Zen and the Art of Divebombing (2016)
friesian.com
friesian.com
basically, the 'west' is pissed off that Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, Confucianism none of these originated west of Greece. it suffers from a sort of not invented here syndrome. so its got to be bad right?
Silent teaching being the pinnacle of attainment of these isms could only lend kamikaze pilots the moral ammunition to bomb pearl harbor yet the rational and enlightened west is justified in returning the favor with hiroshima and nagasaki that somehow isnt atrocious and doesnt blemish either on reason or aristotle, the granddaddy of them all.
no other nation other than Japan would have forgiven USA for the bombs. every other nation would have prepared themselves to take revenge. care to spend a second to think that this could be because of the same 'fatalist' buddhism/zen? to be honest this happened once b4 in the opposite with emperor ashoka on the battlefield of kalinga when he saw all those soldiers dead and their loved ones grieving, proceeded to take yes buddhism and dismantle his empire -- why didnt USA do what ashoka did after hiroshima and nagasaki? -- man of reason until then. losing your reason and tapping into the 'It' inside you thru introspection is the point of these isms.
now how can the tao/zen/buddhist masters take moral responsibility for the suicidal japanese military as much as aristotle take moral responsibility for the atom bomb?
no, no, lets throw the baby out with the bathwater. we have these weapons to test on real people. lets reason the pros and cons and still go ahead and drop them on their 'zenglightened' heads, that will teach them reason....that it was better to kill them so others could live.
The brutality of the Japanese military, which was visited upon its own people as well as on prisoners and civilians, itself has antecedents in Zen. It has already been noted that the "silent teaching" may actually be expressed by beatings, and that the Zen meditation hall is a place where someone sitting zazen can be struck and beaten just to keep them awake. And we have the following story:
Gutei raised his finger whenever he was asked a question about Zen. A boy attendant began to imitate him in this way. When anyone asked the boy what his master had preached about, the boy would raise his finger.
Gutei heard about the boy's mischief. He seized him and cut off his finger. The boy cried and ran away. Gutei called and stopped him. When the boy turned his head to Gutei, Gutei raised up his own finger. In that instant the boy was enlightened. [Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, pp.169-170]
We may stipulate that enlightenment is well worth a finger, and that Gutei was a great enough Zen master to know that so bloody and permanent an expedient would be effective -- and it is a nice thought that the boy has "no finger" to raise up. But for ordinary fallible humans, this would be an appalling act of brutality and child abuse, and it can be expected to be little else if emulated in any way by subsequent teachers. Just as disturbing is the circumstance that, although the names in the story are in Japanese, it is actually a Chinese story, from Tao-yüan's collection. This makes for a very dangerous precedent once it gets into a tradition, the Japanese one, where positive reasons to value violence, for its art, arise.
(1) The author writes "...the names in the story are in Japanese...", but this is a totally absurd statement. The whole story was written in Buddhist Chinese, and was brought over to Japan that way, and read in Buddhist Chinese in Japan. When the translator of the story into English chose to transliterate the names with Japanese pronunciations, it was just an arbitrary choice; they could just as well have transliterated them with Chinese pronunciations. (Then we would have to ask, which ones? Chinese pronunciation has changed greatly in the last 800 years.)
(2) The author writes of this story that "...it can be expected to be little else if emulated in any way by subsequent teachers." but they present no evidence to show that this ever actually occurred. To the best of my knowledge, Zen priests and monks did not cut off novice's fingers.
(3) The presence of one story like this -- or even a hundred -- in the folklore of Buddhism offers no support at all for the idea that Buddhism in Japan or China offers some unique spur to warfare. There are many more such cruel folk stories in the non-Buddhist folklore of these countries. This leads to an important area of omission for the other: syncretism. Unlike in the West, exclusive adherence to one religion was never the norm in East Asia, where most people participated in rites and practices derived from the native folk religion -- Shinto in Japan -- as well as Buddhism.
For many hundreds of years, Buddhist sects in Japan administered the Shinto shrines as well as the Buddhist temples, and Buddhist temples today still celebrate Shinto holidays, like 7-5-3.
It is entirely unlikely that Chinese Buddhism was the inspiration for the reverent character of obedience in Japan. Long before Buddhism, Japan settled into a certain kind of stable relationship with authority. Despite all the turmoil and internal warfare, the emperor was never overthrown and the imperial family today is the same family that was the imperial family 2500 years ago (long before Buddhism entered the country). Such continuity is reflective of certain deliberate choices, and reverence for authority is one of them.
One difficulty that faces Western people in considering Zen in Japan, is a tendency to attribute to Buddhism in Japan a level of power and authority that it never had, in analogy with the Catholic Church. The author makes this mistake.
The article is about how Zen has at various historical moments, despite core anti-violence Buddhist beliefs, been used to justify and excuse violent acts, or even be directly referenced in learning martial killing arts. Then the question is: How has a deeply anti-violence religion found pro-war or pro-violence logic when in those contexts. The author looks for explanations of this contradiction in the Taoist elements of Zen.
The article references https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War, it is factual that (some) Zen leaders supported the imperial holy war in WWII. Enough that some contemporary leaders have issued apologies.
I think the question is more similar to: Christianity has explicitly stated principles of non-violence and against killing, yet has also been used at historical moments to justify holy war, during WWII did not prevent (some) German churches from aligning with Nazism and violent anti-Semitism, etc. What are the historical philosophical strands in Christianity that have allowed it (sometimes) to be used to justify acts that would seem to be in direct contradiction to its core.
It does try to argue that, over and over.
The article is about how Zen has at various historical moments, despite core anti-violence Buddhist beliefs, been used to justify and excuse violent acts, or even be directly referenced in learning martial killing arts. Then the question is: How has a deeply anti-violence religion found pro-war or pro-violence logic when in those contexts. The author looks for explanations of this contradiction in the Taoist elements of Zen.
Buddhism is not a deeply anti-violence religion -- that is a complete misrepresentation on the part of the author. The reason is, yes, to be found in the Taoist elements -- in that, the author is correct.
I think the question is more similar to: Christianity has explicitly stated principles of non-violence and against killing, yet has also been used at historical moments to justify holy war, during WWII did not prevent (some) German churches from aligning with Nazism and violent anti-Semitism, etc. What are the historical philosophical strands in Christianity that have allowed it (sometimes) to be used to justify acts that would seem to be in direct contradiction to its core.
This is a great parallel -- it is a similar argument. It is similarly misguided. No religion that is non-violent would have survived for very long; but neither would a religion have survived for very long if it was much inclined to violence. From a marketing standpoint, the non-violent parts sell better, so people talk about those. The violent parts are kept closer to the chest. Sometimes they get out of hand.
If we accept for the sake of argument that a religion offers a perfect and complete teaching, it doesn't mean people can't mishandle it from time to time. A religion and its handling are indissoluble. Sometimes, this aggregate is in the wrong. We should try to learn from this and do better, which is to say: we should add to the historical strands, not subtract from them. This is the essence of religion.