lecture by sensei on "count of monte cristo"

hi all, this is an essay which appeared in world tribune in 2002. i got it in mail.
we all know sensei used to be voracious reader in his youth. he still reads a lot and he is even writing more than what we can actually read. :)

i read youthful diary somedays back and there i found sensei has quoted many great authors and as well written about his daily studies.
he has completed "romance of the three kingdoms" in just a week or so even at the time when he was giving his all for soka gakkai and hence toda sensei!!!
that show the power of law and sensei truly shows how much we can expand our dialy life and how by applying faith in our daily life we can achieve so much value.
:)


AN ESSAY BY SGI PRESIDENT IKEDA
THE CHAMPIONS OF GOOD MUST WIN
In this essay on ‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ SGI President Ikeda clarifies the Buddhist view of revenge. ‘The greatest “revenge” against evil,’ he writes, ‘is for the champions of good to be victorious and for good itself to flourish.’
July 24 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alexandre Dumas, the famous French
author of such well-known works as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte
Cristo. Victor Hugo was born in the same year, on Feb. 26. Two towering figures in French literature came into this world just five months apart.
When Dumas was asked who he would like to be other than himself, his answer was
“Hugo.” The two shared a deep bond of friendship.
Right now, an exhibition on Hugo and Dumas is being presented at the SGI-affiliated
Victor Hugo House of Literature on the outskirts of Paris.
When I was a young man, I avidly read these two great authors. In particular, I will
never forget reading and studying under my mentor, second Soka Gakkai president Josei
Toda, The Count of Monte Cristo — translated into Japanese as Gankutsu-o, or
Indomitable Champion.

The novel opens in France in 1815, during the turmoil of the Hundred Days, Napoleon’s
brief final return to power. The hero, Edmond Dantès, is a navigator and a fine, honest,trusting young man. He is skilled at his profession — expecting soon to become captain ofhis own ship — and is about to be married to his sweetheart.
But as the 19-year-old Dantès is poised to set sail into a happy future, he is suddenly accused of the serious crime of being a Bonapartist spy and thrown into prison. He is the victim of betrayal by colleagues who envy his good fortune and an unscrupulous, self-serving local magistrate.

President Toda said to us youth: “By subjecting his youthful hero to this excruciating ordeal, Dumas made him grapple with a desperate life-or-death struggle. When we experience suffering in life, both mental and physical, we become stronger. That is why if young people wish to become great human beings, they must not seek an idle or easy life.”Adversity is indeed the best education. My mentor used every available opportunity tofoster and rigorously train young people.

Dumas has Dantès make the observation that a person can increase in strength and
honor by struggling with adversity and thereby convert all trials and hardships into
prosperity.Dantès falls from a state of heaven to the depths of hell. Though innocent of any crime,he is imprisoned in the forbidding island fortress of the Château d’If.

I have stood atop a hill in the city of Marseilles in the south of France and gazed at thislittle island floating in the blue sea.Dantès emerges from the darkness of despair when he finds a mentor and father figurein the aged Abbé Faria, who is imprisoned in the adjoining cell. They forge an indestructible bond, and the abbé shares his vast learning with his youthful disciple. After revealing to Dantès the secret of a fabulous treasure hidden on the island of Monte Cristo,however, the abbé dies.

Though overcome with grief, Dantès remains undaunted. Alone again, he is determined
to survive and embarks on a new challenge. He does not give in to despair. Blazing afresh with an ardent desire for life, he vows, “Idesire to live, I desire to struggle to the very last.”

His resolve is driven by the ever-present wish to avenge the wrong done to him by the
despicable villains who sent him to prison. His thoughts turn also to precious friends towhom he is forever indebted and whom he hopes to one day repay for their kindness.Gratitude to the good and virtuous — this, when all is said and done, is the path of integrity and good faith for leading a truly human life.
By switching places with the dead body of the abbé, Dantès manages to make a daring
escape from the Château d’If.

On Jan. 8, 1945, President Toda was informed of the death in prison of his mentor, firstSoka Gakkai president Tsunesaburo Makiguchi. The dedicated disciple wept in his coldprison cell. He wept, trembling with anger and grief.
And, all alone, he vowed: “Just wait! I will show the world my mentor was right! I willrepay my deep gratitude to my mentor by accomplishing something great. And were I toassume a pseudonym, I would use ‘Indomitable Champion.’”
Dantès, seeking to exact redress for the terrible injustice of false imprisonment that hadbeen perpetrated against him, turned into a ruthless avenger.
President Toda, meanwhile, gained his release from prison on July 3, 1945, and rose upas an “indomitable champion of faith” who dedicated his life to the mission of widely propagating Nichiren Buddhism and worked to bring happiness to all humanity.
Later, he wrote a novel titled The Human Revolution, under the pen name Myo Goku.
He called the story’s protagonist — modeled on himself — Gan Kutsuo [a homonym for
Gankutsu-o, “Indomitable Champion”].

Whenever the subject of his mentor’s death in prison was mentioned, tears rose in PresidentToda’s eyes, and he shook with anger. “Japanese nationalism killed President Makiguchi,” he cried. “I will avenge him! I will deal a crushing blow to those who caused President Makiguchi’s death!” Even today, his cry, like a great roaring wave, echoes in my heart.
President Toda’s anger was not anything personal; it was a fierce rage directed toward the devilish nature of authority that persecuted and brought about the death of his mentor, who had stood up for freedom of religion and the happiness of the people in an age of militarism.

Free for the first time in 14 years — and with the enormous treasure bequeathed him bythe abbé — Dantès, calling himself the Count of Monte Cristo, soon makes his appearance in Parisian society. In the intervening years, the enemies who have caused him such suffering have acquired wealth and station, and become established in the world. Dantès, with brilliant strategies and seemingly infinite wealth at his command, sets out to unmask the hypocrites, putting his plans for revenge into motion. He does not turn back until the last wrong has been righted.
President Toda, too, never forgot, even for a moment, the forces that caused his mentor’s death. “If you do not know your enemies, you will be deceived by them,” sternly warns Nichiren Daishonin (The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 664).
Buddhism does not teach bloody, violent revenge. It teaches that life is supremely
precious; it does not condone the taking of life — even of evil people. Those who
perpetrate evil or injustice will without fail receive retribution for their actions in accord with the workings of the law of cause and effect.
That said, it is still imperative that we expose evil, and that we use our anger at injustice toward thoroughly denouncing it and rooting it out. If we permit evil to run rampant, even more people will suffer at its hands. A halfhearted struggle against evil only gives it greater leeway to grow and flourish.

The Daishonin declares, “Anger can be a function of either good or evil” (Gosho
Zenshu, p. 584). Anger that springs from good and justice, and is directed at fighting evil and injustice, can produce great good. To oppose extreme evil is an act of extreme good. The greatest “revenge” against evil is for the champions of good to be victorious and for good itself to flourish.

Dantès says to a young man: “I have two friends, who in this way never depart from me; the one who gave me being, and the one who conferred knowledge and intelligence on me. Their spirits live in me.” He is saying that he lives each day carrying on a dialogue with his father and his mentor.
There is nothing more noble than a life lived together with one’s mentor. President Toda once said, as if addressing his mentor, President Makiguchi, “In your vast and boundless compassion, you let me accompany you even to prison.”

On the same date of July 3, precisely 12 years after President Toda was released from
prison, I was arrested on trumped-up charges and imprisoned. I had violated no law of
society or the nation. How could my arrest have been anything other than persecution for the sake of the Lotus Sutra?
As the disciple of an indomitable champion of faith, I followed the example of my
mentor and struggled as valiantly as a lion in prison. I have achieved a spiritual state that allows me to say with complete conviction, “I feel immeasurable delight” (WND, 386).
The first, second and third presidents of the Soka Gakkai have all possessed the
unyielding fighting spirit of indomitable champions of faith. It is crucial that my disciples inherit this precious treasure, this priceless legacy of faith.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was imprisoned many times in the course of his
unwavering struggle for human rights, declared: “If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl, but by all means keep moving.”
As long as we live and persevere and never give up, there is hope. As long as we work
hard and keep moving forward, a path will open for us.
No matter what storms of adversity may descend upon us, we, the indomitable
champions of the SGI, will never know defeat — because Nichiren Buddhism is a religion of human triumph that shines with the sun of eternal, undying hope.