Soka University

I am neither a Soka University official nor an official NSA spokesman, but I am responding as a member of seven years who feels your summary of NSA and the Buddhist practice (“Soka University expansion stirs Calabasas Controversy,” Metro, Sept. 24) was inaccurate and misleading.

Rachel Andres’ suggestion that the practice of reciting gongyo is a basis for defining the group as a “destructive cult” since chanting is a mechanism for “some kind of mind control or persuasion” over members is absurd. Thre are many religions, both Western and Eastern, that include ceremonial chanting as an integral part of their faith. Using her reasoning one could draw similar conclusions about the Catholic priesthood and its daily recitation of the breviary, or of saying the rosary at Mass. I doubt that many would share her view.

The literal meaning of the term shakubuku has nothing to do with physically “breaking or subduing” an individual, as your writer implies. Rather, it refers to “breaking” a person’s attachment to false, misleading ideas. Assertive conversion tactics were common to many religious movements in postwar Japanese society. In the United States today, however, most NSA members join because a friend or family member urges them to try. The basis for shakubuku is to make the profound teachings of Buddhism easy to understand through humanistic dialogue and actual example.

Finally, being a NSA member does not require that I “donate liberally.” I voluntarily began contributing two years after I joined. Most members in my area do not.

STUART R. MAGEE

Santa Barbara