West: Emerging From the Earth

West Territory just completed powerful kick off meetings across seven zones, with 7,977 members in attendance! As the youth launch into the second act, we'd like to share part of Sensei's seminal poem, "The Sun of 'Jiyu' Over a New Land," which he presented Jan. 27, 1993 at the 2nd SGI-USA General Meeting and 1st International Kansai General Meeting in Santa Monica, Calif.

Click here to read a lengthy excerpt!

From your brothers and sisters in the West

An excerpt from the poem Sun of Jiyu Over a New Land:

My treasured friends,
There is no question that
your multiracial nation, America,
represents humanity's future.
Your land holds secret stores
of unbounded possibility, transforming
the energy of different cultures
into the unity of construction,
the flames of conflict
into the light of solidarity,
the eroding rivulets of mistrust
into a great broad flow of confidence.
On what can we ground
our efforts to open
the horizons of such a renaissance?

It is for just this reason,
my precious, treasured friends,
that you must develop within yourselves
the life-condition of Jiyu -
Bodhisattva of the Earth.

As each group seeks their separate roots and
origins, society fractures along a thousand fissure lines.
when neighbors distance themselves from neighbors, continue your uncompromising quest
for your truer roots
in the deepest regions of your lives.
Seek out the primordial "roots" of humankind.
Then you will without fail discover
the stately expanse of Jiyu
unfolding in the depths of your life.

Here is the home, the dwelling place
to which humankind traces its original existence –
beyond all borders,
beyond all differences of gender and race.
Here is a world offering true proof
of our humanity.

If one reaches back to the these fundamental roots,
all become friends and comrades.
To realize this is to "emerge from the earth."