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This paper explores responses to COVID-19 by the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai in Japan. Sōka means 'value-creation', but what kind of 'value' was created amidst a global pandemic? So-called 'new religions' in the context of Japan are typically presumed to embody a 'flight from the human world' into the exotic and remote. SG's response, however, encouraged people to stay very much within a 'human-bound world'. How did SG differ compared to other popular responses in Japan that drew on yōkai (or 'spirits') for comfort in defeating the soon objectified virus 'monster'? SG may be well-built for responding to disaster in its extensive grassroots networks and its daily newspaper to provide information. Responding with a renewed focus on study, chanting and outreach also highlights, however, how the meaning of 'hope' and 'well-being' were generated by internal change while structurally working to realise the SDG s as part of more long-term solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses an episode in the history of Sōka Gakkai that began as alternative youth movement under Ikeda Daisaku who came to advocate "people's diplomacy" (minkan gaikō) as a way to foster goodwill between China and Japan. Why would Sōka Gakkai, a legally constituted "religious corporation" (shūkyō hōjin) be so serious about engaging with a Communist regime that did not recognise religion? The article discusses what "religion" or "religious behaviour" means in Sōka Gakkai, and questions the usefulness of such a classification on a qualitative level. Ikeda's interpretation of Nichiren Buddhism highlights his approach to something seemingly very "unreligious"—namely, the normalisation of Sino-Japanese relations. Unlike the more traditional "reactive revolution" of protest movements that constructed politics as primarily a binary, ideological choice to achieve its aims, Ikeda prioritised finding ways to transcend that very ideology-centric, counter-politics approach. By appealing to conviviality, a sense of shared humanity and humility on the part of the Japanese towards their past history of colonialism, a new social imaginary and attitude that differed from politics of opposition between left and right entered as a historical force that continues to be promoted by Sōka Gakkai today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]