Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, & the Question of Nationalism 9780824840778

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RUDE AWAKENINGS

NANZAN STUDIES IN RELIGION AND CULTURE James W. Heisig, General Editor Heinrich Dumoulin. Zen Buddhism: A History. Vol. 1, India and China. Trans. James Heisig and Paul Knitter (New York: Macmillan, 1988,1994) Heinrich Dumoulin. Zen Buddhism: A History. Vol. 2, Japan. Trans. James Heisig and Paul Knitter (New York: Macmillan, 1989) Frederick Franck, ed. The Buddha Eye: An Anthology of the Kyoto School (New York: Crossroad, 1982) Frederick Franck. To Be Human Against All Odds (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991) Winston L. King. Death Was His Koan: The Samurai-Zen (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1986)

of Suzuki Shosan

Paul Mommaers and Jan Van Bragt. Mysticism Buddhist and Christian: Encounters with Jan van Ruusbroec (New York: Crossroad, 1995) Robert E. Morrell. Early Kamakura Asian Humanities Press, 1987)

Buddhism: A Minority Report (Berkeley:

Nagao Gadjin. The Foundational Standpoint of Madhyamika Philosophy. Trans. John Keenan (New York: SUNY Press, 1989) Nishida Kitaro. Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness. Trans. Valdo Viglielmo et al. (New York: SUNY Press, 1987) Nishitani Keiji. Nishida Kitaro (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) Nishitani Keiji. Religion and Nothingness. Trans. Jan Van Bragt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) Nishitani Keiji. The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism. Trans. Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara (New York: SUNY Press, 1990) Paul L. Swanson. Foundations of T'ien-T'ai Philosophy: The Flowering of the TwoTruths Theory in Chinese Buddhism (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1989) Takeuchi Yoshinori. The Heart of Buddhism: In Search of the Timeless Spirit of Primitive Buddhism. Trans. James Heisig (New York: Crossroad, 1983) Tanabe Hajime. Philosophy as Metanoetics. Trans. Takeuchi Yoshinori et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987) Taitetsu Unno, ed. The Religious Philosophy of Nishitani Keiji: Encounter Emptiness (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1990)

with

Taitetsu Unno and James Heisig, eds. The Religious Philosophy of Tanabe Hajime: The Metanoetic Imperative (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1990) Hans Waldenfels. Absolute Nothingness: Foundations for a Buddhist-Christian Dialogue. Trans. James Heisig (New York: Paulist Press, 1980)

R U D E AWAKENINGS Zen, the Kyoto School, & the Question of Nationalism

EDITED BY

James W. Heisig & John C. Maraldo

University of Hawai'i Press HONOLULU

C o p y r i g h t © 1 9 9 4 N a n z a n Institute for Religion and Culture All rights reserved First published by University o f Hawai'i Press 1 9 9 5 Printed in the U n i t e d States o f America 00 99 98 97 96 95

5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rude awakenings : Zen, the Kyoto school, & the question of nationalism / edited by James W. Heisig, & John C. Maraldo. p. cm. — (Nanzan studies in religion and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8248-1735—4 — ISBN 0 - 8 2 4 8 - 1 7 4 6 - X (pbk.) 1. Philosophy, Japanese—20th century. 2. Religion—Philosophy. 3. Zen Buddhism—Philosophy. 4. Nationalism—Japan. I. Heisig, James W., 1 9 4 4 - . II. Maraldo, John C., 1942- . III. Series. B 5 2 4 1 . R 8 3 1995 1 8 1 ' . 12—dc20

94-49174 CIP

Camera-ready copy for this book was prepared by James Heisig

University of Hawai'i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources

Contents Editors' Introduction

vii

Contributors

xi

A b b r e v i a t i o n s and C o n v e n t i o n s

xv PART ONE

Questioning Zen HIRATA S e i k o C h r i s t o p h e r IVES

R o b e r t H . SHARF KIRITA Kiyohide

Z e n Buddhist Attitudes t o W a r

3

Ethical Pitfalls in Imperial Z e n and Nishida Philosophy: Ichikawa H a k u g e n ' s C r i t i q u e

16

W h o s e Zen? Z e n Nationalism Revisited

40

D . T . Suzuki o n Society and the State

52

PART TWO

Questioning Nishida UEDA S h i z u t e r u

Nishida, Nationalism, and the W a r in Q u e s t i o n

YUSA M i c h i k o

Nishida and Totalitarianism: A P h i l o s o p h e r ' s Resistance

Agustín JACINTO Z .

77

107

T h e R e t u r n o f the Past: Tradition and the Political M i c r o c o s m in the Later Nishida

132

PART T H R E E

Questioning Modernity A n d r e w FEENBERG

T h e P r o b l e m o f M o d e r n i t y in the Philosophy o f Nishida

Kevin M . DOAK

151

Nationalism as Dialectics: Ethnicity, M o r a l i s m , and the State in Early T w e n t i e t h - C e n t u r y Japan

MINAMOTO R y ó e n

174

T h e Symposium on "Overcoming Modernity"

197

v

PART FOUR

Questioning the Kyoto School Ian VAN BRAGT James W. HEISIG

HORIO Tsutomu

MORI Tetsurô

l o h n C . MARALDO

Cumulative Index

vi

Kyoto Philosophy—Intrinsically Nationalistic? . . .233 Tanabe's Logic o f the Specific and the Spirit o f Nationalism

255

T h e Cbûôkôron Discussions, Their Background and Meaning

289

Nishitani Keiji and the Question o f Nationalism

316

Questioning Nationalism Now and Then: A Critical Approach to Zen and the Kyoto School

333

365

Editors' Introduction

E

in this book examines the relationship between Japanese nationalism and intellectuals in the Kyoto school and the world of Zen. All the contributions were originally presented at a week-long international symposium held in March 1994 outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and subsequently revised in preparation for this volume. The definition of the "Kyoto school" has undergone a change from the time that the name was first introduced in 1931 by Tosaka Jun as a way of branding what he perceived as a rightist tendency in the circle around Nishida Kitaro, Japan's foremost modern philosopher. When the thought of Nishitani Keiji, Tanabe Hajime, Takeuchi Yoshinori, Ueda Shizuteru, Abe Masao, and Nishida himself began to spread in translation through philosophical and religious circles in the West in the 1980s, it rode the wave of the current popularity of Zen thought, whose inspiration was apparent in many of these thinkers. It traveled with little or none of the stigma associated with the fate of Japan's intelligentsia during and after the war. The names of Suzuki Shigetaka, Kosaka Masaaki, and Koyama Iwao—all of whom were well known to historians of Japanese nationalism—were left aside as secondary figures, if indeed they were recognized as members of the school at all. Absent the entire problematic of the war years, the phrase "Kyoto school" soon became synonymous with a wide-eyed, open-minded approach to religious philosophy that seemed to answer the need for a serious encounter between East and West as few contemporary systems of thought have. Among intellectual historians of Japan, particularly those working in the United States, the enthusiastic reception of the Kyoto school religious philosophy in Europe and North America came as something of a surprise. For by and large, the comparative philosophers and theologians who were giving these Japanese thinkers their warm welcome had simply overlooked the political implications of their thought, especially during World War II. Today, the situation has clearly changed. If there is one single factor we can point to as having brought the political aspect to the fore, it is the case of Martin Heidegger. In the light of new revelations of Heidegger's associations with the German Nazi Party, affections for Heideggerian thought underwent a sea change, and in the process the consciousness of a generation was awakened as perhaps never before to the political practices of supposedly apolitical philosophers and scholars. It was only a matter of time before this rude awakening was transmitted to ACH OF THE ESSAYS

vii

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION

those attracted to the philosophy of the Kyoto school, not to mention Zen Buddhism. It was against this backdrop that a group of sixteen scholars (eight Japanese, six from the United States, one Canadian, one Mexican, and one Belgian) gathered to share the results of their research and reflections on the question of nationalism in Zen and the Kyoto school. The present book is a result of the long hours of discussion and debate during the symposium. The essays wind in and out of each other like different colored strings. The four strands that are identified in the table of contents are only one possible way of braiding the concerns into some kind of order. The first of these strands, "Questioning Zen," has to do with the conflict between Japanese Zen's strong emphasis on transcendence on the one hand, and its actual involvement in secular history on the other, even to the point of vociferous support for militaristic nationalism during the war. Hirata Seiko argues that because Zen transcends ethics, it is equally neutral towards participation in war and towards participation in opposition to war. Of itself, Zen is concerned with insight not about how the world is or ought to be run, but only about the nature of the self. Christopher Ives presents the counterposition of Ichikawa Hakugen, a postwar Zen activist who insisted that Zen needs to cultivate a moral posture in the secular world. Following Ichikawa's lead, Ives questions the connections between the wartime complicity of Zen leaders and the Zen-inspired philosophy of Nishida. Kirita Kiyohide's exhaustive research into the writings and letters of D. T. Suzuki leads him to conclude that, short of exposing himself directly to the military authorities, Suzuki did what he could to counter the war effort and its ruling ideology, and that he did so in line with a view of the state that he had held since his earliest writings. Robert Sharf undercuts the entire debate about Zen and ethics by claiming that the world-transcending tradition of Japanese Zen which is being questioned is not the historical fact that Suzuki and others have claimed, but a distinctively contemporary construct read back into history. The second strand, "Questioning Nishida," deals with the patriarch of the Kyoto school, whose writings on the emperor system and Japanese culture were used—or misused—as a philosophical justification of militaristic ideology during the war, and of the search for cultural uniqueness in postwar Japan. Ueda Shizuteru's essay revolves around what he calls the "tug-of-war over meaning" between Nishida and the Army for the legitimation of important traditional Japanese concepts. He precedes his argument with a historical analysis of why the problem arose in the first place and follows it with a presentation of Nishida's crowning vision of a pluralistic world order. Tusa Michiko's careful study of Nishida's letters and diaries supports Ueda's position by uncovering meanings and intentions that are not always clear in the

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION

philosophical writings. These data bring to light a politically active side of Nishida that has yet to receive the full recognition she feels it deserves. Agustin Jacinto looks at the final years of Nishida's life, which ended just months before Japan's defeat in the war, and examines the critical notion of "tradition" which underpinned his late thought. He draws a careful distinction between Nishida's support for the mythological Imperial Throne, which belongs to the founding ideal of the nation, and Nishida's view of the actual emperor who belongs to the world of historical fact and moral judgment. The question of whether or to what extent Nishida understood the Imperial Throne as a model for other nations is left open. A third strand, "Questioning Modernity," considers attempts by Japan's intellectuals to find an alternative to Eurocentric and Western-dominated views of world and nation. The symposium on "Overcoming Modernity" held in 1943 is the focus of an essay by Minamoto Ryden, who examines the background and content of those debates and presents an overview of rightwing and left-wing thinking in Japan at the time. He focuses in particular on the contributions of symposium participants associated with the Kyoto school. Kevin Doak argues that Japanese nationalism is best understood as a consequence of competing ideologies in modern Japan. He shows how populist visions of the identity of a people or "ethnic nation" vied with government efforts to define the role of the nation state in the modern world, and how Buddhism lent its voice to the search for national identity. Andrew Feenberg draws Nishida into the debate about modernity, and shows how his philosophy attempted to articulate the particular contribution Japanese culture could make to a world increasingly defined by Western science and technology. He contrasts Nishida's vision of an alternative modernity based on Eastern culture with Heidegger's brand of nationalism and disillusionment with technology. Despite the fate that this vision suffered at the hands of Japan's wartime state nationalism, Feenberg suggests that Nishida's insights into cultural pluralism are still of value to us today. The fourth and final strand in the braid, "Questioning the Kyoto School," brings together a series of inquiries dealing with specific thinkers. James Heisig looks at the figure of Tanabe Hajime, whose critics—and indeed whose own philosophy of repentance—have raised questions about his complicity in the war effort. An analysis of the elusive notion of the "logic of the specific" reveals how Tanabe had within his grasp a philosophical idea leading in the very opposite direction of the spirit of nationalism with which he flirted during the war. Horio Tsutomu presents a detailed synopsis of the background and contents of the notorious Chuokoron discussions which brought four Kyoto-school thinkers together in 1941 and 1942 for a series of dialogues on subjects directly touching on the military's ideology. In so doing, Horio sharpens many of the questions that history today is asking of the ix

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION

Kyoto philosophers. Nishitani Keiji, one of the four participants in those discussions, is the focus of an essay by Mori Tetsuo, who tries to distance Nishitani's view of the nation and the world from the misunderstandings that have surrounded it. Jan Van Bragt asks the broader question of whether Kyoto philosophy itself, as seen in Nishitani, Nishida, Tanabe, and in the Chüdkdron discussions, is intrinsically nationalistic or only incidentally so. With careful qualification, he comes down on the side of an intrinsic nationalism in their thought. A final essay by John Maraldo takes up three figures from among Zen and Kyoto-school thinkers—D. T. Suzuki, Masao Abe, and Nishitani—to consider what is involved in criticizing positions that in their own way were themselves critiques of nationalism. Since critics themselves do not transcend the critical process, responsible critiques of nationalism inevitably make the past into a present, and personal, concern. N o doubt, under conditions of a totalitarian regime like Japan's during the war, the semantic rules are not the same as they are for us today. Even the most abstract philosophical ideas invariably take on the concrete significance of questioning the powers-that-be. At the end of our own labors, the number of questions left unanswered, or only partially answered, is greater than it was at the beginning. The problem of what the Kyoto-school thinkers meant by attributing "subjectivity" to the state, the lack of clarity in the distinction between state nationalism and cultural nationalism, the disparity between the intentions of writers and the effects their writings produce in times of crisis, the relationship between the Kyoto school in the narrow sense and thinkers such as Watsuji Tetsuró and Miki Kiyoshi who were also involved in questions of nationalism—these issues and more remain with us still. In that sense, too, the whole project has been something of a rude awakening. This book, and the symposium on which it was based, would not have been possible without the generous assistance of the Taniguichi Foundation and the coordinating efforts of Horio Tsutomu and other members of the Kyoto Zen Symposium Committee. Others assisted as well. Sakai Naoki made a substantial contribution to the symposium discussions. The efforts of the translators, Mark Unno and Thomas Kirchner, helped keep the language barrier from interfering with the lively flow of ideas. Tom Schifanella volunteered the cover design for this volume and Mary Jo Maraldo did the calligraphy. To all of them, our thanks. The editors would also like to acknowledge the fellows and staff of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture who assisted in the production of the volume, and to thank Pat Crosby of the University of Hawaii Press for her warm interest and support. 22 September 1994 x

Contributors

Kevin M . DOAK is Assistant Professor of Modern Japanese History in the Department of History and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has authored a volume on Dreams of Difference: The Japan Romantic School and. the Crisis of Modernity, and is currently doing research on cultural and ethnic nationalism in modern Japan. Andrew FEENBERG is Professor of Philosophy at San Diego State University. He is the author of Lukacs, Marx, and the Sources of Critical Theory, Critical Theory of Technology, numerous articles on computer-mediated communications, and the forthcoming Alternative Modernity and Technology and the Politics of Knowledge. In the area of Japanese philosophy he has published, together with Y. Arisaka, "Experiential Ontology: The Origins of Nishida Philosophy in the Doctrine of Pure Experience." James W. HEISIG is Director of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya, Japan. He has authored, translated, and edited over twenty books, including Imago Dei: A Study of C. G. Jung's Psychology of Religion and El cuento detrás del cuento: Un ensayo sobre psique y mito. He is also general editor of a nineteen-volume series of books that includes twelve titles direcdy related to the thought of the Kyoto school. HIRATA Seiko is Head Abbot of Tenryü Temple in Kyoto. Until recently he was also Professor of Buddhism at Hanazono University and director of the Center for the Study of Zen and Culture. He has published commentaries on the Blue Cliff Record (HHi&iikWM) and the Heart Sütra (ídírSJSÜí.), and translated Hisamatsu Shin'ichi's Oriental Nothingness into German as Die Fülle des Nichts. He maintains an active interest in the revitalization of contemporary Zen Buddhism. HORIO T s u t o m u Í1J1 IL is Professor of Philosophy at Ötani University in Kyoto. His published articles include "States of Dependent Transformation Today: The Contemporary Significance of Rinzai's Thought" B Ä O Ä f f l o a « ; « * * ) , and "Nishida Kitarö and Suzuki Teitarö" ( f f i f f l ^ ^ ß R t f ^ ^ Ä ^ B R ) . Currently he is working on the problem of religion and science and on religion and the modernization of Japan. xi

CONTRIBUTORS

Christopher IVES is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Puget Sound. His research focuses on Buddhism in the early Shówa period ( 1 9 2 6 - 1 9 4 5 ) and modern Zen thought in the context of Japanese intellectual history. He is the author of Zen Awakening and Society and co-editor with John B. Cobb, Jr., of The Emptying God. With Abe Masao he co-translated Nishida Kitaró's An Inquiry into the Good. Agustín JACINTO Zavala is Research Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of Traditions at El Colegio de Michoacán in Zamora, Mexico. His research interests center on Tarascan culture and Japanese philosophy. He has published Zen y personalidad and Mitología y modernización, as well as numerous studies of Nishida, including Estado y filosofía and Filosofía de la transformación del mundo. KIRITA Kiyohide IBfflfí^ is Professor of Education in the Department of Literature at Hanazono University. His research is mainly in the areas of Buddhist ethics and the thought of D. T. Suzuki. His publications include "The Social Thought of the Young D. T. Suzuki" ei$*ía¡akyamuni, we can only bow our heads and humbly accept our thirty blows. [TRANSLATED BY THOMAS KIRCHNER]

15

Ethical Pitfalls in Imperial Zen and Nishida Philosophy Ichikawa

Hakugen's

Critique

Christopher IVES

W

ITH THE EXCEPTION OF Ichikawa H a k u g e n , virtually n o Japanese Buddhist has examined the role of Zen in Japan's Fifteen-Year War ( 1 9 3 1 - 1 9 4 5 ) . Ichikawa argued that Z e n took a submissive stance at the time and that prominent Zen figures helped rationalize, glorify, or even p r o m o t e Japanese imperialism. A parallel problematic surfaces in wartime writings of layman Nishida Kitarô, w h o Ichikawa claims " s t u m b l e d " ethically n o less than Z e n had done. 1

ICHIKAWA'S

BACKGROUND

Ichikawa ( 1 9 0 2 - 1 9 8 6 ) was born into a Rinzai Z e n temple family and spent his entire career as a university student and professor at H a n a z o n o University, f r o m his matriculation in 1 9 2 1 t o his retirement in 1 9 7 3 . In his telling, Ichikawa was a shy child, naturally intimidated and repulsed by the education he received under the imperial educational system and "terrified" of the state and t h e supreme c o m m a n d e r (emperor) w h o could order his death. 2 With this disposition he f o u n d himself increasingly against war and the rhetoric of the kokutai (national polity). Ichikawa's orientation was shaped further by a "positivist" middle-school history teacher and by reading Natsume Sôseki, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and,

1 Ichikawa set forth his critique of Zen and Nishida primarily in ^ t S f t . B f f l [Zen and contemporary thought] (1967), [Buddhists' responsibility for war] (1971), and B 7i*XATM&. [Religion under Japanese fascism] (1975). In this paper all quotations of Ichikawa are from these three works, which were republished respectively in volumes 2, 3, and 4 of his Collected Writings. 1

16

IHC 3:17.

E T H I C A L P I T F A L L S IN IMPERIAL Z E N A N D N I S H I D A P H I L O S O P H Y

later, H u g o , Tolstoy, Kropotkin, Marx, Engcls, and the anarchist Osugi Sakae. 3 Gradually, a "humanistic anger toward the evils of society and the state" 4 welled up in him, and his lifelong interest in Buddhism, socialism, and anarchism began to crystallize. Though his anger did not drive Ichikawa into prewar political activism, he did publish several articles on Buddhism and socialism in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and on several occasions he was interrogated by the Special Higher Police Force ( # 1 5 ) about certain of his writings. During the war he did not publicly recant his socialist stance as many others did, but later he criticized his own failure to oppose Japanese militarism more actively and condemned his passivity as equivalent to recantation ( l e f t ) . Through such reflection on his prewar and wartime stance, Ichikawa became more involved in politics, serving on the Kyoto Board of Education in the 1950s and participating in various organizations and movements to address human rights issues in Japan, the security treaty with the United States, and the Vietnam War. In his scholarship Ichikawa examined Buddhist war responsibility, with particular attention to nationalist Zen figures located at the recent end of a fairly continuous history—since the Kamakura period— of close collaboration between Zen institutions and those in political power.

NATIONALIST ZEN

This nationalist trend in modern Zen circles is evident around the time of the Sino-Japanese War ( 1 8 9 4 - 1 8 9 5 ) , when Suzuki Teitaro (later known in the West as D. T . Suzuki) wrote: There is a violent country [China], and insofar as it obstructs our commerce and infringes upon our rights, it directly interrupts the progress of all humankind. In the name of religion, our country refuses to submit itself to this. For this reason, unavoidably we have taken up arms. For the sake of justice and justice alone, we are simply chastising the country that represents injustice, and there is nothing else we seek. This is a religious action. 5 Zen nationalism found further expression during the Russo-Japanese War ( 1 9 0 4 - 1 9 0 5 ) in statements by Shaku Soen and others, and it attained its most virulent form—what Ichikawa termed "Imperial Way Zen"—during the Fifteen-Year War. In 1934, for example, Iida Toin declared: 3

I H C 3:18.

4

IHC 3:18.

5

In

[A new treatise on religion], quoted in IHC 4:36.

17

C H R I S T O P H E R IVES

Sincc the distant age of the gods, our country has come into existence equipped naturally with the Great Way of sovereign and subject. The dyad of sovereign and subject is the intrinsic nature of our country, and being unchanging, this nature constitutes righteousness.... It opens no crack for rationally asking "why" to enter.6 Continuing along these essentialist lines, Iida later asked, If the state were to perish, what would protect the Buddha-Dharma? If the Buddha-Dharma were to perish, upon what would the state be established^...There is no Buddha-Dharma apart from loyalty.... In all corners of the world there is no place where the Imperial Favor does not operate. The voices of pines and bamboo echo "Long may it live!" (banzai). The Imperial wind and the Buddha's sun are nondual.7 With this attitude toward the state and the imperial system, Iida celebrated Zen connections to militarism in the 1930s: "We should be cognizant of how much power Zen gave to the Way of the Warrior. It is truly a cause for rejoicing that the Zen sect has recently become popular among military men. No matter how much we do zazen, if it is not of service in the present events, then it would be better not to do it."8 Iida was not alone in urging his compatriots to make Zen "of service" in the "present events" constituting what many Buddhists called a "holy war" (Hlft). Yamazaki Ekishu exclaimed, "In Great Zen Samadhi we become united with the emperor. In each of our actions we live, moment to moment, with the greatest respect [for the emperor]. When we personify [this spirit] in our daily lives, we become masters of every situation in accordance with our sacrificial duty. This is living Zen."9 Hata Esho celebrated the attack on Pearl Harbor: December 8th is the holy day on which £akyamuni realized the Way, and [for this reason] it has been a day for commemorating the liberation of humankind. It is exceedingly wonderful that in 1941 we were able to 6

ftBatiffl Iida Toin, # # i t i t [Random comments on the practice of Zen] (1934), quoted in IHC 2:30. Iida Toin (1863-1937) was a prominent Soto figure who founded the ShSrinkutsudOjoin 1931. 7

Iida,

[Zen talks on the Kaiankokujo] (1944), quoted in IHC 4:35.

* Iida, Random Comments, 262; quoted in IHC 2:159. The translation of this quote is adapted from Daizen Brian Victoria's rendering in "Japanese Corporate Zen," Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 12/1 (1980): 64. * llJtt&iffl Yamazaki Ekishu, IMR'frOjUifciP [The promotion of enmity and its relation to Zen], quoted in IHC 4:46. This translation is an adaptation ofVictoria's in "Japanese Corporate Zen," 64. Yamazaki EkishQ (1882-1961) served as head priest of ButtsQ-ji and head abbot of the consolidated Rinzai Zen sect around the end of the war (1945-1946).

18

E T H I C A L PITFALLS IN I M P E R I A L Z E N A N D N I S H I D A P H I L O S O P H Y

make this very day also into a holy day for eternally commemorating the reconstruction of the world. On this day was handed down to us the Great Imperial Edict declaring war aimed at punishing the arrogant United States and England, and news of the destruction of American forward bases in Hawaii spread quickly throughout the world. We gained a real taste of good fortune, and we must offer thanks—to the four groups of superiors to whom we are indebted—for being able to applaud the freshness of victory in name and reality.10 Lest Ichikawa be accused of selectively lifting unrepresentative imperialist statements out of context to construct a straw man named "Imperial Way Zen," a perusal of wartime issues of Zengaku-kenkyit, Daijozen, Daihorin, and other Buddhist journals soon reveals that Zen statements such as these were neither rare nor exceptional. To account for these statements and overall Zen support of Japanese imperialism and militarism, Ichikawa critiqued philosophical, institutional, and historical dimensions of Zen." In his reading, "Zen" emerged at a tumultuous time in Chinese history and, like philosophical Taoism, directed itself toward finding security in the midst of social unrest. As expressed by such Taoist notions as "Because it does not contend, it is never at fault"11 and the "usefulness of the useless," a prominent religious orientation in East Asia has been to give up resistance to, and then accept and accord with, the actuality around oneself. To promote this "accord with the principles of things as a kind of naturalism,"13 one restrains from judgmental discrimination and thereby removes oneself from the psychological basis of preferences, struggle, and resulting anguish. Summarizing this Taoistic approach, through which one is said to achieve a kind of harmony with nature and other people, Ichikawa wrote, "If one discards discrimination between affirmation and negation and accords with nature, one can secure one's life."14 Ch'an and Zen developed this way of "stabilizing the mind and securing one's life" (iM^jiiti) 15 in the face of social chaos. In their approach, as Ichikawa portrayed it,16 "By becoming one ( J ® w i t h actuality, a person 10

In the journal

Do/}en\ quoted

in IHC 4:15.

11

For the sake of focus, this paper will consider only his treatment of the philosophical dimension. 12

Adapted from D. C. Lau, tr., Too Tt Chinj (Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1976), 64.

" I H C 2:13. 14

IHC 2:13.

15

Cf. Dogen's

[The Public Record of Eihei], quoted in IHC 2:9.

16

Assessment of the historical and philosophical accuracy of Ichikawa's characterization of Taoism and Ch'an/Zen will have to wait for another occasion.

19

CHRISTOPHER IVES

transcends actuality,"17 in that by relinquishing ego-centeredness and "becoming one" with the situation at hand a person can discover freedom in necessity Ê È ). The Record of lin-chi conveys this method of finding freedom beyond the dichotomy of relative freedom and necessity with the statements, "Make yourself master of every situation, and wherever you stand is the true [place]"; and "The mind turns in accordance with myriad circumstances, and this turning, in truth, is most profound."" In Dôgen's words, "To learn the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to be confirmed by all things...." 19 And as Shidô Bunan (1603-1676) advised, "While living become like a dead person, then do as you wish." In this liberated freedom, according to D. T. Suzuki, "Zen does not affirm or negate temporal actuality. Actuality has historicity, with which the ultimacy of Zen has no dealings."20 Though perhaps existentially liberating for individual Buddhists, this approach to actuality has caused Zen to flounder ethically in socio-political actualities with which it has "become one," especially in the 1930s and early 1940s. For example, reflecting on what might be entailed in the notions of becoming master of one's situation and according with circumstances, Ichikawa problematized the "situation" of which Zen has made people master: Is it the situation in which one is placed or participates? Is it a matter of attaining freedom in the sense of becoming master of one's situation by changing in accordance with it? Are we to take the personal initiative to act above and beyond what we are commanded to do, as in "unquestioning compliance with the emperor's directives," rather than resisting or grudgingly obeying "supreme command(s) in the holy war"? In other words, is becoming master of one's situation a matter of living as a faithful and pliant organization man who through self-discipline admonishes himself against civil disobedience?21 To Ichikawa, the situations in which Zen has become "master" are the realms of warriors, the military, the anti-communist right-wing, and the industrial sector." Along these lines he concluded that what Zen offers is a stance of accommodation: 17

IHC 2:129.

11

Adapted from Ruth Fuller Sasaki, tr., The Record of Lin-chi (Kyoto: Institute for Zen Studies, 197S), 17 and 27. 19 J0

20

Genjokôan fascicle of the Shobqgenzi. [One hundred Zen topics], quoted in IHC 4:7.

21

IHC 2:135.

22

IHC 2:160.

E T H I C A L PITFALLS IN IMPERIAL Z E N A N D N I S H I D A P H I L O S O P H Y

As indicated in the line [in the Record of Lin-chi], "The mind turns in accordance with the myriad circumstances," one creates a way of living that adapts daily to the new historical state of affairs; in the age of the Imperial Way one conducts oneself imperialistically, and in an age of democracy one conducts oneself democratically. Because one does not dwell in any one place, one lives in accordance with all places.23 Coupled with the historical cooperation between Zen and those in power (the "state"), this existential orientation opened the door fully for Zen to support modern Japanese imperialism, which is precisely what the tradition did. Ichikawa suggested that to "become master of one's situation" could have meant to criticize the war publicly, but almost all Zen figures chose to be "masters" of a different sort. To quote Iida Toin once again, "If one becomes master of every situation, the place where the mind turns is truly profound. Mountains are mountains; the sovereign is the sovereign; waters are waters; subjects are subjects. The great imperial nation of Japan—banzai, banzai!"2* Cognizant of the posture of wartime Zen, Hisamatsu Shin'ichi wrote, as quoted by Ichikawa, "Zen often speaks of 'becoming master of every situation,' but during the war did this not become a situation in which Zen became opportunistic and, rather than becoming a master ( ± ) of circumstances, tended to have its mind snatched by circumstances and thus became a guest ) of those circumstances?"25 T o Ichikawa, the ethical stumbling of Zen "masters" also derives from the harmony extolled in much of the discourse about Zen and Japanese culture. Possessing the contemplative wisdom advocated by Zen, "One tends to engage in a way of living that does not fight the pre-existing actuality pressing upon oneself but, on the contrary, accommodates it." 26 Living like the water that takes the shape of whatever vessel into which it is poured, Zen Buddhists run the risk of succumbing to a kind of flexible, shifting submission that lacks the consistency of principles, convictions, and actions necessary for a critical social ethic. 27 More specifically, ideals of harmony, nonresistance, and tolerance found an expression in the twentieth century that at the very least stood in stark tension with Buddhist rhetoric of compassion, of applying "skillful means" to liberate »//sentient beings: " I H C 3:120. 24

Iida, Random Commcntr, quoted in IHC 2:139.

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