This collection of poems composed between 1987 and 1988 by Soka Gakkai International President Daisaku Ikeda is dedicated to the personal victories achieved by his friends around the world at home, at work, in school and in society.

In "Songs from My Heart," Daisaku Ikeda, president of Soka Gakkai International, the largest Buddhist organization in the world, presents a poetic statement of his hopes for the future of humanity through reflections upon his own life and the lives of those with whom he has come into contact.

Especially important to Ikeda has been his associations with young people, who have been a source of both inspiration and hope.

Also included are some of his beautiful photographs, which affirm and deepen the message of his words.

This book gathers together poems written over many years and travels. They are a celebration of youth and change and progress. They are a call to all people to work and strive for a better world, one of peace and compassion.

While not always following strict poetic conventions, they are expressions of Ikeda's deepest feelings - they are songs from his heart.

It is easy to see from this book why Mr. Ikeda has won so many awards throughout the world for his poetry and photography, as well as his writing.

This book was invaluable to me when I was in High School. I have no idea where my copy of it went, so I'm so glad to see it here on Amazon!

The book is basically what the title says - advice to young people. It is written by Daisaku Ikeda, a Buddhist leader from Japan who is a father of three and an educator. He founded an educational system called which now has kindergartens in Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, two Jr. High and High Schools in Japan, and Universities in Tokyo and Los Angeles.

In other words, the author has a lot of experience with young people! And it comes across in every page of this book. Although it was written about 20 years ago, the advice is timeless. I'm ordering a couple of copies to hold on to and give to my own kids when they are teens!

In this animated discussion, Daisaku Ikeda, president of Soka Gakkai International, world renowned astronomer Masayoshi Kiguchi, and journalist Eiichi Shimura explore the implications of recent astronomical and cosmological findings, clarifying their meaning for the world in the light of Buddhist wisdom.

In recent decades we have seen a qualitative and quantitative leap in humankind's knowledge of the nature of the universe. Intriguingly, much of what has been learned in recent years from observations of our galaxy about the conditions and forces that govern its existence, is uncannily reflected in Buddhist cosmology, which predates the first telescopes by centuries. Comets, black holes, strange celestial phenomena, and the birth and death of stars have been noted and analyzed in the Buddhist teachings.

With their combined knowledge of philosophy, science, and the history of humankind, the authors discuss a range of topics--life and death, space travel, nuclear weapons, human nature, the life of stars--and explore how the external, material universe mirrors the internal spiritual world. Our relationship with the environment, the authors insist, can no longer be confined to the planet Earth, for we are subject to the influences and laws of the wider universe and should seek spiritual regeneration by means of a better understanding of the cosmos.

This book provides much food for thought and a riveting, novel approach to the question of humanity's place and purpose in the universe.

Tina Turner is the reason I found this book, and all others by Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Soka Gakkai International. After hearing Tina Turner speak about her Buddhist practice in interviews, and hearing her give credit to Buddhism for her happiness and in life, I decided to look further into it myself.

Tina mentioned Daisaku Ikeda as the person who brought Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism, the practice of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, to America. This is the Buddhist practice to which Tina attributes her spiritual fulfillment and strength. Thanks to Tina's explanations, I was able to locate the Soka Gakkai International and from there I discovered many profound, inspirational and educational writings by Daisaku Ikeda. This book is just one of Mr. Ikeda's many contributions to further the understanding of Buddhist principles and their application in every day life.

I highly recommend that anyone interested in the Buddhist practice of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo read the writings of Daisaku Ikeda to learn more about Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism.

This book is a collection of some of Soka Gakkai International President Daisaku Ikeda's essays with thoughts on how to establish a truly creative family. His essays provide new perspectives and wisdom with which to consider what a home should be like in order for families to be happy and value-creative.

The tenth anniversary of the launching of the first satellite, the social unrest of the 60's, and the return to life of microorganisms after millions of years of dormancy are among the many events that stirred the imagination of Daisaku Ikeda as he wrote these essays. A fresh approach and keen insights pervade this volume, first published in English in 1979, which reveals what a deeply committed man of religion, and as he calls himself, "a member of the common people," is thinking about the modern world.

The approach to life presented here is not vague theorizing. The author became an adult amid the wreckage of war. Too poor to enter a hospital for the treatment of a chronic illness or to continue on to higher education, he eventually recovered his health and went on to gain a keen appreciation for the essence and significance of the various academic disciplines by studying under a particularly gifted teacher.

In a straightforward style, Mr. Ikeda offers no quick fixes for major problems such as the huge disparity between humankind's technological advancement and lack of ethical progress, but he does encourage the reader to strive for and value sound education, good government, the uniqueness of the individual, human relationships--both on a community and global level--devoid of sham and hypocrisy, and ultimately, mutual understanding.

In "My Definition of Happiness," Ikeda states:

"People do not live in isolation. Dwelling in the nexus of family, society, and the world of nature, they lend support to one another. Happiness likewise does not exist as an isolated quality, nor does it conform to a single fixed pattern. Human happiness is something that breathes and has its being in the relationships between one person and another."

These essays speak to the issues that confront us all in a voice direct and powerful, inspiring and appealing.

The author, Daisaku Ikeda, is president of the world's largest Buddhist organization, Soka Gakkai International, which has over 12 million members in 128 nations.

This collection of poems by Daisaku Ikeda, recipient of numerous international poetry awards as well as the United Nations Peace Award, is majestic and inspiring. If you can find a copy of this rare book, you will see what I mean! I highly recommend it, as well as the original in Japanese (for Japanese readers) under the same title.

This book is a thought-provoking discussion between an eminent historian and philosopher and an influential religious leader, who represent different traditions but share the same commitment to finding answers to the urgent and profound questions that confront humanity. It covers a range of topics: the environment, the intellect, sexuality, health and welfare, man as a social animal, arms and war, religion's role, and the nature of good and evil.

According to the authors, "a human being's perennial spiritual task is to overcome egotism by expanding his ego until it becomes coextensive with the ultimate reality, from which it is, in truth, inseparable." They believe that "spiritual exertion, made by individual human beings, is the only effective means of social change for the better," and that "Changes of institutions are effective only insofar as they are symptoms and consequences of the spiritual self-transformation of the persons whose relations with each other are the network that constitutes human society."

Arnold J. Toynbee, raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and Daisaku Ikeda, a product of East Asian culture and a Buddhist, both recognize that human survival is threatened by our own capacity to destroy the natural environment and by the imbalance between our moral immaturity and technological prowess.

The two men posit an underlying choice in the way humankind can respond to such universal challenges as burgeoning population, dwindling natural resources, and technological sophistication. They explore the dilemma facing the individual and society: self-mastery or self-destruction. Their search is less for abstract answers than how individuals can live in such a way as to derive meaning from the real world.

Compiled from two years of discussion and correspondence between the authors, this volume has been widely acclaimed as a major contribution to the ongoing debate on the flaws of modern civilization.

This book, "La nuit appelle l'aurore" is the French translation of "Dawn After Dark." It is a discussion between the acclaimed French art critic, writer and expert on French painting, René Huyghe, a member of the Académie Français, and a Japanese religious leader, Daisaku Ikeda. The dialogue aims at gaining an overall perspective on humankind's current predicaments and the reforms needed to move forward and avert disaster.

To paraphrase Huyghe's introduction, never before has humanity had to face problems on so vast a scale as those confronting us today. Until recent times, human groups had no interest in knowing anything but their own needs, customs and beliefs. Rejecting or ignoring the beliefs of others, they attempted to enforce their own set of values wherever they went.

Today, a more universal awareness is emerging. Humanity has come to realize that it is essential to examine the characteristics, causes and effects of current problems and to establish reforms to avert them. In this volume, Huyghe and Ikeda bring together and compare ways of thought from opposite sides of the world. Through an objective comparison of traditions, cultures, and religions from the East and the West, they provide us with a global view of the crisis at hand.

Their discussion is divided into five parts. In the first, the nature of the dilemma we confront is exposed and shown to be first and foremost a moral crisis. The second part points to the historical roots of the crisis, and the third investigates the changes that humanity is undergoing, the social tasks before us and what is needed from within ourselves to build a new kind of society.

The fourth part turns to solutions to the predicament--the key to harmony in life and the means to reform the inner lives of human beings. Part five discusses the major resources that are uniquely human--art and religion, which are linked by a sense of the sacred.

With their distinct but complementary viewpoints, Huyghe and Ikeda take different paths that finally converge to illuminate the increasingly complex world we live in with clarity and optimism.

This book, "Le bouddhisme, le premier millaenaire" is the French translation of "Buddhism - The First Millennium." The history of the Buddhist religion during the centuries following the death of its founder, Shakyamuni, is as fascinating and important as it is problematic. Little documentary evidence remains, but it was in this period that the religion split into its two major branches, the Maha sanghika and the Theravada, and spread beyond India to Central Asia and China in the north and Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia to the south.

The author pieces together the fabric of events from the distant past with insightful conjecture to bring to the surface the basic pattern of how and why Buddhism came to be a major world religion--spreading into Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan--helped along by exceptional rulers like the Indian king Ashoka and the Greek philosopher-king Menander and monks and lay believers like Vimalakirti, Nargarjuna and Vasubandu.

The author shows the relevance of the teaching and spirit of the Buddha, not only to Indian society as it was then, but to the world and humankind as they are now.