Good evening everyone. My name is Dipayan Dasgupta.

I have been practicing in this faith for

the past three years. My family life since childhood was far from perfect. My parents were
never in good terms with each other. Subsequently my mother took out her anger on me and
my elder sister. When I joined college, my mother took the decision to separate from my father.
We were shocked by that decision. Soon after, my sister got into a relationship with a guy
outside our religion. Her decision was not accepted and this caused a lot of disharmony within
the family. This disharmony made my sister very bitter and she started to loathe the concept of
organised religion and my father more intolerant towards other religions. There was an
ideological warfare raging within our family. Right about this time my mother and I joined this
Buddhist practice.
Initially when my mother requested me to join this practice I was sceptical. I am imagined that
it is a cult where my freedom of thought will be curtailed. The transformation that I saw within
my mother who became more compassionate and patient, inspired me to join the practice. On
studying the Gosho and the NHR I soon realised that even though I have a lot of compassion,
I was very low in courage and wisdom. Sensei says, “It takes courage to become happy –
courage to remain true to one’s conviction, courage not to be defeated by one’s negativity,
courage to take swift action to help those who are suffering.” With these words in my heart I
started to do home visits. Earlier I had the fear of public speaking, social anxiety and I was
never comfortable interacting with new acquaintances. Soka Gakkai gave me the platform to
fight my negativities every single day. At first I had difficulty in expressing myself and sharing
my understanding of Buddhist philosophy to new members. But with time there was fluidity in
my speech I was expressing much better and suddenly I realised I had oratory skills. Sensei
says, “If you lose today, win tomorrow. In this never-ending spirit of challenge is found in the
heart of a victor.” I realised that instead of curtailing my freedom of thought this practice was
helping me have a deeper understanding of life. I was most inspired by Sensei’s peace proposal.
Sensei’s words of ‘respecting the dignity of every single life’ made me awaken to my mission
as a Boddhisatva of the Earth. The spirit of compassion and appreciation that Sensei talks about
in every Peace Proposal is what I tried to instil within my family members. With renewed
determination I conducted sincere dialogues with my family members and helped create some
harmony within the family.
Since I joined this practice I have hold dialogues and encouraged countless friends to join this
practice. Till now I have introduced about 25 of my friends to this practice. However, I faced
a lot of struggle within my district as well. I was the only active YMD member and at times
the only active youth division member in my district. I kept on chanting for a Bodhisattva to
emerge in my district and kept of home visiting and encouraging members for the last two
years. In the zadenkkai I continuously took responsibility of coordinating study and made sure
that everyone enjoyed the cultural and joyfully sang the Gakkai song. To do that I had to
balance my work and Gakkai activities at the same time which quite challenging at times.
Sensei says, ”Life is a constant battle against deadlock. As long as we are alive, as long as we
continue challenging ourselves we are bound to come up against difficult obstacles that need
to be overcome. If life were all smooth sailing, if we never encountered setbacks that in itself
would be sign of stagnation.” The struggle to encourage members to attend meetings and
participate in Gakkai activities made me come out of my comfort zone a lot. Meanwhile I was
given the responsibility of fostering student division within my region. I was overjoyed by this.
I got to touch the lives of an unprecedented number of youth. The potential I saw within each
and every one of them encouraged me a lot and made push my boundaries. I kept on chanting
for their growth, home visited them and held small group meeting so as to discuss and study
this philosophy together. Earlier when I joined this practice I had blind faith, shallow
perspective of life. Now my faith has deepened and my perspective of life has changed a lot. It
is my vow to Sensei whose encouragement has brought harmony within my family that I
overcome my mental exhaustion time and time again and I fight to achieve the goal of
worldwide Kosen Rufu.
After my post graduations I was unemployed for a few months while all my friends had gotten
selected by companies. Initially it was a major blow to my confidence. But chanting in front of
Gohonzon helped change poison into medicine. Instead of getting defeated by negativity I
started sending CVs to other companies and within a few days got selected. The day before I
was supposed to join my job I broke my leg and had to be under house arrest for the next month.
I thought that I would lose my job. However the protection of the Gohonzon prevailed and
same job was offered to me one and a half month later. The job was not easy, I had to stay in a
remote village in Jharkhand and had to travel daily for four hours, to and fro from the drilling
site. This being my first job I would occasionally question my own capability to correctly
perform that job. However my fellow YMD member suggested that I chant for 3hours
20minutes daily and I did just that. Few days later I got the opportunity to give a walk-in
interview for a research project. Since I was living away from Kolkata that was not possible
for me. But I was specially approved to give the interview via skype. I gave the interview and
got accepted for the research job. Today I am working in an ISRO funded project and studying
the geomorphology of Mars in their Mangalyaan project. In the month of March my research
abstract was accepted by the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference which is held in Houston,
Textas, USA every year. Right after the March 16 meeting with renewed determination and
spirit of ‘faith manifests in daily life’ I set off for USA. Upon returning to India I completed
the work on the manuscript of my first full length research article. I submitted the article in a
renowned Indian journal but the manuscript was returned back and major revisions were
suggested. I put all my effort to upgrade my article and submitted my revised manuscript. The
revised manuscript was accepted in the month of November. This was my official entry into
the field of Planetary Science.
I am glad to report that in my district now I have one more active YMD other than myself and
a Young Phoenix member who shares all his life’s problems with me. My district after two and
a half years has attained 50% attendance for the first time in the month of November. Student
Division of Sulekha Chapter has already started to conduct NHR meetings without anybody’s
help and the Student Division of Narendrapur Chapter has vowed to hold small group meetings
every month in 2019 to study NHR and internalise Sensei’s guidances. Student Division all
around EM Bypass are standing up to become trailblazers in study within their respective
districts. Within my family there is victory as well. My sister has started to regularly chant
evening gongyo even more diligently than me and she is getting married soon with the support
of my father.
I determine to foster the YMDs in my district and the Student Division by supporting them in
their study of NHR and setting examples through my life of attaining victory after victory
within my family and work and thus creating my own New New Human Revolution. I
determine to instil the spirit of ‘Many in Body but One in Mind’ within all my fellow members.
I determine to ‘Establish the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land’ by 2030 the 100th
Anniversary of Soka Gakkai. Thank you.