The autobiographical novel by Daisaku Ikeda, president of the SGI. Starting from early 1977, Shin’ichi Yamamoto embarks on a series of journeys to various prefectures across Japan: in each location, meetings with local leaders become an opportunity to offer guidance and advice on various aspects of activities, such as unity and the attitude of leaders, but also practical instructions on topics like how to organize meetings, how to moderate during gatherings, or how to transmit communications. In September of the same year, in the village of Atsuta, Josei Toda's hometown, the Memorial Park dedicated to him is inaugurated, the first cemetery built by the Soka Gakkai. President Yamamoto attends the inauguration and expounds on the profound view of life and death in Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. 1978, the "Year of Study," is marked by a change in the Soka Gakkai's organizational structure: from the "vertical" system, where each member belonged to the district of the person who introduced them to Buddhism, to the new structure centered on chapters and based on geographical area, with the aim of allowing people to take root in their local community and engage in Buddhist dialogue with people in their community. Furthermore, that year Shin'ichi commits to paving the way for the study of Buddhism as a driving force for kosen rufu, giving a strong impetus to the Gakkai's study activities.
