Young Black Males, Buddhist Faith, and Human Education: Enacting Daisaku Ikeda's Philosophy as Hope-Filled Identity

• In Event: Transnational and Decolonizing Perspectives on Curricular Memory and Vision

Abstract

Using ethnographic and discourse analytic methods, this longitudinal case study examines five young Black males’ engagement with Daisaku Ikeda’s (b. 1928) philosophies of Nichiren Buddhism and ningen kyōiku (“human education”). Findings suggest these young men’s appropriation and enactment of Ikeda’s perspectives developed their sense of spiritual and epistemological empowerment, authentic liberation, and active and engaged hope in the present, and toward the future. This study explores education and curriculum beyond schooling, as aspects manifest in the participants’ shared experiences of Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism and its related activities for peace, culture and education. In so doing, this study uncovers the seemingly unlikely role a Japanese octogenarian Buddhist leader played as mentor to these young Black men becoming more “fully human.”

Author

• Jason Goulah, DePaul University