When Tina Turner, usually dubbed the “Queen of Rock ‘N’ Roll,” died at her house in Küsnacht, Switzerland, on May 24, 2023, on the age of 83, media headlines praised each her dynamism as a performer and her many profession achievements. What many didn’t know is that for the previous 50 years Turner had practiced Soka Gakkai International Nichiren Buddhism.
Soka Gakkai is a lay Nichiren Buddhist group that was based in Japan in 1930. Today, the worldwide group is called Soka Gakkai International, or SGI. This type of Buddhism was popularized within the United States via the group recognized at this time as SGI-USA. Turner was launched to the group by Valerie Bishop, a girl whom her first husband, musician Ike Turner employed to work in his recording studio.
Turner’s Buddhist observe developed initially towards the backdrop of her first marriage and continued all through her solo profession. It offered inspiration for a number of the ultimate tasks of her profession.
As a scholar of Buddhism in South Asia and within the U.S., I’ve intently studied the profession of African American artists who observe Buddhism. Tina Turner, particularly, sought to show Buddhism via her writings and later via her information.
Turner’s early spiritual life
Turner was born on Nov. 26, 1939, and raised locally of Nutbush, Tennessee. Her household was Baptist and worshipped at each Woodlawn Missionary Baptist Church and Spring Hill Baptist Church. They additionally generally attended a Black Pentecostal church close to Knoxville, Tennessee.
As I discovered whereas doing analysis for my forthcoming e book, “Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner,” Turner’s spiritual influences prolonged past the types of Afro-Protestant institutional faith. In her memoir “Happiness Becomes You,” Turner describes the deep, mystical connection that her grandmother needed to nature, which means that her grandmother was immersed within the extra mystical strands of Black Southern spiritual tradition.
In 1957, she met Ike Turner. After she initially joined his band as vocalist, they ultimately fashioned a musical partnership beneath the moniker The Ike & Tina Turner Revue.
The duo scored chart success with songs like “A Fool in Love,” “River Deep – Mountain High,” “Proud Mary” and “Nutbush City Limits.” Though publicly profitable, in personal Ike often abused Tina Turner.
Introduction to Buddhism
Turner was launched to the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism in 1973. Nichiren Buddhism relies on the teachings of Nichiren, a Buddhist monk who lived in the course of the thirteenth century in Japan. Central to Nichiren’s thought was the conviction that the Lotus Sūtra, a Mahayana Buddhist textual content, was the very best of all of the Buddha’s teachings.
Nichiren taught that chanting the title of this scripture within the type of the mantralike phrase “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo” was the way in which for all folks to disclose their inherent potential for awakening and attain buddhahood. Further, Nichiren taught that doing this observe would have profound social affect by making the Buddha’s highest teachings the idea of society.
How Nichiren Buddhism was popularized
Soka Gakkai members started arriving within the U.S. within the Fifties. As these members spoke primarily Japanese and had been geographically unfold out, they initially had restricted success of their efforts to propagate Nichiren Buddhism within the U.S. That modified in 1960 when, beneath the management of the third Soka Gakkai president, Daisaku Ikeda, an American department of the group was formally established.
With his steering, they unfold the fundamental Nichiren Buddhist observe of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo earlier than an inscribed scroll known as the Gohonzon. They taught that doing this observe would result in “human revolution,” a gradual technique of interior transformation and empowerment.
It is the SGI Nichiren Buddhist understanding of non-public empowerment and human revolution that appears to have initially attracted Tina Turner. In a 2020 Tricycle Magazine interview, Turner defined: “As I began studying Buddhist teachings and chanting more, it led me to take responsibility for my life and to base my choices on wisdom, courage, and compassion. Not long after I started chanting, I began to see that the power I needed to change my life was already within me.”
In the ’70s, altering her life meant separating from the Ike & Tina Turner Revue in 1976 and divorcing Ike Turner in 1978.
A resurgence powered by SGI Nichiren Buddhism
After her divorce, Turner struggled as a solo artist earlier than her well-known profession resurgence with 1984’s “Private Dancer” album. Platinum albums and sold-out international excursions adopted. Turner credited every success to her Buddhist observe.
Her observe can be chronicled in two autobiographies: the primary, “I, Tina,” revealed in 1986; and a second, “My Love Story,” revealed in 2018. Her observe can also be represented within the 1993 biographical movie “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” and on document on the 2009 interfaith album “Beyond: Buddhist and Christian Prayers” and on stage within the musical “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.”
Through all of those tasks, Turner made clear that her observe of SGI Nichiren Buddhism sustained her for the previous 50 years.
Author: Ralph H. Craig III – PhD Student in Religious Studies, Stanford University