SGI-USA Charlotte Chapter covers five divisions of local Soka Gakkai groups in the greater Charlotte area, which all gather monthly at Johnson Smith University for a combined prayer and practice meeting.  Additionally, each division gathers monthly at a division-member's home for a group practice and discussion session, and there are weekly division practice sessions.  During the rest of the month members practice at home in the morning and evening before their personal altars.  Charlotte Chapter has about 200 members and is itself subsumed under the jurisdiction of the Columbia Community Center in South Carolina.

Regular practice for Soka Gakkai members consists of gongyo, a fast-paced individual or communal chanting of chapters from the Lotus Sutra and the Nichiren mantra known as daimoku, "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" (Homage to the Lotus Sutra).  During gongyo practitioners ritualistically recreate the experience of the Ceremony in the Air, an important event narrated in the Lotus Sutra.

The monthly Chapter-wide gatherings occur on the first Sunday at Johnson Smith University, and draw approximately fifty to eighty people, where they perform the World Peace Prayer ceremony.  Monthly district gatherings last about ninety minutes; they attract nine to twelve people and include open discussions on Buddhist concepts with a focus on how to apply them to one's life.  Weekly chanting sessions draw three to six practitioners.

Soka Gakkai can proudly point to its status as the most integrated Buddhist organization in America: in Charlotte even a small district gathering is likely to consist of Caucasians, blacks, and Japanese-Americans, with a slightly higher number of women than men.  More than half the local leaders are black, most of whom are women, and gay members hold prominent leadership positions as well.

Soka Gakkai is entirely lay-led, having undergone an acrimonious split with its priesthood in 1991 that still provokes bitter feelings on both sides.  Thus Gakkai meetings are usually facilitated by a senior member, but there are no priests or other religious professionals with strong authority over subordinate members.  Lay leaders perform religious duties such as weddings (including gay marriages) and funerals, and Chapters provide personal mandalas representing the daimoku, known as gohonzan, to committed members.

JW

(last updated 11/14/06)