Abstract

A New Way Forward is a compilation of seven university lectures that Daisaku Ikeda, the Soka Gakkai International president, gave in the United States, one in 1974 and the others in the 1990s. The earliest from April 1974 when Mr. Ikeda spoke at the invitation of the University of California, Los Angeles, about positive steps that can be taken to begin the twenty-first century in peace and with confidence in the future. Daisaku Ikeda's Buddhist faith and his enduring wish for peace and a better world prevailed as he accepted each invitation to speak. He cherished the chance to share his beliefs and ideas with others. Each time as he finished a lecture, he felt a sense of fulfillment in having been able to convey a portion of his thoughts, and his confidence grew as he pursued each new creative challenge. It is Daisaku Ikeda's hope that the proposals for peace, observations on history, and views of education and arts offered in the pages would have a positive effect on the thinking and life of the reader, in some way or other.