At the urging of featured speaker Vincent Harding, the tenth annual Ikeda Forum became not just a forum devoted to dialogue but also a laboratory devoted to the cultivation of dreams—dreams of freedom and democracy to be precise.
Among the inspirations for the 2012 Forum was Ikeda's contention that "all things are linked in an intricate web of causation and connection, and nothing, whether in the realm of human affairs or natural phenomena, can exist or occur solely of its own accord."
The greater self of Mahayana Buddhism, writes Daisaku Ikeda, "always seeks ways of alleviating the pain, and augmenting the happiness, of others, here, amid the realities of everyday life."
This Forum built and expanded on Ikeda's vision of democracy "as a way of life whose purpose is to enable people to achieve spiritual autonomy, live in mutual respect, and enjoy happiness."
The 2009 Forum featured original insights into ways that ideas and principles in American pragmatism, as articulated by John Dewey, and Mahayana Buddhism, as articulated by Daisaku Ikeda, can point us toward humanistic solutions for the problems of the twenty-first century.
The 2008 Forum investigated the “deeper continuity of life and death that we experience as individuals and express as culture,” a concept put forward by founder Daisaku Ikeda in our founding lecture.
In Daisaku Ikeda's view, the power of friendship is crucial for transforming differences, creating collective wisdom, and discovering mutual beliefs. The 2007 Forum applied this specifically to friendships among women, at different times in US history.
The 2006 Forum addressed two core questions: What can we learn from the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson about how to live in the world today? How might the imagination help us to envision—and realize—the possibilities for our country?
In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Whitman’s masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, scholars and poets from Asia and the Americas gathered to listen, learn, and respond to Whitman’s poetic vision
The 2-day event built on Thoreau's Walden to ask two key questions: 1) How can we awaken to all the possibilities that lie within the present moment? and 2) How can a profound transformation in just one person lead to social change?
