Community Support

In the UK, SGI has four centres which are open to movement members and the public. The UK headquarters are located at Taplow Court, Buckinghamshire, and there are three centres in London: SGI-UK West London Centre, South London National Centre and the London Ikeda Peace Centre. Each centre contains at least one room dedicated to chanting in front of the Gohonzon. In SGI, core activities are organised locally in what are known as ‘districts’ (SGI-UK 2017: 5). These is where old members and new encounter community support in their daily practice and faith. There are roughly 630 local districts in the UK, and meetings can be found through the search function of the SGI-UK website (SGI-UK 2018).

At the same time, Soka Gakkai upholds the ‘mentor and disciple’ relationship that is characteristic of Nichiren Buddhism – followers regard Ikeda as their mentor and seek to emulate his example (SGI-UK 2017: 45).