Editing Soka Gakkai (section)

===Discussion meetings===
{{Main|Zadankai}}

Gakkai meetings have been called "formal liturgies" in that their format – "chanting, relatos (experiences), teachings, inspiring entertainment" – is identical from place to place.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Seagar|first1=Richard|title=Encountering the Dharma: Daisaku Ikeda, The Soka Gakkai, and the Globalization of Buddhist Humanism|date=2006|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24577-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/encounteringdhar0000seag/page/201 201]|url=https://archive.org/details/encounteringdhar0000seag}}</ref> Discussion meetings are among the most important activities of the Soka Gakkai.<ref>{{cite book|last1=McLaughlin|first1=Levi|author-link1=Soka Gakkai in Japan|title=Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Religions|date=2012|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-23436-9|page=272}}</ref>

At discussion meetings, participants are encouraged to take responsibility "for their own lives and for wider social and global concerns".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Fowler|first1=Jeanne and Merv|title=Chanting In The Hillsides|date=2009|publisher=Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press|isbn=978-1-84519-258-7|page=85}}</ref> The format is an example of how the Soka Gakkai is able to "dispense with much of the apparatus of conventional church organization".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wilson|first1=Bryan|chapter=The British Movement and Its Members|editor1-last=Machacek and Wilson|title=Global Citizens|date=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-924039-5|page=358|quote=Liberated from ecclesiastical restraints, Soka Gakkai is enabled to present itself as a much more informed, relaxed and spontaneous worshipping fellowship. In a period when democratic, popular styles have displaced or largely discredited hierarchic structures, the typical meetings of Soka Gakkai reflect the style and form increasingly favored by the public at large.}}</ref>