Born in Tokyo in 1928, a Buddhist thinker, philosopher, and poet laureate who in 1960 became the third president of the Soka Gakkai lay Buddhist association.
Since 1975 he has been president of the SGI (Soka Gakkai International), which has a total of 12 million members around the world and aims to promote peace, culture and education, based on the philosophy of Buddhism.
He is the founder of the Min-On Concert Association, the Institute of Oriental Philosophy, the Soka education system, the Fuji Art Museum, the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century and the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research.
He is the author of many books on Buddhism, the human condition and prospects for humankind, and has published dialogues with, among others, Arnold Toynbee, Aurelio Peccei, Andre Malraux, Henry Kissinger, Norman Cousins, Linus Pauling, Chingiz Aitmatov, Mikhail Gorbachev, and TFF Associates Johan Galtung and Hazel Henderson.
Dr. Ikeda has received honorary doctorates from numerous universities and has traveled widely to promote peace, dialogue and international exchange.
Every year he publishes a Peace Proposal outlining his current concerns and proposals - these can be found under Highlight on this site.
"..I suggest that for the sake of overcoming the identity crises undermining the soul of modern humanity we must attempt to discover a new cosmology. Unless we raise our sights this high, hopes of nurturing true world citizens must inevitably prove illusory."
Further details about Dr. Ikeda and SGI can be found at the homepages below.
Dr. Ikeda became a TFF adviser in 1992.