Hurrray for the women of the SGI, we are bright and cheerful and the sunshine of our families and communites.

HAPPY SGI DAY

Call the Spokane community center number and ask them if there is a 'district' nearby where YOU live.  Ask for a chapter leader to contact you.  That will get the ball rolling.  Might be a member nearby you who can give you a ride to a local SGI-USA district meeting....

Gotta remember that the SGI movement is uniquely a Buddhist lay movement that was powered by women.  How this buddhism was spread was by the efforts of women who came from Japan.  The backbone of our lay organization are women and they make up the majority of members' participation in activities.  Did you go to the SGI-USA site and typed in your zip code for a meeting locator?

Lot of  Buddhist books you'll see on the market tend to have a 'distorted' view of Buddhism.  Lots of Buddhist 'authors' are so competitive and as literally beautifully written as most of these books are, they also don't give a very accurate picture of Buddhism.  Connect yourself to the local SGI-USA organization.  I learned at the get-go that our Japanese women pioneers who've been through the ringer in life will have quite a lot of experiences & matter-of-fact amazing life accounts & can teach you a lot about faith & practice by their example alone.which you can't get from books alone.

They're also available in audio files.  Another good link to look into:

http://www.sgi.org/buddhism/buddhism-overview.html

best,

Dan

ah, just read your comments.  The Zen & Tibetan Book of the Dead are not based on the Lotus Sutra and would probably not be a good primer for you re: this practice.  Our current introduction & essentials study exam booklets (in PDF) might be better for you to start with:

http://sgi-usa.org/studyandpubs/study/

kewl!  HIt my 30 years as of today, Valentine's Day....where did the time go?!  ;-D

Thanks for the friend request, Mary!

Welcome, Mary!