Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhist philosopher, peacebuilder, educator, author and poet, passed away in Tokyo on 15 November, 2023, at the age of 95.

He dedicated his life to promoting peace through dialogue and spearheaded the development of the Soka Gakkai as a community-based Buddhist organization of over 12 million members worldwide.

Ikeda was born on 2 January 1928 in Tokyo, Japan, to a family engaged in seaweed farming. When he was 13, Japan entered World War II, and his eldest brother was killed in the Imphal Campaign in Myanmar. Feeling keenly the cruelty, futility and waste of war, he determined to devote his life to building peace.

Shortly after the war, Ikeda encountered educator and pacifist Josei Toda (1900–58), who had been imprisoned by the militarist authorities during the war and was the leader of the Soka Gakkai Buddhist group. Ikeda embraced Nichiren Buddhism with its goal of creating a society based on respect for the dignity of life, and took Toda as his mentor.

In May 1960, Ikeda became the third president of the Soka Gakkai at the age of 32, a position he held until 1979. He oversaw the broadening of the organization’s mission to include the promotion of peace, culture and education. In 1975, the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) was founded as a global association linking Soka Gakkai organizations around the world, and he became its president. In 1983, the SGI was accredited as a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Ikeda had been present when, in 1957, Josei Toda made a declaration calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. This declaration inspired him to lifelong advocacy toward nuclear abolition.

He initiated signature campaigns calling for nuclear abolition, started projects recording testimonies of survivors of war including hibakusha, and launched a People’s Decade for Nuclear Abolition in 2007, as part of a broad campaign to create a convention that would outlaw nuclear weapons. Under his leadership, members of Soka Gakkai throughout the world became engaged in grassroots awareness-raising efforts promoting peace and nuclear abolition, among other issues. These efforts contributed to the adoption of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in 2017.

Starting in the 1970s, Ikeda met with key individuals in a wide array of fields to promote peace through dialogue and mutual understanding. He also promoted Sino-Japanese relations, believing that constructive engagement with China was fundamental to the stability of Asia and the world.

Ikeda also conducted dialogues with prominent global figures, including peace activists Linus Pauling and Joseph Rotblat, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, environmental activist Wangari Maathai and successive UN Secretaries-General, in order to identify ways of tackling the complex problems facing humanity. More than 70 of these dialogues have been published in book form.

A consistent believer in the central role of the United Nations as a forum for peace, from 1983 to 2022, Ikeda authored 40 annual peace proposals providing a Buddhist perspective and concrete suggestions to move forward discourse on key global challenges, including disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons, sustainability and the promotion of human rights. In the last year of his life, Ikeda issued several statements calling for undertakings of No First Use of nuclear weapons.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative, commented: “I know of no one who has highlighted the role and responsibility of the United Nations so consistently, relentlessly and substantively for such a long period of time as President Ikeda. For the last 40 years, his annual peace proposals have contained brilliant ideas and suggestions for the good of humanity.”

Further information, including details about Daisaku Ikeda's dialogues for the sake of peace, can be found at www.daisakuikeda.org.