Founders Nikkyo Niwano and Chiara Lubich: An Interreligious Dialogue for Peace

Founders Nikkyo Niwano and Chiara Lubich: An Interreligious Dialogue for Peace

by Donald W. Mitchell

Much of Rev. Nikkyo Niwano's early work in founding Rissho Kosei-kai was devoted to teaching the Lotus Sutra and creating his new Buddhist lay movement. Then, on September 16, 1963, Founder Niwano met for the first time with Pope Paul VI. Two years later, the pope invited Rev. Niwano to attend sessions of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). Founder Niwano said that he was inspired by the spirit of openness, reconciliation, and peace building that Vatican II presented as a model for Christian living.

During that visit to the Vatican, Rev. Niwano met for the second time with Pope Paul, on September 15, 1965. The pope said that there is no better way for religious people to contribute to humanity than by walking hand in hand in the way of peace. Founder Niwano replied that he would make the utmost effort for the sake of world peace, and later said that this encounter determined the second half of his life.

It was just five years later, in 1970, that Founder Niwano worked with others to establish what is now called the World Conference of Religions for Peace. It was through Religions for Peace and other interreligious initiatives that Founder Niwano became one of the most distinguished promoters of interreligious dialogue and cooperation of the twentieth century.

In February 1979, Rev. Niwano stopped in Rome on his "Peace Pilgrimage" after attending a preparatory meeting of the Third World Assembly of Religions for Peace in New York. There he met with Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement in the Catholic Church, for the first time. Ms. Lubich felt strongly that the two movements were destined through this encounter to enjoy a close relationship of interfaith friendship and collaboration.

Founder Niwano invited Ms. Lubich and the Focolare members to participate in Religions for Peace, to which she agreed. Since that time, the contributions of the members of the Focolare Movement have been invaluable to the world assemblies of Religions for Peace. The movement became a permanent member of Religions for Peace, and since 1994 Ms. Lubich has been one of the group's honorary presidents.

Two months after their meeting in 1979, Founder Niwano was in England to receive the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion. At the award ceremony, members of the Focolare Movement warmly greeted him and his colleagues. More friendship encounters continued to take place, and in 1981, Founder Niwano invited Ms. Lubich to visit Tokyo, where, on December 28, she shared her experience of the Focolare Movement with twelve thousand leaders and members who gathered in the Great Sacred Hall at Rissho Kosei-kai headquarters.

It was the 1979 interreligious encounter of these two spiritual giants of the twentieth century that caught my attention. I had heard of Rissho Kosei-kai as one of the most popular new religions in Japan and knew about the meeting between Pope Paul VI and Rev. Niwano during Vatican II. But I thought as I looked at photos of the 1979 encounter that there was something very intriguing about Founder Niwano's person and smile. So I read his autobiography, Lifetime Beginner (a wonderful title reflecting his spiritual humility).

I was impressed reading about his early life of poverty and struggle, his courage and confidence on his religious journey, his compassion for those who suffer, and his creativity in forming a new type of lay Buddhism that seeks to bring healing and peace into the human heart, to the family, to society, and to the world. I was also interested in Founder Niwano's commitment to interreligious dialogue, which stemmed in part from his meeting with Pope Paul VI during Vatican II, and his ongoing interreligious efforts to care for the poor around the world.

In fact, it was in the fall of 1979 that I was able to attend a Focolare/Rissho Kosei-kai gathering in New York City. About two hundred youth members of the Focolare Movement and Rissho Kosei-kai held a friendship gathering at the United Nations. This was my first direct experience of a Focolare/ Rissho Kosei-kai interreligious event. I was impressed by the warmth and openness that the youths showed to each other and the strong spirit of fellowship and peace that characterized the atmosphere of the gathering.

In 1984 I had the opportunity to meet members of Rissho Kosei-kai in Japan during a visit to the Niwano Peace Foundation in Tokyo. My host in Japan was a member of the Focolare Movement, and after the meeting at the foundation, we all visited the Rissho Kosei-kai headquarters. What impressed me was the unity between the Focolare and Rissho Kosei-kai members. It seemed to be the fruit of a long and positive interreligious dialogue of life and collaboration. I knew that after their meeting in Rome in 1979, Founder Niwano had invited Ms. Lubich to Tokyo in 1981, where she spoke to Rissho Kosei-kai leaders in the Great Sacred Hall. Now, five years later, I could see the fruits of that dialogue between Ms. Lubich and Rev. Niwano in the interreligious unity between my Catholic and Buddhist acquaintances.

This interreligious unity was not just a state of mind but a basis for interreligious collaboration. During the same year I was in Japan, members of Rissho Kosei-kai and the Focolare Movement in Kenya were working together to organize the Fourth World Assembly of Religions for Peace. And after that assembly, Religions for Peace opened a center for refugee assistance in East Africa staffed jointly with members of the Focolare Movement. The next year saw further interreligious collaboration that resulted in the Asian Inter-Religious Youth Forum in Manila, April 1-3, 1985, with the theme of "Participation, Development, and Peace." This close collaboration has continued to the present.

This dialogue of collaboration between the Focolare Movement and Rissho Kosei-kai is built on a dialogue of life, on sharing the lived experience of friendship. This dialogue of life has also generated a dialogue of spirituality. Members of Rissho Kosei-kai visit for short or extended periods the spiritual retreat centers of the Focolare Movement around the world. They participate in the spiritual life of the Focolare communities, maintaining their Buddhist practices, which the Focolare communities respect and support.

The spiritual encounter goes in the other direction as well. For example, I attended in 2002 the Third Buddhist- Christian Colloquium of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) at the Vatican, hosted by Rissho Kosei-kai in Japan. While there, I attended a hoza meeting. For me, it was a memorable and enriching experience of the transformative power of Rissho Kosei-kai spirituality, as well as a testament to patient compassion nourished by the Lotus Sutra tradition.

Also on a personal note, it was after that meeting in Tokyo that, inspired by the joint efforts for peace of Rissho Kosei-kai and the Focolare Movement and encouraged at that meeting by the president of the PCID, I returned home and founded the Indiana Center for Cultural Exchange (ICCE). The ICCE is really a collaboration among Purdue University, Indiana University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Minnesota, Georgetown University, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago, along with such organizations as Religions for Peace, the National Council of Churches, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Islamic Society of North America, the Council for American-Islamic Relations, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the National Youth Sports Corporation.

We work with nongovernmental organizations in countries with significant Muslim populations. Since 2004 one of our most successful initiatives is Unity Through Sports (USPORT). USPORT has worked with at-risk children in Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, and Algeria through sports projects that provide an opportunity for education in health, leadership, tolerance, and conflict resolution. We are now planning to expand to Uganda, Tanzania, and southern Sudan.

As the interreligious encounter deepened between the Focolare Movement and Rissho Kosei-kai, there evolved an exciting theological or philosophical dialogue. For example, there is a new series of more formal Buddhist-Christian dialogues supported by the Focolare Movement and Rissho Kosei-kai. The second in the series was hosted in 2006 by the Osaka Branch of Rissho Kosei-kai. At that second dialogue, which I was honored to attend, there were other noted Japanese Buddhist leaders from the Tendai, Nichiren, and Nara traditions, as well as Theravadin monks from Thailand. I know that the Focolare participants were very impressed with the spiritual depth, the rich philosophical tradition of thought, and the long and fruitful lineage of the Lotus Sutra tradition in Japan. The significance of this lineage was made even clearer through a wonderful overnight visit to the magnificent Tendai complex on Mount Hiei.

So, we can see that the interreligious dialogue between Rissho Kosei-kai and the Focolare Movement covers all four major types of dialogue: (1) the "dialogue of life," together in interfaith friendship; (2) the "dialogue of spirituality," with members participating in each other's spiritual communities; (3) the "dialogue of theological discussion," in order to build bridges of mutual understanding and appreciation; and (4) the "dialogue of collaboration," where members work together to foster a more united and peaceful world. I think that the genius of Founder Niwano was to envision how such an integrated dialogue, which he encouraged with the Focolare Movement, could transform people, societies, and the world. When all four forms of dialogue are practiced, which is not at all common, there is a synergy between sharing life experiences, spirituality, reflective discussion, and collaborative action. This synergy opens people's minds and hearts to realize a deeper interreligious fellowship and a shared motivation to compassionately live and work together in order to contribute to a more united, just, and peaceful world community.

The compassionate daily living, the communal problem solving of hoza spirituality, and the universality of the Lotus Sutra philosophy of the One Vehicle all contribute to Rissho Kosei-kai's sensitivity to the interrelatedness of life, to the need to work together with others, and to the ideal of building a more united and peaceful world community. It seems to me that Rev. Niwano stressed a universal vision of ourselves and the world that sees all humankind as one family in need of healing, unity, and peace. To bring about this ideal, he saw the collaborative problem-solving "hoza-like" approach as most helpful to this transformation. For example, when people of religion are brought together in Religions for Peace, they can share their aspirations, fears, hopes, and longings for humanity and then together seek ways for healing humankind in order to overcome the mentality of power, wealth, and conquest and foster the mentality of compassion, sharing, and peace building. Therefore, based on Founder Niwano's vision, members of Rissho Kosei-kai are today open to fostering dialogue with people of other religions in search of shared ideas, practices, and ideals in order to work together through interreligious collaboration to bring all humankind to unity and peace.

Recently Ms. Lubich wrote, "The wars that are being fought even in our day, as well as the terrorism and ethnic conflicts, are signs of social and economic inequality, of injustice and of hate. . . . The obstacles to world harmony come from deeper moral and spiritual attitudes, from how we value the human person, from how we treat each other. . . . Without love, we will never attain true justice, a sharing of goods among rich and poor, an attentiveness to the uniqueness of each man and woman and to the concrete situations in which they find themselves."

Certainly, Rev. Niwano found in this dialogue partner in Italy a kindred soul, a person with whom he could engage in an interreligious collaboration for the benefit of humanity. And Ms. Lubich found in Rev. Niwano a beloved friend and companion on the path pointed out by Pope Paul VI that leads to realizing world harmony by transforming the deep moral and spiritual attitudes of humankind through love and compassion, so that in Ms. Lubich's words, by "living in mutual giving, sharing our spiritual and material goods, we will become one family." We are indeed fortunate today to have visionaries like Founder Niwano and Ms. Lubich to foster together deep interreligious relations and collaborations that lead in the direction of peace through creating "one family" of humankind with its rich diversity of religions and cultures.

Donald W. Mitchell is a professor of comparative philosophy of religion at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He has served as a consultant for dialogue with Buddhism at the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and is active in the Focolare Movement. One of his most recent books is Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience.

This article was originally published in the October-December 2007 issue of Dharma World.


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