![\"\"](\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Joseitoda.webp\")
Founded in 1930 by Japanese educators Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda, Soka Gakkai began as a movement dedicated to humanistic education. Rejecting the nationalism of their time, they taught that true patriotism lies not in serving the state, but in serving humanity. The price of conviction was high: Makiguchi, the first president, died in prison in 1944; Toda, the second president, survived wartime imprisonment. Yet their ordeal became the foundation for an unshakable postwar belief in peace, human rights, and the dignity of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, SGI \u2014 established in 1975 as the international organization of Soka Gakkai \u2014 functions both as a faith-based organization (FBO) and as a civic international actor.
Unlike traditional religious institutions, its activities are not bound by doctrine but grounded in an ethic of coexistence and dialogue. Its guiding principle is clear: lasting peace begins with the inner transformation of the human heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From Doctrine to Diplomacy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nAfter the war, Soka Gakkai evolved from a religious reform movement into a civic philosophy of human revolution<\/em> \u2014 the idea that an individual\u2019s inner transformation can renew society.
This concept redefined faith as a form of public virtue rather than a closed set of dogmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\nToday, SGI operates in 192 countries and territories, collaborating with the United Nations and numerous NGOs on nuclear disarmament, education for sustainable development, and human rights.
Its activities exemplify a form of ethical cooperation that transcends both religion and national interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since 2009, SGI has worked through INPS Japan to partner with journalists worldwide, supporting independent reporting on nuclear abolition, climate change, interfaith dialogue, and the SDGs.
Articles published in multiple languages on nuclear-abolition.com<\/a> and sdgs-for-all.net<\/a> treat journalism not merely as information transmission, but as a tool for peacebuilding.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAt the heart of this initiative lies the Buddhist ethic of \u201cshared suffering\u201d \u2014 the determination to feel another\u2019s pain as one\u2019s own, and to act from understanding.
Through journalism that gives voice to the voiceless, SGI seeks to expand a global circuit of empathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Education](\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/SDGs-for-All-Banner-3.jpg\")
Education for Global Citizenship<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe Power of Empathy in an Age of Cynicism<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n![\"NPT](\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/sgi_event_top_picture.webp\")
NPT Review Conference side event “Avoiding Nuclear War: What Short-Term Steps Can be Taken?”Photo credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri. IDN-INPS Multimedia Director<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nWhat may seem like idealism has, in fact, proven effective in practice.
SGI\u2019s philosophy of peace is distinctive in viewing peace not as the result of political negotiation, but as a cultural and psychological process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As multilateralism falters, SGI seeks to redefine empathy as political capital.
In its advocacy for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), SGI promotes grassroots dialogues that convey the human reality of nuclear suffering rather than the logic of deterrence.
Through exhibitions and youth exchanges, a new perspective \u2014 human security instead of \u201cnuclear deterrence\u201d \u2014 has begun to take root in societies worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SGI\u2019s founding president Daisaku Ikeda once said, \u201cTo devalue even a single life is to wound all humanity.\u201d<\/em>
This conviction also underlies SGI\u2019s engagement in movements for abolishing the death penalty and resisting structural violence.
Its philosophy holds that any form of security achieved at the expense of human dignity ultimately hollows out peace itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\nInterfaith Diplomacy and the Ethics of Listening<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nIn October 2025, SGI Vice President Hirotsugu Terasaki joined representatives of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Hinduism at the Vatican\u2019s international conference \u201c<\/strong>Dare Peace,\u201d<\/strong> organized by the Catholic Community of Sant\u2019Egidio.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Interfaith-conference-in-Rome-1024x675.webp\")
The closing ceremony held against the backdrop of the ancient Roman ruins, the Colosseum Credit: Community of Sant\u2019Egidio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\u201cPeace begins with the transformation of the human heart. Interfaith cooperation is not symbolic \u2014 it\u2019s a method for changing history,\u201d said Terasaki.<\/sup><\/sub><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Mr.Terasaki-and-his-holiness.webp\")
Hirotsugu Terasaki, vice president of Soka Gakkai with Pope Leo XIV. Credit: Vatican News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nHis message resonated with the appeal of Pope Leo XIV, who urged people to \u201cresist the arrogance of power and listen to the cries of the poor and of the earth.\u201d
Both voices share a view of dialogue not as a performance of tolerance, but as a practice of mutual responsibility.
SGI extends this approach beyond interreligious engagement to cooperation with the United Nations, universities, and civil society organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turning Information into a Moral Commons<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nThe partnership between SGI and INPS Japan is grounded in the recognition that peace requires not only political agreements but also an infrastructure of empathy.Their multilingual online platforms have become a kind of \u201c<\/strong>archive of peace culture,\u201d<\/strong> documenting the conscience of our time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"SDGs](\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/SDGs-for-All-Website2-1024x852.png\")
SDGs for All Project Website<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nFrom African youth climate actions to renewable energy projects in Asian villages and nonviolence education in classrooms, these reports chronicle grassroots practices that quietly rebuild trust amid the noise of today\u2019s information age.
Rejecting sensationalism, this journalism seeks to restore depth, context, and credibility to public discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Kevin Lin of INPS North America observes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cPeace journalism isn\u2019t idealism. It\u2019s another form of realism in a world that has forgotten empathy.\u201d<\/sup><\/sub><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThe Politics of Moral Leadership<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nThe origins of SGI are inseparable from Japan\u2019s twentieth-century tragedies \u2014 state oppression, war, and the devastation of nuclear weapons. Yet those memories were not transformed into cynicism but into an ethic of solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an age when democracy is shaken and exclusionary nationalism grows, SGI\u2019s path demonstrates that moral authority can be built not through coercion but through conscience.
SGI seeks no political power; instead, it embodies a form of \u201csoft resilience\u201d \u2014 long-term cooperation and trust grounded in shared human values \u2014 offering a model of civic diplomacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Quiet Power of Hope<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n![\"Photo:](\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Hiroshima2-2.jpg\")
Photo: Hiroshima Ruins, October 5, 1945. Photo by Shigeo Hayashi.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSGI\u2019s efforts are devoid of spectacle, yet their endurance signals a profound trend in a world undergoing a reordering of global systems.
As states lose moral imagination, non-state actors \u2014 faith communities, youth, citizens, and alternative media \u2014 are redrawing the contours of solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One young SGI member put it simply:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n![\"Katsuhiro](\"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Katsuhiro-Asagiri.jpg\")
Katsuhiro Aagiri, President of INPS Japan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cWe may not change the world overnight, but we can prevent it from losing its conscience.\u201d<\/sup><\/sub><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nIn that quiet statement lies the essence of SGI\u2019s peace movement: to transform humanity\u2019s shared suffering into shared hope.
For SGI, peace is not the endpoint of diplomacy, but a daily practice born of individual choice and empathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
INPS Japan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Katsuhiro Asagiri INPS Japan (Tokyo)– Wars in Europe and the Middle East, the chain of climate disasters, and the hollowing out of international cooperation \u2014 the world is shrouded in overlapping crises. \u201cPeace,\u201d more urgent than ever, now appears as a distant ideal. Yet amid this age of fragmentation, one international Buddhist network is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-politic-conflict-peace"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9317"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9333,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317\/revisions\/9333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
This concept redefined faith as a form of public virtue rather than a closed set of dogmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, SGI operates in 192 countries and territories, collaborating with the United Nations and numerous NGOs on nuclear disarmament, education for sustainable development, and human rights.
Its activities exemplify a form of ethical cooperation that transcends both religion and national interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since 2009, SGI has worked through INPS Japan to partner with journalists worldwide, supporting independent reporting on nuclear abolition, climate change, interfaith dialogue, and the SDGs. At the heart of this initiative lies the Buddhist ethic of \u201cshared suffering\u201d \u2014 the determination to feel another\u2019s pain as one\u2019s own, and to act from understanding. What may seem like idealism has, in fact, proven effective in practice. As multilateralism falters, SGI seeks to redefine empathy as political capital. SGI\u2019s founding president Daisaku Ikeda once said, \u201cTo devalue even a single life is to wound all humanity.\u201d<\/em> In October 2025, SGI Vice President Hirotsugu Terasaki joined representatives of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Hinduism at the Vatican\u2019s international conference \u201c<\/strong>Dare Peace,\u201d<\/strong> organized by the Catholic Community of Sant\u2019Egidio.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeace begins with the transformation of the human heart. Interfaith cooperation is not symbolic \u2014 it\u2019s a method for changing history,\u201d said Terasaki.<\/sup><\/sub><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n His message resonated with the appeal of Pope Leo XIV, who urged people to \u201cresist the arrogance of power and listen to the cries of the poor and of the earth.\u201d The partnership between SGI and INPS Japan is grounded in the recognition that peace requires not only political agreements but also an infrastructure of empathy.Their multilingual online platforms have become a kind of \u201c<\/strong>archive of peace culture,\u201d<\/strong> documenting the conscience of our time.<\/p>\n\n\n From African youth climate actions to renewable energy projects in Asian villages and nonviolence education in classrooms, these reports chronicle grassroots practices that quietly rebuild trust amid the noise of today\u2019s information age. As Kevin Lin of INPS North America observes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeace journalism isn\u2019t idealism. It\u2019s another form of realism in a world that has forgotten empathy.\u201d<\/sup><\/sub><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The origins of SGI are inseparable from Japan\u2019s twentieth-century tragedies \u2014 state oppression, war, and the devastation of nuclear weapons. Yet those memories were not transformed into cynicism but into an ethic of solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an age when democracy is shaken and exclusionary nationalism grows, SGI\u2019s path demonstrates that moral authority can be built not through coercion but through conscience. SGI\u2019s efforts are devoid of spectacle, yet their endurance signals a profound trend in a world undergoing a reordering of global systems. One young SGI member put it simply:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe may not change the world overnight, but we can prevent it from losing its conscience.\u201d<\/sup><\/sub><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In that quiet statement lies the essence of SGI\u2019s peace movement: to transform humanity\u2019s shared suffering into shared hope. INPS Japan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Katsuhiro Asagiri INPS Japan (Tokyo)– Wars in Europe and the Middle East, the chain of climate disasters, and the hollowing out of international cooperation \u2014 the world is shrouded in overlapping crises. \u201cPeace,\u201d more urgent than ever, now appears as a distant ideal. Yet amid this age of fragmentation, one international Buddhist network is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-politic-conflict-peace"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9317"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9333,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317\/revisions\/9333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Articles published in multiple languages on nuclear-abolition.com<\/a> and sdgs-for-all.net<\/a> treat journalism not merely as information transmission, but as a tool for peacebuilding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through journalism that gives voice to the voiceless, SGI seeks to expand a global circuit of empathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Power of Empathy in an Age of Cynicism<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n
SGI\u2019s philosophy of peace is distinctive in viewing peace not as the result of political negotiation, but as a cultural and psychological process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its advocacy for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), SGI promotes grassroots dialogues that convey the human reality of nuclear suffering rather than the logic of deterrence.
Through exhibitions and youth exchanges, a new perspective \u2014 human security instead of \u201cnuclear deterrence\u201d \u2014 has begun to take root in societies worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This conviction also underlies SGI\u2019s engagement in movements for abolishing the death penalty and resisting structural violence.
Its philosophy holds that any form of security achieved at the expense of human dignity ultimately hollows out peace itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\nInterfaith Diplomacy and the Ethics of Listening<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
Both voices share a view of dialogue not as a performance of tolerance, but as a practice of mutual responsibility.
SGI extends this approach beyond interreligious engagement to cooperation with the United Nations, universities, and civil society organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTurning Information into a Moral Commons<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Rejecting sensationalism, this journalism seeks to restore depth, context, and credibility to public discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The Politics of Moral Leadership<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
SGI seeks no political power; instead, it embodies a form of \u201csoft resilience\u201d \u2014 long-term cooperation and trust grounded in shared human values \u2014 offering a model of civic diplomacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Quiet Power of Hope<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
As states lose moral imagination, non-state actors \u2014 faith communities, youth, citizens, and alternative media \u2014 are redrawing the contours of solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For SGI, peace is not the endpoint of diplomacy, but a daily practice born of individual choice and empathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n