By Kory James
[Excerpted from the World Tribune, Feb 9, 2001]

I was nine when my mother experienced severe depression after she divorced my father, an elder minister in the Jehovah's Witness religion.

Around the age of 11, I accidentally hurt a friend on a teeter-totter. My friend's parents were extremely angry and my mother sided with them. Afterward, hopelessness and depression consumed my life. I was not allowed to even see my friend to bring closure to this accident.

Being raised as a Jehovah's Witness, I was discouraged from becoming too close with other children because they were "worldly" and part of an evil system that was going to be destroyed at Armageddon. As a result, I never made any childhood friends.

Another major depression hit me after I realized that I was gay. This went against everything I was raised to believe. I believed that I had a "black heart" as the Bible says homosexuals do.

At 18, I attempted suicide. I was going to die at Armageddon anyway and I was tired of living a lie and feeling worthless.

I woke up three days later in a hospital. When my sister asked me how I was doing, I just cried.

When my father committed suicide when I was 19, I managed to get through it and my ongoing identity crisis by hiding my depression and pretending to be the life of the party.

I lived recklessly. We had wild parties that lasted until police showed up.

In the early '80's, my Aunt Barbra, who had a history of depression and attempted suicide, began chanting Nam Myoho-renge-kyo. She overcame depression and a heart condition. I found out later that even though she received many benefits, she was afraid to tell me too much for fear of angering my mother who was still a practicing Jehovah's Witness.

In 1986, a friend introduced me to Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. I was told that I could become happy if I chanted. At this point I was ready to do about anything.

As I began to chant, I began to feel less and less suicidal and my depression would last for shorter periods of time.

One reason I find Buddhism attractive is because it emphasizes absolute equality. There are no rules against being gay. It is the only philosophy that encouraged me to accept myself and taught me that I am pure just as I am.

Daisaku Ikeda wrote: 

"Just as cherry, plum, peach and damson blossoms all possess their own unique qualities, each person is unique. We cannot become someone else. The important thing is that we live true to ourselves and cause the great flower of our lives to blossom ... The Buddhist way is to grow each day ..." 
[From Lectures on the 'Expedient Means' and 'Life Span' chapter of the Lotus Sutra, vol. 1, p. 109]

Not only have I transformed my own depression, I have made a determination to create great change in my family. Already my mother's health has turned around.

If not for the SGI-USA, I would not be alive today to know what a beautiful and exciting adventure life is.