BRIAN VICTORIA
ZEN AT WAR Second Edition
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CONTENTS Contents
CONTENTS Contents
Preface to the Second Edition Preface
PART I: THE MEIJI RESTORATION OF 1868 AND BUDDHISM
1. The Attempted Suppression of Buddhism
2. Early Buddhist Social Ferment
3. Uchiyama Gudō: Radical Sōtō Zen Priest
4. Institutional Buddhism’s Rejection of Progressive Social Action
PART II: JAPANESE MILITARISM AND BUDDHISM
5. The Incorporation of Buddhism into the Japanese War Machine (1913– 30)
6. Buddhist Resistance to Japanese Militarism
7. The Emergence of Imperial-Way Buddhism
8. The Emergence of Imperial-State Zen and Soldier Zen
9. Other Zen Masters and Scholars in the War Effort
PART III: POSTWAR TRENDS
10. The Postwar Japanese Responses to Imperial-Way Buddhism, Imperial- State Zen, and Soldier Zen 11. Corporate Zen in Postwar Japan
12. Was It Buddhism?
13. Epilogue Notes Concise Glossary of Buddhist Terminology Works Cited About the Author
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CHAPTER TWELVE
WAS IT BUDDHISM?
INTRODUCTION
This book has explored the relationship between institutional Japanese Buddhism, primarily Zen, and the state from 1868 to 1945. Now we turn to the broader issue of the relationship between Zen and war in light of the historical development of Buddhism.
In answering the question Was it Buddhism? I contend that both Imperial Way–Buddhism and Imperial State/Soldier–Zen can only be understood in the context of their historical and doctrinal antecedents in Japan and East Asia as a whole, extending as far back as the life of Buddha Shakyamuni himself (if not before). Therefore, this chapter surveys 2,500 years of Buddhist social thought and practice, beginning with an introduction to the social consciousness of the Buddha and extending through the emergence of modern Japan. In attempting this ambitious sweep in only a few pages, no one is more aware than I that what follows is but the first step in explaining this vast and complex topic.
BUDDHA SHAKYAMUNI’S SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
The basic teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni are well-known, so suffice it to say, there is nothing in either the Four Noble Truths or the Holy Eightfold Path to suggest support for the use of violence, let alone warfare. On the contrary, two admonitions in the Holy Eightfold Path—right action and right livelihood—clearly indicate the very opposite.
Right action promotes moral, honorable, and peaceful conduct. It admonishes the believer to abstain from destroying life, from stealing, from dishonest dealings, and from illegitimate sexual intercourse. Instead, the believer should help others lead peaceful and honorable lives.
Right livelihood means that one should abstain from making one’s living through a profession that brings harm to others, such as selling arms and lethal weapons, providing intoxicating drink or poisons, or soldiering, killing animals, or cheating. Instead, one should live in a way that does not cause harm or do injustice to others.
Together with right speech, right action and right livelihood form the basis for Buddhist ethical conduct. Underlying all Buddhist ethical conduct is a broad conception of universal love and compassion for all living beings, both human and nonhuman. Thus, based on these fundamental teachings of Shakyamuni, Buddhist adherents could in theory no more participate in that form of mass human slaughter known as war than they could purposely take the life of another. Yet ideals and practice often parted ways, as we will explore next.
LIFE OF THE BUDDHA
In accordance with the religious norms of his day, Shakyamuni offered advice on secular as well as purely spiritual matters. One example concerns a dispute that arose over the division of water from the drought-stricken Rohini River, which flowed between two kingdoms, one of them his own homeland of Kapilavastu. It is recorded that when the quarrel reached the point where a battle seemed imminent, Shakyamuni proceeded to the proposed battlefield and took his seat on the riverbank. He asked why the princes of the two kingdoms were assembled, and when informed that they were preparing for battle, he asked what the dispute was about. The princes said that they didn’t know for sure, and they, in turn, asked the commander-in-chief. He also didn’t know and sought information from
the regent; and so the enquiry went on until it reached the husbandmen who related the whole affair. What then is the value of water? asked Shakyamuni. It is but little, replied the princes. And what of princes? It cannot be measured, they said. Then would you, said Shakyamuni, destroy that which is of the highest value for the sake of that which is worth little? Reflecting on the wisdom of his words, the princes agreed to return peaceably to their homes.¹
Another example of Shakyamuni’s political intervention is said to have occurred in his seventy-ninth year, shortly before his death. King Ajatasattu of Magadha wished to make war on the tribal confederation of Vajji, so he sent an emissary to ask Shakyamuni what his chances of victory were. Shakyamuni declared that he himself had taught the Vajjians the conditions of true welfare, and as he was informed that the Vajjians were continuing to observe these conditions, he foretold that they would not be defeated. Upon hearing this, Ajatasattu abandoned his plan to attack.
Significantly, the first of the seven conditions Shakyamuni had taught the Vajjians was that they must hold frequent public assemblies. Secondly, they must meet in concord, rise in concord, and act as they are supposed to do in concord.² As a noted scholar pointed out, these conditions represent a truly democratic approach, and any society following these rules is likely to prosper and remain peaceful.³
A. L. Basham suggests that incidents like these demonstrate Shakyamuni’s clear support for a republican form of government, though with the caveat that we are speaking of a form of governance in which there was an executive—sometimes elected, sometimes hereditary—supported by an assembly of heads of families that gathered periodically to make decisions relating to the common welfare.⁴ Restated in more contemporary terminology, Shakyamuni advocated a political model approaching a small-scale, direct democracy, though it is also clear that he did not deny his counsel to the kings of the rising monarchies of his day.
Other elements of Shakyamuni’s stance on violence are illustrated in the lead-up to an attack on his homeland by King Vidudabha of Kosala, the most powerful of the sixteen major kingdoms of his time. Shakyamuni recognized that this time the nature of the feud was such that his words would not be heeded, and he did not attempt to intervene. But even when the very existence of his homeland was at stake, Shakyamuni, his warrior background notwithstanding, refused to take up arms in its defense.
Shakyamuni’s teaching on warfare and violence is perhaps best clarified in the Dhammapada, a Pali canonical work. In chapter 1, stanza 1, for example, Shakyamuni states: For never does hatred cease by hatred here below: hatred ceases by love; this is an eternal law. And again, in chapter 15, stanza 201: Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is unhappy. The person who has given up both victory and defeat, that person, contented, is happy. In chapter 10, stanza 129, he says: All persons tremble at being harmed, all persons fear death; remembering that you are like unto them, neither strike nor slay. And finally, in chapter 8, stanza 103: If someone conquers in battle a thousand times a thousand enemies, and if another conquers himself, that person is the greatest of conquerors.⁵ While scholars doubt these admonitions came directly from Shakyamuni’s lips, the admonitions are, nevertheless, entirely consistent with his earliest and most fundamental teachings.
Two further aspects of Shakyamuni’s teachings are worthy of mention. First, he was concerned about what we would today call social justice. For example, in the Pali Cakkavattisihanada Sutta of the Digha Nikaya (no. 26), Shakyamuni clearly identified poverty as the cause of violence and other social ills:
As a result of goods not being accrued to those who are destitute, poverty becomes rife. From poverty becoming rife, stealing,... violence,... murder,... lying,... evil speech,... adultery,... incest, till finally lack of respect for parents, filial love, religious piety and lack of regard for the ruler will
result.
Likewise, in the Kutadanta Sutta of the same Nikaya (no. 5), Shakyamuni praised a king named Mahavijita who, faced with an upsurge of robbery in his impoverished kingdom, provided his subjects with the economic means to improve their lives rather than imprisoning and executing the wrongdoers.⁶
THE EARLY BUDDHIST SANGHA AND THE STATE
Also important is the political or social dimension of the religious organization that Buddha Shakyamuni founded, the Sangha, that is, the community of monks and nuns (organized separately) dedicated to practicing his teachings. Primarily religious in nature, it embodied his concept of an ideal society.
The Sangha was based on noncoercive, nonauthoritarian principles by which leadership was acquired through superior moral character and spiritual insight, and monastic affairs were managed by a general meeting of the monks (or nuns). Unlike a modern business meeting, however, all decisions required the unanimous consent of those assembled. When differences could not be settled, a committee of elders was charged with finding satisfactory solutions.
Ideally, the Sangha was to be an organization that had no political ambitions and in whose ranks there was no striving for leadership. It sought by example and exhortation to persuade men and women to follow its way, not by force. Further, by his completely eliminating the then-prevalent caste system from its ranks, Shakyamuni may right1y be considered one of recorded history’s first leaders to practice his belief in the basic equality of all human beings. He clearly hoped that the religious and social ideals of the Sangha would one day permeate the whole of society. This said, the historical subordination of the female Sangha to the male Sangha, through the imposition of eight additional precepts for nuns, betrays the ideal of human equality and points to the existence of a sexist attitude that may date back to Shakyamuni himself.
It is also true that even during the Buddha’s lifetime, his Sangha became a wealthy landowner, though the lands referred to were held as the communal property of the various monastic communities.⁷ The lands themselves had all been donated by the faithful, initially kings, princes, and rich merchants. This raises the question as to what the donors expected of the Sangha in return for their material support. The classic answer is that they expected to acquire merit, that spiritual reward that promises rebirth in a blessed state to all those who perform good deeds. As one Pali sutra relates, however, the accumulation of merit by the laity can also lead to the more immediate and mundane goals of "long life, fame, heavenly fortune, and sovereign power [italics mine]."⁸ The fact that King Ajatasattu also looked to Buddha Shakyamuni to forecast the likelihood of his victory against the Vajjians is significant here. Significant, in that it was already widely believed in ancient India that accomplished holy men possessed superhuman powers, including the ability to foresee the future.
Related questions are what effect the Sangha’s collective possession of ever-greater amounts of land had on its own conduct, and equally important, whether as a major landholder it could fail in its actions and pronouncements to escape the notice and concern of state rulers. Would it be surprising to learn that these rulers also expected something in return for their material support of the Sangha, something approaching a moral endorsement of their rule, or the acquisition of merit, or the utilization of the supposed superhuman powers of Buddhist priests (and sutras) to protect the state from its enemies or ensure victory in battle?
KING ASHOKA—THE IDEAL BUDDHIST RULER?
If in the long run the Sangha willingly provided rulers with a moral endorsement, that endorsement was initially given only on the basis that rulers fulfill certain prerequisites or conditions. These conditions were contained in the Jataka stories, five hundred Indian folk tales that had been given a Buddhist didactic purpose and were incorporated into the Pali Buddhist canon sometime before the beginning of the Christian era. Among these tales we find a description of the Ten Duties of the King, which include, among other things, the requirement that rulers abstain from anything that involves violence and destruction of life. Rulers are further exhorted to be free from selfishness, hatred, and falsehood, and to be ready to give up all personal comfort, reputation, fame, and even their very life if need be to promote the welfare of the people. Furthermore, it was the responsibility of kings to provide (1) grain and other facilities for agriculture to farmers and cultivators, (2) capital for traders and those engaged in business, and (3) adequate wages for those who were employed. When people are provided with sufficient income, they will be contented and have no fear or anxiety. Consequently, their countries will be peaceful and free from crime.⁹
It was, of course, one thing to present kingly duties in the abstract and another to find kings who actually practiced them. Buddhists discovered one such ruler in the person of King Ashoka (ca. 269-32 B.C.E.), who already controlled much of India at the time of his accession to the throne. Prior to converting to Buddhism, Ashoka is said to have engaged in wars of expansion until the bloodiness of his conquest of the kingdom of Kalinga caused him to repent and become a Buddhist layman, forswearing the use of violence. He then embarked upon a Reign of Dharma in which he advocated such moral precepts as nonharming, respect for all religious teachers, and noncovetousness.
In addition to renouncing aggressive warfare, Ashoka is said to have urged moderation in spending and accumulation of wealth, kind treatment of servants and slaves, cessation of animal sacrifices for religious purposes, and various other maxims, all carved as inscriptions and royal edicts on cliff faces and stone pillars throughout his vast realm, which extended almost the entire length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent. Further, he appointed officers known as Superintendents of Dharma for the propagation of religion, and arranged for regular preaching tours. Realizing the effectiveness of exhortation over legislation, he is said to have preached the Dharma on occasion. Ashoka become the archetypal Buddhist ruler, an ideal or Universal Monarch (see chapter 7).
As opposed to this idealized portrait, Indian historian A. L. Basham has pointed to another side of King Ashoka. For example, Ashoka maintained an army and used force against tribal groups that clashed with his empire. Beyond that, one Buddhist description of his life, the Sanskrit Ashokavandana, records that he ordered eighteen thousand non-Buddhist adherents, probably Jains, executed because of a minor insult to Buddhism on the part of a single one. On another occasion, he forced a Jain follower and his entire family into their house before having it burnt to the ground. He also maintained the death penalty for criminals, including his own wife, Tisyaraksita, whom he executed. In light of these and similar acts, we can say that Ashoka was an archetypal defender of the faith who was not averse to the use of violence.
Nor did King Ashoka’s remorse at having killed over 100,000 inhabitants of Kalinga lead him to restore its freedom or that of any other of his earlier conquests. Instead, he continued to govern them all as an integral part of his empire, for he by no means gave up his imperial ambitions.¹⁰ In fact, inasmuch as many of his edicts mention only support for Dharma, (a pan-Indian, politico-religious term) and not the Buddha Dharma, it is possible to argue that he used Dharma not so much out of allegiance to the Buddhist faith and its ideals, but as a means to centralize power, maintain unity among his disparate peoples, and promote law and order throughout the empire.
At the very least, in promoting Buddhism throughout India, Ashoka was clearly also promoting his
own kingship and establishing himself.¹¹ That is to say, an alliance of politics and religion had been born. This is important to note because while Ashoka may have been the first to use Buddhism and the (Buddha) Dharma for what we would today identify as political purposes, he was hardly the last, as we shall see shortly when we examine the development of Buddhism in China and Japan.
A noted Indian political philosopher, Vishwanath Prasad Varma, pointed out that due to King Ashoka’s royal patronage, the Sangha became contaminated with regal and aristocratic affiliations.¹² Similarly, the pioneer Buddhist scholar T. W. Rhys Davids remarked that it was the Sangha’s close affiliation with King Ashoka that was the first step on the downward path of Buddhism, the first step on its expulsion from India.¹³
What is certain is that Ashoka enjoyed a great deal of power over the Sangha. For example, a second Buddhist record of Ashoka’s life, the Pali Mahavamsa, states that Ashoka was, with the aid of the great elder Moggaliputta Tissa, responsible for defrocking sixty thousand Sangha members who were found to harbor false views.¹⁴ Ashoka had the power to prescribe passages from the sutras that Sangha members were required to study. Those who failed to do so could be defrocked by his officers.¹⁵ In fact, it became necessary to receive Ashoka’s permission even to enter the priesthood.¹⁶ In short, during Ashoka’s reign, if not before, the Raja Dharma (Law of the Sovereign) became deeply involved in, if not yet in full command of, the Buddha Dharma. This too was a harbinger of things to come.
In this connection, both Basham and Rhys Davids identified the concept of a so-called Universal Monarch, or Cakravartin (Wheel-Turning King), as coming into prominence within Buddhist circles only after the reign of Ashoka’s father, Candragupta, who ascended the throne sometime at the end of the fourth century B.C.E.¹⁷ Thus, the idea of a Universal Monarch, who served as the protector of the Buddha Dharma and as the recipient of the Dharma’s protection, did not originate as a teaching of Buddha Shakyamuni himself. Instead, it is best understood as a later accretion that ‘was an inspiration to ambitious monarchs,... some [of whom] claimed to be Universal Monarchs themselves.¹⁸ It is also significant that as a Universal Monarch and Dharma Protector, Ashoka was accorded the personal title of Dharma Raja (Dharma King), a title he shared with Buddha Shakyamuni.¹⁹ This sharing of titles would play an important role in China.
BUDDHISM IN CHINESE SOCIETY
Confucian Critique of Early Buddhism in China
Buddhism entered China by way of Central Asia at the beginning of the Christian era. By this time China already had a sophisticated culture of its own that included two well-developed, indigenous, religious-oriented belief systems: Taoism and Confucianism. Buddhist advocates eventually reached an uneasy truce with both Taoists and Confucians, who initially opposed the introduction of this foreign religion.
Chinese Buddhist monks appeased the Taoists by discussing Buddhism in a Taoist vocabulary and proposing Buddhist solutions to unresolved Taoist doctrinal disputes, such as the relationship of the holy man to the world. However, it was the compromise reached with the Confucians that was to have the most far-reaching effects on the subsequent development of Buddhism throughout East Asia, including Japan.
The compromise concerned the relationship of the Sangha with the state. As propagators of a universal Dharma, Chinese monks of the Eastern Chin dynasty (317–420 C.E.) asserted they had no need to kowtow (show obeisance) to the emperor. From the popular Confucian viewpoint, this was a
heretical doctrine that undermined Confucian advocacy of social harmony derived from a strictly hierarchical conception of society, in which nothing was higher than the Son of Heaven.
Subordination of Buddhism to the State
While Buddhist monks in southern China (under the Chin dynasty) successfully maintained independence from the state, their northern counterparts did not fare as well. Faced with the non-Chinese rulers of the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534 C.E.), Buddhist monks offered their services as political, diplomatic, and military advisers. They claimed to be able to prophesy not only the outcome of battles and entire military campaigns, but even the rise and fall of empires. According to Kenneth Ch’en, in offering their technical services to the rulers, these imperial monk advisors were able to persuade them to become staunch supporters of Buddhism.²⁰
In justifying the decision of northern monks to reverence the emperor in accordance with Confucian tradition, Fa-kuo, chief of monks from 396 to 398, came up with an ingenious solution. Namely, he claimed that then Emperor T’ai-tsu was a living Buddha, the Tathagata himself. Therefore, when a monk bowed down to him, he was not doing obeisance to an emperor but was worshipping the Buddha, an entirely fit and proper act for all faithful.²¹
Fa-kuo, it should be noted, had been appointed to his position by Emperor T’ai-tsu. Although the effect this had on Fa-kuo’s views is unknown, it is significant that a Chinese emperor possessed the authority to make such an appointment over the Sangha. This said, it must also be remembered that Fa-kuo’s innovation was based on such lndian precedents as the sharing of titles in the Buddhist records of King Ashoka’s reign. Furthermore, there was, by this time, scriptural justification for Fa-kuo’s position in the Suvarnaprabhasa [Golden Light] Sutra. This Indian Mahayana sutra took the view that while a king is not a god in his own right, he does hold his position by the authority of the gods and is therefore entitled to be called a son of the gods. It can readily be seen that this position, which is Brahmanical (not Buddhist) in origin, dovetails nicely with the Chinese doctrine of a ruler’s Mandate of Heaven. Further paralleling the Chinese doctrine, there is an implicit admission in this sutra (and in its Chinese variant) that revolt against a wicked or negligent king is morally acceptable.
Whatever motives one may ascribe to these northern Buddhist monks, the fact remains they established a pattern that was to characterize Chinese Buddhism down through the ages. That is to say, in return for imperial patronage and protection, Buddhism was expected to serve and protect the interests of the state and its rulers, including the attainment of victory on the battlefield. Thus was the foundation laid for what came to be known in Japan as Nation Protecting–Buddhism. It can be argued, of course, that this was but an extension of the Sangha’s subservience to the state as first observed in India.
Be that as it may, when a subsequent emperor—Wen (r. 581–604) of the Sui dynasty (c. 581–618)—decided to enlist the spiritual aid of Buddhist monks in his military campaigns, he was doing no more than extending a precedent that had already existed for more than two hundred years, at least in northern China. Specifically, Wen constructed temples at sites where he and his father had won important battles, ordering temple priests to hold commemorative services for the spirits of his fallen soldiers. Already in the midst of planning future military campaigns, the emperor wanted to assure his followers that should they fall on some future battlefield, their spirits, too, would be looked after.²²
Emperor Wen’s innovation was his determination to use Buddhism as a method of unifying all of China. Presenting himself as a Universal Monarch, soon after establishing the Sui dynasty in 581 C.E. he declared:
With the armed might of a Cakravartin King, We spread the ideals of the ultimately benevolent one [that is, the Buddha]. With a hundred victories and a hundred battles, We promote the practice of the ten Buddhist virtues. Therefore We regard weapons of war as having become like incense and flowers [presented as offerings to the Buddha] and the fields of this visible world as becoming forever identical with the Buddha land [italics mine].²³
To secure his position still further, Wen gave himself the title Bodhisattva Son of Heaven, and proceeded to have hundreds of stupas built throughout China to enshrine Buddhist relics. This conveyed the unity of king and empire through faith in Buddhism. In doing this, he was once again emulating pious acts by that other great empire builder, King Ashoka. Ashoka allegedly had eighty-four thousand stupas constructed throughout his empire.²⁴
However, for the imperial support it enjoyed, the Sangha always paid a heavy price in the loss of its independence, even in internal affairs, and in increasing subservience to the state. Thus, after Emperor Yang succeeded to the throne in 604 (by killing his father, Emperor Wen), he issued a decree in 607 ending the exemption of monks in southern China from having to pay homage to the emperor and his officials. The Law of the Sovereign was now supreme in China and would remain so, as far as Buddhism was concerned, forevermore. One added benefit of this subservience was, however, that Buddhism gained at least a degree of acceptance by the Confucians.
The Sangha’s support of state interests did not stop with prophesy, state ritual, and provision of a unifying ideology. By the time of the T’ang dynasty (c. 618–907), some monks had themselves begun to participate directly in politics. During the reign of Wu Tse-t’ien, for example, one monk by the name of Hsüeh Huai-i was actually commissioned as a grand general sustaining the state. As such, he led a number of military expeditions to expel Turks who had invaded China’s border regions. Later, Huai-i even attempted to usurp the throne for himself.²⁵
Monks meddling in politics (and warfare) suggests, of course, that decadence had infiltrated the Sangha under imperial patronage. In fact, one official of the time complained that present-day temples surpass even imperial palaces in design, embodying the last word in extravagance, splendor, artistry, and finesse.²⁶ Thus, when Emperor Hsüan-tsung ascended the throne in 712, he instituted a series of measures to control the Sangha’s wealth and power, including limitations on the size of temple landholdings, defrocking of up to thirty thousand unworthy monks, and requiring government permission before repairs to temples could be made. In order to control the number of entrants into the Sangha, the emperor also initiated a system of granting official monk certificates in 747.²⁷
None of these acts, however, can begin to compare to the suppression of Buddhism that occurred at the hands of Emperor Wu-tsung in 845. At the time, the emperor claimed to have forced 260,500 monks and nuns to return to lay life, while destroying 44,600 monasteries, temples, and shrines, and confiscating their vast, tax-exempt lands and 150,000 slaves.²⁸ Although the emperor’s death the following year marked the formal end of the persecution, Buddhism never regained its preeminent position in Chinese life and society. A long period of decline set in, extending to the present day. Only the Ch’an (Zen) and Pure Land schools maintained a certain degree of vitality.
Ch’an
Ch’an’s resilience may have derived in part from its syncretism, for Ch’an had incorporated both Taoist and Confucian tenets into its practice and outlook. By the Sung period (960–1279) if not before, it was typical for Ch’an masters (like other Chinese Buddhists) to refer to Buddhism as one leg of a religious tripod that also included Confucianism and Taoism. Japanese Zen Master Dōgen, who
trained in China from 1223 to 1227, described this syncretism:
Among present-day monks ... not one of them, not even half of one of them, has understood that the Buddha’s teachings are superior to those of the other two. It was only Ju-ching, my late master, who understood this fact and proclaimed it ceaselessly day and night.²⁹
Ju-ching, it should be noted, also refused both an honorarypurple robe and the title Ch’an Master from Emperor Ning-tsung. Further, in the context of explaining the differences between Buddhism and Confucianism, Dōgen characterized Confucianism as "merely teach[ing] loyal service to the emperor and filial piety, the latter se en as a method of regulating one’s household [italics mine]."³⁰
This syncretism on the part of nearly all Ch’an masters meant that Ch’an, like the rest of Chinese Buddhism, internalized Confucian values, including emphasis on a hierarchical social structure with the emperor at the pinnacle of the social pyramid. Confucians argued that such a configuration would produce social harmony when everyone knew their place in society and faithfully followed the dictates of their superiors.
Iconoclasm
Although based more on rhetoric than actual historical practice, Ch’an has a reputation for iconoclasm, dismissing, as it does, the need for scholastic study of Buddhist texts and dependence on Buddhist images and rituals. Coupled with Ch’an’s emphasis on productive labor, this led, at least initially, to a certain degree of independence from, if not indifference to, the emperor and the imperial state. For example, consider Hui-neng, traditionally seen as the pivotal Sixth Patriarch of the Southern school of Ch’an. Although there are conflicting accounts of his life, the Special Transmission of the Great Master from Ts’ao-ch’i presents this master as being so unconcerned with worldly fame that he refused an invitation from the emperor to visit the imperial court. Notwithstanding this, the emperor still presented him with gifts, one of which was, significantly, a new name for his former residence, that is, Kuo-en-ssu (Temple to Repay the Debt of Gratitude Owed the State).
Hui-neng’s disciple Shen-hui (684–758), however, maintained a much closer, if sometimes strained, relationship with the imperial court. Heinrich Dumoulin noted that Shen-hui first took up residence in Nan-yang, not far south of the imperial capital of Lo-yang, in 720 in obedience to an imperial decree. In 745, Shen-hui moved to a temple in Lo-yang, where large crowds were drawn to hear his exposition of Ch’an teachings. This led to charges, perhaps incited by his Northern Ch’an rivals, that he was fomenting social unrest, resulting in his banishment from the capital for three years (753–56).
In 755 when a major rebellion broke out in the northeastern part of the country, Shen-hui was recalled to the capital as a fundraiser for the imperial military. Offering his contributors exemption from both monetary taxation and the requirement to participate in yearly, government-sponsored labor battalions, Shen-hui proved an exemplary fundraiser, and the rebellion was suppressed. The emperor gratefully showered Shen-hui with honors, ensuring that his last days were spent basking in the graces of the powers that be.³¹
In light of this and similar episodes, it is clear that Ch’an leaders also willingly served the state’s needs, in war as well as peace. In fact, when the Sōtō and Rinzai sects raised funds to buy fighter aircraft for the Japanese military in the 1930s and 1940s, they were following a Ch’an and Zen precedent with a history of nearly 1,200 years! As for Shen-hui, he continued to be honored even after his death, and in 796 was formally recognized as the Seventh Patriarch, also by virtue af an imperial decree.³² Inasmuch as Shen-hui had been an untiring advocate of the Southern Ch’an school and its doctrine of sudden enlightenment, this imperial recognition was destined to have a major impact on subsequent
Ch’an history.
Shen-hui was but one figure in the long-term decline of the Buddhist tradition of nonviolence. Consider the following poem in a sixth-century treatise from the Hsin-hsin Ming by the Third Ch’an Patriarch, Seng-ts’an (d. 606):
Be not cancerned with right and wrong
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind.³³
Further, French scholar Paul Demiéville pointed out that according to the seventh -century Ch’an text Treatise on Absolute Contemplation, killing is evil only in the event the killer fails to recognize his victim as empty and dream-like. On the contrary, if one no longer sees his opponent as a living being separate from emptiness, then he is free to kill him.³⁴ This antinomian license to kill with moral impunity is the most dangerous, and deadly, of Ch’an’s many insights.
This said, Ch’an’s abandonment of Buddhist morality did not go unnoticed or unchallenged. As early as the eighth century, the famous writer Liang Su (753–93) criticized the Ch’an school as follows:
Nowadays, few men have true faith. Those who travel the path of Ch’an go so far as to teach the people that there is neither Buddha nor Dharma, and that neither good nor evil has any significance ... Such ideas are accepted as great truths that sound so pleasing to the ear. And the people are attracted to them just as moths in the night are drawn to their burning death by the candle light [italics mine].³⁵
In reading this critique, one is tempted to believe that Liang was also a prophet able to foresee the deaths over a thousand years later of millions of young Japanese men who were drawn to their own deaths by the Zen-inspired light of Bushido. All the more, the millions of innocent men, women, and children who burned with (or because of) them, and who must never be forgotten.
By the Sung dynasty (960–1279), Ch’an monasteries not only maintained friendly relations with the imperial court but had become involved in political affairs as well.³⁶ Emperors granted noted Ch’an masters purple robes and honorific titles such as Ch’an Master of the Buddha Fruit or Ch’an Master of Full Enlightenment. Inevitably, however, imperial favors brought with them increased state control. One result was the establishment of the system of Five Mountains [i.e., major monasteries] and Ten Temples. In the spirit of Confucian hierarchy, Ch’an temples were classified and ranked, those at the top being blessed with imperial favors. In this case, all of the privileged temples belonged to the Yang-ch’i line of the Linchi (J. Rinzai) school.
Among other things, Ch’an temples operating under imperial patronage were expected to pray for the emperor and the prosperity of the state. In describing this system, Yanagida Seizan wrote:
Given the danger of foreign invasion from the north, Buddhism was used to promote the idea of the state and its people among the general populace.... Inevitably, the Ch’an priests residing in these government temples in accordance with imperial decree gradually linked the content of their teaching to the goals of the state. This is not unconnected to the fact that Zen temples [in Japan] in the Kamakura and Tokugawa periods had ... a nationalistic character in line with the traditional consciousness of the Chinese Ch’an school that advocated the spread of Ch’an in order to protect the nation.³⁷
The succeeding Yüan period (c. 1280–1368) would bring even greater state control of Ch’an and other temples and monasteries. Gradually however, the syncretic tendencies already at work within
Buddhism grew ever stronger until by the Ming period (c. 1368–1644) all Chinese Buddhist schools and sects fused into a loose amalgamation of the Ch’an and Pure Land schools. This brought the story of a distinct Ch’an school or movement to an end.
Preliminary Conclusion
In light of this discussion, I would like to make three additional points. First, while Ch’an’s iconoclastic tendencies and economic self-reliance may have initially enabled it to maintain a certain distance from the state, over the long term there was a spiritual price for this freedom. That is to say, paralleling a heavy emphasis on the practice of meditation (J. zazen), intellectual stimulation from such activities as lively discussions on points of doctrine were strongly discouraged by Ch’an masters, who insisted on intuitive comprehension and lightning-quick responses within an overall framework of anti-textualism and anti-scholasticism. To some extent, this can be seen as Ch’an’s internalization of such Taoist values as spontaneity, originality, paradoxy, innate naturalness, and the ineffability of Truth.³⁸
I am not suggesting that the strong emphasis on meditation or Taoist-influenced values was necessarily un-Buddhist, but as Kenneth Ch’en pointed out:
The strength and vigor of Buddhism rested on the principle of equal emphasis on all three aspects of the Buddhist discipline—moral conduct, [meditative] concentration, and wisdom. Special attention to one, to the neglect of the other two, would certainly result in the deterioration of the Dharma.³⁹
The reader will recall that Hakamaya Noriaki also raised a related criticism of Japanese Zen when he said, "True Buddhists must draw a sharp distinction between Buddhist teachings and anti-Buddhist teachings, using both intellect and language to denounce the latter [italics mine]."
My second point is closely connected with the first. I refer to what might be called a violence-condoning atmosphere fostered as one dimension of Ch’an’s iconoclastic attitude. Historically, this atmosphere began as early as the second patriarch, Hui-k’o (c. 484–590), who, tradition states, cut off his left arm at the elbow to show how fervently he wished to become a disciple of Bodhidharma, the legendary fifth-century Indian founder of the Ch’an school in China. T’ang Ch’an Master Chü-chih is also recorded as having cut off his disciple’s finger with a knife after discovering that the latter had been imitating his one finger Ch’an (though in doing so, Chü-chih allegedly precipitated the disciple’s enlightenment).
Less dramatic, though far more widespread, was the Ch’an use of such training methods as physical blows from both fists and staffs, together with thundering shouts. Lin-chi I-hsüan (d. 866), founder of the Lin-chi school, is the preeminent example of such a rough and tumble master. It was this master who taught his disciples:
Followers of the Way, if you wish to have a viewpoint that is in accord with the Dharma, it is only [necessary] that you not be beguiled by others. Whether you meet them within or without, kill them right away! When you meet the Buddha, kill him. When you meet a patriarch, kill him. When you meet an Arhat [enlightened person], kill him. When you meet parents, kill them. When you meet relatives, kill them. Thus you will begin to attain liberation. You will be unattached and be able to pass in and out [of any place] and become free.⁴⁰
I do not suggest there is a direct link between Ch’an’s physical and verbal violence and the later emergence of Zen’s support for Japanese militarism. All of the examples given above have legitimate
didactic purposes within the Ch’an and Zen tradition. For example, in Lin-chi’s oft-misunderstood admonition quoted above, the killing referred to is that of detaching oneself from dependency on authority figures, whether they be people or ideas, in order to achieve genuine spiritual liberation. It might be called a dramatic restatement of Buddha Shakyamuni’s own final instructions to his disciples:
You must be lamps unto yourselves. You must rely on yourselves and on no one else. You must make the Dharma your light and your support and rely on nothing else.⁴¹
Lin-chi’s statement, like that of Shakyamuni, is basically antiauthoritarian in that it aims to free the trainee from dependence on anyone or anything outside of his own mind and apart from his own direct experience of the Dharma. Nevertheless, Ch’an’s verbal and physical violence, didactic though it be, lent itself to misuse and abuse by later practitioners, especially in Japan. It provided the link that facilitated the connection made between Zen and the sword in feudal Japan, and in turn, between Zen and total war in modern Japan. Note too, that it was Ch’an Master Kuei-shan Ling-yu (771–853) who first referred to the interplay between action and silence in Ch’an as sword-play.⁴² Lin-chi was also fond of referring to swords and sword-blades. but the reference was to the "sword of wisdom," a common Buddhist metaphor referring to wisdom that can cut through (i.e., eliminate) all discriminating thought and conceptualization, not human flesh!
D. T. Suzuki’s application of the Zen phrase the sword that gives life (J. katsujin-ken) to the modern battlefield is a particularly pernicious example of the abuse of Zen terminology. This phrase together with its twin, that is, the sword that kills (J. satsujin-tō), is found in the famous Sung dynasty collection of one hundred Zen koans known as the Blue Cliff Record. In introducing the twelfth koan of the collection, Ch’an master Yüan Wu K’e Ch’in (1063–1135) wrote:
The sword that kills people and the sword that gives life to people is an ancient custom that is also important for today. If you talk of killing, not a single hair is harmed. If you talk of giving life, body and life are lost [italics mine].⁴³
Although phrased paradoxically, it is obvious that the above does not refer to anyone’s physical death. Rather, Yüan Wu, once again using the sword as a metaphor for Buddhist wisdom, dramatically restates the classical Zen (and Buddhist) position that the destruction (i.e., the killing) of the illusory self does not result in the least injury to the true self (hence, not a single hair is harmed). Or, expressed in reverse order, giving life to the true self inevitably involves the destruction of the illusory self (hence, body and life are lost). Thus, whichever sword is spoken of, no one physically dies!
One can only marvel at the fact that the transference of these terms to the real battlefield by later generations, Suzuki and his ilk included, has for so long escaped criticism and condemnation. At least part of the responsibility for this must be laid at the feet of those Ch’an pioneers, like Lin-chi, who chose to incorporate life-giving blows and shouts, coupled with a vocabulary of violence, into their instructional regimen. In the hands of lesser men (especially those aided and abetted by the state) these methods became, as has been seen, lethal in the extreme.
Finally, I would point out that the subordination of the Buddha Dharma to the state continues to exert a significant impact on Chinese Buddhism to this very day. In his book Buddhism under Mao, Holmes Welch noted that in 1951–52, Chinese Buddhists raised money for a fighter aircraft named Chinese Buddhist to be used against UN (mainly American) forces in the Korean War. In justifying Buddhist support for the Chinese government’s policy of military intervention, a Buddhist leader named Hsin-tao addressed a meeting of Nan-ch’ang Buddhists as follows:
We know that the People’s Government absolutely guarantees the freedom of religious belief. We Buddhists must unite as quickly as possible and, with the followers of other religions, completely support the Chinese Volunteer Army and the Korean People’s Army. The best thing is to be able to join the army directly and to learn the spirit in which Shakyamuni, as the embodiment of compassion and our guide to Buddhahood, killed robbers to save the people and suffered hardship on behalf of all living creatures. To wipe out the American imperialist demons who are breaking world peace is, according to Buddhist doctrine, not only blameless but actually gives rise to merit [italics mine].⁴⁴
Once again, America and its allies were fighting Buddhism, if not necessarily at sea, then at least on the ground and in the air. Once again, Buddhists themselves took up arms, out of a spirit of compassion, to fight the American demons. As in wartime Japan, scriptural justification was also used in the Buddhist campaign to raise funds for weapons. Chü-tsan, another Buddhist leader wrote,
The [Mahapari]nirvana Sutra advocates wielding the spear and starting battle. Therefore there is nothing contrary to Buddhist doctrine in a Buddhist responding to the appeal to contribute towards fighter planes, bombers, cannons and tanks.⁴⁵
Ironically, when Tibetan monks revolted against the Communist Chinese Army’s occupation of Tibet in 1959, they used the same scriptural evidence to justify their armed resistance.
The Chinese government’s political use of Buddhism is by no means at an end, most especially in relation to Tibet. As recently as May 1996, the Chinese government donated a large memorial plaque to a Tibetan temple that read Protect the State; Benefit the People.⁴⁶ In doing this, the state (albeit communist) sought to portray itself once again as a patron of Buddhism, but on the same condition as always, that is to say, that Buddhism agree to protect the state. In this instance there was an added Tibetan twist to the state’s munificence, for clearly Tibetan Buddhists were also expected to protect the unity of the state from those alleged splittists (like the Dalai Lama and his supporters) who continued to seek some form of Tibetan autonomy.
In Taiwan, on the other hand, the Nationalist Chinese government has supported Buddhism far more strongly, receiving in return Buddhist leaders’ endorsement of that government’s longstanding dream to militarily re-take the mainland. In light of this, it is not surprising to learn that Taiwanese monks share the same attitude toward Buddhist-endorsed violence as their mainland brethren. One such monk, a disciple of the modern Buddhist reformer T’ai-hsü (1890–1947), said,
According to the Mahayana it is guiltless to kill from compassion. If I kill you, the objective is not to kill you, but to save you, because if I do not kill you, you will kill a great many other people, thus causing great suffering and incurring great guilt. By killing you, I prevent you from doing this, so that I can save both you and them. To kill people from compassion in such a way is not wrongdoing.⁴⁷
There was, of course, one difference between the refugee monks on Taiwan and in Hong Kong and those on the mainland: the former wished Buddhist-condoned violence to be used against the Communists, instead of on their behalf. As always, the one constant is that the Law of the Sovereign, or in other words, the state and its rulers, is supreme!
BUDDHISM IN JAPANESE SOCIETY
Prince Shiōtoku and the Introduction of Buddhism to Japan
In his History of Japanese Religion, Anesaki Masaharu noted that the Buddha Dharma was closely identified with the state and its interests from its first introduction into Japan from Korea in the sixth century. He wrote, A close alliance was established between the throne and the [Buddhist] religion, since the consolidation of the nation under the sovereignty of the ruler was greatly supported by the fidelity of the imported religion to the government.⁴⁸
This development was far from being uniquely Japanese. On the contrary, it was only a replication of the relationship between Buddhism and the state that already existed on the Korean peninsula. As S. Keel pointed out,
Buddhism [in Korea] was available as the politico-religious ideology which would serve the cause of building a powerful centralized state with a sacred royal authority.... [It] was understood primarily as the state-protecting religion, hoguk pulgyo [J. gokoku Bukkyō] not as the supra-mundane truth of salvation for individuals.⁴⁹
The subservience of Buddhism to the state in Japan was nothing more than a copy of its Korean counterpart that, in turn, differed little from its Chinese antecedent. In fact, when Emperor Wen had hundreds of stupas built throughout China at the start of the seventh century, envoys from the three Korean kingdoms of Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla requested, and received, relics to take back to their own countries. Prince Shōtoku was also greatly impressed by this display of imperial support for Buddhism.⁵⁰
In Japan, the Sangha’s subservience to the state is made clear in the so-called Seventeen Article Constitution of 604, traditionally ascribed to Prince Shōtoku. In article 2 of the constitution, Shōtoku called on his subjects to faithfully respect the ‘Three Treasures,’ Le., the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. However, in article 3, he wrote:
Respect the Imperial commands. The ruler is analogous to heaven, the subjects to the earth. The heaven covers the earth, and the earth supports heaven; if the four seasons pass smoothly, everything functions well. But if the earth tries to dominate heaven, it crumbles into powder. For this reason heaven commands and the earth receives, and for the same reason the ruler commands and the subjects obey. Therefore, every subject should respect the Imperial commands, if not there will be confusion [italics mine].⁵¹
Although a number of distinctly separate Buddhist sects would later develop in Japan, the one thing they always agreed on was that the ruler commands and subjects obey. It may be argued that given the fragile nature of Shōtoku’s only recently unified central government, his emphasis on the supremacy of the ruler was necessary. Thus, it may also be argued that Buddhism made a positive contribution to the subsequent development of Japanese civilization by providing the newly formed state with a highly moral unifying ideology that transcended the clan divisions (and clan deities) of Shōtoku’s day. What cannot be disputed, however, is that this emphasis on the supremacy of the ruler also set the stage for the historical subservience of Buddhism to the Japanese state.
The Japanese ruler who made the most blatant political use of the Buddha Dharma was probably Emperor Shōmu, whose reign lasted from 724 to 748. He focused on the teachings of the Avatamsaka Sutra, particularly its doctrine of a central celestial, or cosmic, Buddha (i.e., Mahavairocana) surrounded by an infinite number of Bodhisattvas. Mahavairocana’s mind was believed to pervade all of reality and to be present in all things, the latter being ranked in harmonious interdependence.
With this imagery in mind, Emperor Shōmu built the giant central cathedral of Tōdaiji in Nara and enshrined there a sixteen-meter-high statue of Mahavairocana (J. Dainichi). As Anesaki described it,
this cathedral was to be a symbolic display of the Buddhist ideal of universal spiritual communion centered in the person of the Buddha, parallel to the political unity of national life centered in the monarch.⁵² Devotion and loyalty to this Buddha became synonymous with the same virtues directed toward the person of the emperor and the state that he embodied. The use of Mahavairocana had the added benefit that as a celestial or Sun Buddha, the Mahavairocana also provided a symbolic link to the indigenous Shinto Sun goddess, Amaterasu Ōmikami, the mythical progenitor of the imperial house.
The State and Zen Masters Eisai and Dōgen
In order to discuss the relationship of Eisai (1141–1215) and Dōgen (1200–1253) to the state, it is necessary to start with a brief description of the political situation at the beginning of the Kamakura period (1185–1333). This can be summarized in one word, turbulent. On the one hand, there was a power struggle between the traditional nobility, including the emperor, and an increasingly more powerful warrior class. Due to the nobility’s own decadence, this struggle was one it was bound to lose, though the emperor would be retained as an important national symbol, albeit with increasingly limited powers.
The nobility’s decadence was matched by that of the competing monastic institutions, which by then had accumulated large, tax-free estates defended by monk-soldiers (sōhei). Holmes Welch alluded to this situation when he noted, In China fighting monks were rare; in Japan they became a national institution.⁵³ One caveat to this, however, is that many, if not most, of these monk-soldiers were in the nature of a hired mercenary force doing the bidding of their clerical masters, many of whom were court nobles themselves.
In any event, it was not unusual for major Buddhist monasteries to use their standing armies not only in power struggles with rival Buddhist institutions, but to press their demands on the government itself. The government, that is, the nobility, had no choice but to turn to the warrior class for protection, thus hastening the demise of its own political power. What power the reigning emperor had left was often exercised by a former emperor who had ostensibly retired to become a Buddhist monk but who continued to exercise power from behind monastic walls.
With the establishment of the Kamakura Shogunate (military government) in 1192, real political power came to be exercised by the leaders of the warrior class. Though there would be many internal upheavals, betrayals, and battles along the way, it was this class that continued to hold power through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. And it was to this class that the straightforward, vigorous, and austere doctrines and practice of Zen appealed. In addition, Zen had the advantage of being a direct import from China, thereby offering the new government an opportunity to escape the embrace of the large, nobility-dominated monastic institutions in the Kyoto area.
The Rinzai Zen sect introduced by Eisai would find greater acceptance in the new and former political power centers of Kamakura and Kyoto respectively. In fact, thanks to its powerful benefactors in these two centers, the Rinzai Zen sect would itself become a major landholder by the Muromachi period (1333–1573). Dōgen’s Sōtō Zen, on the other hand, found its major benefactors among provincial warrior lords. It was for this reason that the popular designations Rinzai Shōgun (Rinzai of the Shōgun) and Sōtō Domin (Sōto of the Peasants) came to characterize the difference in social status of the two Zen sects.
With this background in mind, we can now examine Eisai’s and Dōgen’s attitudes to the state. In his famous treatise Kōzen Gokoku-ron (A Treatise on Protecting the Nation by Spreading Zen), Eisai argued that it was through the universal adoption of Zen teachings that the nation could be protected.
In identifying Zen with the state, Eisai had an immediate concern in mind, that is, the need to seek state assistance in overcoming the strong opposition of other monastic institutions—especially the Tendai sect headquartered on Mount Hiei—to the introduction of new and competing sects into Japan.
Eisai’s appeal did eventually succeed, with the result that the Kamakura Shogunate had the temple of Jufukuji built for him in Kamakura in 1200, and two years later the emperor had the temple of Kenninji built for him in Kyoto. However, this victory was tempered by the fact that the emperor also ordered him to erect shrines within Kenninji honoring both the Tendai and esoteric Shingon sects. In this connection, it is noteworthy that toward the end of his life, Eisai focused more and more on the conduct of esoteric rituals associated with the Tendai sect embodying, as they did, the promise of immediate, this-worldly benefits for his benefactors.
In the following years, the Rinzai Zen sect’s connection to, and patronage by, the state would grow only stronger. To give but one example, the famous Rinzai master Musō Soseki (1275–1351) successfully sought Shogunal patronage to have one Ankokuji (Temple to Pacify the State) built in each of Japan’s sixty-six regions and two islands. Musō himself was rewarded for his efforts by having the unique title of State Teacher (Kokushi) bestowed on him by no less than seven successive emperors.
On the Sōtō Zen side, Dōgen designated the first temple he established in Japan upon his return from China as Kōshō-gokokuji (Temple to Protect the State by Propagating the Holy Practice). Dōgen also wrote a treatise titled Gokoku-shōbōgi (The Method of Protecting the State by the True Dharma). Although the contents of this latter treatise are no longer extant, its title, and Dōgen’s other writings on the same topic, suggests a similar position to that of Eisai (and probably for the same reason). For example, in the Bendōwa section of his masterwork, the Shōbōgenzō (Treasury of the Essence of the True Dharma), Dōgen wrote, When the true Way is widely practiced in the nation, the various Buddhas and heavenly deities will continuously protect it, and the virtue of the emperor will exert a good influence on the people, thereby bringing peace.⁵⁴
Dōgen, unlike Eisai, did not conduct esoteric rituals seeking worldly benefits, but this did not stop those who followed in his footsteps from introducing a similar element into Sōtō Zen. Even Zen practice, especially the practice of zazen, came to take on supposedly magical powers. As William Bodiford noted:
For powerful warrior patrons who prayed for military victories [italics mine] and economic prosperity, the purity of [Sōtō] monks ensured the efficacy of simple religious prayers (kitō). For local villagers who expected the Zen masters to pacify evil spirits, summon rain, or empower talismans, the meditative powers (zenjōriki) of the monks energized simple folk magic.⁵⁵
The chief abbots of Sōtō Zen head temples also quickly acceded to the custom of receiving the title of Zen master (Zenji) from the emperor, though it must be admitted that Dōgen had himself accepted the gift of a purple robe from retired Emperor Gosaga (1220–72). Dōgen did, however, refuse to accept it the first two times it was offered, and tradition states that he never wore the robe even after finally accepting it. The following poem, attributed to Dōgen, is thought to express his sentiments in this regard:
Though the valley below Eiheiji is not deep,
I am profoundly honored to receive the emperor’s command.
But I would be laughed at by monkeys and cranes
If I, a mere old man, were to wear this purple robe.⁵⁶
During the Kamakura period, the same hierarchically ranked system of Five Mountains and Ten
Temples (J. Gozan Jissetsu) was introduced into the Japanese Rinzai Zen sect as the system had been first established in China. By the Muromachi period there would be two such systems, one in Kyoto (which was superior in rank) and the second in Kamakura. As in China, however, the government expected something in return for its patronage. For example, Zen monks, with their knowledge of Chinese, were sent on diplomatic and commercial missions to China. They were also used to suppress unruly elements among the populace. In short, as Dumoulin noted, "The organization of the gozan temples of the Rinzai sect made immeasurable contributions to the political, social, and economic power of the state apparatus."⁵⁷
Development of Samurai Zen
The reader will recall earlier discussions by D. T. Suzuki and others of how Shōgun Hōjō Tokimune (1251–84) sought strength from Zen to deal with the threat of a second Mongol invasion. Tokimune went for guidance to his spiritual mentor, Chinese Zen Master Sogen (Ch. Tsu-yüan, 1226–86), shortly before the expected invasion in 1281.
When Tokimune said, The greatest event of my life is here at last, the master asked, How will you face it? Tokimune replied by merely shouting the exclamatory word Katsu! as though he were frightening all of his enemies into submission. Pleased with this show of courage, Sogen indicated his approval of Tokimune’s answer by saying, Truly, a lion’s child roars like a lion.
A similar though somewhat lesser-known incident is recorded as having occurred at the time of the first Mongol invasion in 1274. This one involved a second Chinese Zen master by the name of Daikyū Shōnen (Ch. Ta-hsui Cheng-nien, 1214–89). At the time, Daikyū directed Tokimune to solve the koan concerning Chao-chou (J. Jōshū, 778–897) on whether or not a dog has the Buddha nature. Chao-chou’s famous answer was Mu (literally, nil or naught). Tokimune is said to have solved this koan, thereby releasing his mind to deal calmly with the grave issues of war and peace.⁵⁸
Collectively, these two incidents appear to be the earliest indications of the unity of Zen and the sword in Japan, though it is noteworthy that neither of them involved Japanese Zen masters. That is to say, it was Chinese Zen masters who introduced the idea of the efficacy of Zen training in warfare, or at least in developing the right mental attitude for it. Both Daikyū and Sogen, themselves refugees from the Mongol conquest of China, were acting on the basis of a long Chinese tradition of Buddhist service to the state and the needs of its rulers.
Unlike China with its long history of government by civil administrators—that is, Mandarins—Japan, from the Kamakura period onward, was ruled by a warrior class composed of a Shōgun (generalissimo) at the top, lesser feudallords (daimyō), and the samurai armies they commanded. These early warriors, however, were a far cry from the Bushido-inspired ideal of the Tokugawa period. Instead, as Hee-jin Kim noted, they were greedy, predatory, ruthlessly calculating, a strict business dealing with little or no sense of absolute loyalty and sacrifice.⁵⁹ If Japan were ever to become and remain a unified nation at peace (albeit under warrior control), a code like Bushido had to arise and be relentlessly drilled into the heads of otherwise self-seeking warriors!
And who better to do the drilling into than Confucian-influenced Zen monks with their ethical system that emphasized unquestioning, self-less loyalty to one’s superiors? A letter written by the famous Zen master Takuan (1573–1645) clearly reveals what Zen had to offer the samurai. The letter shows how the mind that has transcended discriminating thought, technically known in Zen as no-mind (mushin), can be identified with martial prowess, particularly in the use of the sword. Addressing the famous swordsman Yagyū Tajima no Kami Munenori (1571–1646), Takuan wrote:
No-mind applies to all activities we may perform, such as dancing, as it does to swordplay. The dancer takes up the fan and begins to stamp his feet. If he has any idea at all of displaying his art well, he ceases to be a good dancer, for his mind stops with every movement he goes through. In all things, it is important to forget your mind and become one with the work at hand.
When we tie a cat, being afraid of its catching a bird, it keeps on struggling for freedom. But train the cat so that it would not mind the presence of a bird. The animal is now free and can go anywhere it likes. In a similar way, when the mind is tied up, it feels inhibited in every move it makes, and nothing will be accomplished with any sense of spontaneity. Not only that, the work itself will be of a poor quality, or it may not be finished at all. Therefore, do not get your mind stopped with the sword you raise; forget what you are doing, and strike the enemy [italics mine].⁶⁰
Takuan also placed stress on the warrior’s acquisition of immovable wisdom (J. fudōchi). He viewed this not as a static concept or the absence of movement but, on the contrary, as the immovable ground in which existed the potential for movement in all directions. For this reason, it was as applicable to the swordfighter’s art as it was to the life of the Zen priest. When the mind freely moves forwards and backwards, to the left and to the right, in the four and eight directions, if it clings to nothing, this is ‘immovable wisdom.’⁶¹
In Fudō Myō-ō (Skt. Acala-vidya-raja), the fierce-looking Hindu god introduced into Zen via esoteric Buddhism, Takuan saw the incarnation of his ideal of immovable wisdom. He described this figure as follows:
Fudō Myō-ō holds a sword in his right hand and a rope in his left. His lips are rolled back revealing his teeth, and his eyes are full of anger. He thrusts violently at all evil demons who interfere with the Buddha Dharma, forcing them to surrender. He is universally present as a figure who protects the Buddha Dharma. He reveals himself to people as the embodiment of immovable wisdom.⁶²
Although in Buddhism, Fudō’s sword was originally a symbol of cutting through one’s own desire and illusion, Takuan succeeded in transmuting this figure into a slayer of evil demons who interfere with the Buddha Dharma, as well as into the embodiment of the swordsman’s ideal of immovable wisdom. In a short work titled Taia-ki (History of the Sword), Takuan also discussed the dual nature of the sword. He emphasized the total freedom of the Zen-trained swordsman to give life or to kill.⁶³ Takuan further advocated the absolute necessity for the warrior to sacrifice his self in the process of acquiring this freedom.
In light of the above, it is hardly surprising that Takuan also had something to say about the ever-present, overriding virtue of loyalty. To the Mysteries of Immovable Wisdom (Fudōchi Shinmyō-roku) quoted above, Takuan added:
To be totally loyal means first of all to rectify your mind, discipline your body, and be without the least duplicity toward your lord. You must not hate or criticize others, nor fail to perform your daily duties.... If the spirit in which the military arts are practiced is correct, you will enjoy freedom of movement, and though thousands of the enemy appear, you will be able to force them to submit with only one sword. This is [the meaning of] great loyalty.⁶⁴
As one of the greatest Zen masters of the Tokugawa period, Takuan’s thought, including his emphasis on complete and selfless devotion to one’s lord, would have a deep and lasting effect on his and later times.
Takuan was by no means the only Tokugawa Zen figure to interpret Zen in this manner. The same emphasis can also be seen in the teachings of Zen monk Suzuki Shōsan (1579–1655). Shōsan, born into a samurai family in the old province of Mikawa (present-day Aichi prefecture), originally fought on behalf of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616), founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, at the major battle of Sekigahara in 1600, and at the sieges of Osaka Castle in 1614 and 1615. In 1621, after a period of guard duty at Osaka Castle, Shōsan determined to enter the Zen priesthood and is thought to have been ordained by Rinzai master Daigu (1583–1668). His Rinzai ordination notwithstanding, Shōsan went on to beco me a vigorous champion of the Sōtō sect, though he was never formally affiliated with it.⁶⁵
Like Takuan, Shōsan taught that selflessness was the critical element of both true service and true freedom. It was only in overcoming the fear of death that true selflessness could be realized. In addressing samurai, Shōsan urged them to practice tokinokoe zazen, that is, zazen in the midst of war cries. As the following quotation reveals, Shōsan maintained that meditation that could not be applied to the battlefield was useless:
It’s best to practice zazen from the start amid hustle and bustle. A warrior, in particular, absolutely must practice a zazen that works amid war cries. Gunfire crackles, spears clash down the line, a roar goes up and the fray is on: and that’s where, firmly disposed, he puts meditation into action. At a time like that, what use could he have for a zazen that prefers quiet? However fond of Buddhism a warrior may be, he’d better throw it out if it doesn’t work amid war cries.⁶⁶
In terms of the subsequent development of soldier-Zen previously introduced in this book, it is also significant that Shōsan clearly articulated the unity of samadhi power and the military arts. Shōsan stated,
It’s with the energy of Zen samadhi that all the arts are executed. The military arts in particular can’t be executed with a slack mind. . . . This energy of Zen samadhi is everything. The man of arms, however, is in Zen samadhi while he applies his skill.⁶⁷
As the phrase all the arts suggests, Shōsan’s admonitions were not reserved for warriors alone. In fact, Shōsan insisted that the truth of Buddhism was to be found in any form of work or activity whatsoever. As the following passage makes clear, he believed that work itself could be equated with religious practice:
You must work in extremes of heat and cold—work with all your heart and soul. When you toil, your heart is at peace. In this way you are always engaged in Buddhist practice.... Every kind of work is Buddhist practice. Through work we can attain Buddhahood. There is no occupation that is not Buddhist.⁶⁸
In his religious affirmation of the value of all forms of work, Shōsan has come to be viewed in modern Japan as one of the major contributors to the development of a Japanese work ethic. While this may be true, as a Zen monk Shōsan, like Takuan, also laid the foundations of not only soldier Zen but corporate Zen as well. And it must not be forgotten that in a classic work on Bushido titled Hagakure, Shōsan is quoted as having said, What is there in the world purer than renouncing one’s own life for the sake of one’s lord?⁶⁹
And speaking of the Hagakure, the reader will recall an earlier reference to this same work made by D. T. Suzuki. It was this work that was very much talked about in connection with the Japanese military operations in China in the 1930’s. The Zen monk Suzuki referred to as being involved in its creation was another former samurai by the name of Yamamoto Jōchō (1659–1719), a retainer of Kyushu
Lord Nabeshima Mitsushige (1632–1700). In light of Jōchō’s background, it is hardly surprising to find him extolling the unity of Zen and the sword. Further, Jōchō described the purpose of meditation as follows:
Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku [ritual suicide] at the death of one’s master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead.
There is a saying of the elders that goes, Step from under the eaves and you’re a dead man. Leave the gate and the enemy is waiting. This is not a matter of being careful. It is to consider oneself as dead beforehand.⁷⁰
And finally, Jōchō demonstrates that Takuan, quoted above, was by no means unique in identifying the nondiscriminating no-mind of Zen with Bushido. He does this by relating the following exchange between his nephew, Yamamoto Gorōzaemon, and yet another Buddhist priest, Tetsugyū:
When Yamamoto Gorōzaemon went to the priest Tetsugyū in Edo wanting to hear something about Buddhism, Tetsugyū said, Buddhism gets rid of the discriminating mind. It is nothing more than this. . . . When a man attaches discrimination to his true mind, he becomes a coward. In [Bushido] can a man be courageous when discrimination arises?⁷¹
By the middle of the Tokugawa period, Hakuin (1685–1768), one of Rinzai Zen’s greatest masters and reformers, had reached the conclusion that the warrior’s lifestyle was actually superior to that of a monk’s for practicing Zen. This was because of the physical strength the warrior brought to his practice as well as his need to adhere to proper decorum at all times. More important, however, it was due to the opportunity for meditation that was afforded the warrior while he was riding forth to face an uncountable horde of enemies. In a letter written to one of his warrior patrons, Hakuin continued this train of thought as follows:
Meditating in this way [i.e., while on horseback], the warrior can accomplish in one month what it takes the monk a year to do; in three days he can open up for himself benefits that would take the monk a hundred days.⁷²
As to the benefits accruing to the warrior-meditator, Hakuin agreed with Takuan, Suzuki Shōsan, Jōchō, and others that chief among them was fearlessness in the face of death. The death referred to, however, was not just any death, but rather death on the battlefield when though but a hundred men facing ten thousand,... they will press forward as though piercing through the hardest stone. This was all made possible, according to Hakuin, when the benevolence of the lord was united with the benevolence of the Buddha Dharma. In this case, who would regret giving his life for his lord?⁷³
Fossilization of Buddhism and Zen
This book began with a brief description of the decline, or fossilization, of Buddhism that took place during the Tokugawa period (1603–1868). As can now be seen, it would be more accurate to describe Buddhism’s emergence as a de facto state religion in Tokugawa Japan as but one further stage of its decline. It should thus come as no surprise to learn that the Tokugawa Shogunate turned to a
Zen priest, that is, Rinzai Zen priest Ishin Sūden (1569–1633), chief abbot of Nanzenji in Kyoto, to register and supervise all Buddhist temples and clergy, regardless of sect. One aspect of this task was the formulation of a decree proscribing Christianity. Additionally, from 1612 onward, Sūden served as a shogunal diviner, determining auspicious days on which his warrior patrons could perform certain acts with confidence. Sūden was duly rewarded for his many services with the purple robe of honor and the title National Teacher (Honkō Kokushi).
As illustrated by Sūden’s own career, institutional Buddhism’s subjection to strict state control did bring with it both prestige and financial rewards. But it also brought with it a clear set of obligations. On the one hand, Buddhist priests effectively became government functionaries, acting as the police arm of the state by enforcing the government’s absolute prohibition of Christianity as well as by suppressing those Buddhist sects that the government found unacceptable. More controversially, they aided in the maintenance and reinforcement of the traditional social discrimination that existed in Japanese society against so-called outcastes (burakumin). Although its members were physically indistinguishable from other Japanese, this pariah group had long been forced to live in separate villages and engage in what were considered lowly, if not unclean, trades such as animal butchery, leather working, and refuse collection.
In a study done in 1989, Tomonaga Kenzō found that the Sōtō Zen sect had been one of the leading sects promoting social discrimination not only during the Tokugawa period but right up through the 1980s. Popular Sōtō sermons commonly included references to the Ten Fates Preached by the Buddha (Bussetsu Jūrai). These fates included:
Short life-spans resulting from butchering animals.
Ugliness and sickness resulting from ritual impurities.
Poverty and desperation resulting from miserly thoughts.
Being crippled and blind as coming from violating the Buddhist precepts [italics mine].⁷⁴
Further doctrinal support for social discrimination came from the highly esteemed Mahayana work, the Lotus Sutra. Specifically, in chapter 28 we are informed that anyone slandering this scripture or those who uphold it will be stricken with blindness, leprosy, missing teeth, ugly lips, flat noses, crooked limbs, tuberculosis, evil tumors, stinking and dirty bodies, and more "for life after life [italics mine]."⁷⁵ Not only Sōtō Zen, but all of Tokugawa Buddhism engaged in the classic ruse of blaming the victims for their misfortunes. Thus, not only outcastes, but the sick and disabled as well were afflicted in their present lives as karmic retribution for the evil acts of their past lives. That is to say, they had it coming!
And this discrimination did not stop with their death, for Tomonaga discovered that 5,649 Sōtō temples (out of nearly 15,000) as late as 1983 maintained records indicating which families were or were not descended from outcastes, and that 1,911 temples identified such families on their tombstones. Such post-death discrimination has very real consequences for the descendants of outcastes who seek employment or hope to marry the son or daughter of a good family. In these situations, at least until recently, many temples would cooperate with private investigators who were regularly hired to check into a person’s personal background.
Having read this, the reader may recall Uchiyama Gudō’s struggle in the Meiji period against an interpretation of karma that provided a religious justification for both social discrimination and social privilege. The failure of his struggle then meant it would not be until 1974 that the Sōtō sect would express a willingness to consider its role in sustaining this type of discrimination. Significantly, the sect’s willingness to examine this issue did not come from within but from without, that is to say, from
demands made by social activists associated with the Outcaste Liberation League (Buraku Kaihō Dōmei). This led, in 1982, to the establishment of a Human Rights Division within the sect’s administrative headquarters, some 110 years after the Meiji government had, at least on paper, emancipated the outcastes in an edict issued in 1872.
Although at first glance this issue may not seem to be directly relevant to the question of (Zen) Buddhism and war, it is, in fact, quite relevant. If a society succeeds in identifying a sizable segment of its own people as being inferior to other citizens, justifying this on moral and religious grounds, then it is not difficult to identify other religions, ethnic groups, nations, and others as being even more inferior. In this book we have seen how this happened to Christians, Russians, Koreans, Chinese, and eventually to American and English savages. In the same connection, it should be noted that as early as 1611, Sōtō Zen documents referred to outcastes as hinin, that is to say, nonhumans.⁷⁶
Needless to say, discrimination in its various guises is hardly limited to either Japan or Buddhism. Indeed, it can be found to a greater or lesser degree, at one time or another, in all cultures and major world religions. But this does not lessen the tragedy that in this instance it was found among the adherents of a religion whose founder, Buddha Shakyamuni, so clearly advocated the equality of all human beings irrespective of their birth, lineage, occupation, and so forth. For Shakyamuni, there was only one acceptable standard for judging others: their words and actions.
It is also noteworthy that it was as a direct consequence of establishing the Sōtō sect’s Division of Human Rights that the Sōtō headquarters issued its official war apology and, in 1993, reinstated Uchiyama Gudo’s clerical status. Both of these issues were seen as further examples of this sect’s abuse of human rights.
For more than two hundred and fifty years, Zen, and Japanese Buddhism in general, remained locked in the warm but debilitating embrace of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Interestingly, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616) was brought up in a Jōdo (Pure Land) sect–affiliated family. Ieyasu himself regularly recited the name of Buddha Amida (i.e., Nembutsu) though his was a warrior-oriented faith as evidenced by the five-foot statue of Buddha Amida he had constructed with its own specially designed carrying case. This made it possible for him to transport the statue directly to his many battlefields, where he prayed for victory in accordance with the advice he received in 1560 from the abbot of Daijuji temple, located in present-day Aichi prefecture. The abbot had said,
Who can resist you, if you have the spirit of Amida with you? If a man is afraid of losing anything, he will certainly lose it, but if he is willing to give it up, he will gain it. So be willing to give up your life for the sake of your followers.⁷⁷
This did not mean, however, that Ieyasu was either indifferent or opposed to Zen. On the contrary, his personal secretary was a Rinzai Zen monk by the name of Denchōrō, head of Nanzenji in Kyoto, which was and remains one of the Rinzai sect’s greatest monastic complexes. Denchōrō’s secretarial services included not only accompanying his master to the battlefield but, occasionally, going into battle himself. On one occasion, following the battle of Mikata-ga-hara, he presented Ieyasu with the severed heads of three enemies. As a reward, Ieyasu granted his secretary the right to use three black stars as the armorial bearings for Konchiji, a second temple headed by Denchōrō. Eventually, this Zen monk would be appointed superintendent of all religious institutions in Japan, both Buddhist and Shinto alike.
Despite his deep religious faith in Buddhism, however, Ieyasu was not prepared to brook resistance from any quarter to his authoritarian rule. Thus, he and his successors devised an elaborate
system of controls that materially enriched the Buddhist clergy just as it sapped their religious vigor. In effect, the Buddhist clergy became petty government bureaucrats, dedicated to ensuring the continuation of the Tokugawa military dictatorship as well as the total eradication of Christianity. Thus, well before the end of this period in 1868, the transformation process that resulted in Buddhism’s fossilization was complete. Commenting on this development, Hayashi Makoto of Aichi Gakuin University noted:
The universalistic doctrines and moral discipline originally advocated by a world religion [like Buddhism] completely disappeared, and instead emphasis was placed on the rituals and religious ideas necessary for the stability and prosperity of particular social groups such as the nation, feudal domain (han), village, and household.⁷⁸
It can be argued that, despite the sometimes brave, though largely futile, efforts of subsequent Buddhist reformers, institutional Japanese Buddhism remains even today in a state of suspended fossilization. That is to say, it remains focused almost exclusively on the conduct of rites believed to benefit the dead, not the living. Generally unable and unwilling to critically evaluate Japanese Buddhism’s past subservience to the state and its rulers, institutional Buddhist leaders end up paying no more than lip service to the universalistic doctrines and moral discipline that are so fundamental to their faith. In alleging this, I would happily be proven wrong.
DOCTRINAL SUPPORT FOR VIOLENCE AND WARFARE AS SEEN IN THE SUTRAS
Once Buddhism accepted the responsibility of protecting the state, the question naturally arose as to how this was to be accomplished. Accompanying the emergence of Mahayana Buddhism in India came the belief that merit could not only be generated by pious acts but that, once generated, it could be transferred to others for their benefit. Thus the idea of utilizing the merit generated by sutra recitation became one method of protecting the state. Inevitably, however, the state had to resort to violence to defend itself, even when this defense involved invading and conquering other people’s lands. How did Buddhism respond to state-condoned violence? Did Buddhism really offer doctrinal justification for war?
The answer to the latter question, especially in the Mahayana tradition found throughout East Asia, is yes. Historically, this justification is found primarily in the doctrine of upaya or skillful means. That is to say, it is permissible to effect certain changes in the teaching of the Dharma in the short term in order that the listener may gradually come to understand its true and deeper meaning in the long term, ultimately leading to salvation.
It is within the Mahayana Buddhist ideal of a bodhisattva that we meet the quintessential practitioner of skillful means. A bodhisattva, of course, is one who, instead of realizing Nirvana, vows to save all human beings and works compassionately on their behalf. In order to accomplish this compassionate mission, however, some Mahayana sutras teach that a bodhisattva may go as far as to break the traditional Buddhist precepts, even those forbidding the taking of human life.
The Upaya-kaushalya Sutra, for example, relates a story about Buddha Shakyamuni in a previous life when he was still a bodhisattva. While on board a ship, Shakyamuni discovers that there is a robber intent on killing all five hundred of his fellow passengers. Shakyamuni ultimately decides to kill the robber, not only for the sake of his fellow passengers but also to save the robber himself from the karmic consequences of his horrendous act. In Shakyamuni’s so doing, the negative karma from killing the robber should have accrued to Shakyamuni but it did not, for as he explained:
Good man, because I used ingenuity out of great compassion at that time, I was able to avoid the suffering of one hundred thousand kalpas of samsara [the ordinary world of form and desire I and that wicked man was reborn in heaven, a good plane of existence, after death [italics mine].⁷⁹
Here we see one justification for the idea so often quoted by wartime Japanese Buddhist leaders that it is morally right to kill one in order that many may live (J. issatsu tashō).
The Upaya-kaushalya is by no means the only Mahayana sutra that has been historically interpreted as in some sense excusing, if not actually sanctioning, violence. The Jen-wang-ching (Sutra on Benevolent Kings) also states that one can escape the karmic consequences arising from such acts as killing others by simply reciting the sutra.
It is noteworthy that this latter sutra is also closely connected with the protection of the state. Section 5 of the sutra is, in fact, titled exactly that: Section on the Protection of the State. This section claims to give Buddha Shakyamuni’s detailed instructions to kings in order that they might ensure the protection of their kingdoms from both internal and external enemies. Armies, if needed, could be assembled and used with the assurance that the soldiers involved in the killing could later be totally absolved of the karmic consequences of their acts.
Although the above sutras provided a somewhat passive justification for Buddhist participation in warfare, this is not the case with the Sanskrit Mahaparinirvana Sutra, previously mentioned. In this sutra, Buddha Shakyamuni tells how he killed several Brahmins in a previous life in order to prevent them from slandering the Dharma. Once again, this is said to have been done out of compassion for the slain Brahmins, that is, to save them from the karmic consequences of their slander.
In a more aggressive vein, chapter 5 of the same sutra admonishes Mahāyāna followers to protect the Dharma at all costs, even if this means using weapons to do so and breaking the prohibition against taking life. This injunction is similar to that found in the Gandavyuha Sutra. Here, an Indian king by the name of Anala is singled out for praise because he is said to have made killing into adivine service in order to reform people through punishment.⁸⁰
In his seminal article Le Bouddhisme et la guerre (Buddhism and War), Demiéville identified even further scriptural basis for Buddhist participation in killing and warfare. Demiéville also pointed out the paradox that exists in this regard between the Southern Hinayana (i.e., Theravada) and Northern Mahayana schools: the Hinayana, which tends to condemn life, has remained strict in the prohibition of killing; but it is the Mahayana, which extols life, that has ended up by finding excuses for killing and even for its glorification.⁸¹
CONCLUSION
State-Protecting Buddhism
As we have already seen, Buddha Shakyamuni himself praised a republic as the ideal form of the state. Further, Indian Buddhism prior to Ashoka was also clearly suspicious of monarchs, placing them in the same category as robbers, for both were capable of endangering the people’s welfare. In this regard, Uchiyama Gudō’s identification of Japan’s imperial ancestors as people who kill[ed] and rob[bed] as they went harkens back to Buddhism’s earliest attitudes.
According to early Buddhist legends, a ruler was to be selected by election, not by birth or divine right. Such an election represented a social contract between the ruler and his subjects in which the former was responsible for protecting the country and seeing to it that good was rewarded and evil punished. The underlying attitude expressed in these legends is consistent with Buddha Shakyamuni’s own praise of the Vajjian state, for it provided its inhabitants with a voice in their governance.
It is noteworthy that in spite of various Mahayana sutras to the contrary, Japan’s leaders were both well aware of, and adamantly opposed to, this earliest Buddhist attitude toward the state. The Shinto-influenced writer, Kitabatake Chikafusa (1293–1354) wrote:
The Buddhist theory [of the state] is merely an Indian theory; Indian monarchs may have been the descendants of a monarch selected for the people’s welfare, but Our Imperial Family is the only continuous and unending line of family descending from its Heavenly Ancestors.⁸²
Further, with regard to the Japanese nation, Kitabatake had this is say:
Our Great Nippon is a Divine Nation. Our Divine Ancestors founded it; the Sun Goddess let her descendents reign over it for a long time. This is unique to Our Nation; no other nation has the like of it. This is the reason why Our Nation is called Divine Nation!⁸³
As this book has demonstrated, it was this Shinto-inspired attitude that was to find almost universal acceptance among Japanese Buddhists, especially among Zen masters. This said, it must also be recognized that the foundation for Buddhism’s subservience to the state dates back to at least the time of King Ashoka in India, not to mention its even greater subservience in China and Korea. Unlike D. T. Suzuki’s claim that Shinto alone was to blame for Japan’s excessive nationalism in the modern era, the truth is that Shinto was no more than the proximate cause of a tendency in Buddhism that, by 1945, had been developing for more than two thousand years.
If historical developments in a religion may be judged according to their consistency with the avowed teachings of the founder of that religion, in this case, Buddha Shakyamuni, then the best scholarship to date strongly suggests that Buddhist subservience to the state is an accretion to the Buddha Dharma that not only does not belong to that body, but actively betrays it.
This is said knowing full well that had Buddhism remained faithful to its earliest teachings, it is quite possible that it would not have survived, let alone prospered, in those countries that adopted it. Its subsequent almost total disappearance from the land of its birth is but one indication of the dangers it faced. Yet, admitting this does not change one central fact: the historical phenomenon known as Nation-Protecting Buddhism (Gokoku-Bukkyō) represents the betrayal of the Buddha Dharma.
Samurai Zen
If Nation-Protecting Buddhism is a betrayal of the Buddha Dharma, it should come as no surprise that Samurai Zen is a particularly pernicious variation of the same aberration. What is perhaps surprising, however, is that confirmation of this assertion is contained in the Zen-inspired work already quoted extensively above, the Hagakure.
Returning to this work one last time, we find Jōchō quoting a Zen master about whom D. T. Suzuki had nothing to say. This was the Zen priest Tannen (d. 1680), under whom Jōchō himself had trained. What is so surprising about this priest is that Jōchō quoted him as saying, It is a great mistake for a young samurai to learn about Buddhism. Tannen then went on to say, It is fine for old retired men to learn about Buddhism as a diversion.⁸⁴
What was it about Buddhism that made it a fit religion for old samurai to study but not young ones? In a word, it was Buddhism’s teaching of compassion. Tannen explained that the feelings of compassion prompted by Buddhism could interfere with the most essential characteristic of a samurai, that is, his courage. According to Tannen, if a young samurai studied Buddhism, he [would] see things in two ways. That is to say, he would be torn between the courage needed to fulfill his duties toward his lord, and feelings of compassion for his victims. Hence, "A person who does not set
himself in just one direction will be of no value at all."⁸⁵
In Tannen’s eyes, a young samurai could ill afford to let compassion rule his conduct. Only an elderly samurai had that luxury. This is not to say, however, that a Buddhist priest had no need of courage as well as compassion. Still, a Buddhist priest’s courage should be devoted to things like kicking a man back from the dead, or pulling all living creatures out of hell. A Buddhist priest required courage to save dead or near-dead sentient beings. On the other hand, among warriors, there are some cowards who advance Buddhism.⁸⁶
In the end, Tannen attempted to resolve the conflict between courage and compassion by stating that priests and samurai had need of equal measures of both, though each of the parties should manifest them differently:
A monk cannot fulfill the Buddhist Way if he do es not manifest compassion without and persistently store up courage within. And if a warrior does not manifest courage on the outside and hold enough compassion within his heart to burst his chest, he cannot become a retainer. Therefore, the monk pursues courage with the warrior as his model, and the warrior pursues the compassion of the monk.⁸⁷
Leaving aside the appropriateness of the resolution of the conflict between courage and compassion for the moment, what is significant about the above is the recognition that there is any conflict at all between the teaching of Buddhist compassion and the courage expected of a samurai. In fact, the potential conflict between them is so severe that it is a great mistake for the young samurai to even learn about Buddhism, for to do so is to be turned into a coward.
As for the proposed all-embracing resolution of the conflict, it should be noted that the compassion of the warrior is to be held within his heart and not acted upon. This corresponds to a very strong dichotomy manifested in Japanese society between duty (giri) to one’s superiors and human feelings (ninjō) of kindness and compassion toward others. In classical Japanese drama there can be no question, in the end, which of these conflicting values will prevail. That is to say, nothing can be allowed to interfere with the accomplishment of one’s duty. Buddhism, therefore, may be studied safely only by retired old men.
As with Nation-Protecting Buddhism, it can be cogently argued that Buddhism would not have survived in a warrior-dominated society without compromising its ethical code as expressed in the Holy Eightfold Path, especially its prohibitions against the taking of life, pursuing a career as a soldier, or even selling weapons. Once again however, this does not alter the fact that all of these acts endorsed by Samurai Zen are a violation of the fundamental teachings of Buddhism.
In particular, advocates of the unity of Zen and the sword such as Takuan, Shōsan, and D. T. Suzuki have taken the very real power emanating from the concentrated state of mind arising out of Buddhist meditation, that is, samadhi power, and placed it in the service of men who can, in the final analysis, only be described as hired killers. Especially when viewed in light of the innumerable atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese military during the Asia-Pacific war, including the systematic, institutionalized killing and raping of civilians, D. T. Suzuki’s statements that the enemy appears and makes himself a victim, or that the swordsman turns into an artist of the first grade, engaged in producing a work of genuine originality, and so forth must be clearly and unequivocally recognized as desecrations of the Buddha Dharma. As we have amply seen, Suzuki was far from being the only one to say or write such things.
Experienced Zen practitioners know that the no-mind of Zen does in fact exist. Equally, they know that samadhi (i.e., meditative) power also exists. But they also know, or at least ought to know,
that these things, in their original Buddhist formulation, had absolutely nothing to do with bringing harm to others. On the contrary, authentic Buddhist awakening is characterized by a combination of wisdom and compassion—identifying oneself with others and seeking to eliminate suffering in all its forms. Thus, the question must be asked, even though it cannot be answered in this book—How is the Zen school to be restored and reconnected to its Buddhist roots? Until this question is satisfactorily answered and acted upon, Zen’s claim to be an authentic expression of the Buddha Dharma must remain in doubt.
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