Human Revolution in the Soka Gakkai Buddhist Movement in Thailand: Qualitative Research and Applications to HRD

Abstract

           Soka Gakkai is as a Buddhist religious movement that originally developed in Japan and extended to many other countries including Thailand. This study applies a constructivism paradigm and uses a phenomenological inquiry, to assess the lived experiences of the members of the Soka Gakkai Organization in Thailand. This research isself-interpreting of being and uncovers the meanings of the Human Revolution, revealing the value perceived and the transformational process. Pilot studies of three co-researcherswere initially undertaken. Purposive sampling and snowballing of fourteen co-researchers then took place. An unstructured interview technique and non-participate observations were employed in data collection. The data were analyzed by using both manual codings and the ATLAS.ti7program. Three themes and nine categories were identified and defined in order to interpret the data. The first theme “Being a member” has four categories, the second theme “Learning from the Human Revolution” has two categories and the third theme, “Constructing a New Me and The World” has three categories. The Human Revolution concept has indicated the benefits of the inner transformation and has awakened a new value creation. A new sets of values found in this research comprised wisdom, courage, compassion and gratitude which are possessed with a New Me. The concept has significant implications for self development and social development for HRD scholars and practitioners, by applying this concept in order to gain sustainability in people development at all levels.