Professor René Cassin and Mrs. Roosevelt about our optimism at beginning a new age of respect for fundamental rights and awareness of the long, rough road ahead.

I KEDA : Yes, the road is long, and it never really ends. The attainment of each goal is the starting point for efforts targeted toward the next. This never-ending process is illustrated by the way the Declaration has influenced formulations of human-rights-protection structures and their inclusion in new constitutions and bills of rights throughout Europe and Africa. For example, the preamble of the European Convention on Human Rights adopted in November 1950, mentions the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1966, emphasises its first and second-generation rights. Accords and structures of these kinds have helped orient rights-protection efforts in Africa and the Americas. For instance, the American Convention on Human Rights, adopted in San José, California, in November 1969, declares the ideal of free men enjoying freedom from fear and want, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Charter of the Organisation of African Unity, adopted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in May 1963, declares as one of its goals the promotion of international cooperation, with full respect to the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, the Declaration has influenced the drafting of several new constitutions, like those of Guinea (1958) and Madagascar (1959).

A THAYDE : Everyone today is enthusiastic about protecting basic human rights. The Universal Declaration has succeeded because its content

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is broad enough to make further additions and deletions unnecessary. There is no room in it for change of any kind.

The Universality of the Declaration

I KEDA : Let us now consider what forms the universality of the Declaration. The core of the Declaration is humanity. Instead of defining human rights based on national circumstances, the Declaration focuses on humanity itself, each individual of which constitutes global community. Because of its universality, the Declaration is applicable to all humanity for all time.

A THAYDE : I touched on that very idea in my address to the General Assembly when I said, ‘We solemnly declare in the name of international justice, that all peoples must protect the rights of every man and woman in the world.’

I KEDA : In speaking of every man and woman in the world you implied that the declaration is unlimited in terms of space. Its spatial universality is symbolically expressed in the stipulation against discrimination in the second clause of Article Two. Other bills of rights and constitutions have dealt with rights within separate and limited ranges. For the first time in history, the Universal Declaration covers them all – even those defying provision within the nationstate framework – and codifies them on the basis of the spiritual element of universality. For example, Article 15 says: ‘One. Everyone has the right to a nationality. Two. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.’

A THAYDE : Humanity itself is enough to earn protection of rights under its provisions.

I KEDA : The long centuries through which the Declaration is going to evolve in the future will impart to it universality in terms of time as well as space.

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A THAYDE : Under the influence of devotion to justice and liberty, which we hope will guide humanity in coming centuries, the Declaration will attain temporal universality as it makes contributions to the wellbeing of all peoples of all social, political or economic origins.

Human Rights in the Light of the Three Realms of Existence and the Theory of Esh¯o-funi

I KEDA : Over the course of historical development, support for basic human rights has broadened and deepened. The broader, secondgeneration rights constitute the foundation of the first-generation rights. And both other generations rest on the still broader third generation. This widening of recognition entails respect not only for the individual human being, but also for that individual’s cultural, social and natural environments. The Buddhist teaching of the three realms of existence explains relations between the individual and his social and natural environments, thus providing a philosophical basis for deepening and broadening appreciation for human rights. The three realms are the realm of the five components (go-on seken in Japanese), the realm of living beings (shuj¯o-seken) and the realm of the environment (kokudo-seken). The five components are the five elements composing the human being; that is, shiki, physical forms perceptible to the eye; ju, perceptual, emotional and volitional psychological aspects; s¯o, conceptualisation; gy¯o, the will to act and shiki, consciousness. The realm of the five components manifests the diverse differences apparent in the physical and psychological aspects of human life. The individual contemplates this realm in relation to himself, not to emphasise differences, but to detect the essential Buddha nature transcending the diversity of phenomenal reality. Because all life is endowed with the dignity arising from the Buddha nature, all manifestations of life are equally to be treasured and respected. The doctrine shares much in common with the essence of Articles One and Two of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A THAYDE : Buddhism is the very philosophy to stimulate worldwide observation of human rights in the coming century because it teaches how to make equality, liberty and affection major elements in daily

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life. No other teaching has ever surpassed its doctrines of faith and love.

I KEDA : Buddhism goes beyond the discrepancies characteristic of the world of the five components to seek the realm of complete liberty. This quest relates Buddhist teachings to first-generation human rights, especially the liberties set forth in Articles Three to 21 of the Declaration. Like individuals, environments, too, differ markedly from each other. Beyond their inherent differences, they are affected – for good or bad – by human behaviour. At the same time, various environments – natural, psychological, social and cultural – play a formative part in human development. Buddhism teaches that, within the context of the three realms, the living subject (sho¯ho¯ in Japanese) and its environment (eh¯o ) are indivisibly one. The source of the unity is a cause-and-effect formula most eloquently expressed by Nichiren as the Mystic Law that pervades the universe, past, present and future.

A THAYDE : As you imply, social circumstances and living environments vary widely from country to country. The very identity of some peoples is directly bound to their national environment. The people of Brazil are deeply and fundamentally Brazilian. Similarly, the Japanese nation derives its dignity from an innate Japanese quality.

I KEDA : The Vimalakı¯rti Sutra, which I mentioned earlier, makes some interesting points about the environment. In it, Shakyamuni Buddha says that the land (environment) of the bodhisattvas and the environment of ordinary sentient beings are one and the same. In a sense, then, sentient beings themselves constitute the bodhisattva’s proper environment. Just as human beings are partly formed by their environments, the bodhisattva is formed and cultivated by his work on behalf of sentient beings. This work includes the so-called Three Attitudes (sincerity, profound faith, and the determination to attain enlightenment); the six wise practices (p¯aramit¯as); and the four infinite virtues. These characteristics indicate the breadth with which the Buddhist concept of environment embraces cultural and social factors. In his comments on the environment and our relations to it, Nichiren

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says, ‘if the minds of the living beings are impure, their land is also impure, but if their minds are pure, so is their land. There are not two lands, pure or impure in themselves. The difference lies solely in the good or evil of our minds.’ In other words, a truly humane society is impossible unless its members develop spiritually. The French philosopher and diplomat Jacques Maritain said that, in order to fulfill the responsibility of ensuring observation of human rights, humanity must become a single, open totality. This means that each individual must be such a totality and participate in a universal totality. Furthermore, all individuals must be open to contact with all others. Enlightenment to the Buddhist Law (Dharma) merges us all into universal totality. The Dharma exists only within human beings and their environments. But all humans are equally endowed with it and therefore equal among themselves and worthy of respect. Awareness of this equality, as we have said, eliminates discrimination and the violations of human rights they cause.

A THAYDE : Ideally, we should all be equal and enjoy the full range of human rights in any environment. Your work has done much to break down discriminatory barriers by building bridges of amity among cultures. The more people we have like you, the surer will be lasting peace and worldwide respect for human rights.

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C HAPTER 7

Treasuring the Dignity of Each Individual Freedom of the Spirit

I KEDA : As the historical experience of the Japanese people proves, the noblest codifications of human rights are empty without the spiritual freedoms of conscience, thought and faith. In 1925, in Japan, a great step in the direction of democracy seemed to have been taken with the passing of the Popular-Vote Law permitting adult males to participate in government. The illusoriness of the appearance was cast into sharp relief, however, by the virtually simultaneous passing of the pernicious Peace Preservation Law, which restricted the freedoms of expression, association, thought and belief. Legislation of this kind paved the way for the emergence of Japanese militarism and for such bellicose measures as the National Mobilisation Law.

A THAYDE : Certainly such spiritual liberties as freedom of faith deserve maximum protection in modern society.

I KEDA : For very many people, religion constitutes the center of life. Indeed, because the religious sense is an integral part of human nature, rejecting the right to its manifestation amounts to a rejection of humanity itself. Recognising freedom of faith and its unrestricted exercise helps us cultivate attitudes conducive to full self-expression in activities essential to such tasks as preserving peace and protecting the natural environment. In the past, some socialist countries, while pretending to guarantee freedom of faith, adhered to the philosophy that branded religion an

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opiate. In spite of official disapproval, however, the religious attitude survived in those countries to be liberated by then President Gorbachev’s perestroika programme. And, on 1 October, 1990, still under the Gorbachev regime, a law concerning freedom of conscience and religious organisations went into effect.

A THAYDE : My highly cultivated father fostered a profound interest in religious freedom in all our family. Perhaps influenced by his teachings, during work on the draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I did all I could to convince my fellow committee members that the freedom of religion is, as you say, the most fundamental of all human rights.

I KEDA : I believe you had something very convincing to say during the discussion of Article 18 [sixteenth in the draft version]. The conclusion of that article says, ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practise, worship and observance.’ The minutes of your meetings show that Mr. Abadi, the representative from Iraq, elaborated this text into three elements: (One) freedom of expression expanded to embrace religious and philosophical convictions and scientific opinions; (Two) freedom of religion, which entails relations between human beings and ‘God’; and (Three) freedom of worship, which deals with relations between the individual and society.

A THAYDE : From my viewpoint, the article as set forth in the draft was in need of no correction. Its philosophical quintessence was to be found in its stated principles and detailed provisions. But not everyone agreed. Dr. Pavlov, the Soviet representative, proposed including in the list only freedom of thought and eliminating freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.

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Freedom of Thought in Peril

I KEDA : I dare say his proposal provoked controversy. A THAYDE : Yes, for example Mr. Peng Chun Chang of China, said, ‘In the West, since the eighteenth century, freedom of thought has been considered one of the indispensable human liberties. This freedom, of course, includes freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. The Soviet delegate has proposed that we refrain from clearly expressing these freedoms in this declaration, which is being compiled for the majority of the population of the world. I find his proposal incorrect.’ Prior to Mr. Chang’s remarks, the Saudi Arabia representative had said that, during the Western colonisation of Asia during the nineteenth century, Christian missionaries had exceeded their proper role by acting as advance forces with political and economic aims. Mr. Chang agreed but refused to recognise these objections as sufficient grounds for limiting freedom of thought.

I KEDA : Perhaps Mr. Chang was attempting to follow your advice by assuming a viewpoint transcending strictly Eastern and Western opinions.

A THAYDE : Perhaps he was. Nor was he the only delegate to disagree with Dr. Pavlov. Other delegates, too, were in favour of a broad interpretation of freedom of thought. Mr. Plaza of Venezuela objected that, while ostensibly championing it, the Soviet delegate was ready to allow political authorities to apply legal restrictions to freedom of conscience. Mr. Anze Matienzo of Bolivia underscored the importance of Article 18 to human spirituality in connection with credos and mutual tolerance.

I KEDA : The delegate from Venezuela was hinting at the fearsome danger always latent in legal restrictions on freedom of thought. Regimes that impose legal restrictions on thought and action cripple religions. Brave and faithful people oppose such oppression, as the experiences of the first two presidents of Soka Gakkai prove. Obviously, however, not all governments are oppressive. Some brilliant examples

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of cultural and spiritual flourishing under wise and tolerant rulers are to be found in human history. One of the most outstanding is that of King Ashoka, whose regime was founded on the Buddhist Law, which he understood well and applied wisely and tolerantly. As is shown in the edicts he had carved on stone pillars throughout India, instead of authoritatively oppressing them, he actively protected other religions. He encouraged open and free dialogue among religious thinkers. When granted freedom of expression, excellent religions always demonstrate their supremacy over inferior teachings. Nichiren, too, favoured open discussions among representatives of different schools of thought. In his Rissho¯ Ankoku-ron (On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land), he urged political authorities to permit public debates with priests of other sects, like the powerful Ninsho¯ (Ryo¯kan; 1217-1303). He knew that, given a chance to hear all arguments clearly stated, the people could choose the righteous faith for themselves. Although his collected works contain numerous criticisms of other sects, Nichiren always understood his opponents’ views and never merely refuted them out of hand. As long as people refuse to be confined within narrow sectarian views and engage in dialogues with the true happiness of all humanity in mind, correct conclusions are certain to be forthcoming. The ordinary people are too wise to be fooled for long. They will spy out authoritarian oppression and abandon teachings whose inferiority is revealed to them. Nonetheless, we must always be on guard against mischievous official interference in spiritual matters and must jealously maintain separation of state and religion.

A THAYDE : The third General Assembly of the United Nations insisted on governmental neutrality in religious affairs.

Separation of State and Religion

I KEDA : To prevent biased patronage of any one faith, governments must remain neutral. State and religion must be strictly separated. Historical developments in France illustrate how separation can be accomplished after a long period of excessively close contact between the two. In the Middle Ages, of course, France had been thoroughly

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Roman Catholic, a handmaiden of the Church, so to speak. Officially, the French Revolution of 1789 divorced Church and state. Actually, however, for practical purposes, Catholicism remained virtually a state religion. But the relationship was never placid. The fall of the ancien régime, which had enthusiastically supported the Catholic Church, and the adoption of a republican system of government aggravated friction between the two. Nonetheless, restricted state support of the Church continued until a law ending it was finally passed in 1905.

A THAYDE : At the beginning of the twentieth century, the issue of funding for educational institutions was especially troublesome in France. Such funding must be impartial.

I KEDA : Many French schools had promoted religiously-oriented educations because they were founded by religious institution. At the beginning of the century, the French government provided no financial support for schools conducting religious education. Because this meant that the adherents of specific religious faiths were denied adequate education, the system violated the human right of equal educational opportunities.

A THAYDE : The authorities’ uncompromising attitude in this case even led to the downfall of the president’s cabinet.

I KEDA : Now the French adopt a more flexible stance. If they wish, parents can send their children to boarding schools where priests are assigned to the dormitories. While not recognising a state religion, Germany protects religious organisations, some of which actually receive tax money. In medieval German society, people paid taxes to their local churches. Today, in what amounts to a relic of that system, the state collects such taxes and distributes them to churches.

A THAYDE : By nature, Brazilians are tolerant, and our nation is noted for a broad-minded approach to religion. Historically, ours has been an open society providing maximum protection for freedom of faith. Some Brazilians, however, have abused that tolerance by screening

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criminal activities behind a front of religion. Such people deserve punishment.

Corrupt Buddhist Priesthood

I KEDA : Greedy self-seekers have destroyed religions before. Nor has Buddhism been immune to this plague. Buddhist priests have been known to appropriate, for their own use and aggrandisement, offerings made by sincere believers. It is often said that Indian lay believers who made the offerings, on which an isolated, cloistered clergy lived, lost faith in the priesthood, and that this spelled ruin for Buddhism in India. Similarly, documentary evidence suggests that a corrupt Buddhist priesthood, sometimes resorting to usury, afflicted the local population severely enough to cause the downfall of Dunhuang in China, once a prosperous oasis trade center sophisticated enough to create an ensemble of cave temples that today are the only survivors of a brilliant past.

A THAYDE : Examples of that kind of thing abound. A growing number of members of clerical groups seem to be interested only in fattening themselves. These people cannot see things clearly and deserve criticism. Nor should censure of them be interpreted as religious oppression.

I KEDA : They are, indeed, everywhere. Founders of religious organisations are usually high-minded people concerned about the happiness of humanity. But their followers sometimes lose sight of founders’ noble aims and submit to secular authority for the sake of improving their own positions. In spite of such people, however, human beings need to believe, and they require a sound religion that enables them to manifest and develop their best potentials. This is why we have always insisted on a just and fair evaluation of religion. Spiritual freedom is the only thing that can help us be what we, as human beings, should be.

A THAYDE : You yourself are a world-class educator and supremely creative global reformer. I agree fully with your insistence on a just,

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fair evaluation of religion, because spiritual freedom is essential to transmitting the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the next century. In this dialogue, we are striving to define the optimum form for a new humanism founded on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Your innate discernment makes you a born world-reformer. Your goal is to contribute to the welfare and improvement of humanity through constant dialogue and numerous written works. Mine has been to do the same thing by means of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The two aims coincide.

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C HAPTER 8

Path to the New Century of Human Rights Education: The First Prerequisite of Progress

I KEDA : It is impossible to over-emphasise the importance of education to the preservation and dissemination of the great human heritage embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A THAYDE : Children are heirs both to the future and past human heritage. Article 26 of the Declaration deals with education. During our debates on it, I said that the right to an education is beyond questioning and that the right to joint possession of the human heritage constituted the foundation of our culture.

I KEDA : All great thinkers as well have stressed the need to educate young people carefully. In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo, one of my favourite authors from my young years, insists that education is the source of everything valuable in society, including advances in science, culture and art. Sound educational policies are the only way to guarantee that human rights are afforded pre-eminence above all other considerations in the coming century.

A THAYDE : That is true. I remember saying to fellow members of the Third Committee, ‘Enriching the human personality is the goal of life and the solid foundation of society. This is impossible without education, the first prerequisite of progress.’

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I KEDA : It is the first prerequisite of all growth. Educating is comparable to the sowing of seeds in the field of the mind. The gatha of the text called ‘The Ploughing’ relates how Shakyamuni regarded this act of intellectual cultivation. ‘Thus have I heard: – The Exalted One was once staying on South Hill, at Ekanala, a brahmin village . . . Now Farmer Bharadvaja saw the Exalted One standing there for alms, and thereat he said: “Now I, recluse, plough and sow, and when I have ploughed and sown I eat. Do thou also, recluse, plough and sow, and when thou hast ploughed and sown, eat.” “But I too, brahmin, plough and sow, and when I have ploughed and sown, I eat.” . . . “Faith is the seed, and rain the discipline. Insight for me is plough fitted with yoke, My pole is conscience and sense-mind the tie, And mindfulness my ploughshare and my goad.”’ 1 Faith is the seed sown in the field of the mind, where, watered by the rain of physical and mental self-discipline and cultivated by the plow of insight (wisdom), it germinates, later to bring to fruition the limitless possibilities inherent within life itself. The path set forth by this series of equations is the fundamental way to overcome suffering and build indestructible happiness. The supremely important thing is to seed the fallow ground of the spirit to bring forth the harvest of a happy life. The American William S. Clark, who contributed much to the growth of modern education in Japan in the late nineteenth century, said that any nation depends first and foremost on a people with heart and aspirations. Education cultivates both.

A THAYDE : Of course, a people and a nation can prosper neither economically nor socially without a good educational system. Education is the product of two major factors: cultural customs and study. Neither is superior to the other, but initiating the latter necessitates prior consideration of the former. In keeping with social consensus and usages, the two should operate in parallel.

I KEDA : Education is cultivation. The etymology of the very word expands the metaphor of sowing knowledge in the field of the mind

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since cultivation derives from the Latin infinitive cultivare, which in turn is related to cultus, which means tilling. Buddhist scriptures consistently proclaim the importance of planting in the mind seeds of supreme value and indestructible happiness. For instance, Nichiren’s ‘The Selection of the Time’ says, ‘How fortunate, how joyous, to think that with this unworthy body I have received in my heart the seeds of Buddhahood!’2 We must first be enlightened to the Buddha seed planted in ourselves and thus to our own limitless potentialities. With this awareness, we are ready to be educated to work for the good of humanity. The Universal Declaration makes education a basic human right deserving jealous protection. In this way, it is the pioneer in the whole process of human development.

A THAYDE : The Declaration will manifest its true value when all human beings are ready to serve as its champions.

New Perspectives and Ideals

I KEDA : Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, who was affectionately devoted to his students’ welfare, asked the teachers, ‘To begin with, what is the purpose of national education? Instead of following the way of the educators and beginning with philosophy and theory and introducing complicated interpretations, I consider it more suitable to begin with this question: “How can these charming children, entrusted to your care, be helped to lead the happiest possible lives in the future?”’3

A THAYDE : The futures of their students must be always uppermost in teachers’ minds. Just as in Mr. Makiguchi’s time, so today, grave threats hang over the heads of the young – threats that concerned teachers cannot overlook. For instance, I have heard that, within the next decade, about ten million Brazilian children may fall victim to AIDS. How can we save them from this unfair death? Leaders everywhere are devoting themselves to this question and to finding ways of alleviating the lot of the poor, the unfortunate and the legally underprivileged. I should like to be a leader of such leaders.

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I KEDA : Leaders of leaders of that kind have the philosophical strength and force of character to change the world.

A THAYDE : But to do so, we require new perspectives and ideals. To find them requires carefully sifting and selecting from human achievements of the past.

I KEDA : I am certain that some of those new perspectives can be found in the philosophy of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi. In commenting on Makiguchi’s original approach to education, Dr. Dayle M. Bethel said that he knew the work of many educators whose achievements are likely to survive in history. But the more he studied Makiguchi, the more he was impressed with his determination to keep humanity at the heart of education and his emphasis on practical action. This was the ideal education Dr. Bethel had been looking for. Makiguchi completed his Education for Creative Living while working as a primary-school principal. Profoundly concerned about his pupils’ happiness, he always tried to see things from their standpoint and argued that education isolated from daily life is unworthy of the name. The first principle of his system is to cultivate children’s sensitivities and intuitive powers and develop in them the ability to create value. He strove to achieve this by refining innate creative wisdom. He wrote, ‘The aim of education is not to transfer knowledge; it is to guide the learning process, to put the responsibility for study into the students’ own hands. It is not the piecemeal merchandising of information but the provision of keys that will allow people to unlock the vault of knowledge on their own. It does not consist in pilfering the intellectual property amassed by others through no additional efforts of one’s own; it would rather place people on their own path of discovery and invention.’

A THAYDE : I agree of course; but, unfortunately, too many teachers fail to inspire their students to experience intellectual discovery and invention.

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I KEDA : You go straight to the heart of the matter. In his short story, ‘Conto de Escola’, the great Brazilian writer Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis describes student apathy in the classroom. Pilar, the quickwitted, clever hero of the story, is an outstanding student with a flair for creative writing. But, in his heart, he would rather be playing in the fields and hills than studying in class. One day, the teacher assigns a task in original composition. Pilar quickly polishes it off. Engrossed in the newspaper, the teacher fails to observe how his son Raimundo, a backward pupil in the same class, offers Pilar a coin to help him with his task. Another student, however, observes the transaction and informs on them. The teacher punishes both culprits by caning their hands until they are red and swollen. In this way, it was in the classroom where Pilar first got to know about cheaters and squealers. Teachers who neglect their duties – by, for instance, reading the newspaper in class – do not stimulate their students’ minds and cannot hope to keep their attention. Connecting study with daily life is perhaps the best way to achieve both aims. To his great credit, with his value-creating system, Makiguchi removed learning from the ivory tower and assimilated it into the needs and deeds of everyday life. He constantly sought ways to relate the things children learned at home and the things they were taught in school. His concept of the ky¯odo-ka, or hometown course, enabled children to apply classroom knowledge to practical situations and to order jumbled, fragmented items of knowledge in a way that clarified the inter-relations among them. It must not be thought, however, that Makiguchi’s hometown approach was parochial in any way. His aim was to expand the natural affection people feel for their home into devotion to the welfare of the whole planet. In his first book Jinsei Chirigaku (A Geography of Human Life), he called on children to realise their membership of their nation and of the worldwide family of humanity. He hoped to educate the kind of true citizens of the world who are indispensable to democracy.

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The Pursuit of Happiness

A THAYDE : Secure, conscientiously constructed, thoroughly satisfying democracy relies on popular education. Thomas Jefferson understood that the fate of the newborn American democracy depended on protection of human rights and liberties and on sound popular education, both of which are fundamental to the maintenance of democratic government.

I KEDA : Jefferson’s achievements were great. John Locke set forth the rights to life, liberty and property. Thomas Jefferson added depth and universality to the Declaration of Independence by altering these to rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Happiness, the pursuit of which is a universal human right, is also the goal of education. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi believed that, tersely put, the goal of human life is happiness. By this he meant not mere self-gratification that ignores the well-being of others, but happiness that, though self-interested, is founded on the realisation that life is not happy unless the happiness is shared with others.

A THAYDE : That is true happiness. Education creates a foundation for overcoming life’s difficulties and for attaining the true happiness Mr. Makiguchi had in mind. At the same time, it must teach us to live in harmony with society and strive for the prosperity of society at large.

I KEDA : Makiguchi insisted that the goals of education and the goals of life must be consistent with each other. A system of education that cultivates people capable of generating great value verifiably demonstrates maximum respect for the right to life.

A THAYDE : The quality and scale of education provided free of charge and indiscriminately to all levels of society determine the quality of a democracy. John Adams, another of the American Founding Fathers, insisted that guaranteeing education to all social classes, rich and poor alike, is an indispensable condition to proper government and the preservation of union. Historians generally agree in according praise to the American government for providing high-quality education

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during the remarkably brilliant period distinguished by men like Jefferson and Adams.

I KEDA : Truly, the stature of a nation depends largely on the scope, depth and fairness of its educational policies. Thomas Jefferson achieved astounding things, including, of course, his concise expression of the American spirit in the text of the Declaration of Independence. But I think his educational work goes a long way to account for his greatness.

A THAYDE : Yes. He not only founded the University of Virginia, considered one of the most beautiful and harmonious educationalarchitectural ensembles in the United States, but also planned it and designed some of its buildings, and this when he was already over eighty years of age. As you imply, the time he dedicated to education helps account for his greatness. He was responsible for a government ordinance requiring that land be set aside in the West for schools. His own library formed the nucleus around which developed the Library of Congress, one of the most famous institutions of its kind in the world. Values of democracy should be measured by the quality and the scale of education provided to people of all ranks gratis and equally.

I KEDA : You yourself have founded an educational institution. A THAYDE : Yes, the Institute of Political Studies in the city of Campos, northeast of Rio de Janeiro, a region famous for sugar, alcohol and petroleum and for having been the first place in Brazil to enjoy electric lights. The high quality of cultural life in Campos is epitomised by its spacious International Cultural Institute. Thousands of people visit the Solar da Baronesa Museum, located on the institute’s grounds. The Institute of Political Studies that I founded stands next to the museum and was modelled on the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Thanks to hard work and perseverance, the classroom building – 10,600 square metres in total – has been completed.

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We believe that, by turning out well-trained people of a high moral calibre and humane spirit, the school can help rectify the disorder and error prevailing today, protect Brazilian democracy and prevent a return to military rule. I established this political training center in the hope of stimulating Brazil to become a free society rigidly opposed to all kinds of discrimination.

I KEDA : Like you, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi was opposed to militarism and devoted his life to the belief in education’s power to create character values. His successor, Josei Toda, worked strenuously as a practical educator. Having inherited the mission from both of them, I have given my utmost to education and intend to devote the rest of my life to this important cause. In 1968, I founded the Soka Junior High and High Schools. Later I founded other primary schools and kindergartens. Soka University, which I founded in 1971, maintains exchange programmes with about fifty other universities throughout the world. Anticipating that, in the twenty-first century, its graduates will contribute greatly to global peace, I drew up the following goals for the university: (One) Be the highest seat of learning for humanistic education. (Two) Be the cradle of a new culture. (Three) Be a fortress for the peace of humankind.

A THAYDE : I established the Institute of Political Studies at Campos with the same high aims that inspired you to establish Soka University. Because I, too, worked and worried over the project, I fully understand the greatness of your achievement as an educator. The institutes we have founded are destined to foster the spread of a new, universal idealism and the emergence of a united world working together in the pursuit of peace. The fulfillment of these goals is assured as long as democracy survives.

Brazilian Education

A THAYDE : Today Brazil is a land of diverse cultural values.

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I KEDA : Yes. Brazil leads most of the world in harmonious relations among races and ethnic groups. As Machado succinctly put it, racial intermixing is Brazil’s greatest contribution to humanism and mixed blood Brazil’s greatest asset.

A THAYDE : The educational system that ultimately resulted in that diversity started with the efforts and initiative of Jesuit priests in São Paulo, notably those of Father José de Anchieta.

I KEDA : The energetic work of six members of the Society of Jesus in the middle of the sixteenth century is well known. Many European colonists were out only to subdue and loot Brazil and its native peoples. In the words of Stefan Zweig, ‘Instead of civilising the country, it is first of all the colonists themselves who run wild.’4 Inspired by their religious creed, however, the Jesuits built schools for natives and children of mixed blood, thus helping lay the foundations for the later evolution of a single, united Brazil.

A THAYDE : During the colonial period, Portugal, wary of indigenous cultural advances, commanded all Brazilians of Portuguese descent to study in Portugal at the University of Coimbra, a policy that produced an elite class of scholars trained abroad instead of at home. With independence, which came in the early nineteenth century, we Brazilians opened new specialised colleges throughout the country. Among them were the famous Recife School of Law, the equally prestigious São Paulo College of Law, the Bahia School of Medicine, and Ouro Preto School of Mining. It was not until the republican period of the late nineteenth century that we began establishing departments of literature, science and art. And the first full-scale university – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – was not founded until 1930. Other fine universities were to come in the succeeding years. Today Brazilians generally understand that economic and social evolution depends on the quality of the education we provide our children. Specialists struggling with illiteracy have made this abundantly clear over the past fifty years. But even their hard work has not solved the problem. In terms of illiteracy, Brazil is the most

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backward country in Latin America. The very magnitude of the task has defeated many organisations. In spite of its literacy problems, however, Brazil is justly proud of its vital literary tradition. I might cite a number of highly influential and important Brazilian writers. For instance, Jorge Amado created an unparalleled position for himself. The great novelist Machado de Assis, as I have already said, was the first director of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. And the long works of José de Alencar, which deal with ethnic themes, contributed greatly to cultural and philosophical dissemination. Famous throughout the world, the writings of these men stimulated the development of their country.

I KEDA : With so brilliant a literary legacy, the high Brazilian illiteracy rate is all the more lamentable. But the problem is not limited to Brazil. One out of every four adults in the world today – or about a billion people – cannot read or write. I feel that Doctor Paulo Freire, the author of such works as Pedagogy of the Oppressed, approached the problem in an original and promising fashion. Believing that many adult, poverty-stricken, and oppressed Brazilians had been robbed of educational opportunities, instead of merely trying to make them literate, he attempted a whole humanisation process through dialogue and study. By helping them acquire the abilities to read and write, he hoped to intensify their awareness and make them capable of interpreting and positively influencing society. His method achieved epoch-making results. For example, in one case, three hundred labourers learned to read and write in a mere forty-five days. In June, 1963, the Brazilian Ministry of Education instituted an overall plan employing Dr. Freire’s method. But, the military coup d’etat of 1 April 1964, frustrated it.

A THAYDE : Vigorous educational policies, beginning with effective plans for combating illiteracy, are essential if we are to transmit our cultural heritage into a future age of circumstances likely to be very different from the ones we have known hitherto.

I KEDA : Illiteracy is crippling. The illiterate are barred from the written aspects of their cultural heritage. They can neither find nor fulfill

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better kinds of jobs. And this makes the acquisition of property difficult for them. There have even been cases of tragic deaths resulting from the inability to read instructions on bottles of medicine and so on. Although the illiterate have the same rights as all other human beings, it is hard for them to understand or protect them.

A THAYDE : What you say is undeniable. But financially pinched governments invariably scrimp on cultural affairs, including education. In the persisting Brazilian economic crisis, education at all levels has been subjected to austere governmental monetary policies.

I KEDA : Basic educational needs go wanting in many developing countries today. Of course, industrialised nations must continue their programmes of financial support to developing and impoverished nations. But international aid targeted specifically to education is essential. Now that the Cold War is over, in spite of recessions and unemployment problems, industrial nations must devote part of the money saved by reducing military expenditures to coping with universal problems like environmental conservation and education. In this matter, we have no alternatives. For some years, I have advocated steps to strengthen the position of educational interests in such a way as to protect them from budget cutting. For instance, I suggested expanding the current, widely applied governmental structure of three branches – executive, legislative and judicial – to include a fourth branch dealing exclusively with education. In addition, to deal with the problem on an international scale, I recommend the formation of a United Nations for Education. Such an organisation could protect education from the kinds of squabbling among sovereign states and interest groups that have long hampered the United Nations. By guaranteeing the right of education internationally it could help ensure that, in the twenty-first century, this and all other fundamental human rights receive due respect. Seeing that all peoples everywhere enjoy the right to a good education is the best way to prevent the reoccurrence of the miseries two world conflicts have afflicted on humankind in our own century.

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A THAYDE : After the Second World War, we came to understand the supreme importance of education in solving outstanding problems. We now grasp the peril of trying to deal with pressing moral and economic difficulties on an exclusively materialistic basis.

I KEDA : I agree: materialism is not the answer. That is why I should like to say some words about the Buddhist approach to teaching. Education must lead forth the best in a student’s potentialities. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi identified these best potentials as the incipient ability to generate the values of profit, good and beauty. He found the philosophical key to its evocation in the Lotus Sutra teaching about the Buddha’s reason for appearing in this world. As is explained in the second chapter of the Lotus Sutra, entitled ‘Expedient Means,’ one great reason (Ichidaiji Innen in Japanese) why the Buddha appeared in this world was to evoke and develop the dignity equally inherent in each human being. In another place in the same chapter, this purpose is analysed into four elements: (One) to open the door to the Buddha wisdom inherent in each sentient being; (Two) to reveal that wisdom; (Three) to enlighten people to it; and (Four) to cause them to enter the Buddha path in actual life. The compassionate Buddha wisdom is equivalent to the Buddha nature, another word for precious life. By bringing them into contact with his own wisdom and compassion, the Buddha shows sentient beings that they manifest traits identical with his own. Nichiren says, ‘When teacher and disciples have fully responded to one another and the disciples have received the teaching, so that they gain the awakening referred to where the sutra says, “I took a vow/ hoping to make all persons/ equal to me, without any distinction between us” [chapter two], this is what the sutra calls “causing living beings to awaken to the Buddha wisdom.”’5 This means that living beings awaken to wisdom equal to the Buddha’s, when mentor and disciples agree in sympathetic response. Finally, the Buddha shows living beings how to use inherent wisdom and compassion to pursue in daily life the way leading to perfection. The Lotus Sutra posits the dignity of all life; its teachings are designed to help human beings attain a happiness transcending life and death by manifesting their dignity and abilities freely and to the

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maximum extent. The same thing can be said of the goals of education. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, too, is a statement of the rights without which such self-manifestation and consequent happiness are difficult to attain.

A THAYDE : Guaranteeing respect for rights consonant with the Buddhist teachings you so clearly expound requires liberty and the absence of all discrimination.

I KEDA : An acute observation. Because all are equally endowed with inherent dignity in the form of the Buddha life, all individuals are equally capable of attaining Buddhahood. The equality between Buddha and sentient beings set forth in the chapter ‘Expedient Means’ leaves no room for discrimination. To further substantiate the dignity of human life, the third chapter of the sutra, ‘Simile and Parable’, clearly refers to sentient beings as the Buddha’s children. Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that all people are innately free and equal in terms of dignity and rights, that all are endowed with reason and conscience and should act in the spirit of brotherhood. Since the end of the Cold War, ultranationalism and racism have trampled on human dignity in some parts of the world. Halting this cruel trend entails the stubborn protection of the dignity and rights of all peoples. Education is the way to reveal the nature of the problem and point the way to its resolution.

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C HAPTER 9

Towards the New Millennium Proof of the Possibility of Peace

I KEDA : Our epoch has witnessed beneficial and hope-giving achievements in many fields. But in addition to such light, it has been marred by great darkness. Two disastrous world wars and the rise and fall of communism have occasioned humanity tremendous suffering. Nuclear weapons and their cataclysmic potential have entitled ours to be called an age of megadeath. If we have seen advances in the direction of recognition of the fundamental rights of all human people, we have also been horrified at the extent to which those rights have been trampled under foot. Now we can only hope that the twentyfirst century will profit from our mistakes to become an age of light, peace and social and economic justice.

A THAYDE : Supported by the lofty principles and practises of Soka Gakkai International, you are already contributing to the creation of just that kind of environment in the coming century. The things you and Mikhail S. Gorbachev have achieved by turning your acute powers of discernment on political and social thought deserve special commendation.

I KEDA : Mr. Gorbachev, whom I have met and talked with on many occasions, shares your love of action. He is never content with the status quo but always exerts his utmost for the sake of a better future for humankind. While undertaking an unprecedented series of domestic reforms, he helped bring the Cold War to an end. Undoubtedly he was born to pioneer a new age for our planet.

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A THAYDE : During his visit to Brazil in 1992, Mr. Gorbachev called at the Brazilian Academy of Letters, where he was awarded the Order of Supreme Honour in recognition of his achievements. I presided over the ceremony and made a speech in which I said, ‘You have fought with peerless bravery to promote the peace that all people of good-will long for . . . More than fulfilling the duties of a head of state, you have restored hope to liberty-seeking, ordinary people of our time.’ He replied, ‘Everything I have done has been, not for my own glory, but for the sake of our children and grandchildren . . . I am grateful for President Athayde’s splendid words. He is the conscience of Brazil. I am more aware of my own responsibility now than ever before. Moreover, I feel that I enjoy greater understanding and support than I have ever done in the past.’

I KEDA : Profound words. What is your evaluation of the reform carried out by Mr. Gorbachev?

A THAYDE : A materialisation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, his perestroika pre-supposed internationalisation as a fundamental. It attempted to promote solidarity advantageous to all nations. The nation-state boundaries of the past are now fading away, making it necessary for us to devise a new international structure entailing global spiritual and material cooperation. We must replace outmoded concepts of sovereignty with methods conducive to greater liberty, security and love. By opening the way for the abolition of nuclear arms, Mr. Gorbachev’s new diplomacy became the harbinger of the dawn of a new century.

I KEDA : By the time of the summit held at his initiative in November 1985, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States had reached an impasse. But the meeting changed everything. I was especially gratified, since it represented the kind of step I had long urged the leaders of both nations to take. Two years later, the United States and the Soviet Union eliminated an entire class of nuclear-weapons delivery systems by signing the historic Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Thereafter,

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Mr. Gorbachev’s persistent hard work led to the end of the Cold War that had divided East and West for more than forty years.

A THAYDE : His policies of glasnost and perestroika helped create a world in which tragedies like those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are unlikely to recur. We have learned how to combat the threats of evil with the power of dialogue, concord, good-will, mutual understanding and solidarity. The possibilities thus opened to us to relieve our anxieties about the future. In my view, even more impressive than Mr. Gorbachev’s achievements is the way you have employed the convincing powers of dialogue to alleviate the insecurity inspired by the threat of armed conflict. You have shown us that, far from stagnating, human life moves forward towards new discoveries in the light of hope for peace, brotherhood and mutual understanding.

I KEDA : The Gorbachev approach is similar to mine in this respect. When we met at the Kremlin, in 1990, he proposed creating a world free of nuclear weapons and praised the power of dialogue over force. He countered criticism of his supposed Utopianism by pointing to the actual and imminent results of his work. Mr. Gorbachev is proof that nuclear weapons can be eliminated and man’s age-old dream of peace can come true. Peace is the foundation of humanity. Once war, nuclear war in particular, breaks out, no one’s human dignity is safe.

The Right to Live in Peace

I KEDA : We have already seen how concern for human rights has passed through two stages – or generations – to reach a third in which interest concentrates on preservation of the natural and social environments. The right to live in peace, a third-generation right, subsumes all the other constitutionally recognised ones. In September 1957, my mentor Josei Toda presented a declaration for the abolishment of nuclear weapons. Because he believed that all peoples on earth have the right to live in peace, Josei Toda issued a scathing denunciation of nuclear weapons as absolute evil and accused anyone who would use them – no matter how high-sounding the cause they pretended to serve – as guilty of crimes against humanity.

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All citizens of the world want to live in happiness – this is an eternal wish of humankind.

A THAYDE : As Soka Gakkai consistently and vigorously asserts, reason, not violence, is the only way to happiness. We must oppose false values and set lofty goals for the twenty-first century. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a platform from which to begin this work.

I KEDA : It is important to observe the way in which successive generations of human rights have evolved from their predecessors. At an earlier stage, guaranteeing liberty and freedom from governmental oppression were the major aims. But, once acquired, liberty alone proved insufficient to the protection of the weak and the disabled. Unbridled liberty was a mixed blessing. Western laissez-faire policies in the eighteenth and nineteenth century widened the gap between the rich and the poor and condoned serious social injustices. A ruthlessly competitive society ignored the weak, disabled and unsuccessful. To rectify the situation, it became necessary to formulate new human rights to guard the victims of unrestrained economic and social license. In other words, once individual liberties had been ensured, it became necessary to define governments’ responsibilities to their citizens: assistance to the weak, a minimal level of health-care, cultural advantages, education, occupational opportunities and so on. This led to the creation of social security systems intended to ensure the right of each person to live in a fashion worthy of his human dignity. Such attempts succeeded in some places and failed in others. The Weimar Republic, for example, formulated an ideal programme of social rights only to see it all scrapped by the Nazis.

A THAYDE : Undeniably, living a fulfilled, truly human life depends on the material and social security net you speak of. Nonetheless, the rights set forth in the Universal Declaration are so broad in scope that it is neither right nor practical to rely on nation states to protect them. Their observation must be global and must arise from the conscience and sense of brotherhood of each individual. Whoever ignores or denies human rights of others, thereby violating or denying

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the fundamental elements of liberty, equality and fraternity, should be considered a criminal.

I KEDA : The right to a fulfilled life lived in peace that Mr. Toda proclaimed transcends nation-state boundaries. He condemned the would-be users of nuclear weapons as the worst criminals because, in our mad age of hydrogen bombs, they threaten the entire human race. For the first time in history, humanity is armed with weapons that can terminate not only the best-devised social-security nets but also human history itself. From Mr. Toda’s standpoint, the right to a fulfilled life lived in peace takes precedence over everything. No national interests or theories of deterrence can compete with it.

A THAYDE : Today, it is sometimes capriciously maintained that any nation with the capability is entitled to produce and stockpile nuclear weapons. I do not agree. Nor can I condone the notion that possession of these fearsome weapons somehow elevates a nation’s position in international society.

I KEDA : Mr. Toda’s right to live in peace obviously means freedom from the threat of destruction by nuclear weapons. He was eager to protect humankind as a whole from the fires of war. In February 1952, at a meeting of young people, he defined his own philosophy as global citizenship. In spite of cultural, educational and racial differences, we are all inhabitants of the planet Earth. He stressed both our equality and the importance of our realising our shared humanity. And this, of course, is related to his attitude toward the ‘peoples of the world’ and their right to live in peace, which were further stressed in the condemnation of nuclear weapons he made five years later. The current of human rights, having gone through civil revolutions, advanced from first-generation rights aimed at establishing fundamental liberties, such as the right to property and freedom to choose one’s occupation and freedom of thought, conscience, expression, assembly, association and so on, to second-generation rights that attempted to establish fundamental social rights intended to sustain lives worth living. What Mr. Toda called the right to live means the right to live in happiness.

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A THAYDE : If the twenty-first is to be a century in which human rights are broadly honoured, we must abandon violence as a means of attaining ends. The essence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the realisation that equality, liberty and brotherhood are the sacred rights of all human beings, regardless of secondary considerations like race and citizenship. In other words, the Declaration is essentially humanistic ideals.

I KEDA : The preamble to the Declaration says, ‘Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.’ Article One says, ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ None of this is possible, however, without peace. Whereas peace depends on our recognising the universal equality of human dignity and rights, war is diametrically opposed to both. Consequently, all other rights depend on the right to live a fulfilled life in peace. In this context, peace means more than the mere absence of belligerence or the threat of nuclear attack. It must be a condition stimulating the full flowering of human dignity.

Symbiosis of Humanity and Nature

I KEDA : Technological advances have empowered human beings to the detriment of the non-human environment of the planet. Exploitation and wastefulness on our part have created global environmental problems. In official association with the highly significant Environment Summit – the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development – held in Brazil, in June 1992, SGI sponsored an Environment and Development Exhibition on the theme ‘Symbiosis of Humanity and Nature’. The aim of the exhibit was twofold: to demonstrate the abundance and resources of the Amazon environment and to seek ways to facilitate sustainable development there. I should like to take this chance to thank you again for being a member of the exhibition honorary executive committee.

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A THAYDE : It is humanity that is important – this is my unwavering belief. To deal successfully with pressing environmental problems, we must realise our responsibilities as guardians of the Earth. Henry Ford once called development of the Amazon humanity’s ultimate drama. I agree. In time of food crises, the Amazon region can function as a bread basket for the whole world. I hope the Amazon will be treated in a way that enables it to contribute to the well-being of all humanity.

I KEDA : Of course, development of the Amazon must not be confined to economic factors. It must be conducted in ways that protect the rights of indigenous populations and promote the advantages of humanity in general. Human survival in the next century may depend on our ability to divert our energies from exclusive concentration on economics and national sovereignty and toward promotion of the general well-being of all peoples. In fact, the Environment and Development Exhibition focused on the symbiosis of humanity and nature. The Amazon Tropical Rain Forest Regeneration Research Project, undertaken by SGI Brazil and, the Natural Environmental Research Center of Soka University and the Amazonas Environmental Science Bureau, is expected to promote, sustainable development not only in Brazil but in the whole world as well.

Human Development

I KEDA : The people of some poverty-stricken, developing nations, lack the minimal food, clothing and shelter to which their very humanity entitles them. Obviously, to provide the basics, nations must develop economically. But such development alone is insufficient. As we gradually come to understand, human beings require more than bare economic necessities. Social and cultural factors, too, contribute to the creation of a way of life worthy of our humanity. Creating the right social and cultural environment requires full awareness of human dignity plus sound philosophical views and an educational system encouraging people to believe in and realise their best potentials.

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A THAYDE : Human happiness does to an extent depend on the social and cultural milieu. The constituents of the right kind of environment may be modest. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy says that all happy families are alike. A certain magazine has described this state of happiness in the following way: life ruled by tranquillity and calm where children are born in the midst of love and harmony and where, from the days of their births, they are surrounded by beauty and goodness.

I KEDA : In the happy family that Tolstoy implies, the happiness of the individual contributes to the happiness of the whole group. Johan Galtung, the originator of peace research, insists that development of any kind must contribute to the advantage – that is, to the happiness – not only of a given local population, but also to the whole family of humanity. He considers national growth, or the production and distribution of material goods, only a means toward the end of development for all of humanity. The means must not be confused with the end. Human rights have to be considered our right to the cultivation of the whole person for us to live happily.

A THAYDE : The most important task of the twenty-first century will be to create a world in which the principles of that declaration are respected. As the frequent reports of violations issued by Amnesty International clearly show, worldwide guarantee of human rights remains a dream that we hope will come true in the next century. The Universal Declaration is a peak achievement, but it is not final. The people of the twenty-first century must see to its completion and just observance.

I KEDA : I once had a dialogue with Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, who devoted his life to the ideal of Pan-Europeanism. Our dialogue was published in May 1972 with the title Civilisation, East and West. In it, I proposed my idea to call the new century a century of life. By a century of life, I meant the era, society and civilisation in which the dignity of life becomes fundamental and people’s lives, personalities and individual happiness are considered ends themselves and, thus, at no time become means or sacrifices for anything. The great tragedies of our own century arose from bad means used

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in the name of attaining ends that were not always evil in themselves. The Fascists were avid to promote the glory and prosperity of their own national group – not necessarily an evil aim. But to attain it, they committed the evil of victimising countless innocent people. Today, nation states – or blocs of states – stockpile nuclear weapons, thus threatening the survival of humanity for their own political purposes, which may be good, bad, or indifferent. Means and ends must be consistent and must be evaluated in the light of the good of the whole human race. Because of the breadth of its basis, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights breaks narrow political structures and points the way to respect for the rights and well-being of all peoples.

A Model Bodhisattva

I KEDA : The solidarity of humanity transcending national framework, toward which the U.N. is oriented, is indispensable to the realisation of true human rights. Karel Vasak, who served as the director of the Division of Human Rights and Peace of UNESCO, listed the right to solidarity among the third-generation human rights. Jean Jacques Rousseau taught that, in addition to self-love, human beings innately experience compassion, which is a manifestation of the sense of brotherhood – fraternity as in the famous French liberty, equality and fraternity – and of a desire to minimise the unhappiness and promote the happiness of others. Buddhism stresses compassion and goes so far as to hold that the happiness of the self is dependent on bringing happiness to others. The bodhisattva is an embodiment of compassion. The word compassion itself (jihi in Japanese) is a translation of two Pali terms. The first is mett¯a, which means friendship. The second is anukampana, which means pity and sympathy. Taken together, they mean the elimination of others’ suffering by the removal of anxiety and fear and the imparting of happiness to others in the form of joy, security and hope. Altruistic effort for the sake of imparting such happiness characterises the innermost nature of the bodhisattva. Although all of them devote themselves to saving sentient beings from suffering, each of the many

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different bodhisattvas appearing in Buddhist texts has special characteristics. Among some of the best known are Manjushirı¯, whom I have already mentioned, Samantabhadra, Maitreya, Avalokiteshvara and Bhaishajyara¯ja. From all the bodhisattvas, however, Nichiren elected as prime model for practical behaviour the one called Sada¯paribhu¯ta, who appears in the twentieth chapter of the Lotus Sutra. His name, which means Never Disparaging, symbolises the profound respect he demonstrated for the Buddha nature within each person he met. In the Sutra, he is quoted as saying to those he encounters, ‘I have profound reverence for you, I would never dare treat you with disparagement or arrogance. Why? Because you are all practising the bodhisattva way and are certain to attain Buddhahood.’1 His attitude is a concentration of the respect for humanity pervading the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren said, ‘The heart of the Buddha’s lifetime of teaching is the Lotus Sutra, and the heart of the practise of the Lotus Sutra is found in the “Never Disparaging” chapter.’2 The behaviour of the bodhisattva Never Disparaging, is rooted in his belief that all living beings have dignity because they all have buddhahood in their lives. Any human beings can open the path of supreme life by revealing the buddhahood – universal dignity – inherent in their lives. Practising the boddisattva way is to live this way for oneself and others.

A THAYDE : A polished sense of equality that eliminates any kinds of discrimination accords with subtle religious sense and sublime principles. Your perspectives for the twenty-first century will relieve humanity of fear and make people awake to the new world. It is by confronting discrimination and respecting equality that we can protect our valuable world.

I KEDA : Manifesting the inner Buddha nature – universal dignity – opens the path leading to happiness resulting from self-realisation, the epitome of all the third-generation rights. As he progresses along this path, the bodhisattva combines the interests of the self and of others. To the scorn and maltreatment he met on all sides, the bodhisattva Never Disparaging returned only non-violence and compassion. His attitude convinced even his revilers to join him in

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working to relieve suffering. His behaviour – a model for humanrights advocates of the future – may be summarised as follows: 1. Firm belief in absolute equality; 2. Unwavering reliance on non-violent, compassionate dialogue; 3. Earnest, courageous challenge to achieving the self-realisation of oneself and others. Firm belief in absolute equality means to believe that all living beings are equally endowed with buddhahood, which is universal dignity. Unwavering reliance on non-violent, compassionate dialogue is the battle to extirpate evils such as anger, greed and foolishness and to evoke the spirit of compassion and justice, by means of dialogue without resorting to violent means. Earnest, courageous challenge to realisation of oneself and others is made possible by the boddhisattva’s courageous struggles. Oneself, from the Buddhist perspective, is nothing but buddhahood. It is possible to build happy lives when each person makes his or her own particular personality bloom by bringing forth their buddhahood.

A THAYDE : As what you say proves, your thoughts and deeds are all future-oriented. You teach new value criteria to shake humanity from its conceited assurance of being the lord of creation and, on the level of the faith our humanity requires, stimulate the development of a new human history.

The Advent of a New Humanism

A THAYDE : In 1925, Albert Einstein visited Rio de Janeiro. Assis Chateaubriand and Azevedo Amaral had luncheon with him, and, at their invitation, I joined the party. It was not the place to discuss science, but, listening to him respectfully, we enjoyed what he had to say about art, Brazil and the Brazilians. Einstein was deeply impressed by the way so many different races live together peacefully in our country and by our lack of racial discrimination and anti-Semitism. Appreciative of the accuracy of his observation, we commented that a basically tolerant educational system formed the national characteristics he discerned.

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I KEDA : A few years after Einstein’s journey to South America, the Nazis began persecuting the Jews. Some of Einstein’s relatives were victims. His own villa was subjected to a house search. The announcement he made at the time moved the consciences of people all over the world and revealed clearly his evaluation of societies. He said ‘As long as I have any choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance and equality of all citizens before the law prevail . . . Humanity is more important than national citizenship.’ He put the highest value on protecting humanity and insisted that the society where people can live as human beings beyond their nationality is the most important. His words are worth consideration, thinking of the human rights of global citizens.

A THAYDE : When I met him again, in New York in 1952, he said that, though he had a hypothesis, as of yet he had reached no final conclusion about the nature of the universe. He was the successor to a long line of great thinkers including Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, about all of whom he said, ‘They did not lean toward single, absolute and certain interpretations. Instead, they proceeded in understanding step by step. Together with the developments of the time and emerging technology, they modified their ways of thinking. You see we are not proposers of absolutely certain dogma.’

I KEDA : In 1925, when you first met him, Einstein was pondering the significance of his General Theory of Relativity and the nature of the universe indicated by it. Wolfgang Pauli, who worked with him, said that, in his late years, Einstein devoted much thought to a unifying theory. The universe he observed was vast and included an element of the mystical. Buddhism, too, discovers mystical elements in the universe and considers the very existence of humanity a manifestation of miraculous universal power. For Einstein, ultimate scientific knowledge should reveal a universal cosmic law (the unifying principle). From the Buddhist standpoint, the universal cosmic law is the Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra, formulated by Nichiren as Nam-myohorenge-kyo, the operations of which take the form of magnificent compassion. On the basis of the statement ‘All beings and their

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environments in any of the Ten Worlds are themselves entities of Myoho-renge-kyo’,3 my mentor Josei Toda proclaimed the Buddha to be the substance of the whole universe and said all phenomena arise from the operations of compassion.

A THAYDE : Religion is the realisation of human wisdom in search of truth. In the twenty-first century, enlightenment resulting from great religious concepts will probably reveal the structure of the universe.

I KEDA : Many astronauts and cosmonauts have commented not only on the beauty, but also on the mystical quality of Earth seen from space and have expressed a religious reverence for the dignity of our planet and the life it fosters. Captain Gerald P. Carr of Skylab III told me of his own feeling of the harmony permeating all phenomena in the universe. Contemplating that religious harmony inspires in us awareness of the immense good fortune we share in living on an oasis of life in cosmic vastness.

A THAYDE : A sense of our blessedness should inspire understanding of the need to live harmoniously with all our fellows, even those with whom we do not see eye to eye. When we live in harmony with others, accept co-existence with even those in opposition and understand each other, we can realise the great community indicated by the Universal Declaration.

I KEDA : Yes, and rights to happiness and self-realisation are the primary focus of third-generation human rights and must be regarded as global, transcending national boundaries. As human beings travel into outer space, they will take respect for and observation of fundamental rights with them. When this happens, ultimate reverence will be afforded to the ‘religious’ element inherent in the cosmos and, as the Buddha nature, in each individual human life as well. The radiance of dignity of the universe must have moved Einstein and astronomers by something cosmic and universal. The wish of each single individual – the small universe – for the right to live in happiness will prompt them to awakening of the buddhahood inherent in their lives. The radiance of human dignity will unite with the dignity of

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the universe, and people will realise that universal religious elements are the source of their radiance. In the new century of human rights, a brilliant new humanism will emerge, rooted in universal religious elements. In memory of my own mentor’s behest and to keep my vow to you, who make me feel as if my mentor were still alive, I am determined to do all I can do to help this radiant perspective unfold.

A THAYDE : History will remember you and the deeds of the movement you lead. I feel certain that the twenty-first century will see the historic realisation of the new humanism you envisage.

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C HAPTER 10

Paternal Images Laura Sandroni (Author of children’s books) The eldest daughter of the Athayde family, Mrs. Sandroni was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1934. After graduating from Getúlio Vargas Foundation, she acquired a master’s degree in Brazilian literature from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Since 1975 she has written a column on young peoples literature for the newspaper O Globo. In addition, she is director of the Roberto Marinho Foundation for the Promotion of Reading. A member of the Brazil Pen Club and the Brazil Federal Cultural Policy Committee, she is the author of such books as De Lobato a Bojunga: as reinações renovadas (From Lobato to Bojunga: the New Generation).

Cícero Sandroni (Journalist) Born in São Paulo, in 1935, Mr. Sandroni majored in journalism at Pontifical University Catholic of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). He married Laura Athayde in 1958. At about the same time, he began writing for the newspaper Correio da Manhã, where he is now head of the news department. In addition, he actively participates in the work of other leading Brazilian journalistic media, including the newspapers O Globo and Jornal do Brasil and the magazine Manchete. In 1993, he became director of the Culture and Arts Foundation of the Brazil Ministry of Culture and head of the Bureau of Cultural Activities. He is the author of such books as O diabo só chega ao meio-dia (The Devil Arrives at Noon) and O Vidro no Brasil (Brazil and Glass).

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Roberto Athayde (Dramatist) The second son in the family, Mr. Athayde was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1949. He studied French literature at the Sorbonne and music at the University of Michigan. His play The Advent of Margarita, about an eccentric woman teacher, brought him recognition as a dramatist. The lead role in the play was initially performed by the celebrated actress Marília Pêra. It has been produced in more than thirty countries. His other dramatic works include O Jardim Da Fada Morgana (The Garden of the Sprite Mangana) and Confissões do Comissãrio de Bordo Vladimir da Braniff (Confessions of Vladimir, In-flight Purser on Braniff Airways).

Hiromasa Ikeda (Vice-president of Soka Gakkai International) Mr. Ikeda, who was born in Tokyo in 1953, graduated from the Department of Law and the Department of Literature of Keio University and, beginning in 1978, taught at the Kansai Soka high school, where he later became a director. He began working at the Soka Gakkai headquarters in 1989. At present, he is vice general director of Soka Gakkai, trustee of Soka University, and head councilor to the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum. He is especially active in international scholarly and cultural exchanges and represents his father, Daisaku Ikeda, president of SGI, in many overseas events.

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Immortal Achievements of a Champion of Human Rights

H I R O M A S A I KEDA : In welcoming you here I feel as if I were welcoming your father, Austregésilo de Athayde, too. The last time I met him was at the Brazilian Academy of Letters in February 1993.

C ÍCERO S ANDRONI : It was at that same Brazilian academy that I first heard President Daisaku Ikeda speak. His message on ‘Dawn of Hope in Human Civilisation’ deeply moved both me and my fatherin-law, who was seated next to me on the platform.

H IROMASA : You were all very kind to us at the time. I shall never forget how intently all the Brazilian members of the audience listened to my father’s words.

C ÍCERO : My acquaintance with the dialogues he published with Arnold Toynbee and René Huyghe has familiarised me with the breadth and depth of Mr. Ikeda’s philosophy. My father-in-law had the greatest respect for Mr. Ikeda’s thought and was deeply gratified by their dialogue because of its importance to the human rights struggle, in which he was a perpetual combatant.

H IROMASA : Among the many great people my father has met, he entertained especially deep respect for Mr. Athayde. The opportunity of seeing him was one of the major reasons why he made a two-month trip throughout the Americas in 1993.

The Meaning of Life

H IROMASA : With the death of Mr. Athayde on 13 September, 1993, the human-rights movement lost one of its most treasured stars. The attendance of five hundred mourners, including the former president of Brazil José Sarney and governor of the State of Rio, Leonel Brizola,

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bore witness to the great love and respect the people of Brazil felt for him.

L AURA S ANDRONI : It is kind of you to say so. The long telegram of condolence we received from President Ikeda greatly encouraged the whole family.

H IROMASA : Word of Mr. Athayde’s death reached my father just as he was preparing to leave for the United States to deliver a speech at Harvard. The day before, SGI members who had just returned from Brazil told him of your father’s condition. We had all been hoping he would soon recover and be able to leave the hospital. Although he is now gone, the achievements of his life are immortal. We would be very happy if those of you who were closest to him would share your images and memories with us.

L AURA : Gladly. But we should like to hear about your father, too. President Ikeda was our father’s good friend, and their dialogue can be called our father’s last will and testament. Knowing more about the two men will help us understand their dialogue better and make it easier to transmit our father’s philosophy to our own generation and to generations to come.

H IROMASA : Shall we begin by hearing about your father’s last days? L AURA : His will to live never deserted him, even at the very last. My oldest brother Antonio and I were in the waiting room of the intensivecare unit of the Santa Lúcia Hospital in Rio de Janeiro when we heard about his death.

R OBERTO A THAYDE : When I left his side at five-thirty on the last day, he had been resting calmly. Then, on my way home, at seven o’clock, I got word of his death. Until the very end, he had been resolved not to die until the Institute of Political Studies was finished and President Ikeda and he had completed their dialogue.

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H IROMASA : The integrity and sincerity of his efforts on the dialogue impressed me profoundly. I have heard that he was at work on it until a few days before his final hospitalisation. My father is honoured to have been able to help preserve Mr. Athayde’s philosophy and the history of his human rights struggle for future generations the world over.

L AURA : My father was very happy to have found someone willing to undertake that task.

H I R O M A S A : Death is inescapable, but philosophy is everlasting. Knowing that one’s thoughts will be preserved for posterity is a source of great happiness. Upon receiving word of Mr. Athayde’s death, Brazilian President Itamar Franco said, ‘Today the curtain has fallen on a chapter in Brazilian culture. His achievements made him more a citizen of Brazil than anyone else. Mr. Athayde’s humanity and greatness will live forever.’ The president’s words symbolise the respect the entire nation felt for your father.

L AURA : Father used to say that he had lived long enough and was not afraid of death.

H IROMASA : That is just the attitude we could expect from a great leader like him. Mr. Athayde devoted nearly a century to an immense range of fields of action, including human rights, literature, culture and education. What aspect of his work was his greatest source of pride?

L AURA : Without question, his having represented Brazil as a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But he was proud of other things, too: for example, his work at the Brazilian Academy of Letters, the many years he devoted to journalism, his oratorical talents and his family.

R OBERTO : And we might add to the list the letter he received from former U.S. president, Jimmy Carter, praising his activities in the

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United Nations, his dream of setting up the Institute of Political Studies, the support he enjoyed from the people, and the respect society afforded him.

C ÍCERO : Perhaps because I am a member of the same profession, I felt that he was proudest of being a journalist. For seventy years he never gave up striving to protect liberty, even in the face of opposition on the part of newspaper policy makers, imprisonment and even exile. He kept writing his columns up until the day he was hospitalised. In his last years, he was director of the board of councillors of the Newspaper Association, of which he had been a member years before. On one occasion, in an address to the association, he said, ‘I’m a lifelong journalist. I got my start as a journalist and I have lived as a journalist. What’s more, I have remained true to my convictions. I’m proud of the life I’ve lived.’ I was especially moved by this statement because it was made at a time when public opinion was not favourable to journalists.

H IROMASA : Firm convictions give a person strength. It was Mr. Athayde’s firm convictions that struck a cord of response in my father’s heart.

C ÍCERO : Universal optimism was the foundation of all my father-inlaw’s work. As he frequently said, he believed in the future, no matter how bad the present might be. Nonetheless, society directed darts of criticism at him, just as it has, no doubt, at Mr. Ikeda.

H IROMASA : In spite of all criticism, Mr. Athayde’s great achievements in the human rights struggle guarantee him a place in history. The path he followed was bathed in the light of humanism.

At Life’s Major Stages

H IROMASA : His being a great philosopher no doubt made Mr. Athayde a great father and husband as well. Was he indulgent or strict as a rule?

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L AURA : Not all that indulgent. I was the oldest girl in the family; in fact, for eleven years, I was the only child. Father rigorously insisted on my making good grades, probably because he wanted me to understand the importance of learning to absorb knowledge.

R OBERTO : Father was certainly strict but he never coerced us. Of course, this may have been because he was very busy.

H IROMASA : I understand. My father, too, was so busy that I, as a child, rarely had a chance to spend a lot of time with him. When he became president of Soka Gakkai, his work involved extensive activity both at home and abroad. I was only seven at the time. That is why, like you, I considered him strict. Because our house was small, we three children had to be quiet whenever he was at home. But I do not recall his ever having scolded me harshly.

L AURA : Did he advise you about education? H IROMASA : Not in particular. Mother was in charge of our daily training. But, when the time came, he did recommend my entering the Keio Gijuku Middle School. Founded by Yukichi Fukuzawa and the oldest private school in Japan, Keio Gijuku employs a system integrated from elementary school through university. Father thought going there would be useful from the standpoint of Soka education, which uses a similar integrated system too.

L AURA : We visited Soka University the other day. Father, who devoted his late years to education, would have been very happy to see how splendidly humanistic an institution it is. Mr. Ikeda is the founder of elementary, middle and high schools and a university. Perhaps you have some interesting stories to tell in connection with his educational activities.

H IROMASA : When I was still in elementary school, the whole family visited the site of the future Soka Gakuen. It was a grove of trees along the waterway called the Tamagawa Josui. Mother packed lunches for us, and father told us a school would be in that place someday.

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The many Soka Gakuen and Soka University matriculation and graduation ceremonies we took part in gradually awakened interest in Soka education in all three of us children. I am the oldest. I have served on the faculties of the Kansai Soka junior and senior high schools. My second brother has served on the faculty of Soka University, and the youngest is on the staff of the Kansai Soka Elementary School. Taken together, we three in a way stand for integrated Soka education. Father, who always calls education his ultimate work, influenced our decision to enter the educational field.

L AURA : I know your father has always been very busy, but, as children, did you spend much time with him?

H IROMASA : From as long ago as I can remember, he was away most of the time. In a report on our fathers I had to write as a third-grader, I candidly said that my own father often did not come home. This worried my teacher so much that she paid a house call on our family.

L AURA : Our father also was too active in other works to correct us or lay down the law about family matters. He chose to guide us through the example of his own activities. He respected our individual rights in all things and had little to say about things like university exams, jobs or marriage. He left everything up to us but always supported our judgment.

H IROMASA : Obviously, in all aspects of life, he respected your human rights. Do you have some fond recollections of him in connection with such major stages in life as school promotions, finding jobs and getting married?

C ÍCERO : When I asked him for Laura’s hand in marriage, he refused. The Athayde family already has one journalist, he said. That was enough.

H IROMASA : Well, giving their daughters away in marriage makes most fathers sad. My own father often discusses such matters with women about to get married.

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C ÍCERO : Of course, ultimately, he gave his permission. At our wedding he said, ‘Let love be the foundation on which to build deep mutual understanding. Then let that grow into comradely affection.’ That is what we have done and continue doing today.

L AURA : In college, I majored in classical literature. At graduation, father gave me a book, in which he wrote, ‘The end of one duty marks the beginning of another still greater obligation.’ He was trying to teach me to challenge whatever life brought my way. Sincere in everything, he gave himself entirely to the attainment of every goal he set. He believed that the important thing is to triumph over each of the series of challenges life puts in our way. He wanted me to know that university graduation is only one step. I had to have the strength to persevere to the end of the way.

H IROMASA : Yes, and cultivating that strength in young people is the fundamental goal of education.

Hardships in Youth

L AURA : My father’s young years were spent in poverty in the back country of the State of Ceará. In 1918, he left for a life in Rio de Janeiro that, as he frequently told us, was hard until he finally became a journalist.

H IROMASA : My own father often calls the hardships of youth life’s greatest treasure. But please tell us more about Mr. Athayde’s youthful struggles.

L A U R A : He became a journalist at about the age of twenty. Until then, he depended on help from our grandfather Antonio Austregésilo. Father worked from morning until night – as a private tutor in the daytime and at the offices of the United Press in the evenings. At about that time, in São Paulo, an armed constitutional-protection movement rose up against the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas.

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H IROMASA : Yes, your father joined it and was imprisoned and exiled as a result. In fact, I believe he and your mother postponed their wedding on that account.

R OBERTO : That is right. They got engaged in 1931, the year before the constitutional-protection movement. My father was imprisoned twice during the following year.

L AURA : He put his wedding off for three months so that he could devote himself completely to the revolutionary struggle in São Paulo. Mother was so worried because the two of them could not get in touch that she lost ten kilogrammes. Father used to call this period the greatest trial he and she ever had to endure. In 1944, he was put in prison for about ten days – over the New Year holiday – for writing an article critical of the Vargas regime. I have heard that Mr. Ikeda, too, was once unjustly imprisoned.

H IROMASA : Yes, in July 1957. I was only four at the time. All I remember about it was that my mother went to Osaka to meet him when he got out. An election campaign the year before led up to his imprisonment. The whole thing is related in the tenth volume of father’s novel The Human Revolution. The volume came out in book form in 1967, just as I was getting ready to go to the Osaka-Kyoto district to join the faculty of the Kansai Soka Gakuen. That may be why the book impressed me strongly with a sense of reality.

Treasured People, Treasured Beloved Books

H IROMASA : Who were some of the people that Mr. Athayde respected most?

L AURA : He entertained the greatest respect for the abolitionists Nabuco and Patrocínio. He also highly esteemed the eloquent legal scholar and politician Rui Barbosa and the celebrated author Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis. Because of his own devotion to the cause of human rights, from an early stage, father sympathised with and respected

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Nabuco and Patrocínio for their efforts to free the slaves. Regarded as one of the great lights of Brazilian literature, Assis was also first president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. His concise prose probably exerted a great influence on father’s own style. Whom does Mr. Ikeda respect most highly?

H IROMASA : Without question, Josei Toda, the second president of Soka Gakkai influenced my father most strongly and is the object of his greatest respect. An outstanding educator, Mr. Toda was my father’s teacher and mentor in the world of Buddhism. Not long ago, the morning edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper carried a list of 1,603 people most prominent in the modern age. Mr. Toda was listed in the very first rank of those born in and around 1900. As a matter of fact Mr. Toda and your father were of about the same age. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why they tend to merge in my father’s mind.

R OBERTO : How well do you remember Mr. Toda? H IROMASA : Not well. I was only five when he died. I do remember that he treated me affectionately. For instance, he always said that I must not grow up being picky about food. Then, to make it more appetising, he would sprinkle sugar on whatever it was that I objected to eating at the moment. He gave me the name Hiromasa. The Hiro part means broad and indicates breadth of study. Masa means just and upright. I am afraid I do not live up to my name, though.

L AURA : I suppose your father told you many impressive things about Mr. Toda.

H IROMASA : Actually, my father always has Mr. Toda in his heart. On the eleventh of February, 1993 – which would have been Mr. Toda’s ninety-third birthday – father completed the last of the twelve volumes of his serialised novel, The Human Revolution. On that day, as, in the presence of Mr. Athayde, he received an honorary doctorate from the Federal University of Brazil, he remarked that he felt as if Mr. Toda were with him in Rio de Janeiro.

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Incidentally, I hear that Mr. Athayde’s library contains forty thousand volumes. What kinds of books did he like reading most?

L AURA : He was a voracious reader in many fields. As a journalist, he was very sensitive to information. His open personality aroused his interest in everything. He read the works of Machado de Assis and the French classics over and over and was very fond of Baudelaire and Victor Hugo.

H IROMASA : From his youth, my father also loved Hugo. To help preserve his spiritual heritage for the future, he created the Victor Hugo House of Literature in a region of France closely associated with the great writer. Did your father recommend any particular books to you?

L AURA : No. But, when I was twenty, he told me that every book in his library was filled with human wisdom, and that I was free to read anything I liked there.

C ÍCERO : He recommended that I read Greek and Roman classics like the Odyssey and Plato and Virgil’s Aeneid, which he considered an essential foundation for human morality.

R OBERTO : He told me to read the works of the leading emancipationist Nabuco, whose highly moral way of life father thought might help form my own character. Did Mr. Ikeda recommend books for you to read?

H IROMASA : He once gave me a 1931 first-edition copy of Naporeon (Napoleon) by Y¯usuke Tsurumi. The marginal notes and red-underlined passages in it made me suspect he had bought and read it himself when he was young. He did recommend that I read books on Japanese history, which became my major in college. Then, when we were in elementary school, he used to let my two brothers and me periodically buy a certain number of books on any subject we liked. Of course, we all three chose something different. But we acquired the habit of selecting books for ourselves.

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Laura, you are an author of children’s books. Did your father ever comment on your work in that field?

L AURA : Once he was invited to address a commemorative meeting of a certain foundation, which I had helped establish. My joy at hearing him praise my work and discuss the importance of reading to character formation kept me in tears throughout his speech. My job is to suggest what parents and teachers ought to do for children. Reading is more than a way of acquiring information. Young people must become accustomed to reading because it broadens their outlook. Teaching them how to interpret the contents of books cultivates the ability to think and to interpret human life correctly. I once wrote a review of Mr. Ikeda’s wonderful book The Snow Country Prince, which is rich in the kinds of spiritual teachings that are very important for children. Which of your father’s written works do you consider most impressive?

H IROMASA : His collection of essays Watashi no Jinsei-kan (My views of life), which was published, not as a serial, but originally in book form in October 1970. Those were hard times. Soka Gakkai was being maliciously criticised. He suffered from continual fevers. In spite of all this, he wrote a page or two a day, keeping a record in a notebook, until the book was finished. He was convinced the task would sooner or later be finished as long as he wrote a little at a time. His perseverance impressed me deeply. But The Human Revolution, a vast panorama of the lives of the ordinary people that relates both the history of Soka Gakkai and the recovery of Japan after the Second World War, is his life work. He is now writing a sequel.

Unforgettable Encounters

H IROMASA : I have heard that, in the evening, Mr. Athayde often sat on a bench in front of the Academy of Letters, under a bust of first president Assis, and talked sociably with passers-by.

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L AURA : Yes, he loved conversations with ordinary people. I have known him to spend hours talking with fishermen on the island of Itacuruçá, where he had a weekend house. In language they could understand, he would discuss all kinds of topics, including political issues. Sitting on the bench outside the academy brought him into contact with citizens who respected his work as a journalist and his academic activities.

C ÍCERO : Once I sat there with him, listening as he gave advice to people who had family troubles, to parents who had difficulties with children, and to couples whose marriages were almost on the rocks. For him, talking with ordinary people was a relaxing way of staying in touch with reality.

H I R O M A S A : He was a truly democratic leader who cheered the distressed, encouraged the suffering and gave hope to the young. In its obituary, a leading Rio de Janeiro newspaper said that Mr. Athayde got along well with everyone and was everyone’s friend. It added that he treated everyone – intellectuals, diplomats, businessmen, artists, the old, the young, the poor and the sick – equally and without prejudice or discrimination.

R OBERTO : Being popular with non-intellectuals made him both happy and proud.

H IROMASA : Young people seemed to have been especially attracted to him. According to a 1990 questionnaire, he was extremely popular with women students at São Paulo University.

L AURA : He loved talking with young people, and they loved listening to humorous and optimistic comments. And young people enjoy hearing intelligent old people who make them laugh.

R OBERTO : Once his humorous treatment of a shrewd female finance minister won a round of hearty applause from a young crowd. This woman had adopted the policy of freezing all bank accounts for a year. My father told her that, if he were younger, he would have

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proposed to her. Then she would have learned both the mistake of marrying an old man and the error of her fiscal policies.

L AURA : I would be interested to know who among the many people you must have met made the most lasting impression on you.

H IROMASA : To tell the truth, meeting Mr. Athayde made the biggest impression. From the outset, his brimming vitality and humanity attracted me. At our first meeting, he gave me a Portuguese dictionary and instructed me to learn his language. He was already too old, he said, to learn Japanese. I shall never forget the candour and friendliness with which he treated me. I am embarrassed to say, however, that I still have made so little progress in Portuguese that we need the services of an interpreter today. Another person who impressed me deeply was Dr. Bishambhar Nath Pande, vice-chairman of the Gandhi Memorial Hall and direct disciple of Mahatma Gandhi. Although he is old enough to be my grandfather, he talked about Gandhi with me as if I were his equal. Like Mr. Athayde, the indomitable Dr. Pande refuses to bow to authority and has courageously struggled to survive in the face of oppression.

L AURA : You seem to understand my father very well. I am honoured. H IROMASA : Your father continued his struggle for human rights even at the advanced ages of eighty and even ninety. In the same way, Dr. Pande perseveringly carries on Gandhi’s teachings. The willingness of both men to take the initiative in actions accounts for their understanding of and sympathy with my father and the work of SGI.

L AURA : Father often told our family how greatly he respected Mr. Ikeda.

H IROMASA : Other people who have impressed me include Rosa Parks the so-called mother of the American civil-rights movement and, in my own age group, Fábio Magalhães, curator of the São Paulo Museum of Art, and his friend the composer Amaral Vieira, who has composed a widely performed symphony inspired by my father’s philosophy.

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A Wholesome, Active Way of Life

H IROMASA : They say your father went fishing and camped out in a tent in Pantanaru, in the western part of Brazil, when he was already ninety-one. He never smoked and drank no strong spirits. Even when quite old, he apparently lived the active life of a man in his forties.

L AURA : His capacity for work was well known. He wrote six newspaper articles daily until his last years, when he reduced the number to three. At the end of his academy work day, at six in the evening, he almost always had a lecture or reception to attend. He ate dinner out every day and often went to the theatre or the movies. He was unbelievably active. His long walks alone indicate his great vigour. Even in his seventies, he and mother walked four kilometres to a park every day. In his bachelor days, he and Chateaubriand often went for long swims. Later, he and mother enjoyed swimming and swam across the straits between the mainland and Itacuruçá Island on several occasions.

R OBERTO : For many years he refused to use a loud speaker because he was proud of his own strong voice. Does Mr. Ikeda include a health-promoting programme in his daily activities?

H IROMASA : Unlike Mr. Athayde, my father was far from robust in his youth. But his health improved largely because he consistently put all his strength into everything he did. After a hospitalisation nine years ago, he returned his daily-life rhythm to normal by carefully following doctor’s orders. Like Mr. Athayde, he drinks practically no alcohol. For many years, he smoked. Mother tried to get him to stop. And finally, after his bout in the hospital, he did break the habit completely. When at home and while traveling, too, he regularly exercises a few minutes daily. Away from home, he works out lightly in his hotel room or in nearby parks or plazas where the companionship of young people has a rejuvenating effect on him. In this, too, he is like Mr. Athayde.

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Fervour Bordering on Obstinacy

H IROMASA : Mr. Athayde challenged himself in an astonishing way. Dr. Josué Montello, his successor at the Brazilian Academy of Letters, praised his four years’ leadership there, describing his achievements as of everlasting merit, and considers having had a chance to work with him a great honour. What aspect of your father impressed you the most?

C ÍCERO : During his tenure at the academy, he never missed a day’s work and was never absent from a single conference. He was the kind of person who invariably carries out whatever he sets his mind on. Brazilian journalism is what it is today because of his long years of hard work and careful nurturing. He lived for nearly a century, and his life is a beacon to the future.

L AURA : His integrity and the almost obstinate fervour with which he pursued his ideals made the most lasting impression on me. For instance, he promoted the construction of a new building for the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the creation of the Brazil Culture Center with utmost tenacity. At the time, the academy was penniless. Still father raised the necessary funds by interviewing the president of the country and continually pounding the importance of the project into politicians’ heads. The same thing was true in the case of the Institute of Political Studies at Campos. If he had lived, he would most certainly have seen that project, too, accomplished exactly according to his plans.

H IROMASA : Josei Toda set his heart on the creation of a Soka University, and my father put his whole soul into making his mentor’s dream come true by establishing both the university and Soka Gakuen. Today its achievements are spectacular, but twenty years ago no one thought it would ever develop as it has.

R OBERTO : Our father believed ideas should be given tangible form. The thoroughness with which he imbued the Brazilian Academy of Letters with this belief made possible the creation of the Brazil Culture Center.

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H IROMASA : Anyone can criticise or express opinions. But few are capable of giving their ideas concrete form. Mr. Athayde had that ability. Using it, he lighted a humanistic torch that will burn bright for many years, a guiding light for youth as it advances along the road to a new era.

Like Long-lost Comrades

H IROMASA : The meeting between my father and Mr. Athayde at Galeão International Airport, in Rio de Janeiro, on 9 February, 1993, made a tremendous impact on me. Mr. Athayde arrived at the airport two hours before the plane was due. To concerned companions who urged him to rest in the lounge, he replied genially, ‘I have been waiting for ninety-four years to meet SGI President Ikeda. Two hours more is nothing.’ My direct contacts with Mr. Athayde began in January 1992, when he served as honorary chairman of the executive committee for an exhibition of my father’s photographs in São Paulo. Actually, I met him for the first time at a committee meeting held in Rio de Janeiro. His large brilliant eyes and firm handshake belied his ninety-three years. His eagerness to meet my father as soon as possible was immediately apparent in his words: ‘Ever since I read his dialogue with Arnold J. Toynbee, your father has been on my mind. When is he coming to Brazil?’ Their meeting was filled with emotions suggesting two comrades who have finally come together again after years of separation.

Supporting the United Nations

C ÍCERO : My father-in-law always thought internationally, in terms of how all peoples can combine forces for the building of a better world. His cherished wish was to facilitate cooperation and development among all peoples by reinforcing such United Nations functions as the Food and Agricultural Organisation and the International Labour Organisation. He considered the United Nations a great source of hope for the future and strength for the protection of our planet. He insisted that it deserves the support of all nations, including, of course, Brazil.

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H IROMASA : Josei Toda, too, put great hopes in the United Nations from its very inception. My father is convinced that world peace is possible only through the United Nations and, yearly, proposes concrete ideas for the achievement of this goal. In such undertakings, of course, governmental support is important. But more important still is spontaneous activity at the individual and grassroots level. That is why, as a non-governmental organisation (NGO), SGI cooperates extensively with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Work like this lights a torch of hope in the hearts of the masses, without whose direct involvement lasting peace cannot be achieved.

C ÍCERO : When I was its chairman, the NGO called the Society for International Development (SID) designated December tenth – the day on which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted – Human Rights Day. On one occasion, we invited my father-in-law to address the group. His participation in the Universal Declaration was not well known at the time. Indeed, in spite of his having been minister of justice at the time, now former-president Geisel, who was present on the day in question, was unaware of it. In those days, little attention was paid to human rights in Brazil, where they were frequently violated. My father-in-law devoted his life to writing and working to rectify this situation.

H IROMASA : Perhaps you could give us some examples of the human rights problems he encountered in Brazil.

C ÍCERO : One of the earliest was the issue of the aboriginal populations. He featured the Indians in the inner Amazon for the journal O Cruzeiro – the very first attempt at publicising the problem in Brazil. In his article, he described the disappearance of some seventy aboriginal languages as the loss of a part of the human heritage. He brought the problem of street children to light ten years ago, when their numbers were still fairly small. Today Brazilian street children number five million. My father-in-law, who said that, at the

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time of writing, only the tip of the iceberg was visible, called the problem a bomb waiting to go off. He insisted that measures on a much larger scale than mere social welfare were essential if a solution was to be found. By this he meant a sweeping revision of the whole educational system.

Fighting Against Unjust Authority and Power

C Í C E R O : He saw culture and education as indispensable to the acquisition of liberty and the solution of the problems confronting humanity. He used to end his public speeches with Goethe’s words that only culture and education can safeguard liberty; humanity’s innate right.

H IROMASA : That accords perfectly with SGI convictions and beliefs. C ÍCERO : My father-in-law always advocated education as a way of encouraging the rights and responsibilities of the masses of the people. He felt that true democracy is impossible unless education is taken into consideration.

R OBERTO : I am proud of my father for his resolute stand in relation to democracy.

C ÍCERO : Yes, he firmly believed that free expression is the most effective way of combating anti-democratic forces. That is why, throughout his life, he wrote articles and columns, appeared on television and radio, and lectured continuously in the name of popular education. All told, he wrote fifty thousand articles. He appeared on television once a week for twenty years and spoke on the radio once a week for thirty years. And, for forty years, he delivered a lecture about once a week. The goal of all this activity was to improve the country’s educational level as much as possible and to provide the people with a maximum amount of information on democracy. His eagerness to train democratically inclined leaders inspired him to found the Institute of Political Studies at Campos.

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Hope and Courage for the People

H IROMASA : Until the very last, Mr. Athayde remained true to his convictions and devoted his utmost to the ordinary people.

C ÍCERO : The strength of his relation with the people increased as his hair grew whiter. In his last years, whenever he attended the theatre, a loud-speaker announced his presence, and tremendous applause always greeted the announcement. Once, his appearance at Carnival, at the invitation of the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, won a standing ovation.

L AURA : As their leader, Mr. Ikeda, too, meets and talks with the ordinary people everyday.

H IROMASA : Yes, he is convinced that a leader must impart hope and courage to the people. He often says he is their tonic: he gives them pep. He encourages and heartens impartially and without ceremony, no matter whether he is dealing with the man in the street or with heads of state or celebrated scholars.

C ÍCERO : The people of Brazil held my father-in-law in love and respect because he never took advantage of his position. Everything he did was for literature, the academy, or other people.

R OBERTO : Josué Montello once compared him to a priest named San Manuel Bueno Mártir, who occurs in a story by Miguel de Unamuno. He did good but could not believe in God.

L AURA : Though he claimed not to believe in him, father spoke of God in his own work and in the debates on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This suggests that his idea of God was more profound than, and different from, the ordinary conception.

R OBERTO : In an interview, father asked Albert Einstein, ‘Is there a place in the universe for God?’ Einstein answered that, since every effect has a cause and since everything results from causes and effects,

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there must be a reason for the existence of the universe. In this sense, according to Einstein, the existence of God seems likely. I think father asked the question because he sought the cause of the universe in the concept of God.

H IROMASA : His intuitive grasp closely approximates the fundamentals of Buddhism, which originated with the discovery of cause-and-effect relations in all things. The Law of Cause and Effect permeates the universe and transcends time and space.

R O B E RT O : Father memorised some of the works of the famous Portuguese poet Abilio Manuel Guerra Junqueiro. Following his example, I learned some too. One poem can be paraphrased this way. A certain priest kept a bird in a cage. The bird wanted to escape into the expanses of the sky. In desperation at its imprisonment, it threw itself against the bars of the cage and died. But its soul flew up, free, into the heavens. The message, of course, is that though the body may be caged, nothing can imprison the spirit – the soul.

H IROMASA : Our very humanity depends on freedom of the spirit, the quintessential element of religious faith. Throughout his entire life, Mr. Athayde battled those evil forces that hinder human happiness. We must carry on his struggle and, by securing freedom of the spirit, heighten the lustre of the meritorious heritage he left us.

R OBERTO : Three factors characterised father’s convictions and actions: first, awareness of religious issues, second, pragmatic judgement, and third, the pursuit of truth. He sincerely devoted his life to journalism and was indeed a great journalist, whose achievements are clear for all to see. But I believe people will remember him best for impartiality and for small acts expressive of his love for ordinary people. He often told us to transcend ourselves. First we must know our own limitations. Then we must strive to overcome them. Instead of merely dreaming, we must understand our actual limitations and then pursue ideals beyond them.

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Free Expression

H I R O M A S A : What principles guided Mr. Athayde as a reporter, columnist and editorialist constantly doing battle with injustice?

C ÍCERO : Strong convictions. From his youth he immersed himself in Greek and Latin classics in the search for the best kind of world view. He studied the evolution of English parliamentary democracy and the ideas that influenced the American Revolutionary War. During his visit to the United States in about 1930 he came into contact with many cultural leaders. As an outcome of these experiences, he became convinced that development for Brazil must begin with thoroughgoing protection of liberty. And, as was rare in the constantly changing Brazil of his time, he never wavered from this conviction.

H IROMASA : In his early years, my father, too, used journalism as a means of championing free thought and expression. Shortly after the end of the Second World War, when he was in his twenties, he edited a young peoples’ magazine called Boken Shonen (Adventure Boy), which was the offshoot of another magazine called Shogakusei Nihon (Primary-school-pupils’ Japan), founded in 1940 by Josei Toda. At the time, most magazines outdid each other in glorifying the SinoJapanese war. Shogakusei Nihon, however, tried hard to help children expand their views and to grow into cultivated citizens of the world. It did this by carrying reports on outstanding aspects of the civilisation and industry of other nations, by including special features like its ‘Mother of Science’ series, and by warning young people of the danger of believing things they did not understand.

C ÍCERO : Making the most of the freedom of expression and speech, my father-in-law kept writing for the newspaper under any circumstances and got arrested and exiled for that. In 1964, when a military regime was set up in Brazil, he wrote articles criticising the military government, but the military could not imprison him, because the people supported him. He was sometimes brought to trial, but, of course, he won every time.

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L AURA : Father always fought for ethical behaviour in journalism and criticised publishers who put popularity and sales ahead of the provision of information and the honest expression of columnists’ views.

H IROMASA : Their irresponsible attitude that is concerned only with their sales amounts to the suicide of journalism itself.

The Most Beautiful Woman in Rio de Janeiro

H IROMASA : I have heard that Mr. Athayde described your mother as the most beautiful woman in Rio de Janeiro.

L AURA : Our mother, Maria José, was really lovely, inside and out. She had very fair, beautiful skin and lively sky-blue eyes. Her cheerful personality infected everyone around her with a feeling of warmth and tranquillity. She helped father in his public activities. Every day of their fifty-two years of married life, she typed father’s articles and speeches as he composed them aloud, walking about the room. She kept files of clippings of all his articles.

H IROMASA : My mother, too, often takes down father’s speeches and poems from dictation as they eat their meals or travel from place to place by car.

C ÍCERO : In a way, your mother reminds me of my mother-in-law. Mrs. Athayde never put herself forward. She always stayed in the background, a reliable support for Mr. Athayde. In this respect, your father and mother remind me of my in-laws.

H IROMASA : Thank you. I know mother would be happy to hear that. Mother was nineteen when she and father got married. They have been together for forty-two years. Although perhaps I should not say it, mother had her hands full raising us three boys. She has always been in charge of everything at home, father, us and household affairs. She used to say, ‘Our house is full of men. Plenty of feet, but no helping hands!’ After we boys grew up, mother began accompanying father on his trips. Because he was not physically strong, she saw to it that he took

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good care of himself. Of course, especially overseas, wives are expected to be present at various official functions.

L AURA : As a daughter, I could tell just how much support mother gave father. When he was suggested as the Brazilian representative to the United Nations Third Committee for debating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he was not very enthusiastic. He was unwilling to neglect his journalistic work. Then too, he did like travelling. Mr. Chateaubriand, who was chairman of the board of directors of the newspaper company where father worked, told him he could combine both tasks by writing articles on Paris while he was there. And mother strongly encouraged him by agreeing to go along. Finally he agreed. His work in Paris became one of his major achievements. Fourteen at the time, I was enraptured at the chance of going with them and spending three months in Paris.

Strength from Trees and Stars

H IROMASA : I, too, enjoy being in Paris. To me, the most impressive of the many people I have met during my several visits to France is René Huyghe, member of the Académie Française and curator of the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris. He and Mr. Athayde met in Rio de Janeiro on the occasion of the completion of the Brazil Culture Center. Mr. Huyghe praised my father’s photographs very highly as ‘poetry composed by his eyes’ and helped arrange a showing of his ‘Dialogue with Nature’ at the Malle museum. Many distinguished guests, including Senator Alain Poher, attended the opening on 3 May, 1988. Mr. Huyghe himself selected the photographs and saw to the framing, the layout and the lighting. In spite of his advanced age, the night before the opening, he worked right beside the people he was supervising. The sight of him doing this touched me deeply.

R OBERTO : What are your favourites among your father’s photographs? H IROMASA : There is a beautiful one of crimson maples in Kyoto. The diagonal line of a gate roof cuts in front of the foliage. Though

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the composition is unusual, the picture expresses traditional Japanese ideas of loveliness. It is often used in posters and catalogue covers for overseas exhibitions. As the title ‘Dialogue with Nature’ suggests, father’s photographs rarely include human figures. Usually they are of scenery or cities and towns. But to a surprising extent, they capture things in casual scenes that most of us tend to overlook. Mr. Athayde, too, loved nature deeply and was interested in observing the heavens.

L AURA : He loved looking up at the night sky. I imagine the deep impression made on him by seeing Halley’s comet when he was a child of twelve, in 1910, inspired his interest in the cosmos. This attraction led him to buy a telescope, which he took to the island of Itacuruçá, where he would spend hour after hour observing the sky and pointing out things like the moon and the rings of Saturn, first to his own children and later to his grandchildren.

C ÍCERO : He showed the moon to me, too. He felt human beings can find boundless strength in observing the heavens. Probably he believed observations of this kind would deepen and expand his own ideas about the mysteries of the universe.

H IROMASA : My father has discussed the romance of the universe with several celebrated astronomers, including Professor Robert Jastrow of the United States, Professor Fred Hoyle of England and Dr. Chandra Wickramasinghe of Sri Lanka. When I was a child, he used to explain to me, in easy terms, the Buddhist views of the cosmos and nature and how a world of universal dimensions is contained within each human life. I was especially impressed by his Buddhist metaphors for relations between the human body and certain natural phenomena. For instance, the head is round in agreement with the shape of the sky, human skin represents the surface of the earth, hair grows on our bodies like trees on the Earth, our blood flows like rivers and our breath is comparable to the winds of mountain and valley.

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C Í C E R O : Even at the age of ninety-one, Mr. Athayde would spend a week at a time at Pantanal, a virtual treasure house of natural beauty, thinking about the integration of humanity and nature. He was convinced that human beings can meld with nature, with which they are capable of living in a symbiotic, non-destructive relationship.

H IROMASA : What were his thoughts on the Amazon? L AURA : He always said, ‘The Amazon is the lungs of the world, and human beings are destroying them. They’re chasing the indigenous peoples out and ruining the Amazon for money. This problem affects more than Brazil: it affects the whole world. The Amazon must be protected.’

C ÍCERO : He also used to tell us that, though development is necessary, destruction must be avoided. It is important to improve the ways of life of the Amazonian peoples without devastating the environment.

H I R O M A S A : Buddhism teaches that human beings and their environment influence each other mutually and are by no means separate. This kind of philosophy of symbiosis is essential today. At present, at Manaus, Brazil, SGI and the Soka University Ecological Research Center are cooperating with the local environmental-science bureau in the State of Amazonas on a project intended to restore the Amazon tropical rain forest in the hope of bringing enduring prosperity to Mr. Athayde’s beloved land of Brazil.

No Linguistic or Racial Barriers

L AURA : I was amazed to see the truly first-rate works of art on display at the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum. What inspired Mr. Ikeda to make a great contribution to world art by founding this splendid museum?

H IROMASA : My father believes that art stored away in warehouses is of no use. Its value emerges only when it is seen by as many people as possible. He is convinced that art and culture must be redeemed by the people for the sake of the people. Although he first made the

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concept public in 1961, the museum did not actually open until 1983. Many years of preparations were needed. The aim of the Fuji Museum is to speak about and to the whole world. Consequently, it engages in an extensive and active programme with other art museums and cultural organisations everywhere.

L AURA : The Fuji museum held an exhibition of famous works from the São Paulo Art Museum in 1995. Mr. Chateaubriand, its founder, ordered famous works of art from all over the world for the São Paulo Museum. Some of them were sent to Rio de Janeiro, where they were temporarily stored at our house. I remember how having priceless art works casually put here and there in our rooms worried my mother.

H IROMASA : Since 1988, the Fuji museum has sponsored exhibitions in ten cities in nine countries, including France, England, Argentina, Columbia and Spain. As you know, works of Japanese art from the Fuji Museum collection were displayed at the São Paulo Museum in 1990. As the first real exhibit of Japanese art in Brazil since the start of Japanese immigration there, the São Paulo show was very well received. My father thought of it as a way of repaying Brazil for the great kindness it has shown people from Japan. Speaking directly to the spirit, art knows no linguistic or racial barriers.

L AURA : What are your main goals in your work as your father’s representative?

H IROMASA : Today Japan is usually thought of in economic terms only. To help others understand that there is more to our country than this, I hope to intensify international exchanges in connection with culture and education. At no time in the past has it been more important for human beings to transcend national borders and understand and sympathise with each other. I hope to promote mutual understanding on the social and cultural planes. The ultimate aim of these exchanges is the global recognition of basic human rights and the creation of lasting peace. The two are inseparable.

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L AURA : His work for peace often stimulated father to talk about war and especially of the Holocaust. The way the Nazis lost all normal human reason grieved him. Brazil participated in the war against the Nazis, and from the outset, father sympathised with the Allies.

R OBERTO : The Nazis never fooled him for a moment. He worked against them from the very beginning. For his courageous efforts on behalf of the Allies, Great Britain awarded him the King’s Medal.

L AURA : He said the experiences of the Second World War must be part of the task of doing away with war for all time. This goal can be attained only through intensified people-to-people exchanges.

H IROMASA : The exhibition ‘The Courage to Remember: Anne Frank and the Holocaust’ caused a great stir when, sponsored by the Simon Weisenthal Center and Soka University, it opened in Tokyo in May, 1995. The Weisenthal Center had wanted to show it in Japan for some time but, owing to tepid interest in human rights in our country, had been unable to find a suitable co-sponsor. During a visit to the center, in 1994, my father agreed to cooperate in the project.

R OBERTO : Mr. Ikeda’s uncompromising struggle for the protection of human rights has immense significance for the whole world.

H IROMASA : Thank you for saying so. It might be said that Soka Gakkai and SGI started with a struggle against oppression and in the name of human rights. When all of Japan was engaged in a war of aggression, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi courageously opposed the militarist government. Both he and Josei Toda were thrown in prison as a consequence of their efforts. After two years’ incarceration, Mr. Toda was released to become second president of Soka Gakkai. Mr. Makiguchi died in prison. The legacy of his two predecessors inspires my father’s work against war and for peace. Its history of brave pacifist activism has won the SGI the trust of people all over the world.

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L AURA : Did you hear anything about war from your father? H IROMASA : He was the fifth of nine children. All four of his older brothers went off to war, leaving their parents and the younger children at home for father to look after. His oldest brother was killed in the fighting. The family house was burned in an air raid, and my father’s state of health deteriorated seriously. His anti-war attitudes originated from these experiences. The twenty-first century will tell whether human rights gain full global recognition, whether peace or war will prevail, whether happiness or unhappiness awaits humankind. Itself a kind of constitution, the Universal Declaration addresses these issues straight on. A pioneering worker for the good of humanity, Mr. Athayde contributed appreciably to its creation. It is for us now to realise the ideals it sets forth. Our mission, as heirs to Mr. Athayde’s spiritual heritage and achievements, is to create a new beacon of human rights. At the conclusion of our discussion, I am sure all of you join me in vowing to see this mission fulfilled.

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Glossary Adams, John (1735–1826), served as U.S. vice-president under George Washington; became second president in 1797 African National Congress, founded in 1912 as the South African Natives National Congress for the sake of freeing and uniting all peoples by non-violent methods; the name African National Congress was adopted in 1923 Agnosticism, the philosophy holding that human intelligence can know nothing of the existence of an ultimate being like God Aitmatov, Chingiz (1928–2008), novelist and close associate of former Soviet president Mikhail S. Gorbachev; exerted a great influence on the perestroika policy; author of The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years Alencar, José Martiniano de (1829–77), Brazilian writer; worked to establish a national literature; developed the so-called aboriginal style dealing with the lives of the native peoples; author of The Guarani Indian Amado, Jorge (1912–2001), Brazilian novelist, member of the Brazil Culture Academy; author of The Violent Land, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon and Home Is the Sailor

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Amaral, Azevedo (1883–1950), Brazilian mathematician, sociologist, journalist, educator, and chancellor of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Anger, in Buddhism, one of the three poisons, or three sources of vice and suffering, the other two being greed and foolishness; refers particularly to malice born of hatred; regarded as a great obstacle to Buddhist practice Apartheid, system of racial segregation practised in the Republic of South Africa; was dismantled in 1991 with the repeal of the racial registration law Aquinas, Thomas (Thomas of Aquino; 1225–74), Christian theologian; philosopher who attempted to reconcile reason and faith and to incorporate Aristotelian thought into the Christian system; the main driving force behind the golden age of the Scholastics; author of Summa Theologiae Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), studied under Plato at the Academy for 20 years; his writings on a wide range of philosophical topics including logic, biology, psychology, ethics, politics and aesthetics exerted an enormous influence on later ages Armstrong, Neil Alden (1930–), American astronaut; commander of the Apollo 11 mission in which Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. and Michael Collins also participated; the mission blasted off on 16 July and returned to Earth on 21 July, 1969; one of the first human beings to set foot on the moon Augustine of Hippo (354–430), one of the Fathers of the Church; attempted to merge Platonic ideas with Christian theology Auschwitz, located at Oswiecim in Poland; the largest of the Nazi concentration camps

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Avalokiteshvara (the bodhisattva Freely Perceiving, Kanzeon-bosatsu in Japanese); revered as the bodhisattva of infinite compassion Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685–1750), Great German composer of the late Baroque period Bacon, Francis (1561–1626), English politician, philosopher; stressed the scientific method; considered a founder of modern philosophy with Descartes Barbosa, Rui (1849–1923), active as a private citizen in the establishment of the Brazilian federal republican system in 1889; minister of finance in the provisional republican government Baudelaire, Charles (1821–65), French poet; pioneered the way for modern French poetry; author of Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) Bergson, Henri-Louis (1859–1941), French philosopher; winner of a Nobel Prize for literature; author of Creative Evolution and The Two Sources of Morality and Religion Bhaishajyar¯aja (the bodhisattva Medicine King, Yaku¯o-bosatsu in Japanese), a bodhisattva said to possess the power to cure physical and mental diseases Brahe, Tycho (1546–1601), Danish astronomer; teacher of Johannes Kepler; the records of his sixteen years’ observations of Mars were passed on to Kepler and became the foundation of the theory of planetary revolution Brahman, the highest of the Hindu castes; traditionally priests Brahmanism, predecessor of Hinduism; founded on holy writings called Vedas, especially the Rig Veda; the priests who conducted its ceremonies were called Brahmans

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Brazilian Academy of Letters, one of the most important intellectual centers in South America; consists of forty domestic and twenty overseas members; promotes a programme devoted to enlightened educational and social activities; founded in 1897 Buddha nature, the essential nature of a Buddha or the Buddha seed inherent in all sentient beings; operating as the cause for the attainment of Buddhahood Buddha’s children, a Buddhist term embracing all people; the Buddha is endowed with the three virtues of sovereign, teacher and parent, thus all sentient beings in the world are his children and the Buddha regards them all with parental compassion Carneiro, Levi (1882–1971), Brazilian legal scholar; lawyer and president of the Brazil Association of Lawyers; judge on the International Judicial Court; member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters Carter, James Earl (1924–), American politician; president of the United States (1976–80) Cassin, René (1887–1976), one of the members of Committee Three, which was responsible for drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; served as governor of the European Court of Human Rights; awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968 Caste system, the Indian system was made up of four castes – brahmans or priests, kshatriyas or warriors, vaishyas or merchants and shudras or serfs Chakravartin King (or wheel-turning king), ideal rulers in Indian mythology; subjugated the four directions with a wheel (chakra) and established peace in the world Chateaubriand, Francisco de Assis (1891–1968), called the Brazilian newspaper king; proposed the creation of the São Paulo Museum of Art in 1947, the foremost museum of its kind in South America

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Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106–43 B.C.), Roman orator, philosopher and author Clark, William S. (1826–86), American scientist, educator; took charge of the Sapporo Agricultural College (later Hokkaido University) at the invitation of the Japanese government; made great contributions to the development of Hokkaido by training indispensable personnel Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy; circa: 100–170), Greek astronomer, mathematician, geographer active in Alexandria; author of the Almagest, a synthesis of Greek astronomical knowledge of the day Code of Hammurabi, the oldest of all legal codes; formulated in the eighteenth century B.C.; attributed to the king of that name, who was the sixth monarch in the first Babylonian dynasty Copernicus, Nicolaus (1473–1543), Polish astronomer whose theory that the Earth rotates around the sun contradicted the Ptolemaic geocentric theory then widely accepted and supported by the Roman Catholic Church Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), great compendium of Roman Law and legal philosophy consisting of the Codex, Digest, Institutes and Novellae Constitutiones Courageous and valiant discipline, used in the second chapter ‘Expedient Means’ of the Lotus Sutra; this phrase indicates the courage with which the mind triumphs over hardship and exerts all effort in the name of Buddhist discipline Cousins, Norman (1915–90), journalist; professor of literature and philosophy at the School of Medicine of California University; awarded the United Nations Peace Prize in 1971; co-author of Dialogue Between Citizens of the World (Japanese edition) with Daisaku Ikeda Crito, in Plato’s dialogue Kriton; old friend of Socrates; suggested that Socrates flee

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Curie, Marie (1867–1934), Polish-born physicist; discovered radium during research on radiation with her husband Pierre; the two of them shared the Nobel Prize for physics with Henri Becquerel in 1903; awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1911 D’Alembert, Jean (1717–83), French mathematician, philosopher; cooperated with Diderot in the editing and publication of the Encyclopédie Dante (1265–1321), Italian poet and a pioneer in Renaissance literature; author of La Divina Commedia de Klerk, Frederik W. (1936–), president of the Republic of South Africa (1989–94); cooperated with Nelson Mandela and abolished the apartheid system in 1991 Devoid of all possessions, a stage in the life of Shakyamuni Buddha; Shakyamuni, clad in rags and eating only food offered to him by others, rejected the accumulation of wealth and property and forbade such things to his disciples Diderot, Denis (1713–84), French philosopher and writer; together with D’Alembert, undertook the completion of the Encyclopédie Divine Right of Kings: especially prevalent in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this concept held that monarchical power was absolute because it was divinely conferred Earthly Desires (Sanskrit klesha, Japanese bonn¯o): desires that cause physical or mental pain and consequent physical and mental delusions hindering the attainment of true freedom Eight Sufferings (hakku in Japanese): eight kinds of universal suffering in human life; the four sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death, plus the suffering of having to part from those whom one loves, the suffering of having to meet with those whom one hates, the suffering of being unable to obtain what one desires, and the suffering arising from the five components that constitute one’s body and mind

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Egoism: the egoistic pursuit of nothing but one’s own advantages and the satisfaction of desires while paying no attention to the trouble one’s actions cause others and society in general Einstein, Albert (1879–1955), German-born American physicist; formulated the theory of relativity; awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 Encyclopedists and the celebrated Encyclopédie; a 28-volume literary and philosophical compendium devoted to the concepts and ideas of the Enlightenment movement; produced by 24 authors under the editorial guidance of Diderot and D’Alembert; an attempt to re-order knowledge by breaking with older God-oriented European cultural traditions English Bill of Rights, the foundation of constitutional monarchy; enacted in 1689; ‘an act declaring the rights and liberties of the subject and settling the succession of the crown’ Enlightenment, critical reaction to domination by the Church and Scholastic philosophy in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; advocates of the Enlightenment emphasised the supreme importance of reason and rational self-control Essential Equality, non-discriminating wisdom of the Buddhist; observes the essential equality of all things without discrimination ‘Expedient Means’, the second chapter of the Lotus Sutra; explains that all teachings revealed before the Lotus Sutra were expedients, whereas the Lotus Sutra itself is the full, complete truth False Views, views that reject the principle of cause and effect Father José de Anchieta (1534–97), Spanish born Brazilian member of the Society of Jesus; worked for the instruction, protection and welfare of indigenous Brazilian populations

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Five Precepts, from the Hinayana tradition; Buddhist lay persons of both sexes are expected to abide by these precepts: (One) not to kill, (Two) not to steal, (Three) not to engage in sexual misconduct, (Four) not to lie, and (Five) not to consume intoxicants Fonseca, Field Marshal Hermes Rodrigues da (1855–1923), President of Brazil (1910–14) Ford, Henry (1863–1947), industrialist; created the modern massproduction system by introducing the assembly line into the production of the Model T automobile; known as the American Car King Four Infinite Virtues, the four kinds of compassion for sentient beings: to bring happiness to others, to eliminate suffering, to rejoice at others’ happiness and relief from suffering, and total impartiality free from affectionate or inimical attachments Four Noble Truths (Sanskrit Chatur-arya-satya), a fundamental doctrine of Buddhism clarifying the cause of suffering and the way of emancipation; suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path to the cessation of suffering Four Sufferings, the four fundamental sufferings common to all people: birth, aging, sickness and death Franklin, Benjamin (1706–90), American politician, author and scientist; took part in drafting the Declaration of Independence Freire, Paulo (1921–97), an advocate of an educational theory based on cultivating awareness; took the lead in the campaign to combat illiteracy in Brazil; recipient of the UNESCO Peace Education Award Fugue, a polyphonic musical form widely used for instrumental compositions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the word fugue derives from the Latin fugere, to flee

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Fukuzawa, Yukichi (1835–1901), Japanese educator, philosopher; founded Keio University Galilei, Galileo (1564–1642), Italian physicist; astronomer who mathematically verified the experimental method, thus establishing modern scientific methodology Galtung, Johan (1930–), peace scholar; born in Oslo, Norway; professor at Oslo University; pioneered the study of peace as a field of scholarship by founding the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, in 1959; author of Essays in Peace Research (six vols.) Gandhi Memorial Hall, established in New Delhi in 1984; publicises information on the life, philosophy, and achievements of Mahatma Gandhi with support of the Indian Ministry of Culture Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869–1948), Indian politician and the leader of the non-violent, non-cooperative movement that won Indian independence; assassinated by a fanatic Hindu supremist; called the father of Indian Independence Gatha, verses praising the virtues of the Buddha Carr, Gerald P. (1932–), American Astronaut; in 1973, as commander of Skylab III, established a record for duration in space: 2,000 hours Gettysburg Address, delivered by President Lincoln on November 19, 1853; symbolises the spirit of American democracy, especially in its final words: ‘. . . government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ Glasnost, means giving voice to something in Russian; the policy of openness of information in connection with Soviet president Gorbachev’s perestroika Gorbachev, Mikhail S. (1931–), a graduate of the School of Law, Moscow State University; became a member of the Communist Party of the

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Soviet Union in 1952; named secretary-general of the party in 1985, head of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1988 and president in 1990; awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 Greed, considered the most basic of all delusions; greedy craving is defined as the working of a mind obsessively attached to the desires arising from the five sense objects: form, sound, smell, taste and the tangible Greek and Roman tradition, one of the two major currents of European thought; derived mainly from Greek ideas Hammurabi (reigned 1792–50 B.C.), sixth king in the first Babylonian dynasty; the legal code that bears his name exerted a great influence on subsequent ages Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679), English philosopher, political theorist; believed constant conflict to be the natural human condition; advocated the idea of a state founded on contracts that control bellicosity; established the basic principles of the idea of a social contract; author of Leviathan Holocaust, the term used to designate the deliberate, planned extermination of more than five million Jews by the Nazi Germans during the Second World War Hoyle, Fred (1915–2001), English astronomer noted for his research on the evolution of stars and the Steady State Theory; director of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, and a member of the Royal Astronomical Society. Hugo, Victor Marie (1802–85), French poet, playwright, novelist, and leader of the Romantic movement; exiled for having supported the Republic and for having violently opposed the Second Empire and Napoleon III after the Revolution of 1848; author of Les Misérables

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Huyghe, René (1906–97), French aesthetic critic; director of the Painting Department at the Louvre Museum, professor at the College de France, president of the Artistic Council of National Museums; author of Formes et Forces. Ideas, central to Platonic philosophy; everything in the actual world is a reflection of its perfect form in the world of Ideas Innermost Depths of Life, according to the doctrine of the Nine Consciousnesses, all the seeds of good and bad actions are stored in the eighth level, or a¯laya, consciousness; these seeds determine the birth and growth of life and are the causal seeds of delusion and egoism producing suffering Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiations for which began in November 1981; signed at the summit meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev in December, 1987; eliminates all land-launched intermediate-range strategic nuclear forces Jastrow, Robert (1925–2008), American astronomer; participant in the United States’ first satellite project, Vanguard; former director of the NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies; director of the Mount Wilson Observatory Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826), third president of the United States; drafter of the Declaration of Independence Judaeo-Christian tradition, one of the two major currents of European thought; stresses the importance of divine revelation to human culture; founded on Hebrew and Christian ideas Junqueiro, Abilio Manuel Guerra (1850–1923), Portuguese poet; his satires against the establishment and the Catholic Church helped bring about the collapse of the old governmental system; author of A morte de dom João (The Death of Don Juan) and A velhice do Padre Eterno (The Old Age of the Eternal Father).

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Kepler, Johannes (1571–1630), German astronomer; made use of the observations of Mars made by his teacher Tycho Brahe to evolve what are known as Kepler’s Laws concerning planetary motion; laid the foundation of Newton’s discovery of the law of universal gravitation King, Jr., Martin Luther (1929–1968), American black civil rights leader; introduced Gandhian non-violence into the civil-rights movement; winner of Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 Liberties, rights establishing the region of personal freedoms state authorities must not violate; they encompass freedom of person and such spiritual liberties as freedom of thought, faith, expression, and learning; economic liberties relating to freedom of choice of employment and the right to own property Lincoln, Abraham (1809–65), sixteenth president of the United States; elected in 1860; in April 1861, the secession of South Carolina from the Union marked the beginning of the Civil War (1861–65); proved an effective commander-in-chief; his Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves; launched a program of rebuilding the Union after the war but was assassinated before he could see it through to completion Locke, John (1632–1704), English philosopher; evolved a theory of the nation state in which experience was given precedence over abstract concepts and in which politics was expected to protect basic individual rights Lotus Sutra, one of the most important of the Mahayana sutras; consists of twenty-eight chapters extending from the Introduction to the chapter entitled ‘The Encouragements of the Bodhisattva Universal Worthy’; thought to reveal the true intentions of Shakyamuni Machado de Assis, Joaquim Maria (1839–1908), Brazilian writer, newspaper columnist, poet, playwright and novelist; the first president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters; author of Posthumous Memories of Bras Cubas and Quincas Borba

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Magna Carta, considered the basis of constitutional government and a part of the British constitution; consists of sixty-three articles; signed by King John (1167–1216) in 1215; by compelling him to sign it against his will, the English barons put restrictions on despotic monarchical powers Mahamaya, wife of King Shuddodana of Kapilavastu and the mother of Shakyamuni Mahayana Buddhism, Buddhism of the Great Vehicle; the Sanskrit mah¯a means great and y¯ana vehicle; emphasises altruistic practise – called the bodhisattva practise – as a means to attain enlightenment for oneself and help others attain it as well Maitreya (Miroku-bosatsu in Japanese), predicted to succeed Shakyamuni as a future Buddha; rendered as Compassionate One Makiguchi, Tsunesaburo (1871–1944), educator and first president of Soka Gakkai; worked for educational reforms and founded Soka Ky¯oiku Gakkai (Value-creating Educational Society); later, as an active religious reformer, opposed the state Shintoism sponsored by the militarist government and was imprisoned for violating the peace preservation law; author of A Geography of Human Life and Education for Creative Living Mandela, Nelson Bolihlahla (1918–), supreme leader of the antiapartheid and black-liberation movement in South Africa; imprisoned from 1962 until 1990; became chairman of the African National Congress in 1991; shared Nobel Peace Prize with then South African President Frederik W. de Klerk in 1993 Manjushr¯ı, a bodhisattva regarded as symbolic of perfect wisdom Mano-consciousness, the seventh of the Nine Consciousnesses; the Sanskrit word mano means the mind, thought, perception, etc.; performs the function of abstract thought and discerns the inner world; awareness of itself is said to originate at this level; the passionate attachment

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to the ego that helps create evil karma is also viewed as the working of this consciousness Maritain, Jacques (1882–1973), French philosopher; played a major role in the French Catholic reform movement Maritzburg Incident: when Gandhi travelled to Maritzburg in South Africa in 1893, which was a British colony at the time, he was forcibly removed from a first-class train carriage by a white police officer, and this incident inspired him to undertake the struggle against racial discrimination Marxism-Leninism: advocates scientific socialism; takes the historicalmaterialist stand; symbolised by the insistence that religion is an opiate Min-On (democratic music association), founded by Daisaku Ikeda in 1963 with the aim of promoting musical culture and worldwide cultural exchanges Montesquieu Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de (1689–1755), French political philosopher, historian; following in the footsteps of Locke, laid the foundation of modern political principles by proposing the establishment of three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial; author of The Spirit of the Laws Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, founded with the aim of promoting global mutual understanding; displays the histories of racial discrimination and the Nazi treatment of Jews Mussolini, Benito (1883–1945), Italian politician, leader of the Fascist Party, prime minister; ruled as a dictator for twenty years Mystic Law (My¯oh¯o in Japanese); the fundamental universal law to which Shakyamuni was enlightened; the same law to which Buddhas of the past had been enlightened and to which Buddhas of the future will be enlightened; formulated by Nichiren as Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in 1253

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Nabuco, Joaquim (1849–1910), Brazilian diplomat; leader of the emancipation movement; author of Abolitionism National Mobilisation Law: empowered the Japanese government to channel all social and economic forces into the war effort Newton, Isaac (1642–1727), physicist, mathematician; the most important figure in the seventeenth-century scientific revolution; famous for his discovery of the law of gravitation Nine Consciousnesses: Buddhist philosophy divides human sentience into nine stages known as the Nine Consciousnesses: (One) sightconsciousness, (Two) hearing-consciousness, (Three) smellconsciousness, (Four) taste-consciousness, (Five) touch-consciousness, (Six) mind-consciousness, (Seven) mano-consciousness, (Eight) a¯ laya consciousness, and (Nine) amala-consciousness Originally Inherent Nature of Birth and Death (hon’nu no sh¯oji in Japanese): a Buddhist doctrine that the force of life itself is eternal, and life and death are two aspects essentially inherent in the universal force of life itself Pande, Bishambhar Nath (1906–98), member of the Upper House of the Indian Parliament; vice-chairman of the Gandhi Memorial; became one of Mahatma Gandhi’s disciples when fourteen on the strength of an introduction from Rabindranath Tagore Parks, Rosa (1913–2005), American civil rights activist; arrested for refusing to move to the rear of a bus, as was then required of black persons throughout the Southern states of the United States; inspired black people throughout the country to stand up for their civil rights Patrocínio, José do (1853–1905), Brazilian journalist, advocate of the emancipation movement

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Paul (Saul) of Tarsus (circa: 10–67), the first Christian missionary and the author of thirteen letters of instruction, the Epistles of Paul, in the New Testament Pauli, Wolfgang (1900–58), Swiss physicist, professor at the University of Zurich, discoverer of Pauli’s exclusion principle; foresaw the existence of the neutrino; awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1945 Peace Preservation Law, enacted in 1925; intended to control thought and association with the specific aim of hindering the formation of organisations bent on revolutionising the Japanese state and overturning the social system based on private property Perestroika, Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s bold program of political, economic, social and cultural reforms; a Russian word meaning reconstruction Periander of Corinth (–560?), second tyrant sole ruler of Corinth; began his rule in Corinth moderately but became tyrannical later; promoted commerce, encouraged the arts and did much to stimulate Corinthian prosperity Plato (427–347 B.C.), a pupil of Socrates; appears in several of his famous dialogues including the Republic and the Apologia; founded the celebrated Academy where many important people, including Aristotle, studied Popular Vote Law; a law pertaining to elections of members of the lower house of the Diet and in general recognising the voting rights of adult males Real Reason for the Buddha’s Appearance on Earth, in the chapter ‘Simile and Parable’, the third chapter of the Lotus Sutra; uses parables like the famous story of the blazing house and the three carts to explain profoundly true teachings Rissho¯ Ankoku-ron (On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land), a remonstrance written by Nichiren in 1260;

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presented to Hojo Tokiyori, the most powerful person in the Kamakura shogunate, which ruled Japan at the time Roosevelt, (Anna) Eleanor (1884–1962), wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; delegate to the United Nations; chairperson of the committee on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; played a leading part in the composition of the declaration Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1631–1778), French philosopher; advocated republicanism based on civic rights; had an enormous influence on the French Revolution; author of The Social Contract Sad¯aparibh¯uta (the bodhisattva Never Disparaging, J¯ofuky¯o-bosatsu in Japanese), a bodhisattva described in the twentieth chapter (Never Disparaging) of the Lotus Sutra; out of respect for their inherent Buddha nature, this bodhisattva greeted all comers with reverence; said to be Shakyamuni Buddha in an earlier life Samantabhadra (the bodhisattva Universal Worthy, Fugen-bosatsu in Japanese), depicted in various sutras and thought to symbolise the virtues of truth and practice Scholastics, thirteenth century masters of philosophy; the Scholastic philosophers tried to effect a synthesis of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy with Christian doctrine and to reconcile reason and faith Schuman, Robert (1886–1963), French politician; served as minister of foreign affairs, minister of finance, and prime minister; advocate of European union; proposed the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1950 Simon Wiesenthal Centre, formed in 1977 and devoted to the protection of human rights; with headquarters in Los Angeles, maintains offices in the United States and in Canada, France and Israel Six Wise Practices (p¯aramit¯as), disciplines (pa¯ramita¯s imposed on the bodhisattva according to Mahayana teachings; they include alms giving,

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keeping the precepts, forbearance, assiduousness, meditation, and the attainment of wisdom Social Rights, human rights going beyond traditional liberties and equalities; the development of capitalist economy generated serious social problems like unemployment and disparities in wealth, and so guaranteeing social rights to education, work and living standards is an attempt to solve these problems Society of Jesus (Jesuits), an order for the training of priests within the Catholic Church; founded by Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556); engaged in extensive overseas missionary work Socrates (469–399 B.C.), Greek philosopher; known for his use of dialogue in the search for basic truths; put on trial and forced to commit suicide for the offence of neglecting the gods and corrupting young people Soka Ky¯oiku Gakkai (Value-creating Educational Society), the predecessor of Soka Gakkai; originated as an educational reform group; founded by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda in 1930 Solon of Athens (640–540 B.C.), Athenian poet, politician; reformed the polis in the hope of ending the constant strife between the common people and the aristocracy; effected a great deal of legislation, including laws regulating currency and weights and measures Soweto Uprisings: on June 16, 1976, about 20,000 people vigorously protested against the compulsory introduction of teaching in the Afrikaans language in middle and high schools in the Soweto black township in the Johannesburg suburbs. Police opened fire, causing numerous deaths and injuries Stoics, founded in Athens by Zeno in about 300 B.C.; the Stoic school of philosophy exerted great influence until the second century B.C. Tagore, Rabindranath (1861–1941), poet; one of the greatest figures

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in modern Indian literature and a spiritual supporter of the Indian independence movement; author of Gitanjali Ten Good Precepts: prohibit commission of the ten evil acts, which are killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, flattery or indiscriminate and irresponsible speech, defamation, duplicity, greed, anger and foolishness or the holding of mistaken views Ten Major Disciples, Shakyamuni’s ten principle followers: Sh¯ariputra, ¯ Mah¯ak¯ashyapa, Ananda, Subh¯uti, P¯urna, Maudgaly¯ayana, K¯aty¯ayana, Aniruddha, Up¯ali and R¯ahula Thales of Miletus (circa: 640–546 B.C.), founder of Greek natural philosophy; studied mathematics and astronomy in Egypt; predicted a complete solar eclipse in 585 B.C.; believed that all things are modifications of a single substance, which he identified as water Theragata, an early compilation of verses by Buddhist monks; only a Pali text exists Tolstoy, Leo N. (1828–1910), Russian writer; author of War and Peace, Anna Karenina and Resurrection Toynbee, Arnold J. (1889–1975), English historian; professor at such institutes as London University; author of A Study of History Treasure Tower, a tower or stupa adorned with treasures or jewels; in the eleventh chapter ‘Treasure Tower’ of the Lotus Sutra, a great assembly of Buddhas, bodhisattvas and other beings watch as an immense Treasure Tower rises from within the Earth; Nichiren viewed the treasure tower as an allegory for human life in its enlightened state achieved through the chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo Unamuno, Miguel de (1864–1936), Spanish philosopher, author; professor of Greek at the University of Salamanca; strove to bring about a spiritual revolution in Spain; author of Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida (The Tragic Sense of Life).

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United Nations Charter, consisting of 11 articles; sets forth the goals, basic principles, membership and principal departments of the organisation; defines the means whereby international conflicts shall be resolved United Nations Conference on International Organisation, a convention of delegates from 50 Allied nations which took place from April 25 to June 26, 1945, in San Francisco; resulted in the creation of the United Nations Charter; signified the formal establishment of the United Nations United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, held between June 3 and 15, 1992, in Rio de Janeiro; representatives from about 170 nations attended this conference; in addition to working out the Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development plus a set of action plans for the coming century entitled ‘Agenda 21,’ the delegates signed treaties on climatic changes and biodiversity Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sets forth human-rights standards that all peoples and nations ought to strive to attain; adopted on December 10, 1948, at the third General Assembly of the United Nations Upanishad (Collections of Esoteric Equations), commentaries on the Vedas composed between 1000 and 500 B.C.; a major source of ancient Indian philosophy; the fundamental Upanishadic doctrine is the essential oneness of Brahman, the supreme being of the universe, and the individual human soul, or atman Vasubandhu (thought to have lived in the fourth or fifth century of the Common Era), brilliant Buddhist scholar born in northern India; at first a Hinayanist, later, under the influence of his older brother Asanga, converted to Mahayana; the thousand books attributed to him were instrumental in spreading Mahayana teachings throughout Asia Vimalakı¯rti Sutra: the leading figure of this important Mahayana sutra is the wealthy, learned, lay Buddhist layman Vimalakı¯rti whose great

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mastery of the essential teachings enables him to refute the views of bodhisattvas and of Shakyamuni’s disciples Virginia Bill of Rights: the Colony of Virginia asked the Continental Congress for a declaration of independence in May 1776, and passed this celebrated bill of rights, compiled by George Mason, on 21 June, 1776 Voltaire (De Secondat, Charles-Louis; 1694–1778), French playwright, philosopher and poet; strenuously criticised both the Catholic Church and the ancien régime; laid the philosophical groundwork for the French Revolution Weimar Constitution, the constitution of the Weimar Republic; came into being in Germany after the First World War; consisted of a preamble and eighteen articles; had considerable international influence as a new twentieth-century constitution guaranteeing such basic human rights as the right to life Whitman, Walt (1819–92), American poet; extolled freedom, equality and the spirit of friendship on the basis of democratic principles; author of Leaves of Grass Wickramasinghe, Chandra (1939- ), Sri Lankan astronomer; adviser to the United Nations on development planning Yojana, an ancient Indian unit of linear measurement variously given as 64, 120, or 160 kilometres and said to be the distance a king’s army could march in a day Yoshida, Sho¯in (1830–59), Japanese educator; born in Cho¯shu¯ domain of the present-day Yamagucki Prefecture; studied under Sakuma Sho¯zan; imprisoned when his plans to stowaway on a ship bound for the United States were discovered; established a school called Sho¯ka Sonjuku which educated many political leaders Zweig, Stefan (1881–1942), Austrian Jewish pacifist, writer; persecuted by the Nazis and fled to Brazil

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Notes Chapter 1 1. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Volume II, trans. Soka Gakkai (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 2006), p.844 2. The Records of the Orally Transmitted Teachings, trans. Burton Watson (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 2004), p.4 3. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Volume II, p.843

Chapter 3 1. The Lotus Sutra, trans. Burton Watson (New York, Columbia University Press, 1993), p.36 2. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, trans. Soka Gakkai (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 1999), p.169

Chapter 5 1. Zweig, Stefan, Brazil: Land of the Future, trans. Andrew St. James (New York: The Viking Press, 1941), p.12 2. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, trans. Soka Gakkai (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 1999), p.1125 3. The Dhammapada, trans. Friedrich Max Müller (from Pali) (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1973) 4. I Timothy, 6:12. 5. The Majjhima Nika¯ya, rendered and abridged from the Pali by Bhikkuh Silacra (London: Probsthain and Co., 1912), p.39

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Chapter 6 1. The Vimalakı¯rti Sutra, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp.65–66

Chapter 8 1. The Book of the Kindred Sayings (Samyutta-Nika¯ya), trans. Rhys Davids (London, Luzac & Company Ltd., 1971) 2. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, trans. Soka Gakkai (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 1999), p.578 3. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, Chirigaku Kyoju no Hoho oyobi Naiyo no Kenkyu (Research in the methods and content of geographical instruction), included in The Complete Works of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, Vol.4 (Tokyo, Daisan bunmei-sha, 1981) 4. Zweig, Stefan, Brazil—Land of the Future (New York: The Viking Press, 1941), p.35. 5. The Records of the Orally Transmitted Teachings, trans. Burton Watson (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 2004), p.30

Chapter 9 1. The Lotus Sutra, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp.266–267 2. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, trans. Soka Gakkai (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai, 1999), p.851–852 3. The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p.417

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Index Abadi, Mr. 80 active rights 70 Adams, John 92, 93, 145 African National Congress (ANC) 20, 145 agnosticism 51, 145 AIDS 89 Aitmatov, Chingiz 19, 145 Alencar, José Martiniano de 96, 145 Amado, Jorge 96, 145 Amaral, Azevedo 111, 146 Amazon environmental issues 106–7, 141 Indians 133, 141 American Convention on Human Rights 73 American Founding Fathers 92 American Revolutionary War 137 Amnesty International 108 Anchieta, Father José de 95, 151 anger 55, 111, 146 anti-apartheid exhibitions 20 anti-Semitism 111–12 apartheid 17, 19–20, 146 ‘Apartheid and Human Rights’ exhibition 20 Apostles 57–8 Aquinas, Thomas 52, 61, 146 Aristotle 60, 146 Armstrong, Neil Alden 51, 146 art 141–2 Ashoka, King 82 assembly, freedom of 70 association, freedom of 79 astronomy xiv, 140

Athayde, Austregésilo de at Brazilian Academy of Letters 15, 102, 119, 127, 131 and compilation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1, 17, 39–45, 50, 65–9, 73, 74, 80–1, 87, 119, 139 on Daisaku Ikeda xiii–xvi death of 117–19 as journalist 10–11, 119, 120, 136–8 love of music 8–9 marriage and family 11–12, 14–15, 120–3, 124, 138–9 and politics 13–14 religious beliefs 7, 9, 135–6 youth 4–8, 123–4 Athayde, Maria José 14–15, 138–9 Athayde, Roberto 116–44 atom bomb 38 Augustine of Hippo 59, 146 Auschwitz 38, 146 autocracy 52 Avalokiteshvara 110, 147 Bach, Johann Sebastian 8, 147 Bacon, Francis 52, 147 Barbosa, Rui 9, 10, 124, 147 Barcelona Olympics, 1992 19 Baudelaire, Charles 126, 147 Bergson, Henri 13, 147 Bethel, Dayle M. 90 Bhaishajyara¯ja 110, 147 bills of rights 37, 52, 69, 73, 74 birth, disregard for 29, 34 Bittencourt, Edmundo 10

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bodhisattvas 72, 76, 109–10 Brahe, Tycho 112, 147 Brahmanism 23, 28, 29, 58, 147 Brazil education in 93–7, 111, 134 environmental issues 106–7, 141 human rights problems 133–4 multiracial character of 50, 94–5, 111 religious tolerance in 83–4, 111 Brazil Culture Center 131, 139 Brazilian Academy of Letters 15, 96, 102, 119, 127, 131, 148 Brizola, Leonel 117 brotherhood 44, 45, 99, 103, 104, 106, 109 Buddhism children of Buddha 148 and compassion 109, 110, 111, 112–13 corrupt priesthood 84 Dharma 77 and dignity of all life forms 71–3 and education 88, 89, 98–9 on equality 2, 63 and human rights xiv–xv, 45–7, 54–7, 58 and inner power 62 and liberty 76 Mahayana 45–6 nature of Buddha 148 practice of satya¯graha 22–3 precepts of 54–5 spirit of humanism in 29, 33–4 three realms of existence 75–6 capitalism 67 Carneiro, Levi 53, 148 Carr, Gerald P. 113, 153 Carter, James Earl (Jimmy) 119, 148 Cassin, René xiii, 41, 43, 73, 148 caste system 28, 29, 30, 34, 148 Catholic Church, in France 83 censorship 66 Chakravartin 30, 148 champions, human rights 17–25 Charter of the Organisation of African Unity 73 Chateaubriand, Francisco de Assis 11, 111, 130, 139, 142, 148 children preparing for responsibilities 33, 91 sharing information with 5

Christ, Jesus 57 Christianity and equality 63 and human rights 53, 57–8, 61 missionaries 81 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 60, 149 civil law 61 civil rights movement 17 Clark, William S. 88, 149 Cold War, end of 20, 22, 97, 101, 103 communism 67, 101 compassion 33, 45, 46, 47, 58, 109, 110, 111, 112–13 conscience 45 freedom of 66, 80 conservation, environmental 97, 106–7, 141 constitutions 73, 74 Copernicus, Nicolaus 112, 149 Corpus Juris Civilis 61, 149 cosmos xi, xiv, 113, 140 Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard 108 Cousins, Norman 40, 149 Cox, Harvey 22 Crito 59, 149 cultural rights 70 Curie, Eve 49 Curie, Marie 49, 150 D’Alembert, Jean 52, 150 Dante Aligheri 10–11, 150 de Klerk, Frederik W. 22, 150 death children’s encounters with 5–7 and life 6–7 democracy 62, 66, 70, 92, 93, 134 developing countries economic, cultural and social factors 107–9 education in 97, 107 Dhammapada 56–7 Dharma 77 dialogue as alternative to force 103 preserving 65 Diderot, Denis 52, 159 dignity 2, 43, 44, 46, 47, 55, 56, 58, 63 of all life forms 71–3 radiance of 113–14

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Index treasuring individual 79–85 universal 110 discrimination battle against 1, 34, 43, 77 origins of 25 regulations against 70 divine rights 52, 150 Earth, seen from space 113 Earthly Desires 23, 150 economic growth, and happiness 108 education 15–16, 21–2 in Brazil 93–7, 111, 134 in France 83 governments’ responsibility for 104 in Japan 88 right to 44, 87–99 in United States 92–3 egoism 23, 47, 151 Eight Sufferings 150 Einstein, Albert 111–12, 113, 135–6, 151 employment governments’ responsibility for 104 and illiteracy 96–7 right to 44, 70 Encyclopedists 52, 151 English Bill of Rights 53, 151 the Enlightenment 52–4, 151 enlightenment (Buddhism) 30–2, 45–7 environmental conservation 97, 106–7, 141 environments 76, 77 equality 2, 25, 28, 34, 43, 44–5, 58, 77 absolute 111 arising from universal law 63 and education 98 Esho¯-funi 75–7 essential equality 25, 151 ethnic groups, and discrimination 31 European Convention on Human Rights 73 ‘Expedient Means’ 47, 98, 99, 149, 151 expression, freedom of 66, 79, 80, 134, 137 faith xi freedom of 66, 79–85 False Views 55, 151 Fascism xiii, 38, 44, 53, 66, 109

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First World War 101 first-generation human rights xv, 69, 71, 73, 75, 76, 105 Five Components 75, 76 Five Precepts 32, 54, 55, 152 Fonseca, Field Marshal Hermes Rodrigues da 9, 152 Ford, Henry 107, 152 Former Day of the Law (sho¯ho¯) 62 Fortuna, Edith 6, 7 Four Delusions 24, 25 Four Infinite Virtues 76, 152 Four Noble Truths 23, 152 Four Sufferings 30, 56, 150, 152 France Decalaration des Droits de l’homme 37, 52, 69 education in 83 separation of state and religion 82–3 Franco, Itamar 119 Frank, Anne 143 Franklin, Benjamin 12, 152 freedom 34, 44–5, 66 Freire, Paulo 96, 152 Fuji Art Museum (Tokyo) 141–2 Fukuzawa, Yukichi 121, 153 galaxies xi Galilei, Galileo 112, 153 Galtung, Johan 108, 153 Gandhi, Indira 43 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand 17, 21, 22–3, 25, 129, 153 heritage from Shakyamuni 28–30, 32 Pande and 27, 28 and social position 28, 34 Garden of Eden 56, 58 Germany Nazism 38, 44, 53, 104, 143 state and religion in 83 Weimar Constitution 69, 104 Gettysburg Address 68, 153 glasnost 103, 153 global citizenship 105, 112 global civilisation 1, 50, 61, 71, 74, 102, 113 God existence of 135–6 modern severence with 53 as origin of rights 45, 51, 52, 150

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Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 134 Gorbachev, Mikhail S. 80, 101–3, 153–4 governments freedom from oppression by 104 responsibilities of 104 gradualism 65 greed 24, 55, 84, 111, 154 Greeks, ancient 59–60, 154 grief 5–6 Hammurabi, Code of 17, 51, 54, 55, 149 happiness, for humanity xiv, 61, 68, 71, 84, 92–4, 98–9, 105, 108, 109, 113 health 12–13, 130 governments’ responsibility for 104 rights to 70 Hiroshima 38, 103 Hitler, Adolf 38 Hobbes, Thomas 52 Holocaust 38, 143, 154 Hoyle, Fred 140, 154 Hugo, Victor Marie 87, 126, 154 human development 107–9 The Human Revolution (Ikeda) 124, 125, 127 Human Rights Day 133 humanism 27–35 advent of a new 111–14 expanding around the globe 65–77 humility 47 Huyghe, René 117, 139, 155 ignorance 56, 57 Ikeda, Daisaku, on Athayde ix–xi, 25 Ikeda, Hiromasa 116–44 illiteracy 95–7 imprisonment 14, 21 Indians, Amazonian 133 individual, dignity of 2 individuality 2 industrial nations, and universal problems 97 information, freedom of 66, 70 Institute of Political Studies (Campos) 93, 94, 120, 131, 134 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty 102, 155 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 73

International Cultural Institute (Campos) 93 International Tolerance Award 39 internationalisation 102 Japan education in 88 militarism 79 Second World War 38, 44 Jastrow, Robert 140, 155 Jefferson, Thomas 92, 93, 155 Jesuits see Society of Jesus Jews, Holocaust 38, 143, 154 Judaeo-Christian tradition 54, 55–6, 57–8, 59, 61, 155 Junqueiro, Abilio Manuel Guerra 136, 155 justice 3, 4, 32, 75 rights to 70 Justinian, Emperor 61 Kepler, Johannes 112, 156 King, Jr., Martin Luther 17, 22, 25, 156 laissez-faire policies 104 Latter Day of the Law (mappo¯) 62 law divine 55, 61 human 60, 61 natural 60, 61 universal 61, 63, 112 leaders of leaders 89–90 lectures, human rights 20 liberties (rights) 44, 55, 66, 70, 71, 76, 79, 81, 92, 104, 105, 156 liberty (freedom) xiv, xv, 9, 22, 33, 34, 35, 40, 43, 44, 69, 75, 76, 92, 99, 102, 104, 105, 106, 109, 112, 120, 134, 137 Library of Congress 93 life, taking of 32, 55 Lincoln, Abraham 68, 156 literacy 95–7 Locke, John 52, 92, 156 longevity 12 Lotus Sutra 32, 46, 47, 98, 99, 110, 112, 156 love for humanity 33, 34 power of 32

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Index Machado de Assis, Joaquim Maria 91, 95, 96, 124–5, 126, 156 Magalhães, Fábio 129 Magna Carta 53, 61, 157 Mahamaya 157 Mahayana Buddhism 45–6, 157 Maitreya 110, 157 Makiguchi, Tsunesaburo 14, 15, 38–9, 66, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 98, 143, 157 Malik, Charles 42, 43 Man, and Enlightenment thought 52 Mandela, Nelson 17, 18–19, 25, 157 and education 21–2 Ikeda’s five concrete proposals to 19–20 Mandela University 21 Manjushrı¯ 72, 110, 157 mano-consciousness 24, 25, 157–8 Maritain, Jacques 53, 77 Maritzburg 22, 158 Marxism-Leninism 51, 158 Mary, Queen of England 53 materialism 51, 98 Matienzo, Anze 81 Middle Day of the Law (zo¯ho¯) 62 militarism 79, 94 military expenditure 97 Min-On association 20, 158 missionaries, Christian 81 Montello, Josué 131, 135 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de 52, 158 Moses 53, 54 movement, freedom of 70 Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre 38, 49, 158 Mussolini, Benito 38, 158 Mystic Law 76, 112–13, 158 Nabuco, Joaquim 124–5, 126, 159 Nagasaki 38, 103 nation states 61, 70, 102, 104–5, 109 National Mobilisation Law (Japan) 79, 159 nationality humanity more important than 112 right to 74 natural law 60, 61 Nazism 38, 44, 53, 104, 143 Nehru, Jawaharlal 43 news, freedom of 66

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Newton, Isaac 52, 112, 159 Nichiren 2, 4, 34, 46, 55, 76–7, 82, 98, 110, 112 Nine Consciousnesses 24, 159 Ninsho¯ sect 82 Nirvana Sutra 72 Nobel Peace Award xiii, 41 nobility 29 non-violence movement xv, 17, 21, 22–3, 28 Buddhist origins of 32–3, 110–11 nuclear weapons 38, 68, 101, 102–3, 105, 106, 109 opinions, freedom to express 66 original sin 55–6 originally inherent nature of birth and death 6, 159 Pan-Europeanism 108 Pande, Bishambhar Nath 27–8, 129, 159 Parks, Rosa 129, 159 passive rights 70 Patrocínio, José do 124–5, 159 Paul, St 57–8, 160 Pauli, Wolfgang 112, 160 Pavlov, Alexei 51, 70–1, 80–1 peace 34 as foundation of humanity 103 possibility of world 101–3 right to live in 103–6 Peace Preservation Law (Japan) 79, 160 peace-keeping, United Nations work on 42 Peng Chun Chang 81 perestroika 80, 102, 103, 160 Periander of Corinth x, 59, 160 pharisaic formalism 57, 58 philosophy, Greek and Roman 59–61 Plato x, 59, 60, 126, 160 Plaza, Mr. 81 Poher, Alain 139 political participation, right to 44, 70, 71 Popular Vote Law (Japan) 79, 160 Portugal, colonial rule in Brazil 95 prejudices, origins of 25 press, freedom of 66 progress, education as prerequisite of 87–8 property, rights to 70, 92

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Ptolemy 112, 149 publication, freedom of 66 racial discrimination 17, 22 reason 45 religion xi, xiv freedom of 66, 79–85 and human rights 49–63 persecution 51, 79–80 separation from state 82–4 Rissho¯ Ankoku-ron 34, 82, 160–1 Roman philosophy 59, 60–1, 154 Roosevelt, Eleanor 40–1, 43, 49–50, 66, 68, 73, 161 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 52, 109, 161 Russo-Japanese War 5 Sada¯paribhu¯ta 110, 161 Samantabhadra 110, 161 Sandroni, Cícero 115–44 Sandroni, Laura 115–44 São Paulo Art Museum 142 Sarney, José 117 satya¯graha 22–3, 28 Scholastics 52, 61, 161 Schuman, Robert 67, 161 Second World War 37–9, 40, 42, 44, 66, 98, 101, 143, 144 second-generation human rights xv, 69, 71, 73, 75, 105 security, personal 44 self-obsession 23–5, 56 self-realisation 110, 111, 113 Seven Sages 59 Shakyamuni Buddha 22, 23, 24, 28–34, 56–7, 58, 72, 76, 88 Sharma, Shankar Dayal 29 Simon Wiesenthal Centre 38, 49, 143, 158, 161 Sino-Japanese War 137 Six Wise Practices 76, 161–2 slavery 54 sleep 6–7 social class 28, 29, 30, 34 social injustice 104 social rights 44, 70, 71, 104, 162 social security, right to 44, 104, 105 Society for International Development (SID) 133 Society of Jesus 95, 162

Socrates x, 59–60, 162 Soka Gakkai International xiv, 1, 22, 33, 38–9, 50, 68, 81, 101, 104, 116, 121, 127, 133, 141, 143 Soka Gakkai Peace Committee 20 Soka Kyoiku Gakkai 22, 66, 162 Soka schools 15, 94, 116, 121, 122, 124, 131 Soka University 15, 18, 20, 40, 94, 107, 116, 121, 122, 131, 141, 143 Soka Women’s College 40 solidarity 34 right to 109 Solon of Athens x, 59, 162 Sophocles 59 soul, innocent humanism of the 49 South Africa post-apartheid 19–20, 22 and Universal Declaration of Human Rights 69 Soviet Union relations with United States 102 religious persecution 51, 79–80 state interference 70 and Universal Declaration of Human Rights 66, 68, 70–1 Soweto uprisings 20, 162 spirit, freedom of 79–85 spiritual globalism 50 state, separation from religion 82–4 Stoics 60, 61, 162 street children 133 suffering 72 Summa Theologiae (Aquinas) 61 Suttanipa¯ta 23, 29, 58 Tagore, Rabindranath 21, 28, 31, 162–3 Ten Commandments 53, 54, 55 Ten Good Precepts 54, 55, 163 Ten Major Disciples 72, 163 Thales of Miletus x, 59, 163 Theragata 2, 163 third-generation human rights xv, 71, 75, 103, 109, 110, 113 thought, freedom of 66, 80, 81–2, 137 Three Attitudes 76 Three Realms of Existence 75–6 Toda, Josei xiv, xv, 1–2, 4, 15, 27, 94, 113, 125, 131, 137, 143

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Index denunciation of nuclear weapons 103, 105 imprisonment 14, 39 on life and death 6 tolerance, religious 81–2 Tolstoy, Leo N. 108, 163 Toynbee, Arnold J. 10, 117, 132, 163 Treasure Tower 46, 47, 163 trust 34 truth xi, 23, 136 power of 32 Tsurumi, Yu¯suke 126 Unamuno, Miguel de 135, 163 United Nations Apartheid Center 20 Charter 39–40, 68, 73, 164 Conference on the Environment and Development 106, 164 Conference on International Organisation (1945) 39, 164 Economic and Social Council 40, 41 and education 97 Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) 133 Division of Human Rights and Peace 109 Food and Agriculture Organisation 132 General Assembly xiii, 41–2, 67, 69 High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 133 Human Rights Committee 40–2 International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) 133 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 73 International Labour Organisation 132 peace-keeping 42 United States Declaration of Independence 37, 52, 69, 92, 93 education in 92–3 relations with Soviet Union 102 universal cosmic law 112 Universal Declaration of Human Rights xi, xiii, xv, 164

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combines active and passive rights 70 compilation of 1, 17, 39–45, 50, 65–9, 80–1 fundamental premises of 44–5, 99, 106 as guiding light for humanity 37–47 and importance of education 87, 89 ongoing influence of 73, 108 philosophical basis of 51–63 spiritual dimension of 45, 51, 62, 80, 85 structure of 43–4, 71 universality of 74–5, 104, 109 universal law 61, 63 untouchables 28 Upanishads 58, 164 Utopianism 103 values, universal 34 Vasak, Karel 109 Vasubandhu 24, 164 Venkataraman, Ramaswamy 29 Vieira, Amaral 129 Vimalakı¯rti Sutra 71–2, 76, 164–5 violence avoidance of 106, 111 see also non-violence movement Virgil 126 Virginia Bill of Rights 69, 165 Virginia, University of 93 Voltaire 52, 165 Warner, Frederick 5 weak, assistance to 104 Weimar Constitution 69, 104, 165 welfare rights 70 Whitman, Walt 62, 165 Wickramasinghe, Chandra 140, 165 William III, King of England 53 wisdom 98 work, right to 44, 70 worship, freedom of 80 Yoshida, Sho¯in 21, 165 Zweig, Stefan 50, 95, 165

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Daisaku Ikeda President Soka Gakkai International Born in Tokyo on January 2, 1928, Mr. Ikeda graduated from Fuji Junior College. He is Honorary President of Soka Gakkai and President of Soka Gakkai International (SGI). Over a period of years, he has conducted dialogues with outstanding thinkers from all over the world in connection with his efforts to promote education, culture and global peace on the basis of the Buddhist philosophy. His efforts have won him numerous awards, including the United Nations Peace Prize and the Brazilian State Order of the Southern Cross. His numerous literary works have been translated into many languages.

Austregésilo de Athayde Former President Brazilian Academy of Letters Mr. Athayde, who was born in Pernambuco in 1898, became a journalist after graduating from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. As Brazilian representative to the third General Assembly of the United Nations, he played an important part in drawing up the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He became president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1959 and continued to occupy that post until his death on September 13, 1993. His published works include Histórias amargas.