Practicing Without a Priesthood, the Home Discussion Meeting

The absence of an ordained priesthood shapes Soka Gakkai's ordinary religious life directly: where a Nichiren Shoshu member historically depended on a temple priest for rituals, funerals and the conferral of religious objects, a Soka Gakkai member's regular practice centers instead on small, member led discussion meetings, typically held in private homes, where chanting, study of Nichiren's writings and Ikeda's own guidance, and mutual encouragement among lay members substitute for functions a priesthood would otherwise perform. Seager's study of the movement's international growth identifies this home meeting structure, already established well before the 1991 split, as part of why Soka Gakkai adapted to operating without priestly mediation more readily than a movement built entirely around temple centered ritual might have; the organizational habits the split required were already largely in place. McLaughlin's account adds that Soka Gakkai's lay leadership structure, with members progressing through recognized roles of increasing responsibility within the organization itself rather than through any ordination, gives the movement an internal hierarchy of its own even though that hierarchy confers no priestly or sacramental authority in the sense Nichiren Shoshu's ordained clergy claim; a senior Soka Gakkai leader teaches, organizes and represents the movement, but performs no rite a Nichiren Shoshu priest would describe as requiring ordination to perform.