Year of Soaring Higher towards a Youthful Soka Gakkai Worldwide

General Director’s New Year’s Message for 2025

Let’s Soar Higher with Sensei!

Happy New Year! My warmest greetings to all fellow faith comrades of SGS as we usher in 2025 with fresh hope and aspirations.

Thank you very much for everyone’s great efforts in creating history for Singapore’s kosen-rufu movement in 2024. Upholding the spirit of treasuring the person in front of us, SGS is currently making steady progress in the advancement of kosen-rufu. As a result, many people have been connected to Nichiren Buddhism and are walking on the path of happiness and value
creation with us.

The world is filled with uncertainty in a fast-evolving macro environment. Many people are living with anxiety and pessimism and some members may also be feeling overwhelmed. However, let us not forget that we embrace Nichiren Buddhism, the Buddhism of the Sun that illuminates the world.

Nichiren Daishonin writes:

“Even though one neither reads nor studies the sutra, chanting the title alone is the source
of tremendous good fortune… This is an incomparably greater wonder than fire being produced by a stone taken from the bottom of a river, or a lantern lighting up a place that has been dark for a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand years. If even the most ordinary things of this world are such wonders, then how much more wondrous is the power of the Buddhist Law!” (WND-1, p. 923)

By embracing Nichiren Buddhism, the life philosophy of hope and courage that is second to none, we are empowered to write our own victorious script in life. Through dedicating our lives to faith, practice and study, we are not only able to overcome any obstacles, but also pursue our dreams.

With Ikeda Sensei in our hearts, let us also continue to exert ourselves in dialogue with compassion, connecting and inspiring the people around us with this conviction.

The SGI theme for 2025 is the Year of Soaring Higher towards a Youthful Soka Gakkai Worldwide.

This year, the Soka Gakkai will mark the 95th anniversary of its founding. It will also be the 65th anniversary of Ikeda Sensei’s inauguration as third Soka Gakkai president and his first overseas trip, and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Soka Gakkai International (SGl). For SGS, it will mark the 30th anniversary of Ikeda Sensei’s second visit to Singapore in November 1995.

SGS’s motto for this year is “Let’s Soar Higher with Sensei!” With the spirit of treasuring each person, we are focusing on enabling every member to soar higher to greater heights in all aspects of their lives. This is imperative as only when each member soars higher, can SGS and SGI soar higher.

As our youth division and Future Division members will be the protagonists of the future, let’s treasure them to the fullest by creating the most conducive environment so that they can feel inspired and grow actively in the garden of Soka.

I look forward to everyone of you, especially the youth division and Future Division members, stepping forward to participate in our activities joyously. These activities are focused on your growth and development so that you can all become better, stronger and wiser.

As we commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the SGl’s founding, let us reaffirm the mission of SGl that the founding president, Ikeda Sensei, shared in his 2009 New Year message:

“Humankind today needs courage and hope to choose a new path of change for the sake of achieving sustainable development and for lasting peace. The noble mission of the SGl is to impart the energy of courage and the philosophy of hope to societies around the world. Our movement is not something abstract or beyond the scope of daily life. It is manifested in our relationships with those in our immediate surroundings, the people around us, in our neighbourhoods, communities and societies. It is a movement that spreads from individual to individual, through sincere and earnest one-on-one dialogue.”

“Our movement is not something abstract or beyond the scope of daily life. It is manifested in our relationships with those in our immediate surroundings, the people around us, in our neighbourhoods, communities and societies. It is a movement that spreads from individual to individual, through sincere and earnest one-on-one dialogue.”

Based on Sensei’s guidance, let’s all soar higher in our endeavours and achieve great victory this year!

I will be praying for everyone’s happiness and good health.

Goh Kim Hua
SGS General Director
January 1, 2025