Acting Out the Dream Life

I grew up in a boarding school in the Danish countryside, where my parents were both teachers. My childhood was fun and carefree, everything came easily to me. I came to the conclusion that being social and having fun were all that life was about. In no way did I care about religion and was suspicious of what it had to offer.

In my 20s, I moved to the capital in order to pursue my dream of becoming an actor. I thought acting was fun and if I became really good at it, everybody would love me. I would become famous and thereby happy for the rest of my life. But I soon discovered that the competition to succeed in the entertainment business was hard and fierce. Even getting into one of the acting schools meant putting in a lot of effort and actually working hard!

To me, this was very unnatural. Normally, I could just joke around, and somehow I would get what I wanted. Suddenly, this was no longer the case. It led me to have a lot of self-doubt, and for the first time, I felt uneasy and unsure of myself. The consequence was that I felt shallow, grew arrogant toward my surroundings and was hard on myself. I felt suspicious of others and blamed them for my bad feelings.

I didn’t get into acting school, but the following year, I applied to a different kind of acting school, one with a focus on film and TV. I got in, but the course was only for a year. This was 2008, which was also the year I encountered Nichiren Buddhism. As a festive guy who likes to socialize, I learned about Buddhism at a party at four o’clock in the morning from a young woman who told me she was a Buddhist and asked me if I wanted to go to a meeting.

At that meeting, I chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for the first time and had an immediate positive feeling. I concluded that this was something for me and began attending Soka Gakkai meetings. I found these words from President Daisaku Ikeda especially encouraging: “There’s no need for us to be held back by the past or how things have been so far. The important thing is what seeds we are sowing now for the future.” On the basis of this, I began making efforts to change.

I applied to become a teacher even though it felt like a second choice. Being the son of two teachers, I had sworn that I would never become one myself. However, learning about the educational ideals and dedication of first and second Soka Gakkai presidents Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda inspired me to want to teach, and I was accepted into the Teacher Education course at University College Copenhagen.

In 2014, I was offered a job at a boarding school. But, all of a sudden, I was hit by self-doubt. I wondered if teaching was for me. I still sometimes dreamed of acting. Should I stop everything and go back to my dream of becoming an actor? I chanted a lot for clarity. During this time, I joined other Soka Gakkai youth for a seminar in Japan. I took the opportunity to ask a senior in faith about my dilemma. I was encouraged to give 120 percent to my job, and it was suggested that maybe I could use my acting skills to spice up the classes.

I returned to Denmark to find my new workplace shattered. The vice-principal had quit, leaving the school in huge debt, and 17 of the students had been sent home after being accused of taking drugs. Everything was in chaos, but with President Ikeda’s guidance in mind, I found myself with a deep sense of mission and determination to transform all this suffering into happiness and to actualize the fundamental Buddhist principle of changing poison into medicine.