by Masuo Nezu

These are personal reminiscences about the late founder Rev. Nikkyo Niwano from his former chief secretary, Masuo Nezu, now in retirement. During his years of service, the writer accompanied Rev. Niwano on dissemination tours, interreligious cooperation activities, and peace promotion work, both in Japan and overseas. This series recalls not only heartwarming episodes from the founder's everyday life, but also the spiritual insights derived from his words and deeds.

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"I could hardly put on my shoes"

On February 21, 1969, Founder Niwano (second from left) took part in the meeting at Istanbul of the Interim Advisory Committee for the first World Conference of Religions for Peace.

The first international preparatory meeting was held in February of 1969 in Istanbul, Turkey for what was then known as the World Conference on Religion and Peace, now the World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP). The plane from Haneda airport in Tokyo to Istanbul took a southern route, requiring 24 hours to reach the destination since it stopped five times along the way. As we approached Istanbul, I said to Founder Nikkyo Niwano, "You must be very tired." "No," he responded. "When I flew to Brazil, the journey was much more difficult." He had visited Brazil in 1958 on his first trip overseas. From Haneda to Wake Island, Honolulu, San Francisco, New Orleans, Caracas, Belen, Rio de Janeiro, and then Sao Paulo, the trip took five consecutive days and changing from one propeller-driven plane to another. After so many hours seated on airplanes, he recalled, "When I tried to put my shoes on before disembarking, my feet were so swollen it was not easy."

In Istanbul, some twenty members of the preparatory committee from various countries had gathered to discuss concrete issues regarding the holding of a world conference on religion and peace. Their first meeting lasted from early in the morning until late at night and it can be said that the meeting itself manifested interreligious cooperation. In Istanbul, a historic point of contact between Eastern and Western cultures, representatives of religions from both joined hands and pledged to work together for world peace. After three days of enthusiastic discussions, it was decided to hold the first World Assembly of the WCRP (WCRP I) in Kyoto the following year, 1970.

Even in February, Istanbul was quite warm, making the representatives feel that spring was coming. But when Rev. Niwano flew back to Japan and landed at Haneda, it was snowing heavily. Perhaps the weather indicated the hard future ahead for the beginning of the WCRP, since no discussion at all had been held with Japanese religionists about hosting such a big assembly.

In 1969, Rev. Niwano had served as chairman of the Japan Religions League (now the Japanese Association of Religious Organizations), a position that rotates each year among the five members of the association--Buddhism, Shrine Shinto, Sectarian Shinto, Christianity, and new religions. Rev. Niwano was then chairman of the Federation of New Religious Organizations of Japan. He visited the head temples of traditional Buddhist denominations and the headquarters of various other religious organizations to enthusiastically explain to the top leaders the concept and ideals of the WCRP and the plans for its first world assembly.

This was the beginning of his "peace pilgrimage" in Japan. "It accords with the spirit of the Buddha that the major goal of Buddhism, Christianity, and other world religions is principally the same," Rev. Niwano said. One of the other Japanese religious leaders said, "In the precinct of our head temple on the mountain here, we have large facilities. We would be happy if they could be put to use for such a good cause as interreligious cooperation and world peace."

Some became committed to the WCRP immediately, while others expressed interest in cooperating for the assembly, and others not yet ready to join at the initial stage voiced their support. Reactions varied, but the process of making possible the first assembly, the so-called Kyoto Conference, was an opportunity to increase cooperation in the religious peace movement and strengthen it among Japanese religionists year by year.

"This is an example," Rev. Niwano said, "of ichinen-sanzen (three thousand realms in one thought, a concept derived from Chinese T'ien-t'ai Buddhism that says all phenomena are contained and interpenetrated in a moment of thought within the mind). If our will and determination are not strong enough, others may not respond sufficiently. If we are truly serious, they will also become serious."

During the first world assembly of the WCRP on October 16, 1970, the founder affectionately greeted Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, then president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as the successor to the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

When the first WCRP assembly was held it drew international attention and bore much fruit. Some time later, on the way to WCRP II in Leuven, Belgium in 1974, Rev. Niwano began to extend his "peace pilgrimage" overseas. One cannot know a country by looking at a map. Visiting there, observing its natural surroundings, and meeting and talking with people and trying to understand how they think is entirely different. Rev. Niwano met top religious leaders and people from other fields of various countries and enthusiastically talked with them and also earnestly listened to what they had to say, even the ordinary citizens he encountered.

In Belgium, responding to the enthusiasm of Rev. Niwano, a man who had been hired as his driver for that country became eloquent and talked a lot as he drove. "In this country," he said, "we begin teaching two foreign languages from the fourth grade of elementary school. Without international awareness, it is difficult to live in Europe. What Nazi Germany did during World War II, people of the countries that suffered can forgive but not forget. Fully curing the wounds of the war may take several more decades, until all the people who experienced them have passed away."

In Germany, another driver (who sped on the autobahn to reach neighboring countries) was impressed by Rev. Niwano's personality. "I want to read the Lotus Sutra in German," he later said to Dr. Maria Lucker, who had been a member of the executive committee of the WCRP, and who sent a letter noting his interest to Rev. Niwano in Japan.

Prof. Rolf Italiaander, a German scholar and writer, first visited Rev. Niwano at his hotel in Bonn and learned about Rissho Kosei-kai and the WCRP. He realized the importance of their missions. He wrote and published books about Rev. Niwano and Rissho Kosei-kai and delivered a series of lectures about them in Europe and in Japan.

One woman who interviewed Rev. Niwano for the first time at WCRP II, when she was a university student, then began studying the Lotus Sutra and Rissho Kosei-kai. She interviewed Rev. Niwano several times at consecutive world assemblies of the WCRP for her dissertation, as well as serving the movements of interreligious cooperation of the WCRP and the IARF as a volunteer. Her wedding took place at the time of WCRP II and some time later she had her first child, a daughter. When the girl had grown up, she visited Rissho Kosei-kai Tokyo headquarters and local churches in Japan carrying a letter from her mother, who continued her scholarly work for some twenty years.