A New Milestone of Growth and Development
The SYM left a lasting impression in the lives of some 12,000 audiences who attended the 18 shows held across a period of three weekends from March 13 to 28, 2010 at the SSA Headquarters’ Ikeda Culture Auditorium. Many were visibly moved to tears by some of the scenes. The musical, a bold and refreshing variation from the large-scale youth culture festivals of the past, marks a new milestone in the growth and development of SSA Youth Division, as well as commemorates the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Soka Gakkai and the 35th anniversary of the formation of the Soka Gakkai International.
“Thanks to General Director Mr Ong, he gave us the inspiration and challenge to share SGI President Ikeda’s life-long struggles for peace and his greatness through this year’s culture festival. Hence, we decided to put up a musical drama depicting President Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai’s struggles for kosen-rufu,” explained Young Women Division Chief Yeap Lay Huay, also a member of the SYM’s Executive Committee (EXCO).
Entitled “Spreading Humanism, Opening the Way”, the show portrays the life of SGI President Daisaku Ikeda as adapted from his auto-biographical novels The Human Revolution and The New Human Revolution. The show protagonist is Shin’ichi Yamamoto (SGI President Ikeda’s pen name in the novels), an individual who strives unceasingly to build bridges of peace based upon the life-affirming philosophy of Nichiren Buddhism.
Unseen Struggles Behind the Victory of the SSA Youth Musical
Planning for the musical started way back in February 2009. The musical involved some 1,000 members mainly from the Youth Division and included about 150 cast members and many more supporting behind-the-scenes. Lay Huay further shared: “This decision marks the start of a year-long struggle for many youth members… From designing the SYM logo, planning the ticket sales, creating the SYM blog and putting up regular updates for the event publicity, designing the SYM souvenirs for sale, script-writing, songs composition and selecting the theme song, dance choreography, audition and training the cast in acting, singing and dancing, getting them to study the novels to gain deeper appreciation of the characters, putting together the props, costumes, make-up, settings, sound, lighting and so on… this path has been arduous, but we have grown stronger and more united along the way.”
The experience was particularly intense for the members of the Show Committee, in particular the main committee members and the cast. Amidst the myriad challenges in their own personal lives, the cast members had to contend with the daunting task of learning to sing, dance, and act, as well as memorising their scripts! None of them were professionals and they had to learn everything from scratch and from trial and error! Late night struggles, earnest prayers to the Gohonzon, encouragement from seniors in faith and lots of care and understanding from family and friends were what supported and saw them through this challenging yet profoundly meaningful SYM journey.
At the end of it all, Young Men Division Chief Khoo Ghee Han, who is also the SYM EXCO Chairman, summed up the tremendous struggles and victory of the participants, “17 overcame their health problems, 24 overcame their work challenges, 12 overcame their financial difficulties, 11 overcame their relationship problems, 13 overcame their family problems, 12 overcame their challenges in their studies and finally 83 overcame their personal weaknesses, which includes lack of confidence, arrogance and laziness.”
Keep Your Passion Burning
At the closing ceremony of the SYM held at the SSA Headquarters’ Ikeda Culture Auditorium on April 2, 2010, SSA General Director Ong Bon Chai shared with the youths present:
“Perhaps, what we want to say to you, the youth, is this: Let this victory be the ‘mother victory’ for your future victories. This is just the beginning of what you can do. Most importantly you must have experienced first hand, that with the true spirit of unity you can achieve anything. With strong faith and the correct ‘mentor and disciple’ spirit, nothing is impossible.
“You can take away from here that you, the youth, have limitless capacity, and therefore you can and must inherit the mission to take SSA to the highest level of development for kosen-rufu. Please make this your single great vow in this lifetime.
“I urge you to keep your passion burning throughout the rest of the year. No, for the rest of your lives. Not only must you keep your flame burning brightly all the time, you must also light up the flame of others who will come your way.”