A Former Top Hokkaido Soka Gakkai
Women's Division Leader Charges

Jiyu-no Toride (Bastion of Freedom)
Special Edition 2/29/96

"I WAS RAPED BY DAISAKU IKEDA!"

Introduction

I parted ways with Soka Gakkai on May 15, 1992. Though I describe it as having "parted ways," it was not of my own volition. I had sent a remonstration to Daisaku Ikeda, and, as a result, I was unilaterally given the order by Soka Gakkai that I was being dismissed from my positions of responsibility and employment. At the time, I was the Hokkaido Joint Territory Vice Women's Division Chief. In addition, since I was treated in such an extremely unjust manner, I had no choice but to "part ways." I both served and lived with the Gakkai for thirty-six years, and I am very disappointed in the manner in which the curtain has been brought down on all those years of effort. Yet, for all of that, I bear not the slightest malice about having been dismissed from the Gakkai. This is because, even though I have parted ways with the Gakkai, I have not closed off the path of my faith in Buddhism. Quite to the contrary. Witnessing the current stance of the Gakkai, which is steadily advancing along a course which deviates from the teachings of Buddhism, I honestly feel that I am better off by having parted ways with it. Since parting with the Gakkai, I have been able to calmly take a hard look at this organization known as Soka Gakkai, and I have discussed what I have been witnessing with my husband. Among other things, the two of have us have mutually concluded that the attacks which Soka Gakkai has recently carried out against Nichiren Shoshu, by means of Gakkai publications and such, exceed all bounds of human behavior. We simply cannot believe that the current Gakkai is the same organization in which we once believed and whose activities we once earnestly promoted for the sake of Buddhism. However, that which made me feel most dismal was the Soka Gakkai's slander of Nichiren Shoshu High Priest Nikken Shonin through the fabrication of the so-called "Seattle Incident," using a woman na med Hiroe Clow as the testifier.

I feel that way because her fabricated claim that Nikken Shonin paid for prostitutes in America more than thirty years ago is inconsistent with the facts and is replete with contradictions. When I learned that the Gakkai went so far as to fabricate a story about prostitutes in its vehement slander of Nikken Shonin, I felt such actions were truly unpardonable. "If it's true, then what about Daisaku Ikeda? How about what Daisaku Ikeda did to me?" These thoughts gradually came to the forefront of my mind. Those abominable incidents, which I had kept to myself and which had hung over Daisaku Ikeda for all those years - I had intended to never speak of them with anyone throughout my entire life. Even after I parted ways with the Gakkai, I continued to feel that if for no other reason, I had to keep these incidents buried within the depths of my heart for the sake of my children, who grew up feeling proud of their mother, and for the sake of my husband, who has always believed in me and who has always treasured me. However, I was worried sick over whether or not I should make known to the world the true portrait of Daisaku Ikeda, who, feigning ignorance about his own behavior and presenting himself as a man of virtue, thoroughly looks down upon Nikken Shonin by issuing groundless slanders against him. At the end of my intense vacillation, I began to think that I had to speak out about what Ikeda had done to me for the sake of showing even a single Gakkai member a true portrait of the man known a s Daisaku Ikeda, and I also felt that at the same time I would be repaying my debt of gratitude to Buddhism, which granted my life with redemption.

It was a truly painful decision. Should I speak out, the Gakkai would definitely employ various means to deny my charges. However, I believe that those with whom I had engaged in Gakkai activities for all those many years understand that I am not the kind of person who would lie about such matters. In addition, I feel that those leaders closest to me and who continued to feel that there was a special relationship between Ikeda and me would, in their heart of hearts, think, "So that's what it was all about. Now I understand." So I determined to speak out about Ikeda's conduct toward me, but in order to let everyone understand my true feelings which I did not, in fact, could not, reveal when I was in the Gakkai, even while Ikeda was perpetrating the atrocious against me, I would like to begin by dutifully relaying the particulars of how I came to believe in this religion.

Taking Faith

I took faith in Nichiren Shoshu as a Soka Gakkai member in February, 1956. I had given birth to our elder son eight years earlier, in 1948, but essentially, my health was not very good anyway, and on top of that, I did poorly following the birth. My health became completely decimated after the birth, and I was usually remained bed-ridden, flat on my back, in my house. In addition, the health of the child to whom I had given birth was also infirm, so in spite of the fact that we were able to live without the slightest inconvenience financially, our family could never be described as having been happy, and we spent our days enveloped in an atmosphere of gloom. Wanting with our whole hearts for our family to become healthy, we embarked on various religious pilgrimages, but none of them produced any results, so both my husband and I had all but given up. Just then, at the invitation of an acquaintance, my husband participated in a Gakkai discussion meeting. Thinking, "If it'll cure my wife and child," he promptly took faith.

That was on February 26 , 1956. My husband had learned a costly lesson from our past religious pilgrimages, so he prohibited me from joining him in his prayers, saying, "I'll try it first, and if anything good happens, then you can do it, too. If it's no good, I'll stop after one year." Feeling that I would grasp at any straw, no matter how slight, I stealthily proceeded to the altar in the dead of night while my husband and son were fast asleep and performed the Nichiren Shoshu liturgy, copying the way I had seen my husband recite it. No one had ever taught me the correct way to perform the liturgy, so I recited the entire sutra book for all five prayers. It took four hours, from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m., for me to complete the liturgy. On the fifth day of continuing that practice, a cool and refreshing feeling and a sense of vitality permeated my entire body. Since then, I have been able to live a normal life in complete health. Through that experience, my husband and I became convinced that Buddhism is absolute. At the time, my husband was thirty-three and I was twenty-nine.

Gakkai Activities

As for the Soka Gakkai at that time, second president Toda was still alive, and waves of propagation were rapidly spreading throughout the country. In Hokkaido, these waves spread out from Hakodate, the starting point, to Sapporo, Akagawa, Sunagawa and Rausu. We entered into the faith in Hakodate at a time which was truly the very beginning of Soka Gakkai in Hokkaido. At the time, a man named Mr. Yasutaka Noujou, who was commonly referred to as being the one and only true son of Hakodate, was the person responsible for the Hakodate organization. My husband and I, who were convinced of the excellence of Buddhism, spent our days frequenting Mr. Noujou's home, the base for Hakodate activities, and participating in prayer meetings there which commenced at ten in t he morning. After the meetings, we bustled about engaging in propagation, unmindful of nightfall. I gave birth to our second son the year after we took faith, and I walked around engaging in propagation through wind, rain and snow carrying my second son on my back, leaving my elder son, an elem entary school student, at home by himself. I often set out by bus for mountain villages, having to make several transfers en route due to the remoteness of the villages.

My husband managed an electrical contracting company, but he entrusted its operations to his employees and would himself go out to engage in propagation activities. This is how we spent our days, and I have hardly any memory of us eating dinner together as a family. My elder son penned an essay in which he wrote, "I watch over the house by myself everyday." His teacher read his essay and summoned me to school, where he asked me, "Just what are you, his mother, doing?" We were able to convert forty or fifty households every month, and my husband and I rapidly rose to ever higher positions of responsibility within the Gakkai. Looking back, we never anticipated that the Soka Gakkai would ever assume its present attitude, and so my husband and I devoted ourselves to establishing the foundation of the Soka Gakkai in Hokkaido. However, at the time, neither my husband nor I had any thought that we were contributing our services to the Soka Gakkai. Our only desire was to spread this blessed Buddhism. Therefore, while I admittedly have mixed emotions about the propagation activities in which I engaged back then, I currently have no regrets about we have done.

Initial Encounter with Ikeda

Daisaku Ikeda assumed the office of the third president in May, 1960. I attended the inauguration ceremony, held in the Nichidai Auditorium in Ryougoku, Tokyo, as a Hokkaido representative. Mr. Yoshikatsu Takeiri entered the hall as the standard-bearer, followed by Ikeda, who had a white ribbon affixed to his chest. I remember that at the time, I thought, "Oh, so that's Ikeda," and was not particularly impressed with Ikeda as an individual. I had heard from my husband about the kind of person Ikeda had become, and so perhaps I observed the inauguration ceremony with my eyes wide open, in a way. My husband had informed me of an incident which occurred when Ikeda had come in 1959, the year before the inauguration ceremony, in order to hold a leaders? meeting at the Gakkai facility in Sapporo. Mr. Noujou had been transferred to Hokkaido as the Hokkaido General Chapter Chief, and lived in the Sapporo Gakkai facility as its administrator. Ikeda plopped himself down on a futon in a small room inside that facility, and while lying his side, had Mr. Noujou's wife massage his feet. My husband observed this and was shocked at the spectacle of a youth around thirty years old having an elderly woman massage his feet. He often said, "Impudent creep. He acted just like a child who has his grandmother massage his feet."

Therefore, I did not have a very good impression of him, but at the same time I felt no particular repulsion toward him, and I thought that it did not matter who became president. However, as my responsibilities gradually increased, I had to come into contact with Ikeda, whether I liked it or not. My first direct contact with Ikeda occurred in April, 1973. I was appointed the Hakodate Women's Division Zone Chief, and the appointment ceremony took place in the Gakkai HQ Building in Shinanomac hi, Tokyo. Twenty newly appointed leaders gathered there from all over the country. Our names were called out one by one, and when the moderator called out "Nobuko Nobuhira," I responded and stood up. I was in the front row, and Ikeda was haughtily leaning back in his chair directly in front of me, inches away. Ikeda looked at the roster of names he held, and while looking me in the face, he purposely said, "So you?re Shinko Shinpei..." I thought, What a strange man, and at the same time I had the impress ion that he was extremely proud of himself. The horrible incident occurred two months later, and I'll talk about that next.

The Ounuma Training Center

In 1971, Soka Gakkai constructed the Ounuma Training Center, an expansive facility covering nearly two acres of land inside the Ounuma National Park. It seems that since it was inside a National Pa rk, there various problems surrounding its construction, but at the time I had yet to be put in the position of responsibility for the training center, so I do not know the details. All I can say with certainty is that the main building of the training center was constructed for Ikeda to summer there. Immediately after it was completed, a guidance meeting for each region was held in the second floor worship room, but subsequently it became just like a completely vacant house. As for it being used for religious purposes, on the first day of Ikeda's summering visits, local leaders gather there for a prayer meeting, but that's all. Ikeda began to summer there in June, 1973. Since then, he has gone there nearly every August, but I think he chose June that first time because, rather than going for the purpose of summering there , he was attempting to avoid the rainy season, and Hokkaido does not have one. His visits usually lasted from ten days to two weeks. I had just been appointed the Hakodate Women's Division Zone Chief, and I spent two months running around preparing for Ikeda's visit, following the instructions I had received from the Gakkai Head quarters. The materials designated by the Headquarters for Ikeda's use were truly detailed. The pillow was to be filled with buckwheat chaff (this changed to red beans while Ikeda was en route), and it was to be so many centimeters wide and so many centimeters long. The futon was to be made of silk and was also to be a certain size. I naturally had to order everything special. Furthermore, there were many other details, including instructions concerning Ikeda's pajamas, sweatshirts and paulownia clogs. There were to be so many large and small crystal glasses, different spoons to be used for melons, water melons and ice cream, cloisonné? chopstick holders, cork coasters, a white china milk pitcher, a glass sugar bowl, etc. His food, meat, fish and vegetables, were designated as well, and there was to be mineral water for drinking.

Among the designated articles were items which I could not procure in Hakodate, and I went to Tokyo to purchase them. Again, at the time I had never heard of mineral water, and when I inquired at a Hakodate apartment store if they had any, I was instead asked, "What is mineral water? Is someone who drinks something like that coming to Hakodate?" I was told that these preparations were to be kept secret, so no one helped me and I handled everything all by myself. Nevertheless, I was given no instructions about where to apply to recover the money I had spent, so of course the entire amount came out my own purse. This continued year after year. Years later, Ikeda's wife Kaneko told me, "You've made several purchases, and it was probably hard on you, so I've handed Yoshiko a little bit of money. Ask her to give it to you later." The Yoshiko in question is the Hokkaido Women's Division Chief, Yoshiko Saitou. Yoshiko later told me, "If this is not enough, just say so," and I replied, "This is fine," in spite of being handed a total amount of five thousand yen. I do not know if that was the total amount which Kaneko had given to her, but that was the one and only time I was ever given any money, and I later returned even that. Each time Ikeda came to summer, I spent out of my own purse anywhere from 700,000 to one million yen, and if I were to calculate all the money I spent up until 1991, which was the last time I prepared for an Ikeda visit, it would reach an enormous amount.

1973

Ikeda arrived in Ounuma on June 25, 1973, two months after the leadership appointment ceremony which I mentioned earlier. He looked at me and said, "It's been a while since we last met, you know, but I've finally come! You know, I?m told that you built all of this." In addition, the following morning I carried a menu into his office, and from behind a folding screen, Ikeda said, "Oh, so it's Nobuhira. You may enter." During his meal, Ikeda said, "It's not much , but thank you for your help." He then presented me with a silk muffler and a white wristwatch. I guess the average Gakkai member would have been deeply moved, thinking, "This is from Sensei," but at the time, seeing that this was my reward for all of the pains I had taken to maintain the garden and prepare for his visit, I was not particularly impressed, and I accepted them rather casually. Looking back, I can only conclude that Ikeda had ulterior motives in presenting them to me. You see, I was the one who took care of all of Ikeda's needs in the main building of the Ounuma Training Center, and I did so in accordance with the instructions which I had received from above. There is a Japanese cypress bath for Ikeda's exclusive use on the third floor of the main building, and those not involved in its care, even if they were top leaders, could never enter it. From around 1975, his wife Kaneko and some women from the No. 1 Bureau of General Affairs would travel together to Ounuma, but in 1973, no one but me was allowed to go up to the third floor. It happened on the third day after Ikeda's arrival in Ounuma, in other words, the evening of June 27.

As part of my duties, I ascended to the third floor at 9:00 p.m. to lay out Ikeda's futon, just as I had done on the two previous evenings, never suspecting that I was about to undergo a terrifying and humiliating experience. On the first and second evenings, Ikeda had not been present, but when I went up that night, he was in the office next to the bedroom, writing something. He wore long under underpants and a crepe shirt. I entered, saying, "Please pardon my intrusion," and thinking that I must not disturb him, I began to close the sliding doors between the bedroom and the office. However, Ikeda said, "Leave them open." I was slouched over, spreading out the sheets with my back to Ikeda when he suddenly leaned against me from behind. This happened in the blink of an eye. While pushing down on me, Ikeda's hands reached for my shoulders and he pulled at both the collar of my blouse and the straps of my slip. It was a thin summer blouse, so it offered not the slightest resistance. The buttons popped off and scattered about. I tried desperately to flee, but with Ikeda's enormous body crushing me, I was unable to even move. He violently tore open my skirt. As he panted with harsh breath, Ikeda spit out, "Just one layer of underwear, I see," and then he shoved his hand into my underwear. Aside from being pushed down upon with tremendous force, I was so afraid I was unable to speak. Then Ikeda firmly speared me from behind. I continued to attempt to resist, struggling and writhing, when everything went pitch . I lost consciousness lying prostrate. How much time elapsed, I wonder? Though I was prostrate when I ed out, when I regained consciousness feeling cold, I found that I had been asleep under the blankets facing the ceiling. With a start, I attempted to flee, but perhaps because I was petrified with terror, I was unable to stand up. In spite of that, I somehow managed to get to my feet and, clutching my clothes which had lain scattered about, I started to flee. When I did, Ikeda firmly pulled on my ankle and shouted, "Let's stay in bed awhile!"

With my ankle in his grasp, I struck my knee against the threshold. When I made another effort to flee, Ikeda again pulled on my ankle. Crawling, I made it to the door and Ikeda persisted in pursuing me. I hit my head on the door and my heart was beating frantically. I truly felt that I might be murdered right there. I was terribly frightened. I finally opened the door, ran down to the second floor and dashed into the bathroom. Violent nausea overtook me for some time. Then I calmed myself and wiped repeatedly at the body fluids which smeared my lower parts. I continued wiping all the more even after my skin turned red. When I entered my second floor quarters, the two Women's Division leaders who were lodging with me were both fast asleep. I got into my futon and cried until morning, trying to figure out just where I had let down my guard. I could not sleep even a single wink. Around 7:00 the following morning, Ikeda entered the kitchen where I was preparing breakfast. I was aghast at the words he uttered to me at that time. Catching sight of me, Ikeda calmly ventured to say, "Did you sleep OK last night? Your eyes are a little red." I thought, What nerve this person has to say something like that after what he did last night. He is not human. The shock and suffering I had experienced the previous evening are beyond description, but I determined that I would bury this incident within my own breast. I felt that if I were to speak of this to others, I could not remain in the Gakkai. That being the case, I would have no choice but to part ways with Buddhism.

Since I thought that I would part way s with Buddhism should I reveal this, I felt I had no choice but to bury it deep within myself and persevere. Nichiren Daishonin teaches, "Rely upon the Law. Do not rely upon a person." This means that the Buddhist teachings themselves are more important than the posture of any individual person. I convinced myself, for example, that no matter what type of person Daisaku Ikeda is, that which I believe in is Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. Following that first incident, I did all I could to avoid any situations where Ikeda and I might find ourselves alone together. Nevertheless, I inevitably had to be around him in connection with my services. In 1974 Ikeda summoned me up to the second floor. When I got there, I found the two of us in the room alone. He suddenly wrapped his arms around me, pulled my face toward his and pressed his mouth against mine. He said, "Let's go for a walk," and thinking that I would be safe if I could get outdoors, I went with him to the rear of the main building. He did the same thing again there. I resisted, and fortunately, nothing else happened. However, he repeated the same behavior three more times after that. By the way, Ikeda's intense body odor is ghastly. In particular, this may have been because it was summer, but I felt that something akin to the stench of rotten garlic emanated from his entire body. When Ikeda pulled me close to his filthy face, I detected an intolerable odor, and felt unbearably nauseous. Later I tenaciously scrubbed myself wherever Ikeda had touched me.

Number Two

Ikeda arrived in Hakodate on June 20, 1978. That time, before going to the Ounuma Training Center, he stopped off at the Culture Center in the Nakamichi section of Hakodate, and the plan called for him to attend a prayer meeting starting at 1:00 p.m. Many Gakkai members were in the second floor hall awaiting Ikeda's arrival. His airplane was late, so Ikeda and his party arrived at the Culture Center at 1:00 p.m. - precisely when the prayer meeting was scheduled to start. However, as soon as Ikeda spotted me, he said, "Why, you haven't aged a bit. You look the same as you did in the old days." He told me to accompany him to the third floor, and plopped down on his side in the 9x12 altar room. I informed him that everyone was waiting, but Ikeda said, "That's OK. Massage my legs for me." Feeling I had no choice, I massaged his legs through his trousers, and while doing so, Ikeda told me, "This time I've brought you some help...I came here after being alarmed at hearing that you've grown old...You?re still young. You haven't changed a bit. Do your best for another twenty years. It's better to instill jealousy rather than be eaten up by it. Today you look like a princess, a queen."

I realized from Ikeda's words that Vice President Kouichi Takama and Women's Division Chief Yoshiko Saitou had slandered me to Ikeda by telling him, "Nobuhira has grown old and cannot take the lead , so we would like you to replace her." Since that first incident in 1973, Ikeda constantly spoke of me in various ways. In addition, unlike those two leaders on the Gakkai payroll I have just mentioned, I would relate organizational problems without reservation. Therefore, I suppose they unjustly suspected me of taking advantage of my "special relationship" with Ikeda to snitch on them. Further still, while I massaged his legs, his wife Kaneko entered the room and she merely looked at me massaging him without uttering a word. During a dinner meeting on the 23rd of that month, Ikeda thoroughly praised me in front of everyone, after which he whispered to me, "You know, you?re my Number Two." (note: Number two, nigou, in Japanese carries the double meaning of mistress or concubine) Since then, Ikeda referred to me in front of everyone as his queen and his

Number two
The Second Assault

I was raped by Ikeda for the second time on August 19, 1983. There is a coffee shop called "Royal" on the grounds of the Ounuma Training Center. Following my usual routine, early in the morning, I was by myself cleaning the coffee shop. "Royal" is a pre-fab style coffee shop situated about five minutes away by foot from the main building where Ikeda stayed. I was responsible for this building as well. Summer mornings in Ounuma are blanketed by a thick layer of fog, so that you cannot see even several meters ahead. I was wiping a table with my back to the door when suddenly, someone wrapped his arms around me from behind. When those hairy arms pinioned me, I at once imagined it to a molester, and thought I would be murdered, but then I immediately realized that it was Ikeda.

The next moment, Ikeda wrapped his leg around my right leg and pushed me down. When I fell, my left side struck the table quite hard. Once again, he tore my blouse to shreds and forcibly removed my skirt and stockings. I attempted to push Ikeda away as he bent over me, but my hips and legs were weighted down and I was unable to budge Ikeda at all. My terror of 1973 came back to life. Ikeda made a bee-line for his stalked prey, just like a beast. Ikeda, having reached and completed his goal, and perhaps sensing that someone was outside (in the end, no one was there), he slackened his efforts and at long last released me. Then, just for an instant, I saw for the first time the nude lower body of Ikeda. His lower body is extremely hairy, and it looks just like he's wearing pants. As he fled, pulling up his sweats, Ikeda said, "I came to see the face of my Number Two," with a vulgar smile breaking out on his face. His smile was ghastly, and truly not of this world. Later, I noticed that in the course of my desperate struggle my body had become completely covered with wounds. He had done it, not just once, but twice. When I later visited a hospital to see to my wounds, I had a hunch that perhaps one day I might one way or another file a lawsuit, so I kept and still have the medical diagnostic certificate from my visit.

The Third Assault

Ikeda assaulted me at the Ounuma Training Center for the third time on August 16, 1991. Ikeda arrived at Ounuma on the fourteenth, but I stayed home that day and did not venture forth to greet him upon his arrival. I felt at the time that I would rather avoid seeing him as much as possible. However, I received a phone call from vice president Takama in the middle of the night, and was told, "Ikeda Sensei has ordered you to do so, so definitely come tomorrow." I did not want to sleep over at Ounuma, so I asked my husband to drop me off there and bring me back home everyday. I started going to Ounuma from the fifteenth on the stipulation that he would so.

Then, around 7:30 on the morning of the fifteenth, I walked through the grounds of the training center in order to replenish the food supplies. A total of thirty people, leaders who had arrived from Tokyo, Hokkaido leaders and the Young Men's Division members who guarded the training center, had gathered there, and it was my duty to prepare the food for all of them. All the members, including Ikeda, always gathered at 9:30 for radio-led calisthenics, but as I walked through the grounds, all was still perfectly quiet. I wanted to conclude my business there while Ikeda was absent. That morning again, a thick fog blanketed the Ounuma Training Center. As I walked along a road on the grounds, someone suddenly sprang upon me from behind and to the left. A fat, hairy arm and that peculiar feel - I immediately realized it was Ikeda. "It's Sensei again," I thought, and at that same time I was dragged down and pinned from behind with tremendous force. I tried and tried to flee, but aside from him bending over me with his entire body weight, he also pinned me down and there was nothing on the ground to hold onto, so there was nothing I could do. I tried to call out, but all I could manage were grunts. Ikeda violently tore away my clothes and he raped me, panting harshly, just as before. My clothes were in tatters. At any rate, I thought only of fleeing, and instinctively clawed and bit at Ikeda's arms. I was truly acting on pure instinct, so I don't really remember just what I did, but Ikeda let up for just an instant, probably, I think, because I had bitten his arm, and it was then that I was finally able to pull away from him. Ikeda, again displaying that ghastly smile, ran off into the fog.

My body was covered with bruises and scratches. Later, my husband felt suspicious about that and asked me, "Why do you come home covered with injuries when you go to Ounuma?" I could not possibly tell him the truth, and felt terrible about deceiving him. I simply could not bring myself to attend the radio calisthenics session conducted at 9:30 that morning and so absented myself on the pretense that I was busy in the kitchen. I heard later that Ikeda had asked those around him, "What's happened to Number Two?" When someone replied, "I haven't seen her yet," Ikeda said, "I see. I sent her home early." The person who informed me of this told me, "When you didn't come, Sensei's mood turned sour, so please go to the main building." As may be expected with all that had happened, I began to look coldly upon the Soka Gakkai itself, seeing that all the members regarded a man like Ikeda to be their master. Therefore, when Nichiren Shoshu expelled the Soka Gakkai in November of that same year, I felt that the inevitable had finally arrived. In spite of that, I thought, "Ikeda's behind the scenes behavior is a separate problem, and if Soka Gakkai would only correct its bad organizational management practices, it could return to its origin."

So I appealed to Ikeda about the sad plight of the rank-and-file members who lacked even money to live on, and proposed that he reconsider the way current organizational donations are conducted. Ikeda said, "Fine, I'll put an end to organizational donations in 1991. We'll persevere with no more organizational donations than are collected this year." However, he broke that promise. Organizational donations were once again promoted in 1992. In addition, during an administrative meeting held around that time (May 6, 1992) I proposed that the slander of Nikken Shonin which was vigorously being conducted within the Gakkai was both "strange and ludicrous." I fell into disfavor with the other leaders for doing so. On May 10, 1992, I wrote a lengthy twenty-one page letter, entrusting my last hopes to it and in which I called Ikeda to account, and sent it to Ikeda. I wrote about numerous matters, such as organizational donations, election activities and the shameless conduct Ikeda perpetrated against me since 1973. Of course, my husband did not know that I did this, and I did not show him the contents of the letter. I could write it knowing full well that it just might bring an end to my life within Soka Gakkai.

Leaving the Gakkai

Nevertheless, Soka Gakkai was quick to respond. On May 13, a phone call came from vice president Takama summoning both my husband and me to the kaikan. The next day, when the two us went there, we were abruptly told, "I'll talk straight out today. Both of you write letters of resignation for me." When we asked for a reason, he simply replied, "Any reason at all will do." We refused, and at 12:30 p.m. the next day we received a phone call unilaterally telling us, "You are dismissed." At the time, I was the Hokkaido Joint Territory Vice Women's Division Chief and my husband was a Vice Zone Chief. We had no particular attachments to our duties, but it filled me with sadness to think that this was Ikeda's response to my letter. However, I was utterly shocked at the subsequent methods which the Gakkai conceived with the intent to bury us. The week after our dismissal, they fabricated a fictitious story about the borrowing and lending of money and filed a lawsuit against my husband, using the names of three Gakkai Women's Division members. We know these three women very well, and our relations with them were nothing but friendly. "Borrowed money" that I have no recollection of borrowing - I was bewildered, but it occurred to me that those three women had asked my husband to take charge of some money and cooperate with them in a so-called financial scheme.

However, it happened a long time ago, and my husband kept accurate records. He still has the receipts from that time. My husband believed without a doubt that the truth will always win out, so without hiring an attorney, he dealt with the trial on his own. Sadly, my husband is a legal amateur and does not know how to properly present legal documents. He also is ignorant of legalities, so in court he merely became absolutely furious with the Gakkai's attorneys. In the end, the receipts he held as material evidence were never examined, and he wound up losing the case. It is an indisputable fact that the trial was a Gakkai plot because we were informed of this by a relative of one of the plaintiffs. We also have the testimony of a person (a Gakkai member at the time) to whom Gakkai attorneys made a direct appeal, saying, "We are going to pursue and bring down Nobuhira, so give us your cooperation." At any rate, the Gakkai made maximum use of my husband's "problems over borrowed money," and circulated around to the Gakkai membership the lie that, "The Nobuhira's quit because they caused scandalous money problems for their fellow Gakkai members." In addition, the total of 8,714,000 yen mentioned in the suit somehow swelled to 100 million yen and then to 160 million yen. The Gakkai went to such lengths in its attempt to crush us because, for one, it wanted an excuse to expel us. However, I believe the number one reason for its actions against us is because it feared that I would make a public announcement to the world about Ikeda's behavior. In short, it fabricated the rumor that, "The Nobuhira's are a husband and wife who committed fraud within the Gakkai. Accordingly, nothing Nobuhira says can be trusted."

I knew that if I made a public announcement about what Daisaku Ikeda did to me, the Gakkai would indiscriminately spread stories about me from various angles. However, I am not the least bit afraid of such stories. I determined that I would publicly announce what is, for a woman, the greatest shame, in order to let people know the true portrait of Daisaku Ikeda. Beyond that, I feel that the Gakkai's propaganda to which I have been subjected is unworthy of any serious consideration. When I made my determination, I first revealed everything to my husband. He censured me, saying, "Why did you not confide in me earlier?" However, he understood and accepted my feelings when I explained that I was unable of to speak of this within a Gakkai organization which considers its Ikeda Sensei to be absolute, and further, that I could not reveal it when I considered my husband and my children. I am only saying to Daisaku Ikeda, "What you have done is absolutely impermissible." Ikeda cannot possibly imagine how much I have continued to suffer up until today, ill at heart over what he did to me. If I were to not speak of this to anyone and keep this buried within my heart throughout my life, I would carry this suffering with me right up to my death. However, now that I have determined to denounce him and make a public announcement, I can say that I am relieved beyond words. I say to Ikeda, I want you to take total responsibility for your actions. I intend to drag Ikeda into court in order to hold him accountable for what he has done to me. I believe that my doing so will also let every Gakkai member and all the people of Japan know the true portrait of the person known as Daisaku Ikeda. Finally, as one who has caught a glimpse of Ikeda's peculiar nature and character, I believe that there are others throughout the entire country who have been victimized as I have. I look forward to those people embracing true courage.

Translated by: Michael Bowman; E-mail address: wtell@ix.netcom.com