Zen and Japanese Militarism - Terebess [PDF]

FORM IV

':Ifti:,' ]·riI', ,

'

'

.1"

',,"

. ....

. .

:

.:

.

"

.

'

.

.

.

',

.

.

•

.

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE BOARD

: " /' . . . .. ,. ,. " ', , .

.

� ',

.

,

,

'

-

Tille of DISsertatIOn.

ZEN AND JAPANESE MILITARISM:

A CRITICAL INQUIRY

INTO THE ROOTS OF "IMPERIAL WAY-ZEN"

Author

Brian Andre Victoria

Read and Approved by

01 December 1995

Date submitted to Graduate Board

Accepted by the Grclduatc Board 01 Temple

Date .

¢,¥l' .. .

IveNly III parlJal fulhllmcnl 01 the leqlllrClIlelll, 101 rhe

o c/�

degree of Doctor ol' Phtlo!>ophy.

//

..

.

.. ..... . . . .

(Dean ot' Graduatc School)

.

ZEN AND JAPAN ESE MI LITARISM: A CRITICAL I NQUI RY I NTO THE ROOTS OF " I MPERIAL WAY-Z E N "

A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

by Brian Andre Victoria May, 1996

©

CopYrig ht by Brian And r e Vi ctOria 1 99 6 A l l Rig hts Reserved

iii

ABSTRACT ZEN

T i t l e:

AND

JAPAN ESE

MILITARISM:

A

CRITICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ROOTS O F I M PE R IAL WAY- ZENII Ca ndidate's Name:

B r i a n A. V i c t o r i a

Degree:

Doctor of P h i l osophy Temple U n i v e rs i ty, 1 9 96

M ajo r Advi s o r:

Dr. Charles Fu

I n I m p e r i a l Japan of the 1 9 3 0s , a loosely o rganized movem e nt arose within the Sata and Rmz a l Zen sects which was known variously as "Im p e r i a l Way- Zen," " I m p e ri al St ate­ Zen, II o r " I m perial Military-Zen.

The thrust of this m ovement

was to place meditation power (J.

zenjO- rtk ll *¥�t.J), coupled

with t h e s p i rit of s e lf-disc ipline and self-sacrifice derived from Zen training, at the disposal of Japan's armed forces. "Im p e r i a l Way- Zenll was itself only a subset of a larger p a n-Buddh ist movement known as "Im p e r i al Way-Buddhism." T h i s latter m ovement was supported by all of the sects composing institutional Buddhism.

I t s doctrinal foundations rested on the iv

tWin pillars of total subservience to the state in the person of the E mperor and the Identification of war as an act of Buddhist compassion. T h i s dissertation examines both of these movements with particular emphasIs on " I m per i a l Way- Zen " and seeks to explain how It was possible that Buddhism, a religion with non-violence as one of Its fundamental precepts, could have been interpreted so as to support the war policies of I m p e r i a l Japan.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT

IV

PROLOGU E

viii

CHAPTER 1

METHODOLOGY

2

THE ATTEM PTED SUPPRESSION OF BUDDHISM

35

EARLY BUDDHIST SOCIAL FERMENT

60

3

4

5

6

7

1

UCHIY AMA GUDO - RADICAL SOTO ZEN PRIEST

113

I NSTITUTIONAL BUDDHISM'S REJECTION OF PROGRESSIVE SOCIAL ACTION

1 45

THE I NCORPORATION OF BUDDHISM INTO THE JAPANESE WAR MACHINE

1 60

BUDDHIST RESISTANCE TO JAPANESE M I LITARISM

1 81

vi

8

9

10

11

12

THE EM ERGENCE OF " IMPERIAL WAY-BUDDHISM"

207

THE EM ERGENCE OF " IMPERIAL STATE-ZEN "

243

THE POST-WAR JAPANESE RESPONSES TO " I M PERIAL WAY -BUDDHISM"

342

THE POST-WAR JAPANESE RESPONSES TO " I M PERIAL STATE-ZE N "

371

ISSUES AWAITING FURTHER RESEARCH

41 6

REFERENCES CITED

428

viI

PROLOGUE Chapters Two Throug h Fou r It is a central thesis of this dissertation that the h i sto rical roots of both " I mpe ri a l Way-Z e n "

and

" I mpenal Way-Buddhism " can be clearly traced back to at least Japan's M e ij i period and the reaction of i nstitutional Budd hism's leaders to both the S i no­ Japa nese and Russo-Japa nese wa rs .

The fi rst fou r

content chapters of this dissertation are designed to support and val idate this claim. Chapter Two, liThe Attempted Suppressio n of Buddhism , " beg i ns with a brief i ntroductio n to the general

state of Buddhism

Japan's

m o dern

period,

Restoration of 1 8 6 8 . t h at ,

i ro ni c a l ly,

as this rel igion entered start i n g with

the M e iji

It produces evidence to show

the semi- offic i a l viii

s u p p re s s i o n

of

Buddhism that accompanied the M e iJ i Restorat ion was responsi ble for the first overt institut ional Buddh ist support for the new govern ment and its expansionist and a nti-Christian policies.

That is to say, Buddh ist

leaders hoped that by identifying themselves with the nationalistic aspirations of the new government they wou ld not only escape conti nued persecution but benefit, once again , from official fav o r. After a number of false starts, their efforts did in fact gain them at least a modicum of such favor. The cost of this favo r, however,

was

i n c o rporat i o n

i nto a

g overn m e n t­

sanctioned, and State Shin to- do m i n ated,

re l i g i o u s

h i e ra rchy. Chapter Th ree, " Early Buddhist Social Ferment" outl ines the attempt by Buddhist leaders to come to grips with the Impl ications of Japan's emergence o n the world stage, especially Buddhist responses to the IX

religious and secular challenges of the West as well as the ongoing criticisms of domestic voices . one

hand,

O n the

Buddh ist lead ers " redisc overe d "

their

h i storical commitment t o soci al p h i l anthropy . Their efforts were, however, often of a type designed to W i n offic i a l favor by assuaging some of the worst soc i a l effec ts of J ap a n ' s rapid m dustri a l i zation , t h e reby lessen mg the danger of reb e l l i o n fro m the lower c lasses. Farsighted Buddhist leaders also responded to the need to adopt the " scientific attitude" of Western leClrning, even with regard to the study of Buddh ism itself. Here , too, however, the motivation was, at least in part, defensive in nature, for the Buddhist leadership recognized that without e mbrac ing Western learning they would be unab le to counter the intellectual threat

x

posed by now legal ized Christian missions with their attendant educational and philanth ropic activities. The need to counter perceived threats from abroad was most clearly demonstrated by the Buddh i st leaders h i p ' s near u n a ni mous support for the S i noJ apanese War and especially for the Ru sso-J a p a n ese War. The latter war In particu lar brought forth one of the first recorded attempts on the part of Zen sectanan leaders to employ both their doctri ne and practice in the wa r effort.

The seeds of " Imperial Way-Zen " a re

clearly shown to date back at least to this era. As Chapter Four, "Uch iya m a Gudo - Radical Soto Zen Priest" demonstrates, the preceding comments do not mean there was total unani mity with i n Buddhist (or Zen ) ran ks w ith regard to the leadership's progovernment and pro-war positions.

On the contrary,

the i nvolvement in the High Treason I ncident of 1 9 1 0 XI

of a number of Buddhist priests of various sects, chief of who m was Soto Zen priest Uch iya m a Gudo, reveal that a small but active nu mber of Buddh ists at the g rass- roots l evel we re opposed to their l eaders ' u n reserved support for the government's expansionist p o l i c i es . As

C h a pter

F ive ,

" I nstitut i o n a l

Bu d d h i s m ' s

Rejection of Progressive Social Action, " reveals, it was the perceived threat posed by these g rass-roots " antigovernment" and the

Bud d h i st

"unpatriotic" Buddhists that caused

l e a d e rs h i p

to become

eve n

m o re

enthusiastic and unconditional i n their support of the g overnment's pol icies.

Buddhist leade rs, it will be

shown, were determined that their rel igion would never again be subject to persecution for being "un-Ja p a n ese " o r e ither u nwilling o r unab l e to co ntribute to the development of I mperial Japan. xiI

Chapters Six Through Nine C h a pters Six t h ro u g h N i ne a re designed to demonstrate the second major pro positi on of this dissertation, i.e. that the " Imperial Way-Zen" movement was neither an i ndependent nor Isolated entity but, rather, was the Zen version, or subset, of a b roader p a n - B u d d h i st move m e nt known as " I m pe ri al W ayBuddhism . "

It does this, however, withi n the context

of continuing the chronological narrative that was begun in the fi rst fou r content c hapters. Chapter Six, "The I ncorporation of Buddhism i nto the J apanese War Machine ( 1 9 1 3 - 1 9 3 0 ) , " reveals the way i n which institutional Buddhism became ever more t i g ht ly i nterwoven with, a n d supportive of,

the

g overn ment's ongoing expansionist pol icies o n the Asian continent, especially in Korea and northern China. This c ha pter reveals the i ncreasing role pl ayed by xii i

leaders of both the Rinzai and Soto Zen sects with i n i nstitutional Buddh ism in Justifying t h e identification of Buddhist doctri ne and practice with a martial spirit and warfare. In

a d d i tion

to

the

pro-war

d o c t ri n a l

I nterpretations, Chapter Five also Includes a discussion of the purpose and scale of the continental " missionary" efforts undertake n by all of Japan's major Buddhist sects, Zen i ncluded . What becomes clear is the manner in which these ostensib ly rel ig ious effor ts were i n reality merely one aspect of the Japanese government's attempt to win the allegiance and acquiescence to its rule of its colonial subjects. The manner in which the Zen sects readily accepted their ro le in this pan­ Buddhist effort is a harbinger of their later role i n the " Imperial Way-Buddhism" movement.

xiv

Chapter Seven, " Buddhist Resistance to J apanese M i l i ta r i s m , "

d e m o nstrates

that

t h e re

was

sti l l

resistance at the g rass-roots level to i nstitutional Buddhism's col laboration with the government's war policies.

Whi le the o rg a n ized resistance wa s ,

nu mencally speaking, stronger than that at the time of the High Treason I ncident, it was no more effective than its predecessor. Once again, its leaders were ostracized by the i nstitutional Buddhist hiera rchy and imprisoned by the g ov e rn me n t , res i st a nce.

effectively destroYi ng

a l l o rg a n ized

W h at l ittle i ndividu a l res istance that

l ingered on was, by its very nature, easi ly suppressed . Chapter E ight, "The Emergence of ' I mperial Way­ Buddhism ' , " detai ls the emergence in the 1 9 3 05 of the pan-Buddhist movement by the same name. It describes the doctri n a l foundations of this movement which xv

rested on the twin pillars of the total and complete subservience of the Buddha Dharma to the state in the person of the Emperor and the identification of war as an act of Buddhist compassion. According to the authors of this movement, many of whom were Zen-affil i ated, Japan had the responsibility as the most adva nced, if not the world's only, truly Buddhist cou ntry to lead backward and Ignorant ASian countries l i ke China out of the d ar kness in which t hey we re enveloped .

If

viole nce and warfa re we re necessary to accomplish this, Mahayana Buddhism supported such acts as both Just and compassionate. The fi nal chapter in this g roup is Chapter N i ne , "The Emergence of ' I mperial State-Zen' . " While, a s wi ll be seen, the title of this chapter is a more historically accurate term than " I mperial Way-Zen , " the essence of this movement as a Zen-based subset of the larger XV I

" I mperial Way-Budd hism" movement is clear.

That is

to say, it shares all of doctri nal positions of the latter movement while stressing some unique attributes such as the identification of Zen doctnne and practice with the warnor ethos . The Identification of Zen as the an imati ng spirit of the traditional J apanese warrior is offered as the normative standard to which J apan's I mperial soldiers shou ld aspi re.

Thus do men steeped i n Zen training

l i ke Capta i n Sugimoto Goro come to be eulog i zed as the epitome of the alleged unity between Zen and war. Thus do Zen masters of both the Rinz ai and Soto sects exert themselves to the utmost to place meditation power (J. zenJo-rikil*¥'iE.tJ), coupled with the spirit of self-d isci p l i ne and self-sacrifice d e rived from Zen tra i n i ng , at the d i sposal of the Imperial m i l i tary, especially its officer corps. In fact, Zen leaders attempt xv i i

to inculcate both civil ians and soldiers alike with the warrior spIrit which they claIm as their own . Chapte rs Ten Throug h Twe lve With J apan's surrender i n August 1 945 both the " I m pe ri a l Way-Budd h i s m "

and

" I mperi a l Way-Ze n "

movements came, formally at least, to a n end, for there was no longer any need to support a failed war effort. Thus, the three final chapters

may be viewed as a

" Postscn pt" to the dissertation proper. I n adding these, the author looks at the question of how J ap anese Buddhist l eaders, particularly Zen leaders, viewed, i n retrospect, thei r p ro-war interpretations of Buddhism and Zen. Chapter Ten, liThe Post-War Japanese Responses to " Impe ria l-Way Buddhism , " examines the responses by a number of Buddhist leaders and sects to the general question of Buddh ist war responsib i l ity. XVIii

As might be

e x pecte d , the state me nts of i n d iv i d u a l

B u d d h ist

leaders run the gamult from those l ike D.T. Suzuki who blame Shin tofor having created the concept of a "sacred war,

II

to those who condemn wa rtime Buddhism for

h aving abandoned what they i dentify as its pacifist tenets.

In this regard, the war-related statements of

three other ( non-Zen) sects of institutional Budd h ism which a re I ncluded in this chapter are more consistent i n that they all express deep reg ret for their wa rtime c o m p l i c i ty . C hapter

E l ev e n ,

"The

Post-W a r

Japanese

Responses t o ' I mperi al State-Zen ' , " begins with a n examination IO f the post-war statements made b y a number of Zen Buddhist leaders, all of whom, to some degree or other, were personal ly i nvolved i n Japan ' s war effort.

Not su rp risingly, the g reater the wartime

leadership role of the personalities i nvolved was, the xi x

more they attempt to find " some good" in J apan's war efforts.

I n terms of an i n-depth discussion of Zen and

B u d d h is m ' s war responsib i l i ty, however, it is only Ichikawa H akugen who attempts to employ the tools of scholarly analysis. I n l i g h t of this dissertation's thesIs, what is significant about I chi kawa 's critique, and that contained wit h i n the Soto Zen sect' s 1 9 9 2 Declaration of War Responsib i l ity, is that both recog nized the h i storical roots of Buddhist war compl icity reaching back at least to the MelJ I penod . Furthermore, they both recog nized Zen 's connection to this effort as one part of a larger pan-Buddhist movement. Ichikawa, however, went even fu rther b ack in J apanese history to search fo r the origins of Buddhism's subservience to the state, while, at the same time, examining Buddhist doctri nes and practices that allegedly promoted that subservience. xx

I n Chapter Twe lve,

" I ssues Awa i t i n g F u rt h e r

Research, " the author reiterates that this dissertation represents no more than the first step in attempting to come to grips with Japanese Budd hism's (and Zen's) complicity in J apan's war policies.

He suggests a reas

of research which should, if followed, shed fu rther l ight on

the

h i sto r i c a l

and

d o ctri n a l

o ri g i ns

of this

phenomenon and chaJ lenges future students to b u i l d on this work.

XXI

CHAPTER

1: M ETHODOLOGY

A ppro ac h T h i s dissertation

IS

a h istoncal study of a Buddhist

movement in Japan which eXisted during the 1 9 3 0s and early 1 940s. T h i s movement, known by a vanety of names, was most commonly referred to as either IIl m p e r i a l State-Ze n ll (J. Kokoku-Zen /��1ij!) or II l m p e r i a l Way-Zenll (J. Kodo-Zen

/��1ij! ). The historical approach used i n this dissertation is b ased upon the m ethodological principles of two noted h istori a ns, David H ac ke tt Fisc h e r and G e orge Boas. I n his book, Historians' Fallacies, F i sc h e r describes the histori a n a s IIsomeone (anyone) who asks an open-ended question about past events and answers it with selected facts which are arranged in the form of an explanatory paradigm" (x v). I n formu lating the question this h istorical study seeks to answer, t he author accepts the basic pre m ise that the 1

Buddhist rel igion i n its most basIc formulation, I.e. the Four N o b l e T ruths and H o l y E i g h tfo l d Path, neither condones nor advocates either viole nce o r warfa re .

The author fi nds

support for this position in the words of the noted Buddhist scholar, W a l p o l a Rahu l a. l n his book, What The Buddha Taught, R a h u l a wrote: Buddhis m advocates and p reaches non-violence and peace as Its universal message, and does not approve of any kind of violence or destruction of life. Acc o rd i n g t o Buddhism there IS nothing that can be called a 'Just war' - which IS only a false term coined and put into c i rcu l at i o n to justify and excuse h atred, c ru e l ty, violence, and massacre ( 84) . A s this thesIs will demonstrate, the Buddhist movement i n question did In fact approve of both violence and the destruction of life i n the name of a Japanese " ho ly war. " Thus, the question this thesis seeks to answer i s s imply this - how did the Zen Buddhist leaders of this m ovement J ustify their support for the war policies of their gover nment duri ng the P a c i f i c W a r period ( 1 93 1 -4 5 ) 7 That is to say, in 2

light of the fu ndamental Buddh ist prohibition agai nst the taking of l ife, how we re these leaders able to convi nce themselves, let alone others, that their support of Japa n's war policies was i n accordance with the teachings of their fa ith? I n seeking to answer the preceding question, the author has adopted a narrative approach to his subject matter.

In

selecting this approach he has been guided once again by F i sc h e r who wrote: " N a rra t i o n is . . . one of the more common and most characteristically historical forms" ( 1 3 1 ) .

Thus,

he will address the question at hand by tel l i ng a story, for as

F i s c h e r continued: M os t h i stori ans te l l stori es in t he i r wo rk . Good histori ans te l l true stories. G re a t h isto rians, from time to time, te l l the best true stories which their topics and problems permit ( 1 3 1 ) . T h i s author i s u nder n o i ll usion that h e i s a " g reat

h istorian." Yet, he does seek to provide the reader with a 3

clear, straightforward, and understandable explanation of the Zen Budd hist movement In q uestion , espec i a l ly I ts doctri nal positions and interpretations wh ich facilitated i ts support of the Japanese government's war policies.

This

said, it should be noted that, as F i sc h e r stated: "A story explains how and what - not why" ( 1 3 0 ) . I n any h istorical study, especial ly o n e deali ng w i t h a controversial topic, it is tempting for the author to explain not o n ly "what" some person or g roup of persons did or said, but to speculate "why" they did or said it as well. The author has sought to aVOId this slippery slope, for as F i s c h e r noted: H istori a n s have often used motivational explanations i n their work . Al m o st a lways, they have used them badly. P ro b l e m s of motive in academic h i stori o g ra p h y tend t o b e hopelessly m i re d i n a sort of simple-minded m o ra l i z i n g which is equally objectionable from a n ethical and a n empirical point of view ( 1 87).

4

I f the author can claim to have avoided the temptation to speculate on the motives of the leaders of the movement in question, he does not claim to have escaped from all the " h istori a ns' fallacies" F i s c h e r cautioned against. I n spite of t h e a u thor's best I ntentions, this dissertati o n is clearly guilty of having comm itted a number of such fal lacies.

Of

those of which the author is aware, the following three are of partIcular note: 1) T h e T e l e sc o p i c F a l l ac y.

S i m p l e stated, this is

the fallacy which "makes a long story short" (147). As has al ready been noted, this dissertation is fu ndamental ly about the h istorical relationship of Buddhism and Zen to violence a nd warfare .

Of the more than 2,500 yea rs of Buddh ist

social h istory, this dissertation covers less than 100 y e a rs , i . e . 1868-1945, in only one nominally Buddhist country. To look

at

t his

p e ri o d

in

iso l a t i o n

fro m

i ts

h istorical

antecedents is to suggest that such phenomena as " I m p e r i a l 5

Way-Zen" can be explained by the events of the M e iJ i period and thereafter.

A t its worst, it is to suggest that these

p henomena were no more than momentary aberrations of either modern Japanese Buddhism or i ts leaders .

I n any

event, this d issertation is o n ly one small part of a very long and complex historical relationship that will req u i re far more research before the 'whole story' can reason ably be said to have emerged.

2). T h e R e d u c t i v e Fallacy. This is the fal lacy which " re d u ces

c o m p l e x i ty

to

s i m p l i c ity,

or

d iv e rs ity

to

u niformity, In causal explanations" ( 1 7 2 ) . I t occurs, as F i sch e r noted, when "causal explanations . . . a re constructed l i ke a s i ngle cham and stretched taut across a vast chasm of complexity" ( 1 7 2 ) .

I n trying to illumi n ate the e mergence

of the preceding phenomena it is deceptively easy to look at only those events and persons who a p p e a r to be i n a direct and unbroken chain of causal precursors. 6

H i st o r i c a l events, let alone human beings, are far more complex than a d issertation l i ke this one can do justice to. I n an attempt to show some of the complexity of the Buddhist response to Japan's m i l itary actions , this d i ssert a t i o n contains sections on both Buddhist resistors as wel l as collaborators. On which ever side of the line these Buddhists found themselves, their motivations were far more complex than can be presented here . F u rthermore, their l ives and acco mplishments shou ld be evaluated on more than simply their relatio nship to violence and warfare.

Due to the focus

of this d issertation, however, such a holistic evaluation of t hese leaders is missing. 3) T he F a l l acy of E th noc entri sm.

T h i s is the fal lacy

" committed by a historian who exaggerates the role of h is own g roup i n its interaction with other groups" ( 2 2 6 ) . The author is p a i nfu l ly aware of t he e ase with which the inhabitants of Engl ish-speaking countries condemn Japanese 7

" m i l itarism" if not "fascism . "

Thus, s i mply to identify

Buddhist leaders as supporters of Japa n's mi l itary effort is to identify them as i ncarnations of " evi l . "

The h i dden

assu mption i n all of these defin i tions is that those who were opposed to Japan's military actions represented truth and Justice, freedom and democracy. W e re that the case, how can one explai n the fact that at time of the P a c i f i c war's expansion in 1 9 4 1 , numerous ASian (and African) cou ntries had long been reduced to the status of colonies of Western countries. Th i s status was, of course, achieved through the use or threat of viole nce agai nst the native peoples. The question must be raised as to what role the various religious leaders of these Weste rn cou ntries pl ayed i n their own cou ntry's " i mperi a l istic aggression . "

We re those Western Christian l eaders who

e i t h e r o p e n l y o r tacitly supported

I mp e r i a l i s m

" ev i l

persons"? Fu rthe rmore, i s the phrase under which s o many 8

Western wars have been fought, i.e. "F o r G o d and Country," an accu rate representation of the teachi ng s of Jesus of Nazareth? A s i nteresting as wou ld it would be to explore questions l i ke the above, they are fa r beyond the purview of this dissertation and must be put aside for consideration i n future studies. A s already noted, the author began this dissertation with a question. Y e t as F i s c h e r pointed out, while a h istorian must begin his or her research with a question: T h e re can be no questioning In a sophisticated sense without hypothesizi ng, and no systematic test i ng of hypotheses without the construction of hypothetical models which can be put to the test (3 ) . I n a s much as the author i s himself a Buddhist, t he first hypothesis put forward i n the cou rse of h is research was p articularly attractive .

T h i s i nitial hypothesis assumed that

t hose clerical and academic leaders of the move ment i n q uestion represented some kind o f " radical fringe" w h o were 9

not representative of the whole of J apanese Zen leadership at that time. I n the cou rse of research into the backgrou nd of t h is movement, however, this hypothesIs had to be d i scard ed , fo r, as will be seen, there IS overwhel m i ng eV i d e nc e

that

the

war-co n d o n i n g

p ri n C i p l e s

of

this

movement enjoyed the overwhelming, even total , support of the clerical and academic leadership of Japa n's two major Zen sects, i .e. the R i nz a i and So to sects .' The second hypothesis tested was that the move ment in qu estion was sti ll in some sense a " radical fri ng e " movement i n that ItS wa r-condoning poliCies were l i mited to the two major Zen sects alone . That IS to say, that the Zen tradition i n Japan, With ItS long h istorical connection to the p re m od e rn Japanese warrior class, had in some way, or at some time , departed from the teach i ng s of the other major Japanese Buddhist sects of the day.

Once again this

hypothesis had to be abandoned in the light of m assive 10

evidence which indicated that the leadership of rut of Japa n 's major Buddh ist sects co ndoned their gove rnment's war pol icies. Was, then, the support for Japan's war poliCies exh ibited by a whole range of Japanese Buddhist leaders a phenomenon l i mited to the Pac i fi c War penod alone?

Once again, the

author's research forced him to disavow this hypothes is, for he found fi rm evidence that the roots of the Bu ddhist leadershi p ' s support for poliCies of war r eached back at least as far as the M e iJ i period ( 1 8 6 8- 1 9 1 2 ) and the S i n oJapa nese W a r of 1 894-9 5 .

There is also evidence which

suggests that the roots of this phenomenon reach eve n further b ack i n history, though a n i nvestigation of this question is beyond the confines of this dissertation. With this background in mind, the author is now ready to state the thesis of this dissertation.

N a m e ly, that the

1 9 30s phenomenon known as "I m p e ri a l Way-Zen " (et. al . ) 11

was i n the first i nstance representative of a b road, eve n u nani mous, base of support for Japan's war pol icies not m erely by the clerical and academic leaders of the Zen trad ition i tself, but by the leaders h i p of a l l of J a pa n's traditional Buddhist sects .

I n other words, the "I m p e r i a l

Way-Zen" movement was neither an independent nor Isolated entity but, rather, was the Zen version, or subset, of a broader pan-Buddhist movement known as "I m p e ri al Way-Buddh i s m " (J. KoclO- Bukkyo/ �m1A�). F u rt hermore, the roots of both movements may be clearly traced to at least Japan's M e iJ i period and the Buddhist leadership's reactions to both the S i n o-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. I n asserting the above thesis, it is necessary for this dissertation to investigate not only the "I m p e ri a l Way-Ze n " movement itself but the larger pan-Buddh ist moveme nt, i . e . " I m p e r i a l Way-Buddhism , " of which i t was a p a rt . F u rt h e rm o re, it i s equally necessary t o i nvestigate the 12

modern historical roots of these movements i n Japa n's M e ij i period .

A s F i s c h e r has observed, " N a rrative involves the

idea of connectedness among relevant events" ( 1 6 2 ) . I t would take many volumes to write a complete history of all the events associated with " I m p e r i a l Way-Zen " let alone the larger movement of which It was a part. Thus, the " relevant" events for this dissertatio n are those which help to answer the question posed at the beginning of th iS section, i.e. how did the Zen Buddhist leaders of this movement Justify their support for the war pol icies of their government duri ng the P a c i f i c War period ( 1 93 1 -4 5 ) ? T h e focus o f this dissertation, then, i s on the i d e a s espoused by the leaders of the two movements I n question with added reference to their modern h istorical precedents. I n that sense this dissertation may be described as " a history of ideas. "

H e re the phrase " a history of ideas" is taken to

mean, as per G e o rg e Boas' definition, "the h istory of beliefs, 13

assertions of either fact or policy" (20). Boas fu rther pOi nted out that Ideas may also be "plans of action" ( 7 ) . That say, "they are ideas of something that

IS

IS

to

intended, which, it

is hoped, W i ll be realized In the future. They thus are all ied to ideas of policy" (7 ) . C e rt a i n l y the ideas expressed by Buddhist/Zen leaders during Japan's long modern period of recu rri ng wars may well be viewed as ideas of "intent" and " hope" to be II realized in

the

fu t u re . "

Furthermore,

t h is

d i s s e rt a t i o n

will

demonstrate that the Ideas of these leaders were closely " all ied to ideas of policy," I.e. government war policies. F o r t h i s reason their ideas we re necessarily both d escriptive and normative i n content. The author is fu rther i ndebted to Profe s s o r Boas for two additional comments. The first of these is as follows. I t is clear that before one can write the h istory of an idea one must disentangle it from all the ambigu ities that it has acqu ired i n the cou rse of time. One must 14

expect to fi nd it appearing In contexts that vary from age to age. One must not be puzzled to find it used as a basis for praise and blame ( 2 2 ) . I n the author's OpIniOn, It wou ld be appropriate t o add the fol lowi ng sentence to the above : " N o r should one be puzzled to find it used as a basIs for d istingu ishing good from evil , or nght from wrong . " I n appreciation o f Boas' comments, the author has begun this d i ssertation with a le ngthy mtrod u ctlon to those pol itical and s o c i e t a l pressures In modern Japan which aided in the fo rmati o n of the then dominant ideas conce rning the relationship of Buddhism/Zen/relig ion and warfare .

As the

final portions of the d issertation make clear, however, this exercise i n

" d isenta n g l e [me nt] " could (and Ideal ly should)

have started fa r earl ier than the beg i n n i n g of t h e M e iJ i Restora t i o n of 1 8 6 8 . A s a l ready noted, the relationship between Buddhism, violence and warfare has a very long history, spanning some 2 , 5 00 years. 15

L i m i t a t i o n s of space,

let alone the author' s expertise, simply make it i mpossible to d i se ntangle all that needs disentangling .

It

IS

to be

h oped , however, that it represents at least the first step in the process. A second reason underl i n i ng the l e ngthy, and rather broad, introduction is, as stated in the dissertation's thesis, the assertion that the ideas expressed by Zen l eaders of the 1 930s and 40s were, on the whole, not u nique to that school of Buddhism. The dissertation's nar rative W i l l s how that while there may have been certain u nique aspects to the ideas expressed by Zen leaders of that e ra , they were, I n their b ro adest formu latio ns , very s i m i l a r to t hose expre ssed b y the leaders of i nstitution a l Buddhism as a whole. I n the author's opinion, there has long been a tendency i n some circles of Buddhist scholarship, especial ly i n the W est, to see Zen Buddhism as somehow having transcended 16

the lim itations of time and place, or havi ng tra nsce nded q u estions of mora l choice

and

resp on s i b i l ity.

This

dissertation makes i t clear that modern Zen leaders have transcended none of these things. The author is also indebted to Boas for the fol lowi ng comment: The Olympian objectivity which would be the Ideal for the historian of ideas IS seldom achieved. I n d e e d there is g round for thinking that it cannot be achieved, for if one is dealing with an idea that has stirred up men's sou ls, one IS bound to have taken sides, to have shared to some extent I n the emotions stimulated ( 23). The Ideas expressed by Ze n/Buddhist leade rs I n this d issertation have clearly "stirred up men's souls . " To give but one example, even now the question of moral, let alone l eg a l , responsibili ty for Japan's wartime actions conti nues to be a sou rce of deep and often bitten dissension both i nside and outside J apan, even war's conclusion.

now - fifty years after the

The 1 9 9 3 "State ment of Repentanc e," 17

issued by the headquarters of the Soto Zen sect and i ntroduced later, is but one example of the ongoing "stirring up" goi ng on within Japanese Buddhist ci rcles. The author confesses tnat he, too, has had h is " soul sti rred " by the ideas expressed i n this dissertation.

I n as

much as he IS an ordai ned Soto Zen Buddhist priest with i n the Mahayana school o f Buddhism, his personal faith i s rooted not only In the Fou r N o b l e Truths and H o l y E i g htfo l d Path of fundamental Buddh ist doctri ne, but also In t he Mahayana i deas o f Bodhisattvahood

as expre ssed i n t h e "Fo u r

Bodhisattva Vows ."z F o r the author, the essence o f Zen Buddhism is expressed i n Zen M a ster Degen's (J. ��, 1 2005 3 ) famous dictum from his m a s t e rwo rk, the Shobogenzo (J. iEj::iD.RiI ). He wrote: To study the Way IS to study the self, To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all thi ngs is to remove the barriers between one's self and others (Y o k o i 5). 18

I n the above formu lations of Buddhism, the author finds noth ing which wou ld support Budd h ism's endorsement of either wa rfare or violence.

I n fact, as mentioned at the

outset of this section, basic Budd h ist doctrine po i nts to the very opposite position.

Thus, the author must confess

to a deep personal abhorre nce of the war-co n d o n i ng doctrinal interpretations issued by Japan's modern Buddhist leaders up through 1 9 4 5 .

Inev i t a b l y, then, the question of

possible personal b ias ra ises Its ugly head. R ecog n i z i ng the possibil ity of such bias i nfecti ng this dissertation, the author has taken the somewhat u nusual step of placing extended quotations from the Buddhi st leaders I n question I n the dissertation proper.

T h i s is done

In the first i nstance to assure the reader that the quotation has not been taken out of context. A s F i s c h e r has stated,

19

The meaning of any empirical statement depends upon the co ntext from which it is taken. No h i sto rical state ment-in-evi dence floats freely outside of time and space (63 ). Second ly, as stated above, the author does accept a respons i b i lity to exp l a i n to the reader exactly how the Budd h ist leaders in question J ustified t heir suppo rt fo r Japan's war policies . By allowing them to speak at length, in their own words (in translation ) , the author also hopes to avoid what F i s c h e r identified as the " historian's fal lacy, " I . e. " the error of assuming that a man who has a g iven historical experience k nows It, when he has it, to be all that a historian would know it to be, with the advantage of historical perspective " ( 209 ) . A s author, it would have been a simple exercise to offer a personal i nterpretation, a nd/or summary, of the al leged mean ing of the remarks of t he Buddhist leaders in question. Had he done so, however,

20

w h at

g u a ra ntee

wo u l d

the

re a d e r

h ave

that

such

i n terpretations o r sum maries were valid? A fu rther issue i n this regard was a statement made to the author in 1 9 7 1 by P ro fe s s o r Yo k o i Kakudo (m#-:J1i:ii1t d . 1 9 7 2 ) a professor of Buddhist Stu d i es at Komaz awa U n ive rs ity.

He stated, "Hi s t o r i c a l phenome na, e speci a l ly

those charged with emotion, cannot be adequately j udged u ntil a hundred years, at least, has elapsed after the event." The truth of this state ment would seem to be born out, as mentioned above, by the ongoing inabil ity of both the lay and scholarly communities to come to anything approachi ng a unified judgement of the P a c i fi c W a r, let alone W.W. I I as a whole. A t this point i n time, the author bel ieves no one is better qualified to i nterp ret and/or j udge the rem a rks of the Buddhist leaders i n question than the reader. I n addition to the lengthy quotations i ncluded in this d issertation , the reader will also fi nd quotations from a 21

wide variety of Buddhist leaders, both within and without the Zen tradition, over a period spanning more than one hundred years.

These wide ranging quotes are offered as

evidence fo r the author's thesis concerning the historical depth and pan-Buddhist breadth of the support offered by Japan's Buddhist leaders for their nation's war policies from the M e lJi pe riod up through 1 9 4 5 .

I n the Interest of both

h istorical accu racy and fairness, however, reference IS also made to those pockets of resistance to war that did eXist, as least momentarily, among small g roups of lay and clerical Buddhists. The existence of t hese s hort-l ived, periphera l g roups, however, i n n o way weakens the thesis concerning the war-co ndoni ng thou g ht and actions of Budd h i s m ' s leadership a t the time.

I f anything, the very weakness of

the Buddh ist voices of opposition serves to u nderscore the near, if not total, war-condoning unanimity of the then Buddhist leadership. 22

Ort h o g ra p h i c C o m m e n ts On a more pragmatic note, the reader shou ld be aware that speci alized Buddh ist and Japanese terminology has been used only to a l imited deg ree, when it see med important fo r understanding.

Japanese names are written i n the

traditional Japa nese way, family name first and perso nal name last.

Furt h e r, mime with standard p ractice, a l l

Japanese words, including family and personal names, have been rom a n i zed with a macron mdicatmg a long vowel, e.g. Soe n. The only exceptions to this are those few words, e.g. Tokyo, that are best known i n Eng lish writing without this sign. Because s o m any o f t h e persons described i n this d issertation are Buddhist priests, the author has chosen not to identify each and eve ry one with such titles as "R eve re n d" or "Venerable. "

However, when their p riestly

status is rel eva nt, it wi l l be ide nt ified in 23

the text.

F u rt he rm o re, after having been introduced for the first time, they are normal ly identified i n the text by only their p riestly name, rather than their family name.

Thus, someone l i ke

Om o r i Ze n k a i becomes simply Ze n k a i after he has been i ntroduced the first time. On the other hand, a person known to have no priestly status, e.g. TOJ o H i d e k i, will become TOJ o after the first reference . With reg a rd to Chinese terms, the modern pinyin ro m a n i zation has been used throug hout except for those few terms, e.g. Ch'an, that are more commonly known to English readers in the Wade- G i l e s system of ro m a n lz a t l o n . Sanskrit t e rm s have been transliterated according to the standard system used by I n d o l o g i sts, with two exc e pt i o ns for those diacritic marks that were not in the author's wordprocessi ng software, i .e. "sh" is used i nstead of "s, " e . g . Shakya m u n i, and the dot under " m " has been added manually, e.g. Samgha. 24

Ac k'1 CI wi e d g e m e n t s I n his 1 9 9 1 book The Japanese A rt of War, the noted Buddhist scholar and translator, Thomas C l e a ry, makes the fol lowing observation: I t may seem odd . . . t h at in spite of the Widely acknowledged I nfluence of Zen on Japanese cu lture and personality, virtually no critical study of Zen i n modern Japan has ever been made ( 1 1 6 ) . The author of this d issertation believes that C l e a ry was, and remains, correct i n his assessment, especially when it comes to materials available in English.

T h i s said, there

have been, of late, partial attempts to address this problem. These include such works as C h ristopher Ives' Zen A wakening

and Society, published in 1 9 9 2 , and Wi nsto n K i n g 's Zen and the Way of the Sword, published in 1 9 93 . N e i t h e r of these books, however, claims to be a critical study of m odern Zen .

25

The recently re leased work , Rude A wakenings: Zen,

the Kyoto School & the Question of Na tionalism, edited by J a m e s W. H e i s i g and John C. M a ra l do, does touch on relevant Issues In that it is a collection of' some fifteen a rticles focusing on the relat ionship between t he

Zen-Influenced,

but i ndependent, Kyoto School of P h i l osophy and Japanese nationalism.

Its narrow focus, however, means that It, too,

is not a general critical study of the type C l e a ry discussed. The closest thing approachi ng the type of critical work C l e a ry has In mind IS, In fact, not a book on Zen at all.

It

was written by J am e s Keeta l a r and published i n 1 9 90 u nder the title, Of HeretiCs and Martyrs in Meijl Japan - Buddhism

and its Persecution. As its title suggests, it IS pan-Buddhist in nature. I t does, however, contain very valuable information on early modern Zen history duri ng the M e iJ i period ( 1 8 6 81 9 1 2). This said, its focus is on the early years of the M e ij i period when a" of i nstitutional Buddhism, i ncluding the Zen 26

sects, was subject to quasi-governmental suppression.

In

spite of Its relatively na rrow focus, It has been of major assi stance to the early parts of this d issertation .

This

assistance is gratefu l ly acknowledged. The author would also be remiss if he did not mention an a rticle by R o b e rt Sharf which appeared in 1 9 93 in the Journal, His tory of Religions. E n titl ed, "The Zen of Japanese N a t i o n a l ism," Sharf focused on the roles of S u z u k i D a isetz and the Kyoto School of P h i loso p hy i n deve lopi n g a n d expressing modern Japanese national ism, especially t o the West. Although I find his study h istorical ly l i m ited, I am nevertheless mdebted to him for a number of i n s i g ht s which m ight otherwise have gone unnoticed. Return i n g briefly to C l e a ry, he also goes on to explain why, at least I n his mi nd, these critical studies on modern Zen have not been done. He writes:

27

A review of academic and sectaria n work on Zen Buddhism quickly brings to light one central fact: that the stock of d i rect i nfo rm ation on this subject IS extremely l imited and fragmentary. This i nformation g ap, furthermore, does not exist only in the realm of the classics, but even i n what can be learned about modern Japanese Zen from easily accessible sou rces where the language barrie r is considerably less th an that presented by the classics. Some reasons for this are not far to seek, being visible i n the narrow scope of sectarian and academic speci a l i z a t i o ns ( 1 1 6). W i th regard to these comments, the author can attest fro m personal experience as to the extremely limited and fragmentary n atu re of the direct information available. P a rt of this IS due to the nature of Japan's modern h istory. That is to say, masses of materials were lost due to the fie ry conflagrations in which Japan's major cities were engu lfed as a resu lt of wartime bombings. Added to this is the fact that due to wartime shortages there was not only a shortage of written materials, but what was pri nted was done so on paper of i nferior quality that sim ply disi ntegrated over the i ntervening years. 28

O v e r and beyond the above was the ever present reality of g overnment censors h i p .

A s t h i s d i ssert a t i o n w i l l

d e m o n strate, t h e J a p a nese p o l i ce were eve r ready, begi n n i ng as early as the M e iJ i period, to ban o r destroy those writings by any organization, Buddhist I ncluded, that did not adhere to or promote the g overnment' s policies. Thus, the wntten record that does exist is, for the most part, a reflection of what was politically acceptable .

I n the

postwar years it was exactly t h i s political correctn ess that became a sou rce of emb arrassment to som e B u d d h ist organizations, and once again materials were destroyed . D e s p i t e this background, the author of this dissertation h as been fortu nate in a number of ways. The first is that he had the opportunity over a period scanning some twenty-five yea rs to search for the necessary background m aterials, espec i a l ly

in

the

s e co n d - h a n d

bookstores of Tokyo ' s Kanda d istrict. 29

B u d d h i s t- o ri e n t e d Second ly, h e was

g ive n generous access to the l ibra ry collections at both Komazawa U n i ve rs i ty (affi l iated with the Soto Zen sect) and H anazono U n i v e rs i ty (affiliated with the R i n z a i Zen sect). I n the case of the Soto sect, this i ncluded access to a book that had been banned by the sect's headquarters as late as 1 9 9 3 . B y far the gre atest source of assistance to the author has been that provided both di rectly and Indirectly by the l ate Professor I c h i kawa Hakugen of Hanazono U n ive rs ity. W h i l e Prof. I c h i kawa was yet alive, the author had the opportu n ity to personally discuss with h i m many of the issues covered i n t h i s dissertation.

M ore than any other

single i nd ividual in Japan, before or si nce, he had amassed a repository of m aterials deal i ng with Buddhist - State relations i n general, and Zen - State relations i n partic u la r, from as early as the Tokugawa period.

30

Before his death Prof. I c h i kawa managed to publish a g reat deal of the material he had gathered over the years. T h i s material i n turn has only recently been repri nted in the form of his collected works.

As the latter part of this

dissertation wil l demonstrate, Prof. I c h i k awa was much more than J ust a cataloguer of i nfo rmation.

He neither avoided

making norm ative Judgements when he bel ieved they were called for nor fa iled to raise thoug htfu l and p rovocative questions about Zen's past and future .

T h i s d issert at i o n

would have been much more d i fficu lt, if n o t i mpossible, without

P ro f .

I c h i k awa' s

ta n g i b le

and

i nta n g i b l e

contributions, both i n l ife and i n death. T h i s dissertation concerns an era which i s difficult to exami ne; for, i n hi ndsight, the foibles of the principals a re so g l a ringly visible.

Yet, the author recognizes that this

statement may wel l be true for any era .

That is to say,

t hose who come later wi l l always be left to wonder how 31

thei r predecessors cou ld have possibly believed and acted as they did. I n the end one can o n l y express the hope that we a re w i l l i ng to learn fro m the p ast, w h i le honestly ack nowledging our own present-day potential for moral fa i l u re .

32

En d n ote s 'Acco rd i n g to Dale Saunder's book, Buddhism in Japan, publ ished i n 1 964, the Soto Zen school had nearly 1 5 , 000 temples populated by close to 1 6 , 000 priests and more than 6 . 7 million adherents. By comparison , the R i n z a l sect, d iv i d e d

mto

e i g h t m aj o r s u b-sects,

had

a

total

of

approximately 5 , 000 temples with nearly the same number of priests and 2.2 million adherents. F m a l l y the Ob aku sect h ad only J ust over 5 00 temples with some 700 priests and 1 0 0 , 000 adherents.

Altho ugh this l atter sect i s not

specifica l ly covered in this dissertation, t h e re i s no evid ence to suggest that

it

acted any differently towards

the Japa nese gove rnment's war pol icies than its l a rger cousins ( 2 9 7-98). 2The four Bodhisattva Vows are as fol lows: 1.

Althou g h sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them all. 33

2. Although the passions are endless, I vow to uproot them all. 3. Althou g h the entrances to the Dharma are manifold, I vow to master them all. 4. Although nothing can surpass the Way of the Buddha, I vow to realize it.

34

CHAPTER 2: THE ATTEMPTED SUPPRESSION OF BUDD H I SM

I nt ro duct i o n

Every religion seeks to proclaim a truth which transcends the world, but is enmeshed in the very world It desires to transcend. Every religion seeks to remake the world In its own image, but it is always to some extant remade in the Image of the world. This is the tragedy of religion. (Bellah 196) Buddhism

is a

re l i g i o n which

has

a

h istory of

a pp roxim ately 1 5 00 yea rs i n Japan, havi ng fi rst been i ntroduced from Korea in the middle of the sixth century. By the Tokugawa era (1 600- 1 8 6 7 ) , Buddhism had become " the established religion of the State" (An e s a k i 260) . This meant that each and every household in the country was req u i red to affi l i ate itse lf with one or another nea rby Buddhist temple.

The result was an explosive g rowth of

Buddhist temples, from only 1 3 ,037 temples during the

35

Kamaku ra p e riod ( 1 1 8 5 - 1 3 3 3 ) to 4 6 9 , 9 3 4 d u ri ng the To kugawa (Kitagawa 1 64). There were, however, a n u m ber of h i dden costs associated with Buddhism's establishment as a state religion. First of all, as Be l l a h has pointed out, "this [mandatory temple affi liation] impl icated a large part of the Buddhist clergy i n t h e social structu re o f t h e Tokugawa state , and made membership i n a sect a matter of politica l obligation rather than rel igious conviction" ( 5 1 ) .

This is hardly surp rising

si nce the ang i nal cata lyst for establishing Buddhism as a

de facto state religion in the first place was the Tokugawa reg i m e ' s determ i nation to both expel Ch ristianity from Japan and i nsu re that indigenous religious i nstitutions, like a l l other i nstitutions i n society,

we re fi rmly under its

contro l . I nstitutional Buddhism was itself b rought u nder contro l b y t h e government through such policies a s d ividing the 36

powerful Shin (Tru e Pure Land) sect i nto two branches, popularly known as the N i s h i Honganj i and H i g a s h i HonganJ i after their respective head temples. The Tokugawa reg i me further made sure that every temple i n the land, no matter how humble, was made subservient to a higher grade temple in a pyramidal fashion, with an all powerful centra l temple

(honzanl *LlJ) at the top. While sectarian differences were a llowed, each sect was held responsible for t h e actions of both its l ay and clerical adherents. A second, and perhaps more severe, hidden cost to I nstitutional Buddh ism was what B e l l a h has d escri bed as the "general lethargy and u n c reativeness of Buddhism I n the Tokugawa period" ( 5 1 ). A n es a k l was even less flattering when he wrote: "The majority of the Buddhist clergy were obedient servants of the Government, and in the long period of peace they gradually became lazy, or else effeminate i ntriguers" ( 26 0 ) . 37

This same theme was fu rther developed by K i tagawa when he pointed out: "While some of the clergy, l ivi ng i n richly e ndowed temp les, turned their energy to learn m g , m any took advantage o f t h e i r sem i-political p re rogatives to suppress their helpless p arishioners" ( 1 6 5 ) .

After

descri b i n g some of these corru p t p riestly activities, Kitagawa goes on to note, somewhat omi nously, "the moral and spi ritual bankruptcy of established Buddhism inevitably b rought criticism and rebellion from within and without" ( 1 66).

Clearly the d ay of reckon ing for Buddh ism was

approach i n g . Govern ment Measures Di rected Towa rds Bud d h i s m On January 3 , 1 8 6 8 the young Emperor M e ij i issued a proclamation announcing that he was resu ming the rei ns of government though , as Hugh Borton has pomted out, "on ly very l i mited power had actually been restored to the throne" (80).

Nevertheless, a scant three months later, on April 6, 38

1 8 6 8 , the Emperor promulgated the Charter Oath, a document consisting of five articles which clearly expressed the antlfeudal aspirations of the new government. The Charter Oath states: 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

Councils widely convoked shall be established, and all affairs of State decided by public discussion. All measures, govern mental and soc i a l , s h a l l be conducted by the united efforts of the governi ng and the governed. The unity of the Imperial and the feudal governments shall be achieved; a l l the people, even the meanest, shall b e g iven fu l l opportu nities for their aspirations and activities. Al l absurd usages of the old regi me shal l be abolished and all measu res conducted in conformity with the righteous way of heaven and earth . Knowledge shall be sou ght for a l l over the world, and t h u s s h a l l be p ro m o t e d t h e i m p e ri a l p o l i ty (A n e s a k l 331 ).

Though the preceding seems, as far as Buddhism is concerned, to be innocuous in its content, Article 4 was a harbinger of the i mpending storm. What, exactly, were the " absurd usages of the old regi me" that were to be " abolished" ?

39

The answer was not long in coming, for only a few days later the fi rst of the "Separation Edicts" (shinbutsu hanzen­

re if �iA:j!lJ?;t{f;), designed to separate Buddhism from Shinto, were issued by a newly established governmental bureau known as the Office of Rites

(t$mliii ) . This first edict stated

th at all Buddhist clencs of any type were to be removed from Shinto

shri nes throug hout th e nation.

Hencefo rth,

only bona fi d e Shinto priests were to allowed to carry out admin istrative duties related to shri nes. I n a second edict, issued less than two weeks after the first, the use of Buddhist names for Shinto deities ( kami f

�) was prohibited .

Not only that, Buddhist statuary could

no longer be used to represent Shinto deities, or, for that matter, even be present i n a shrine compou nd.

Whatever

their orig inal i ntent may have been, these edicts were often i nterpreted at the local and

reg ional levels as meaning

40

that anything having to do with Buddhism cou ld and shou ld be destroyed. In his h ighly detai led, and well-resea rched book on this period, Of Heretics And Martyrs In Meiji Japan, J a m e s Kete l a a r

p o i n ts

out

that

these

s e p a ra t i o n

e d i ct s

"n e c e s s a r i ly included a s a n integral part o f their formulation a direct attack on Buddhism" ( 9 ) . This IS because, first of all, nearly eve ry member of the Office of R ites was a n active proponent o f "National Learning" (��) . ThiS school of thought taught that whi le both the Japanese nation and throne were of divme origin, this origin had been obscu red and even sul l i ed by fore i g n accretions and i nfluences, especially those coming from China. Adherents of this school believed one of the first and most i mportant jobs of the new government was to cleanse the nation of these foreign accretions, Buddhism first and foremost.

41

Just how effective this "cleansing" was can be seen i n K e te l a a r's reference t o the closing of over 40,000 temples nationa l ly, coupled with the destruction of cou ntless temple a rtifacts and the forced laiclzatlon of thousands of priests (7).

O nce aga i n ,

however, it shou ld be noted that the

e nforcement (and i nterpretation ) of the Separatio n Ed icts was, in general, left up to the reg ional authorities.

Hence,

those a re as where there was the g reatest support for N ational Learning among local and regional officialdom where a lso those areas where the greatest destruction occu rred. In the former Satsuma domain (present-day Kagos h i m a, southe rn M i y a z a k i , and Okinawa) , whose l e aders h i p had p l ayed a l eadi ng

ro le i n the Restoration movement,

Buddhism had almost d isappeared by the end of 1 8 6 9 . That is to s ay, approximately 4, 500 Buddhist temples a n d halls h ad been elimi nated ( K ete l a a r 6 5 ) . The priests housed in these temples we re retu rned to l ay l ife, with ( fo rmer) 42

priests between the ages of eighteen to forty-five being im mediately drafted i nto the newly formed I mperial Army. Those over fo rty-five were sent to become teachers i n d o m a i n a l schools while those under eighteen were sent back to their fa milies (Kete l a a r 57). I nstitutional B u d d h i s m ' s Response I n the face of these very real threats to Its continued existence, it did not take some elements of i nstitut ional Buddhism l o n g to i nitiate a senes of cou ntermeasu res . One of the first of these was undertaken primari ly by the H i g as h i Hong anJi and N i s h i HonganJ i branches of the Shi n sect.

On

t h e surface, a t least, I t was a rather surprising m easure , i .e . l e n d i n g su bstantial amou nts of money to t h e t h e n cash­ starved M e iJ i government. As Kete l a a r has noted, however, these two branches " hoped to bring about a relation with the government that would be less hampered by b a n n i ngs and restrictions" ( 7 1 ) . 43

The same two branches also took the lead i n the summer of 1 8 6 8 in forming the Allia nce of United [Budd h ist] Sects for Ethical Standards ( Shoshu Dotoku Kaim ei/a*ili!f?dtl ). This was an unprecedented action for i nstitutional Buddhism s i nce u nder the p revious Tokugawa reg ime a l l Buddhist t ra n s-sectarian organizations had been banned.

This new

o rg a n izati o n p ledged itself, fi rst of a l l , to work fo r the unity of I mperial Law (Raja Dharma/ Ij� ) and Buddhist Law

(Buddha Dharma/ -1bj�) .

Secondly, it cal led for Christianity

to be not only denounced, but expelled from Japan. As K i s h l moto pointed out in his book, Japanese Religion

in the MeiJl Era, Buddhist leaders " planned to revive their faith by aligning themselves with the i ncreasing nationalistic sentiment" ( 1 4 6 ) .

They perceived that o n e way of

d e m o n st rat i n g t h e i r use fu l ness to the

nation's

new

nationalist-i nclined leaders was t o support a n anti-Christia n

44

campaign which came to be known as haja kensel (i.e. refuting evi l [Christianity] and exa lting righteousness [iBl�flHJjiE ]). As early as September 1 7 , 1 8 6 8 the new Ministry of State responded to the above noted " positive actions" o n t h e p art of Buddh i st l e a d e rs b y send i n g

a private

communique d i rectly to the H igashi HonganJ i and N i s h i HonganJ i b ra nches of the Shin sect.

Kete l a a r POints out

that this letter contained a condemnation of those members of the Imperial court who wrongfu lly, and i n contradiction to Empero r M e ij i's Will , were persecuting

Buddhism .

The

letter fu rther notes, that in so doi ng, these "foul mouthed r e b e l s . . . a ntagonize the general populace" ( 1 3 ) . Just how antagonized the general populace had become IS

s hown by the strong p rotest actions that a rose i n

o pposition to the repressive, anti-Buddhist measu res of local authorities. These p rotests started in Toyam a i n late 1 8 70, and were fol lowed by two riots i n M i kawa (present 45

A i c h i prefecture) and I s e ( present M i e prefecture) i n 1 87 1 . I n each of the fol lowi ng two years there were also two m ajor p rotests i n widely scattered parts of the country. Kitagawa points out that the 1 8 7 3 protests in three counties of Echizen (present F u ku i prefecture ) , " d ev e l op e d i nto a l arge-scale peasant revolt, which h ad t o be quelled by government troops" ( 2 2 6 ) .

Kete l a a r m ai ntains that It

was t he se p rotests w h i c h fi n a l ly fo rced t h e central g overnment, out of their " deep fea r of the power of a n enraged peasant popu lation," t o pay serious attention to the plight of Buddhists ( 7 ) . A n e s a k i comments on this period by sayi n g , " some [ me mbers of the Government) real ized t h at an e ntire suppression of Buddhism was neither desirable nor possible" ( 3 3 5 ) .

A solution had to be found.

46

Resolution of the Confl ict The First Atte mpt The first major change in the M e ij i government's policy toward Buddhism came in early 1 8 7 2 .

It was at this time

that what was then known as the Ministry of R i t e s

(�m�)

was transformed Into the Ministry of Doctri ne (�$� ) . This new m i n istry was g iven administrative respons i b i l i ty for such things as the building or closing of both Shin to shri nes and Buddhist temples, the approva l of all p riestly ra nks and p rivileges, etc.

By far its most important fu nction,

however, was to propagate the "Great Teaching" ( daikyo/ *�) which had been developed the previous year.

A n e sa k i

identifies the three pri nciples of this teaching as fol lows: 1. 2. 3.

The p ri nciples of reve re nce fo r the ( nation a l ) Deities a nd of patriotism shall b e observed. The heavenly Reason and the Way of Humanity shall be p romu lgated. The Throne shall be revered and the authorities obeyed. ( 3 3 5 ) . 47

C h a rged with p rom u l g ati ng these p r i n c i ples,

the

M i ni stry of Doctri ne created the position of Doctri n a l I nstructor (Kyodoshoku/ �ijJGl). These I nstructors were to o p e rate t h rough a

natio n-wide

netwo rk of Te ac h i n g

Academies ( Kyoin/ft.l�) which would b e established i n both Buddh ist temples and Shinto shrines.

The significance to

Buddhism of this development is that for the fi rst ti me Buddhist priests we re g iven perm ission to serve in this State-sponsored position, together, of course, with Shinto priests and scholars of "National Learn ing . " Ket e l a a r pointed out that "the creation of the position of [ Doctrinal] I nstructor was a thinly veiled attempt by the state to create, in fact, a de facto state priesthood; those u n c e rtified by the state were barred fro m any p u b l i c lecturing or ceremoni al duties, a s wel l a s from residence i n any shrine o r temple." Nevertheless, as Yos h i d a commented: "Buddhists . . . e a g e rl y took advantage of this new opportunity 48

as a way of escaping from the i r miserable condition "

(8ukkyoshi 83). How successful Buddhists were in taking advantage of this opportunity can be seen in the fact that eventu ally more than 8 1 ,000 of a total of some 1 03 , 000 officially recog nized Doctri nal I nstructors were Buddhist p riests. Shi n-sect affili ated priests numbered nearly 2 5 ,000 and were the largest single group (Kete l a a r 1 05). Inclusion into a new state rel igion, however, carried a heavy price for Buddhists, for this new state religion was clearly Shinto inspired and controlled.

Thus, all Doctn nal

Instructors were expected to wear Shinto

ro bes, recite

Shinto prayers, and perform Shinto rituals. Further, although the famous Pure Land sect temple of ZOJ oJ i (flJ:..ff ) in Tokyo was chosen as the administrative center, i .e. the Great Teaching Academy, for the national doctrine system, it was required to be extensively renovated for its new role. 49

Z oj oj its ' renovation' i ncluded replacing the statute of

Buddha Amida on the main altar with four Shin to d e i ties (kamil � ) and bu i l d i n g a Shinto gate ( toriil1fAJ�) at the entrance to the temple.

Yoshida noted that the Buddhist

leadership was so anxious to support this new scheme that they even arranged to have their subord i nate

temples pay

the renovation costs (Bukkyoshi 87-8 8 ) . I n spite of this auspicious beginning, however, K itagawa pointed out that " inevitably, friction arose between Buddhist and Shinto elements [within the national doctrine system ] a n d a s the anti-Buddhist movement began t o subside the B u ddhist l eaders aspired to be emancip ated from Shinto domination " ( 2 29) . An additional cause of this friction was an announcement m ade on April 2 5 , 1 8 7 2 by the Ministry of State (i:: i& og). This a n nouncement, known as Order No. 1 3 3 , stated that Buddhist priests could,

if they so desired, eat meat, get 50

married, g row the i r h a i r long, or wear ordi nary clot h i n g . Althoug h this decision neither p ro h i bited a nyt h i n g , nor ordered anythmg, it was seen by many Buddhist l eaders as another attack on Buddhism. They u nderstood, as K et e l a a r m ade clear, that Order No. 133 re p re s e n t e d a n extension of the earlier separation of Shinto and Buddhism, that

IS

to

say, "to i nclude the separation of Buddhism from the state itself" ( 6 ) . The strong Buddhist opposition to this measure i ncluded numerous

sect a r i a n

p rotest

meetings

and

petitions

criticIzing the M mistry's decision, at least one o f which was signed by over two hundred Buddhist p riests.

Som e angry

p riests eve n we nt d i rectly to the M i nistry's offices to express the i r oppositio n .

I ronically, as R i c h a rd J a ffe has

noted, Order No. 133 was one directive that had been taken at the request of a Buddhist, the influential So to Zen sect p riest Ot o r i S e sso (��JTV 1 8 1 4- 1 904) (47 1 ) . 51

Ot o r i was in a unique position to make his views known since, at the time the new M imstry of Doctri ne was created, he had been asked to serve as a representative of Buddhist clerics (though he himself was required to return to lay life d u ri n g the duration of his government service ) .

Ot o r i's

overa l l goal was t h e ending of the gove rnment's a ntlBuddh ist policies.

Like his Budd hist contemporaries he

believed that the best way of achieving this goal was to demonstrate Buddhism 's useful ness to the state, specifically through the promulgation of the Great Teaching. Ot o r i recogmzed that because, then current regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, a large number of Buddhist priests were already married ( and therefore technically, at least, cri minals) they were In no position to become either Doctrina l I nstructors o r effective ly fight Christia n i ty.

In

his mind, " by l ifti ng the ban against marriage [et. al.], the Buddh ist clergy wou l d be free to re nder their services to 52

the nation" (J affe 473 ). Protests or not, Ot o r i was successfu l in this reform effort, and the new law remained. In light of their defeat, Buddhist leaders came to realize that they had to free themselves not only from Shinto control but government control as well .

Once again the Shin sect

played a l e a d m g role. It was leaders of this sect, particularly in the person of S h i m aJ I M o k u ra i (A%±t!! � =/ 1 8 3 8- 1 9 1 1 ) , who led the movement for change.

M o ku ra i was p arti c u l a rly

well sU ited to the challenge, not least of aU because he had p e rso n a l ly led troops in s u p port of the

Resto ra t i o n

movement. As early as 1 87 2 , S h i m aj i wrote an essay while i n Paris critical of the three principles contai ned in the Teaching.

G re at

His basic position was that there was a fundamental

difference between governance (s e iliaT.) and religion ( kyol

�). As Kete l a a r has written, it was this essay that "sparked

53

what came to be cal led the movement for the Separation of Rel igion and Ru le s el kyo bunri / [1{ft?tM)" ( 1 25). It wou ld be some years before S h i m aJ i and t hose who agreed with h i m would have a dlscernable impact on the M i nistry of Doctri ne.

Eventually, however, at the beginning

of 1 87 5 , "the Shin (True Pure Land) sects of Buddhism were perm itted to leave the G re at Doctri ne move ment, a n d shortly afterward the enti re i n stitut i o n of the Great Doctrine itself was abolished " ( K itag awa 2 2 9 ) . A new solution had to be found. The Second Attem pt The Buddhists were not the o n ly rel igi ous g ro u p to b enefit fro m changing government pol icy.

As K itagawa

noted, as early as 1 8 7/ a diplomatic m ission se nt to the West, headed by Senior M inister Iwaku ra To m o m i ( 1 8 2 5-83 ) , h a d recom mended that If Japan were t o successfully revise

54

its treaties with the Western powers it would have to adopt a policy of religious freedom ( 2 1 2 ) . The Western powers were, of course, most concerned about the ongoing prohibition of Christianity In Japan. Thus d i d the govern ment, in 1 8 7 3 , reluctantly a b o l i s h t h i s prohibition, resulting in a rapid increase in the numbers of both Western Christian missions and missionaries e nteri ng the country.

Even as they conti nued their own struggle to

free themselves from government control, however, m any Buddhist leaders took this occasion to renew and deepen their earlier attacks against Christianity. a l l ied

t h e m se lves

with

I n so doing , they

Shinto, Confu c i a n a n d ot h e r

nationalist leaders ( Kitagawa 229). S h i n toists, too, were undergoing changes at this time. As Kete l a ar mentions, Shinto 's strongest su pporte rs, i . e . the proponents of National Learning, h a d demonstrated to M e ij i political leaders that they were " too religious to rule" 55

( 1 30).

This, i n tu rn, led to a reduction i n the i r political

power as evidenced by the 1 872 changes in the government's re l igious pol icy toward Buddhism.

Yet, key members of

the gove rn ment we re sti l l dedicated to the p roposition that one way or another the empero r system, as an "i m m a ne ntal theocracy" with roots i n the ancient state, should be used to legitimate the new gove rnment.

The

question was, i n the face of earl ier failu res, how cou ld this be accompli shed? Part of the answer came in 1 8 8 2 when the g overnment 'divided' Shinto into two parts, one part consisting of c u l t i c (Em p e ro r- re l at e d )

p ract i ces a n d t h e oth e r so-c a l l e d

' religious' practices.

While the religious side of Shin to, i.e.

Sect Shinto ( Kyoha Shin to/ ��ffl��) , received nothing from the government,

the c u l t i c side of Shinto, which came to

be known as "State Shinto " (IE�[� ]�m) , received both

56

fi n a n c i a l

subsidies

and

various

other

g ove r n m e n t a l

p ri v i l e g e s . The government maintai ned this policy was Justified because c u l t i c practices rel atin g to the Empero r were patriotic in natu re, not re ligious.

Even today there a re

some Japanese Buddhist scho l a rs who support this position. P ro fe s s o r S h i b ata Do k e n of Soto Zen

sect-affi l i at e d

Komazawa Un iversity, for example, maintains t h a t " g iven the fact that Japan is a country consisting of a u nitary people, with shared customs and mores, the assertion that [State ] Shinto

was not a re ligion can be sa nctioned, at

least to some degree" ( 1 9 5 ) . Kitagawa, however, asserted that " 'State Shin to ' was esse nt i a l ly a newly concocted re l ig i o n of ethnocentri c nationalism" ( 2 1 3 ) . I n a similar vein, H e l e n H a rd a c re p rovided a more detailed description.

She referred to:

57

S t a t e Shi nto as a syste m i c p h e n o m e n o n t h a t enco mpassed government su pport of and regulation of shri nes, the emperor's sacerdotal ro les, state c reation and sponsorsh ip of Shi nto rites, construction of S h i nto shrines i n Japan and i n overseas colonies, education for schoolchildren in S h i nto mythology plus their compulsory participation in S h i nto rituals, and persecution of other re l i g i o u s g roups on the g rounds of their e x h i b i t i n g d is respect for some aspect o f authorized mythology (6). I rrespective of how it is evaluated, it is clear that the creation of State Shinto served as a mechanism to facil itate the government's recog nition of what Kete l a a r termed, "a necessary ideo logical plurality" within Japa nese society (1 31 )

.

That is to s ay, with a

p owerful ' non-re li g ious'

legitimization of the new o rd e r in hand, the leaders of the M e ij l g overn ment could now address the question of ' religious freedom,' somethi ng which was i mplied i n the call by S h i m aJ i and others for the Separation of Rel igion and Rule.

58

The final, formal

resolution of the relig ious question

appeared i n the M e iJ i Constitution of 1 88 9 . Chapter Two, Article Twe nty-Eight read as fol lows : "J apanese subj ects shall, with i n l i mits not prejudicial to peace and order. and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects. e nJ oy freedom of re lig ious belief" ( Ital ics m i n e ) (M atsu nami 1 3 6 ) . appeared that wo u l d

now

It

"within li mits " Buddhism, Christianity et. al. be

free of govern m e n t

i nt e rfe re nce

or

suppression . As will be seen i n the next chapter, however, appearances can i ndeed be deceiving.

59

CHAPTER 3 :

EARLY BUDDHIST SOCIAL FERM ENT I n t ro d u c t i o n

With

regard t o Article Twe nty-Eig ht o f the M e iJ i

Constitution, Kete l a a r gave this harsh assessment: " [ It] in fact g u a ra ntees not h i ng ; during this p e riod there is, I suggest, a prominent emphasis on knowledge over bel ief, duty over faith, and education over rel igion " ( 1 3 2 ) . K itagawa IS only somewhat less harsh when he stated that the M e iJ i

g overn m e n t had g iven

re l ig i o u s freedom a

" nominal

guarantee" ( 2 1 3 ) . Kitagawa went on to explain that i n havi ng created a n artifici a l concept called " State Shinto " a n d then identifying it as a cult of national moral ity and patriotism, applicable to all religions, the M e iJ i government's religious policy was " nothing

but an ingenious (and dangerous) attempt at

su peri mposing ' i m m a n e ntal theocracy' on the constitutional guarantees of rel igious freedom " ( 2 1 3 ) . 60

Kete l a a r poi nted out that there we re stili m a ny i nfluential people both within and without government who believed, as d i d Professor I noue TetsuJ i ro (#J:!f;�aB/ 1 8 5 5 1 944) of Tokyo University, that "religion by its very nature is ' prejudicial to peace and order,' and those who p ractice it w i l l necessarily be ' a ntagonistic to t h e i r duties as subjects" ( 1 3 2 ) . Yo s h i d a added that it was I noue's writi ngs w h i c h l a i d the p h i losop h ic a l g rou ndwork fo r the M e lJ i government's 1 890 " I mperial R e s c ri p t on Education" ( Kyoiku

chokugo/ �W*b�) , a document which proclaimed loyalty to the Throne and fi lial piety to be the cardinal virtues to which all I mperial subjects shou ld adhere (Bukkyo shakaishi 1 78). It was u nd e r these c i rcu mstances that J ap a nese Buddhists, with their newly won rel ig ious freedom, l i m ited though it was, attempted to develop what came to be known by the late 1 880s as "New Buddhism " (shin b ukkyo/ *fiiA� ). 61

New Buddhism was desig ned to answer the anti-Buddh ist critique of the early and middle years of the M e iJ i period. That is to say, it set out in the first instance to show that priests and temples could make a valuable contribution to the n ation's social and economic l ife. was

" fo re i g n-born , "

Buddhism

Further, although It

cou l d

st i l l

e ffe ct ively

promote loyalty to the Throne, patriotism, and national u nity. And l astly, though someti mes masked i n mytho logical t e rm i no l ogy,

i ts

basic

d o ctri n e s

were

not

m e re

" superstition" but, on the contrary, were ful ly compatible with Western science and technology, then bei ng so rapidly mtroduced mto the country. Bearing this in mind, the following will serve as a b rief i ntroduction to this New Buddhism, a movement Notto T h e i l e h a s c o m p a red with t h e si xteenth century P rotestant Reformation of Christianity ( 1 9 5 ) . To the extent that this analogy is valid, however, it should be noted that many of 62

the activists i n this movement were moderate reformers loya l to their respective sects, though there we re others whose radical views wou ld eventually l ead them to b reak with traditional I nstitutional Buddhism. Buddhist Responses to the West The early M e iJ i period critique of Christi anity, which continued on through the end of the era, may be considered one of i nstitutional Buddhism's first responses to the West. It was, however, certainly not the only respo nse .

For

example, refe rence has a l ready been made to S h i m aJ i M o k u ra i 's visit to the West In 1 872, a visit which also i ncluded a p i l g ri m age to the holy sites of both C h ristian ity i n Jerusalem and Buddhism i n I ndia.

A n e s a k i remarks that

"this was the first instance of a Japanese Buddhist visiting the original home of his religion " ( 3 3 7 ) . H e was accompanied on his tour, the first of many such priestly study tours to

63

the West, by fou r other priests from the N i s h i Honganj i branch of the Shin sect. What drew these priests to the West was a general desire to better understand what had by then become o ne of

M e iJ i

society ' s

p ri n c i p a l

goals,

enlig htenment" ( bunmei kaikahtpJJrm:re ).

n a m e ly

" cu lt u ra l

As Kete l a a r made

clear, however, they also had more mu ndane a ims, one of which was " i mmed i ately usable tools for the critique of Christianity in Japan" ( 1 2 6 ) . In the fal l of the same year the H i g a s h i HonganJ i branch, anxious not to fall behind its rival, also sent its own contingent of priests to Europe. It was a H i gashi HonganJ i priest by the name of N a nJo Bun'yu (��3t!t/ 1 849- 1 9 2 7) who became a pioneer i n studying Buddhism in accordance with Western academic sta ndards. In 1 87 6 he went to Oxford to study Sanskrit under the famed "Orientalist, ll F r i e d ri c h M a x M u l l e r ( 1 823-1 900). Nanjo would su bsequently pub l ish a n u mb e r of sch o l a rly wo rks o n 64

Buddh ism i ncluding the 1 8 8 3 Catalogue of the Chinese

Translations of the Buddhist Tripitaka. As i ncreasing numbers of Japanese Buddhists pursued their stu dy of Buddhism i n the West, they encountered a new form If not of persecution then at least of discrimination. That IS to say, as R o b e rt Sharf has noted: The early generation of European "Orienta list scholars . . . a I I too often held "true" and " pure " Buddhism to be "early Buddh ism, " which they i m p l i c i t l y o r explici t ly believed to be long dead i n Asia . Specifically, early Buddhism was identified with the Buddhism of the P a I i Canon , and the p revai li ng tendency among Western scholars was to view the Mahayana [schoo l ] of East ASia as degenerate, sy ncretic, and corrupt ( 1 8 ) . Faced With this situation, i t i s not s u rp rising that "Japanese Buddhism . . . set out to recast the terms by which it had been defined in the West" ( Kete l a a r 1 63 ). One example of this effort is provided by Daisetz T. S u z u k i (�*

*�/ 1 870- 1 9 66 ) .

Although he would later become best

known for his writings on Zen, one of his first major works 65

I n English was e ntitled, Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism, published i n 1 908. R o b e rt Sharf characterized this work as: A ram b l i n g and h i g h ly i d e a l i z e d i nt ro du ct i o n to Mahayana doctnne - a cu rious blend of scholarship and a p o logetics . . . . Suzuki insists that Buddhism is not a dogmatic creed but rather a ' mysticism' that res p o n d s t o the deepest yearn i ng s in man and yet rema i ns I n ful l accord with the findings of modern science ( 1 9 ) . Suzu k i 's work as an apologist for Mahayana Buddhism is not surp rising in view of h is earlier schol arly activities, the maJonty of which were ded icated to the promotio n of this school of Buddhism and its sub-branches in both the E ng l is h and Japanese languages.

In fact, S u z u ki's fi rst

,

scholarly effo rt had been the translation i nto Engl ish of the Ven. Shaku Soen's ('R*a\:/ 1 8 5 9- 1 9 1 9 ) address to the World's Parl iament of Rel igions convened as p a rt of the 1 893's World's Fair i n Chicago, I l i n o i s. Soen, abbot and head of the E n g a kuji branch of the R i n z a i Zen sect, was very much a New Buddhist in that he had determinedly set out to acquire 66

a modern Western education fol lowmg completion of his traditional Zen training. As Wayne Yokoyama has noted, Soe n's decIsion to attend the Pa rliament "had great consequences, for it set in motion the chain of events that wou ld alter the rel igious consciousness of the Western world considerably" ( 1 3 1 ) . His paper, entitled "The Law of Cause and Effect, As Taught by the Buddha," was read to the audience by the Parliament's chairman, the Rev. John H. Barrows. It was not, however, Soen's elucidation of the Buddhist doctrine of co-dependent ongination which had such a great effect on both those in attendance and those who later read about it in the newspapers.

Rather, it was the simple

fact that such an event was taking place at all. As T h e i l e has written : T h e parliament became a magnificent demonstration of the power of rel igion and of harmony between d iffe re nt fa iths. For the fi rst t i m e i n h istory 67

re p resen tat ives o f a l l the maj o r re l i g i o ns were g athered u nder the same roof i n peaceful conference ( 2 1 9). Soe n,

it should

be noted, was only o ne of eight

representatives of Japanese Buddhism, three of whom were, l i ke h i mself, Buddhist priests affiliated with various sects w h i l e the others were i nterpreters and laymen.

As T h e i l e

further noted, however: Behind the surface of rel ig ious sympathy, cooperation, and common fronts agai nst com mon enem ies, there existed a p rofound discord between the Western, general ly Christian, and the Eastern, Buddhist and Hindu, delegates ( 2 20). Yasubuchi Banryu ( j\�.tm"R/ 1 848- 1 9 2 6 ) , a S h i n priest and delegate from Kumamoto, went so far as to state that i n l ight of this underlying tension, the Buddhist delegates saw themselves engaged in a " peaceful war. " A war in which Buddhism would emerge "havi ng won the greatest victories and the g reatest ho nor" (3 5-40, 44-45).

68

Given the strong Christian influence manifested i n the overa l l

c o nfere n c e ,

Yasubuchi ' s

asserti o n

somewhat exaggerated, If not se lf-se rv i n g .

m ay

see m

K e te l a a r,

however, put it i nto a Japanese perspective when he pointed out: The numerous post-Parliament press releases in Japan were characterized by an unbridled optimism as article aft e r a rticle asserted the J OYous and u n h i n d e re d promulgation o f Mahayana Buddhism among Westerners satu rated with material comforts but sadly lacking i n the life o f the spirit ( 1 5 2 ) . The M e iJ i Buddhists at the Parliament were not content with m erely presenting conference p apers. Though most of them had only rud i me ntary Eng lish language skills, they sti l l went o n to hold meetings, with the h e l p of their i nterpre ters, throughout Chicago (and later the U.S.) i n public halls, coffeehouses, and churches, distributing l iterally tens of thousands of pamphlets discussi ng various aspects of

Mahayana Buddhism. 69

"The 'fo rmless fo rm ' of Eastern [ i . e . Mahayana ] Buddhism,

[the Japa nese Buddhist delegates] determ i ned,

was p recisely the u n i ve rsal p ri nciple needed to recast Buddhism as a world rel igion" ( K ete l a a r 1 6 3 ) . Writing only a few years later, In 1 89 9 , Anes a k i M asaharu (Mi�iE�/ 1 8 7 3 1 949),

one o f the most noted Buddhist scholars o f that

period, would further develop this theme when he wrote: "Our Nation [Japan ] is the only true Buddhist nation of all the nations in the world. It is thus u pon the shoulders of this nation that the responsibility for the unifi cation of E aste rn and Western thought and the conti nued advancement of the East falls" (Bukkyo seiten shiron 1 7). B u dd h ist Respo nses to Do mestic Critics The Buddh ist delegates to the World' s Parl iament of Religions returned to Japan as conquering heroes.

"They

were feted and paraded and travel led the countryside giving speeches on the mate rial marvels of the West and on thei r o w n e q u a l ly m a rve l o u s successes i n p ro m u l g a t i n g t h e 70

teachi ng of the Buddha" ( Ket e l a a r 1 7 1 ) . An observer of the time, Oha ra K a k i c h i (*JmlliS) , fu rther applauded thei r efforts by stating that It was now possible for " Buddhism I n Japan i n the Far East to turn the wheel of the Dharma i n America i n the Far West" ( 5-6) . What particu larly impressed domestic observers had been the ability of the Japanese delegates to not only hold their own against t h e far g reater n u mber of Christ i a n partici p ants, b u t t o express the national istic aspi rations of the J apanese people in the process. H i ra i Ki nzo (:iJL#�= /d . 1 9 1 6 ) , a lay Buddhist and the delegation's only fluent English speaker, provided the best example of what was possible in this regard. H i ra i's paper was entitled "The Real Position of J apan Toward Christianity. " It began with a defe nse of the Tokugawa Shogunate's banning of Christian ity in the seve nteenth century as a legitimate response to the possibility of Japan's 71

being colonized by nations proclaimi ng themselves to be Christian.

He went on to point out that once again In the

Me iJ i period al legedly Christian nations threatened h is country through their I m p o s i t i o n of unequal treaties which u n i l at e ra l ly g u a ra n teed

t hese

nations

e xtraterrito ri ality a nd tariff regu l ations .

the In

rights

of

conc l u d i n g ,

he i nvoked America's founding fathers a n d the preamble to the U.S. Declaration of I ndependence in d efe nse of h is call for true equality among nations. Kete l a a r noted that in

hiS speech

H i ra i had

" 'out-

C h ristianized' the Christians and 'out-America n i zed ' the Americans" . . . succeed i n g I n driving home his pomt as few foreign delegates were able to do" ( 1 70). The fact that the p red o m i n a ntl y American audience had cheered H i ra i at the conclusion of his speech was used as further evidence i n Japan to s how just how effective Buddhists cou ld b e i n advancing the nation's interests abroad. 72

Based on their success i n America, the Budd h ist delegates, especi a l ly Yatsu buchi Banryu, eagerly called for I ncre ased missionary work as they travel led and spoke t h roughout the cou ntry .

Yatsu buchi e m p h a s i ze d the

i mportance of both foreign l a ng u ag e and secular education for aspi ri ng miSSionaries, not to mention rigorous spiritu al training.

He advocated that such missionaries shou ld first

work among Japanese Immigrants to other nations, but he also saw other uses for them, one of which was, Significantly, to provi de spi ritu a l tra i n i n g for the Japa nese m i l itary. " ' Flashing l ike a sword and glittering like a flower' . . . the I m perial Army and Navy can, l ike the faithfu l M uslims who defeated the RUSSians in the Cri mea, or the soldiers of the Hongan-J i who held back the armies of Nobunaga, face a l l tri a l s a n d t ri b u l ations w i t h confi d e n ce a n d stre n g t h " (Kete l a a r 1 68).

73

Yasu buchi and his col leagues were not the first to call for Buddhist missionary work.

Even i n the darkest d ays of

the repression of Buddhism in the early M e ij i period, the Shin sect had actively participated i n the M e iJ i government's effort to colonize the northern island of H o k k a i do , an area that was then only nominally under Japanese control.

The

H i g a s h i HonganJ I branch imtially despatched over 1 00 priests to this northern outpost a nd spent over 3 3 ,000 ryo constructing roads.

in

As Ketelaar noted , liThe Hongan- J i

temple complex . . . saw H o k ka i do as an opportunity to prove the worth of Buddhism to the nation and to that end lobbied aggressively for the ri ght to participate in the colonization" ( 69 ) . Furthermore,

based o n the success o f this 'internal'

missionary work, the Higashi HonganJ i branch sent a g roup of priests headed by the Ve n. Ogurusu Kocho ( /J\�@jfim) to establish a temple i n Shang hai, China i n June, 1 8 7 6 . 74

Yet

another g roup headed by the Ve n. O k u m u ra Enshin C�t-t p:J/t:.\ ) was sent to Korea i n September of the followi ng year.

As

D a ito S atos h i (j(�C, b. 1 9 6 5 ) has noted: "These missionary activities were carried on in close col laboration with the Japanese state, as part of Japan's policy i n the M e iJ i period of advancing onto the [Asian] continent . . . . I n fact, after the S i n o-Japanese War [of 1 89 4-9 5 ] these missionary efforts became so closely associated with Japan's conti nental policies that after each war [Japa n fo u g h t ] the m i ssion a ry e ffo rts expanded accordingly " ( 5 8 ) . Ogu rusu, mentioned above, was not si mply i nterested in missionary work abroad.

In 1 8 8 1 he wrote: " Priests of

t h i s sect should use aid to the poor as a method of propagati ng the faith" ( Meikyo shlnshl). Ogurusu , in common with many of his contemporaries, understood that the New Buddhism they aspired to had to become active in charitable works.

Yos h ida poi nted out that this interest came as a

result of the threat the Buddhists recognized from p rimari ly Protesta nt-based c h a rities. 75

" W h i le poi nti n g o u t t h e

s h a l l ow n ess of t he i r [ C h risti a n ] tea c h i n g s ,

[ t h e N ew

Buddhists] had to recognize the re markabl e effectiveness of t h e i r p h i l a nthropy as a means of p ropagati ng thei r religion" (Bukkyo shakalshI 44). Shaku Soen was also active in this debate, arguing that Buddhists should ove rcome the p ractical supe ri o rity of Christia nity by "establ ishing schools for the poor, charity hosp i t a l s ,

a n d refo rm atori e s ; o rg a n iZ i n g work a m o n g

soldiers a n d cri minals; correcti ng the corruptions o f society; and engag i ng in active work in eve ry department of l ife

(Japan Evangelist No. 3 ) . position was

Yet another advocate of this

I noue E n ryo ( #J: FJ 7 / 1 8 5 8- 1 9 1 9 ) , who was

both a Buddhist scholar and reforme r.

T h e i l e noted that

"I noue . . . hoped to outdo the Christians by copying their educational i nstitutions, hospitals and reformatories" ( 1 9 8 ) . Yet, for a l l their desi re to e m u late Ch ristian social work, the New Buddhists did not change the i r ove ra l l 76

negative attitude towa rd Christianity.

I no u e i n particul a r

was o n e of the most a rticulate o f the anti-C h risti a n Buddhists. I n discussing I noue, Kitagawa pointed out: I n ouye criticized the "irrationality" of Ch ristianity and pra ised the " rationality" of Buddhism . H is arguments were based on a simple comparison drawn between the theism of Christian ity and the nontheism of Buddhism. The latter, according to I nouye, was i n harmony with Western philosophy and science. H owever, h is so-cal led impartial comparison of [the] two rel ig ions was motivated by his o bjections to Christianity, the religion of the strong Western nations and i nseparable from the political structures of these nations (230). I n January 1 889 I noue Joined with other M e ij i Buddhist l e a d e rs,

i nc l u d i n g S h i maJ i M o k urai a n d the p ro m i n e n t

Buddhist layman Ou chi Se i ra n (*��m/ 1 845-1 9 1 8 ) , t o form a new popular Buddhist org an ization, the "United Movement for Revering the Emperor and Wo rsh ipping the Buddha "

(Sonno Hobutsu DaidodanAJm$�A*� f!lJ ) . The o rgan ization's prospectus described its purpose as fol lows : 77

The goal of t h i s organization is to p reserve the prosperity of the Imperial Household and i ncrease the power of Buddhism. The result will be the perfection of the well-being of the Great Empire of Japan. . . . The t i m e -honore d spiritual foundation of our Empire is the Imperial Household and Buddhism. The i ndependence and stability of our Empire cannot be maintained if so much as the slightest injury IS Inflicted upon It. How can true patriots not be i nspired and aroused to defend against such injury? (Daido Shinpo). I n concrete terms the founders of this new organization hoped to exclude Christians from all positions of power i n society, espeCially those connected with politics.

Towa rd

this end they worked to induce some 1 3 0 , 0 0 0 Buddhist priests throug hout the cou ntry to become politically active and ensure the election of Buddhist candidates. As Yos h i d a has poi nted out, however, some members, especially those l ivi ng in reg ions where the Shin sect was strong, went so far as to violently disrupt religious services in local Christian churches (8ukkyoshi 1 88). In light of this Th e i l e stated: With the establishment of Sonno Hobutsu Daidodan the pote ntial e x c l u s i o n i sm and aggressive anti-Ch ristian 78

character of Buddhist nationalism became manifest and was developed i nto a concrete strategy. . . . Even t h o u g h i ts s t ra t e g y [ u l t i m a t e l y ] fa i l e d , t h e po l i ti c i z a t l o n of the Buddh ist-Ch nstian controversy i n t roduced a new stage in the relationship between the two rel igions, as violence increasingly dominated the political climate of this period " ( 1 07 ) . The d i sruptive a nd sometimes v i o l e nt tactics of regional Buddhists resulted in both severe co ndemnation in the press as wel l as pol ice intervention.

It also turned

out to be a political liabil ity and was therefore rel atively short-l ived . J ust as it died out, however, It was rep laced by violence on a far, f a r greater scale. This time the violence was employed by the Japanese state itself, for the nation's leaders had decided to go to war. Buddhi st Responses to J apanese Expansion Abroa d S i n o-Japanese War

( 1 894-9 5 )

The S i n o-Japanese War formal ly began i n August 1 894. I n discuss i ng the war, lenaga Sa b u ro (�;}(�aB), a noted historian of modern Japan, wrote the followi ng: 79

Government leaders . . . started the quest for glory by fighting China for hegemony in Korea. Dom ination of Korea became a national goal shared by successive administrations and the public at large ( 6 ) . The " public at l a rge, " of course, i ncluded Japa n's Buddhist leaders. About them Kitagawa had this to say: From the Si no-Japanese War . . . onward, the leaders of established Buddhist schools col laborated very closely with ethnocentric nationalism ( 2 3 1 ) , K itagawa went on to note that by this time I n oue E n ryo had turned into "a spokesman for the Imperial Way (kodo/fi!

is) , ''

One example of this is a book he published i n 1 8 9 3

entitled a "Treatise o n Loyalty and Filial Piety" ( Chuko katsuron) . I n this work I noue wrote that due to the existence of the Imperial Household, Japan, its land and its people were, l ike the Emperor himself, all "sacred and holy" ( 6 1 -66 ) . I noue went o n to assert that in Japan, unlike China, let alone the West, loyalty (to the Sovereign) and filial piety were one and the same.

This was because a l l Japanese 80

were offspring of the Imperial Fami ly.

Thus, the I mperial

Family was the " head family" of all Japanese, whic h is to say, the E mperor and his subjects were all part of lIone large family" ( 6 6-70 ) . This led I noue to conclude: From ancient times, sacrificing one's physical existence for the sake of the Emperor and the country was aki n to discarding worn-out sandals. . . . It is this un ique featu re of our people which has caused the radi ance of our national polity and produced the supre me beauty of our national customs (71 ). The fol lowi ng year I noue publ ished an a rticle o n the ' ph ilosophy of war' which, not surprisingly,

Kitagawa found

to be IIstrongly militaristic in temperll ( 2 3 1 ) . With regard to the war itself, the N i s h i- Honganj i branch of the Shin sect was one of the first to comment. As early as 3 1 July 1 894, the sect's headquarters issued the following statement. It read in part: Since the occu rrence of the recent emergency in Korea, the head of our branch has been deeply concerned about the situation, acting on the truth of repaying one's debt to the country through absolute l oyalty to it i n 81

accordance with the sect's teaching that the Law of the Sovereign is paramount. . . . Believi ng deeply i n the saving power of Buddha Amitabha 's vow, and certain of reb i rth in His Western Parad ise, we will remain calm no m atter what emergency we may encounter, for there IS nothing t o fear . . . . We must value loyalty [to the Sovereign] and fil ial piety, work diligently, and, confronted with this emerge ncy, share in the tri als and tribulations of the nation ( Honzan rokuJi ). F o r its part, t h e J od o (Pu re Land) sect established, i n 1 8 9 5 , the "Assembly to Repay [One 's] Debt to the Nation"

(Hokoku glkai/ ¥ll OO .�) . It's purpose was defined as follows: The purpose of this assembly shall be, i n accordance with the power of rel igion, to benefit both those in the m i l it a ry and the i r fa m i l i es, to conduct m e m o ri a l services on behalf of fallen p at riots, a n d t o p rovide rel ief for thei r famil ies and relatives (Jodo Kyoho). As to the merits of the war itself, Yos h i d a pointed out th at, a mong Buddh ists,

" there was al most no peace

m ovem e nt, fo r Buddh ists , espe c i a l ly, l acked the social awareness necessary for a peace movement" ( Bukkyo

shakaishi 2 2 8 ) .

What Buddhist leaders did have, however,

were various ways of Justifying the war. 82

One line of reasoning was based on Japanese Buddhism's supposed preemi nent position within all of Asian B uddhism. Thus, an editorial entitled " Buddhists Du ring Wartime, " which appeared i n the 8 August 1 894 issue of the newspaper Nojin, pointed out that Japanese Buddhists had a duty to " awaken " Chi nese and Korean Buddhists out of their Indifference to the war, an I nd i ffere nce, the editorial a l l eg e d , w h i c h ste mmed from the pessimistic nature of the Buddhism which existed i n these two countries . Only a few days later, i n the 1 6-1 8 August issue of the same newspaper, Mori N ao k i (��m) expanded on th is theme In an article entitled "The Relationship of Japanese Buddhists to the Crisis In China a nd Korea. "

He identified both Indian

and Thai Buddhists as being i ndiffere nt to the development of their own countries, once again because of the pessimistic nature of the Buddhism found there .

Mori then went on to

advocate that Japanese Buddhists consider the battlefield 83

as an a rena for p ropagation of the faith, holding high the banner o f " benevolence and fidelity." Coupled with the above was the viewpoint rep resented In an editorial, entitled " Buddhism and War, " appeari ng i n the 2 5 July 1 8 9 4 issue of the newspaper Mitsugen Kyoho . This editorial began by acknowledg i ng that the destruction of all weapons of war was the Buddhist ideal.

It then went

on to assert, however, that when a war was foug ht for a "Just cause,"

it was entirely appropriate for Buddhists to

support it. Another p roponent of this point of view was Shaku U nsho (�R3P.«/ 1 827-1 909), a Shingon sect priest and pioneer of M e iJ i Buddhist charitable activities. In an article e ntitled "A Discussion On the Compassionate Buddh ist Pro h i b ition Against Killing , " which appeared i n the same newspaper as above o n 25 January 1 8 8 5 , he stated that there were two types of war: a "Just war" and a "lawless war" (bosenl alB). 84

While Buddh ists should oppose the second type of war, they should support, as in this case, a just war because such a war prevents humanity from fal ling i nto misery. In ending this d iscussion of the Budd hist reaction to the S i no-J apanese War, it

IS

noteworthy that despite a l l

these assertions of Buddhist war support, it was actu ally Japanese Christians who took the lead In such pra c t i c a l activities a s providing medical help for wou nded so ldiers and rel ief for fam i l ies who had become poverty-stricken as a result of the war. T h e i l e states: The patriotic fervo r of the Christians natu rally made a g reat impact on public opi nion. . . . The Buddhists a lso expressed admiration for the strenuous efforts of the Christians, and g radually engaged I n the work among the soldiers. Because of their slow and rather passive response, however, they were often criticized for poor patriotic spi rit ( 1 71). The fervent patriotism of Japanese Christians became the catalyst for not only a new ( and positive ) relationship

85

with the state but with i nstitutional Buddhism as we l l . S p e c i fi c a l l y : C h risti a n patri otism brought a n ew c l i m ate which p romoted Buddhist-Ch ristian cooperation, e mphasized the spiritual solidarity with the East, and enabled both rel igions to "entrench themselves in the same citadel of nationalism as It was expressed in an editori a l i n the Buddhist Soto kyoho (Th e i l e 1 73 -4). II

I ronically, it was war-ge nerated patriotism, and the death and destruction which it entailed, that provided the i n itial sti m u l u s for a reconciliation between these two rel i gions, r e l i g i o n s which had for so long been bitter foes. R u s s o-J apanese Wa r

< 1 904-5)

Japa n ' s victory over China brought with it not only i ncreased power over affairs on the Korean peninsula, but the island of Taiwan , torn from China, became its fi rst overseas' colony. w e re

met,

Not all of Japan's territorial ambitions

h owever,

due to the so-ca l l e d Tri p a rtite

I ntervention of 1 8 9 5 . That is to say, three Western powers, 86

led by Russia with the support of France and Germany, forced Japan to g ive up its newly won control of the Liaotung peninsula, i n what would have been its fi rst colony on the Asian mainland. Japan

reg a rded

this

i n te rve n t i o n

as

a

national

humil iation a nd was more determmed than ever t o develop its military machine. For example, it added six new divisions to the regular army in 1 8 9 6 , thereby doubling its fi rst-line strength .

In addition, i n 1 8 9 8 , it organized both caval ry

and artil lery as mdependent brigades, while at the same time establishing factories for the domestic p roduction of modern armaments. By 1 903 Japan could also claim to have a modern navy with some seventy-six major war vesse ls, i ncluding four battlesh i ps, sixteen cru isers, and twenty-th ree destroyers . As B e a s l ey pOinted out: liThe Triple I ntervention . . . s e rv e d

87

to ral ly Japan for a nother advance, despite the fu rther measu re of hardship that this entailed" ( 1 64). I n this atmosphere the need for continued support of the m i l itary was also recogn ized by Buddhist leaders .

In

1 8 9 8 , for example, H i gawaglshi Kanichi (T�iiJ�.-) edited a book e ntitled Proselytizing the Military ( Gunjin Fukyoli¥.A $�) . As Yos h i da has noted, the purpose of this work was to forcefully advocate the usefulness of Buddhism i n i mparting courage to soldiers o n the battl efield ( Bukkyo shakaishi 230). Just how seriously i nstitutional Buddhist leaders wou ld soon take their responsibility i n thiS regard is attested to by the fol lowi ng comments: The war effort of Buddhist leaders was appreci ated by the government, as evidenced by the case of Ota n i Koz u i, chief abbot of the N i s h i- HonganJ i . . . who was com mended by the emperor for the important role he played in keeping u p m o ra l e d u ri n g the Russo-J apanese War ( 1 9 04-5 ) [Kitagawa 23 1 ]. 88

Before turning to the Ru sso-Ja panese War itself, however, It is important to note that the short period of peace which lasted from 1 8 9 6- 1 903 was also a time for Buddhist scholars to turn their attention to the theoretical side of the re lationship between Buddhism, the state, and war.

I nterestingly, it was the twenty-six year old Buddhist

scholar and student of Zen, D.T. Suzu ki, who took the lead i n this effort. I n November 1 89 6 , Just one month before having h i s I n itial enlightenment experience ( L e . kenshol Jt11) , he publ ished a book entitled A Treatise on the New [Meaning

of] Religion (Shinshukyo- ron/*fi*�Ili). I n h i s book Suzuki covers a wide vari ety of topics, examining eve rything from the meaning of rel i g ious faith to the relationship of religion and science. He does, however, d evote an entire chapter ( Chapter 1 5 ) to "The Relationshi p o f Religion and the State. " I f only because Suzu k i 's views i n this area are s o l ittle known I n the West, It is I nstructive 89

to take a careful look at his comme nts. i mportantly, however,

Much m o re

as wil l be seen in fol lowi ng sections,

the views that Suzuki expressed p a ral l e l , with s o m e v a n atlons of c o u rse, t h e rati o n a l e t h a t i nstitu t i o n a l B u dd h i s m ' s l eaders wou l d subsequently g ive for t h e i r support o f Japa n's war efforts up through the e n d of the Pacific War.

For that reason alone, they deserve very close

atte ntion . S u z u k i beginS h iS discussion with the statement: At first g lance it m ight be thought that religion and the state are I n serious confl ict with one another. For example, the state is built upon differentiation [or d iscri m i nation] while re l igion takes the position that everything is equ al . Religion takes as its final goal the realization of a universal Ideal while the u ltimate goal of the state is to p re s e rve itself. . . . ( 1 34). Suzuki goes on, however, to state that categones like the above only appear to be i n opposition to e ach other. For example, he claims that "equality without differentiation is 'evil equal ity', whi l e differentiation without equal ity is 90

' evil differentiation ' . " From this and other examples he then concludes, fi rst of all, that " re l igion and the state must necessarily support each other if they a re to ach ieve wholeness. "

Secondly, "religion should, first of all, seek to

preserve the existence of the state, abiding by its h istory and the feelings of its people" ( 1 3 6-37 ) . Professor K i r i t a Kiyohide (b. 1 94 1 /� EElm�) of Kyoto 's R i n z a i Ze n sect-affi l i ated Hanazono U n iversity recently wrote a monog raph entitled "D. T. Suzuki and the State, " which was included i n the book, Rude A wakenings. As the title of his monograph suggests,

K i r i t a reviewed S u z u k i's

i de as on the relationship between rel igion and the state and was disturbed by the last statement quoted i n the preceding paragraph.

He noted that the statement "seems

to lead to an acceptance of state supremacy" ( 5 4) . K i ri t a also criticized further statements made by S u z u ki i n the same chapter. About these K i ri t a said: " His [Su z u k i 's] 91

rather 'Zen-like' approach to rel ig ion and his abstract notion of the way nations operate seem far too unreal istic" ( 5 4 ) . T h e statements K i ri t a referred t o , a s q u oted i n h is monograph, are as fol lows: The i nterests of rel igion and the state do not conflict but rather aid and support each other in a quest for wholeness . . . . The problem is easily resolved if one thinks of re ligion as an entity with the state as its body, and of the state as something developmg with rel ig ion as its spirit. In other words, religion and the state form a unity; if every action and m ovement of the state takes on a rel ig iOUS character and if every word and action of rel igion takes on a state character, then whatever is done for the sake of the state i s done for religion, and whatever i s done for h e sake of religion is done for the state ( 5 3-4) . I n spite of li mited criticisms of S u z u k i's thought, K i r i t a went on, after introducing additional m aterial, to come to the conclusion that "from his youth and throughout h is life S u z u k i never regarded the state as absolute and never placed the state above the i nd ividual " ( 6 6) . A few pages later he

92

a d de d :

" [Suzuki]

was not a n a t i o n a l ist o r n at i o n a l

s u p re m a c ist" (72). Leaving aside for the moment the question [to be revisited in Chapter Ten ] , of whether or not K i r i t a is correct i n his conclusions, t here remains the question of why he c hose to avo id a ny d i scussion o f the t h ree s e m i n a l p a ragraphs which i m mediately fo l low his last q uote fro m S u z u ki's work.

These two paragraphs, i n their entirety,

a re as follows : If we look at this [unified relationship between rel igion and the state] from the point of view of i nternational m o ra l ity, we see that the p u rpose of m a i n t a i n i n g soldiers and e ncou ragi n g t h e m i l ita ry a rt s is n o t to conquer other countries or deprive them of their rights or freedom. Rather it is done o n ly to p reserve the existence of one's country and p revent it from being e nc roached upon by o bstreperou s heathe ns. T h e construction o f b i g warships and casting o f giant cannon is not to enlarge one's personal gain and trample on the wealth and profit of others. Rather, it is done only to p revent the h istory of one ' s country from being d isturbed by injustice and outrageousness. Conducting com merce and working to i ncrease production is not for the purpose of building up material wea lth in order 93

to subdue other nations. Rather, it is done only in o rder to deve lop more and more human knowledge and bring about the perfection of morality. Therefore, if a l awless country comes and obstructs o u r commerce, or tramples on o u r ng hts, this is someth ing that wou ld tru ly interrupt the p rogress of all of humanity. I n the name of rel igion our cou ntry could not submit to this. Thus, we would have no choice but to take up arms, not for the purpose of slaying the e nemy, nor for the purpose of p i llaging cities, l et alone for the purpose of acquiring wealth. I nstead, we wo u l d si m p ly p U n is h the peo ple of the country rep resenting i njust ice i n o rder that J u stice m i g h t p revail. How is i t possible that we could seek anything fo r ourselves? I n any event, this is what is called religious conduct. As long as the state takes care not to lose this moral sense, one can anticipate the step by step advancement of humanity a nd the fulfilment of universal ideals. The morality of the i ndividual toward the state is similar to this. That is to say, in peacetime one works diligently, day and night, seeking to promote the advancement of [ s u c h e n de avo rs] as a g ric u l t u r e , manufacturing, commerce, art and science, and technology. I n so doing, one must not forget that the purpose of these many e ndeavours is the advancement of all humanity. This is what is called " peacetime religion . " However, at the time of the commencement of hostilities with a foreign cou ntry, then marines fight on the sea and soldiers fight in the fields, swords flashing and cannon smoke b e l c h i ng. moving this way and that. In so d oi ng, our 94

soldiers reg ard their own lives as being as l ight as goose feathers while their devotion to duty is as heavy as Mt. Taishan [ i n China] . Sho uld they fall on the battlefield they have no regrets. This is what is called " religion during a [ national] emergency." This religion doesn't necessarily have to be described by [the words] "Buddha " or "God . " Rather, i f one si mply discharges one's duty according to one's position [in society], what action could there be that i s not rel i gious in nature? ( 1 3 9- 1 40, Italics mine)

K i ri t a' s

concl usions

n o tw i t h s t a n d i n g ,

Su zu ki's

i ntegrated and unified view of the state and rel igion meant that even in war with "swords flashing and cannon smoke belching," the state, "fighting obstreperous heathens, " could be doing the work of religion.

Even if the preceding were

taken as representing no more than Suzuki's " theoretica l " position, h istorical events wou ld soon revea l J ust h ow seriously his theory was taken by M e ij i Buddhist leaders . Shaku Soe n was one of the M e ij i Buddhist leaders who subsequently demonstrated Just how easy it was to bridge the gap between theory and practice . Shortly afte r the 95

beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1 904, Soe n went to the battlefield as a Buddhist chapla i n attached to the First Army Division. As to why he did so, he stated: I wished to have my faith tested by going throug h the g reatest horrors of l ife, but I also wished to i nspire, if I cou ld, our val iant soldiers with the e n n o b l i n g thoughts of the Buddha, so as to enable then to die on the battlefield with the confidence th at the task I n which they a re engaged is great and noble. I wished to convince them of the truths that this war is not a mere slaughter of their fel low-bei ngs, but that they are combati ng an evil, and that, at the same time, corporeal annihilation rea l ly means a rebirth of [the] sou l , not i n heaven, i ndeed, but here among ourselves. I d id my best to impre ss these ideas upon the soldiers' hearts (Zen for Americans 203) . W h i le on the battlefield Soe n even found t i me to compose a number of poems.

Representative of these i s

the following: Here, marching on Nan- Shan, Storming its topmost crest, Have thousands of brave men With dragon v a l o r pressed. Before the foe my heart Is calmed, composure-blessed, 96

While belching cannons sing A lullaby of rest (Zen for Americans 203). Soen also had a very clear idea of the relatio nship of Buddhism to war.

Again, because of its seminal content, it

is quoted extensively, thoug h not completely, here .

Soe n

wrote: Buddh ism provides us with two entrances through which we can reach the citadel of perfect truth. One IS the g ate of love (karuna) and the other the gate of knowledge (prajna) . The former leads us to the world of particul ars and the latter to realm of the absolute. By knowledge we aspire to reach the summit of spiritual enlightenment; by l ove we strive to rescue ou r fel low­ creatures from mise ry and crime. View the vicissitudes of things from the u nity a nd eternity of the rel ig ious standpoi nt, the Dharmadhatu, and everything is one, is on the same plane, and I learn to neglect the worldly d i st inction m ad e between friend a nd foe, tragedy and comedy, war and peace, s a msara and n i rva n a, passion (kle9a ) and enlightenment (bodhi ) . A philosophical calm pervades my soul and I feel the contentment of N i rv a n a. For there is nothing, as far as I can see, that does not reflect the glory of Buddha. . . . In this world of particulars, the noblest and greatest thing one can achieve is to combat evil and bri ng it i nto complete subjection. The moral principle which guided the Buddha throughout his twelve years of preparation and in his forty-eight years of religious wanderings, and which 97

pervades his whole doctrine, however varied it may be when practically applied, is noth i ng e lse than the subjugation of evil . . . . War IS an evi l and a great one, indeed . But wa r against evi ls must be unfl i nchi ngly prosecuted ti ll we attai n the fi nal aim. In the present hostil ities, i nto which Japan has entered with g reat reluctance, she pursues no egotistic pu rpose, but seeks the subjugation of evils hostile to civilization, peace , and enlightenment. She deliberated long befo re she took up arms, as she was aware of the magnitude and g ravity of the undertaking. But the firm conviction of the J ustice of her cause has endowed her with an indom itable cou rage, and she is determ ined to carry the struggle to the bitter end. Here is the price we must pay for our ideals - a p rice paid in streams of blood and by the sacrifice of m any thousands of living bodies. However determ ined may be our resolution to crush evils, our hearts tremble at the sight of this appalling scene . . . . Were it not for the consolation that these sacrifices are not b rought for an egotistic purpose, but are an inevitable step toward the final realization of enlightenment, how could I , poor mortal, bear these experiences of a hell let loose o n earth? (Zen for Americans 1 99-203) ( Italics mine ) . The significance of the i ndividual soldier i n this Il hell let loose on earthll became, as might be expected, a recurrent theme in Buddh ist discussions on warfare from this time onwards. About this Soe n had the following to say: 98

There is but one g reat spirit and we i ndividuals are its te mporal manifestations. We are eternal when we do the wil l of the great spi rit; we are doomed when we protest agai nst it i n our egotism and ig nora nce. We obey, and we l ive. We defy, and we are thrown i nto the fire that quencheth not. Our bodily eXistences a re l i ke the sheaths of the bamboo sprout. For the growth of the p lant it is necessary to cast one sheath after another. It is not that the body-sheath is negligible, but that the spirit-pl a nt is more esse ntial and its wholesome growth of paramount importance . Let us, therefore, not absolutely cling to the bodily existence, but, when necess a ry, sacrifice It for a bette r thing. For this is the way in which the spiritual ity of our being asserts itself. This bemg the case, war is not necessari ly horrible, provided that it is fought for a Just and honora b l e cause, that it is fought for the maintenance and real ization of noble i deals, that it is fought for the upholding of humanity and civilization. M any material human bodies may be destroyed, many hu mane hearts be broken, but from a broader poi nt of view these sacrifices are so m a ny ph [o ]en ixes consu med in the sacre d fire of spi rituality, which will arise from the smoulderi ng ashes reanimated, ennobled, and glorified . . . . We Buddhists a re not believers i n fiction, superstition, or mythology. We are followers of truth and fact. And what we actually see around us is that the departed spirits are abiding right among ourselves, for we have the most convincing testi mony of the fact in our i nmost consciousness which deceives not. They descend upon us, they dwell within us; for are we not being moved by the i r courage, 99

ea rnestness, self-sacrifice, and love of cou nt ry? D o w e not feel supernatu ra l ly i nspired a n d strengthened in our resolution to fol low them and to complete the work they have so auspiciously started? . . . . I am by no means trying to cover the horrors and evils of war, for war is certainly hellish. Let us avoid it as much as possible. Let us settle all our i nternational difficulties in a more civilized manner. But if it is unavoidable, let us go i nto it with heart and soul, with the firm conviction that o u r sp iritu al descendents w i l l ca rry out a n d accomp l ish what we have failed personally t o achieve. . . . Mere lamentation not only bears no fruit, it is a product of egoism, and has to be shunned by every enlightened mind and heart (Zen for Americans 2 1 1 -1 4) . I n evaluati ng Soe n 's words a s expressed above, it should be borne i n mind that, at least in the R i n z a i Zen tradition , they represent the thought of a fully enlightened Zen master. That is to say, Soe n had completed h is R i n z a i-style Z e n training, based o n the meditative use o f kaan (�*) , a t the u nusually early age of twe nty-fo u r.

He had therefo re

received dharma transmission i n the form of inka sham e i (I=PPJiiElVJ), signifying h is complete en lightenment, from his

master, I m a g it a Kosen (��t�J I I / 1 8 1 6-92).1 Further, if there 1 00

seems to be an echo of Suzu ki's thinking in Soe n's words, it should be noted that Suzuki was not only the latter's disciple, but he was also the translator of the above passages. One passage of Soen's that S u z u k i did not translate comes from a somewhat surprising source, the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoi. Because of his own pacifist views, T o l st o i h a d hop ed to enlist the a i d o f a noted Japanese Buddhist leader to JOin with h i m in condemnmg the war between the two nations. He had therefore requested Soe n to join h i m in this effort, only to rece ive the fol lowi ng reply which rea d in p art: Even though the Buddha forbid the taking of l ife, h e also taught that u ntil a l l sentient beings a r e u nited together through the exercise of i nfi nite compassion, there wi l l never be peace . Therefore, as a means of b ri n g i n g i nt o h a rm o ny t ho s e t h i n g s w h i c h a re i ncompati ble, killing and war are necessary (Heimin shimbun, No. 39).

1 01

Soe n was not, of cou rse, the only Buddh ist priest to go to the battlefield. All of the major Buddhist sects assigned not only chaplains but also m e d i cs to accompany the troops abroad.

Similarly, Soe n was not the only Buddhist leader to

j u stify the war fro m what purported to be a Buddh i st viewpoint. I noue E n ryo , for example, had this to say shortly before the formal outbreak of hostilities: Buddhism is a teaching of compassion, a teaching for l iving human beings. Therefore, fighting on b e h a l f of l ivmg humans bei ngs IS in accord with the spi rit of co mpass ion. In the event hostilities break out between Japan and Russia, it is only natural that Buddhists should willingly fight, for what is this if not repaying the debt of gratitude we owe the Buddha ? It goes without saying that this is a war to protect the state and sustain our fellow countrymen. Beyond that, however, it is the conduct of a Bodhisattva seeking to save u ntold millions of l iving souls throughout China and Korea from the jaws of death . Therefore Russia is not only an enemy of ou r country, but it is also the enemy of the Buddha. I n Russia state and rel igion are one, and there is no religious freedom. Thus, rel igion is used as a chain i n order to unify the [ Russian] people. Therefore, when 1 02

they [the Russian people] see O r i e n t a l s, they a re told that the latter are the bitter enemies of their religion. It is for this reason that on the one hand this is a war of politics and on the other hand it is a war of rel igion . . . . If theirs is the army of God, then ours is the army of the Buddha. It i s i n this way that Russia is n ot only an enemy of our country but of the Buddha as we" . The peoples of China and Korea are also O rie nta ls, the same " M o n g o l i a n " ra c e as o u rs e l v e s . T h u s , t h e s e golden- [hued] peoples are our b rothers and s isters, for we are one fam ily. Ou r rel igions, too, have been one from the beginning. Therefo re, putting Russians to death i n order to save our family members is not only our d uty as citizens, but as fel low Buddhists. . . . The reason that Buddhism is still in existence in our country today is due to the protection offered by the emperors down through the ages, starting with Prince Shoto ku . B u d d h i s m wou l d n ot exist [ i n J apan ] without the devotion of the I mpenal family. When looked at from this viewpoi nt, it is only natu ral for Buddhists t o fig ht to the death i n order to repay the debt of g ratitude they owe to the Buddha and the Emperor (Enryo kowashu 2 9 9-302) [ Italics mine ] . With regard to I no u e, M iya moto Shoson ( �:2t(iE!j/ 1 8 9 3 1 9 8 3 ) , a noted contemporary Buddhist scholar and p rofessor emeritus of Tokyo University, had this to say: I no u e E n ryo . . . was an innovative Buddhist scholar who d evoted himself to the modern ization and edificatio n 1 03

of Buddhism. He was also a theoretical thi nker and activist . . . who first uttered the phrase "protect the nation and love the truth " (gokoku airi!ll OOIl�I) [229] . I n contrast to this positive evaluation, It will be recalled that K itagawa noted that by the 1 890s I no u e had "turned I nto a spokesman for the I mperial Way" ( 2 3 1 ) .

Further,

Kitag awa added in a footnote: "Inouye's Buddhist a p o l o g e t i cs reflected the national istic aspirations of the people during the 1 880s" ( 2 3 0 ) .

Perhaps he should h ave added, " and

there after. " Kete l a a r offered perhaps the most penetrating analysis of the p reced i n g Budd hist priests and scholars when he wrote : This trend among late M e ij i sectarian Buddhists toward what we can call yet another attempt to unite religion and politics (seikyo itchi), this time based upon a new s c i e n t i s m of cooperative global evolution, carried with it consequences . . . r a d i c a l l y in oppositio n to some of the fundamental tenets of Buddhism. This new s eikyo ichi is, distinct from the early M e ij i attempt leg islated by t h e g overn m e n t, i n it i ated by t h e B u dd h ists themselves and all the more lasting because of it ( 1 7 2 ) . 1 04

By the end of the R u sso-Japanese War i n Septem ber 1 905,

the foundation had been laid for what woul d become

i nstitutional Buddhism's basic themes re lating to Japan's ongoing m i litary activities.

They m ay be summari zed as

fo l l ows : I)

2)

3)

Buddh ist participation I n Japan's wars is e nt i rely a p p ro p riate because these wars a re being fou g ht fo r a "J ust cause . " Japa n ' s wars a re , i n fact, expressions of Buddhist compassion. The enemies of Japan, the " obstreperous heathens " as Suzu k i calls them, are the enemies of the state, the Buddha , human progress, peace , enlighte n ment et. al.. Fighting "to the death" with them is an opportun ity to repay the debt of gratitude owed to both the Buddha and the Emperor. The J apanese Army is comprised (or, at least, ought to be c o m p ri se d ) of te n s of t h o us a n d s o f Bodhisattvas, ever wil l i ng t o sacnflce their l ives as so many "goose feathers. " Their goal i n this IS not only the defe n s e of their country but the rescue of fel low members of the " Mongolian race" fro m the hands of Western, white, and Christian i mperialists . As will be seen i n the following sections, though the

names of the Buddhist scholars and priests might change, these t hemes, with some variations a nd additions, wou l d be 1 05

repeated ove r and over i n the fol lowi ng years, employing i ncreasi n g l y J i n g o i s t i c language and ever s h ri l l e r vOices. G iven the envi ronment that had been created, it is not surp rising that A n e s a k i concluded his discussion of l ate M e iJ i Buddhist leaders with the observation that they had " g ladly accepted the role of tools of the Government. "

He

further noted that both they and their S h i nto counterparts p rovided a n " easy-going serviceab leness to the ru l i ng classes backed by their glorification of the regime" ( 3 9 1 -9 2 ) . Fina l ly , the actual fighting that too k p lace o n the battlefields of the Rus so-Japanese War laid the fou ndation of one of the more salient features of Japanese Buddhism in the followi ng years . That is to say, the close connection that was believed to exist between a so ldier's Buddh i st faith and his prowess on the battlefield. D. C. Holtom points out that in selecti ng troops for the crucial attack on Port Arthur, m i l itary leaders p u rposely selected u n its " from 1 06

Kanazawa and Kumamoto, districts where Buddhism is strong" ( 1 49). As to why a strong faith in Buddhism should make a difference on the battlefield, the noted Shin sect scholar Osuka Shudo had the fol lowing to say i n a book published on

April

2 0,

1 905

entitled

II A

G e n e ra l

S u rvey

of

Evangelization during Wartime" (ti�ffiim*i! ) : Reciting the name of Buddha Amita makes it possible to march onto the battlefield, firm in the belief that death will bring rebirth i n Parad ise. Being prepared for death, one can fight strenuously, knowi ng that it is a J ust fight, a fight employing the compassionate mind of the Buddha, a fight of a loyal subject. Tru ly, what could be more fortu nate than knowing that, should you die, a welcome awaits In the Pure Land [of Buddha Amita ] . ( 1 3 1 -3 2). T a i to Satoshi has pointed out that the N i nth Division from Kanazawa did indeed take Shudo's words to heart. That is to say, at the crucial battle for Port Arthu r, they recited

Buddha Amita 's name as they charged the enemy l ines. The result was eventu a l victo ry, but at a cost of 1 5 , 6 0 5 1 07

casu a l ities to the mse lves and cou ntless Russ i a n deaths ( 1 32). The Shin sect was not alone i n attempting to p rovide added martial prowess to J apan's soldiers.

The Zen sect,

too, sought to play a role, a role which can fi rst be observed in the reminiscences of Sawa ki Kod o nR*OOiS/ 1 88 0- 1 9 6 5 ) , o n e o f Japan's best known modern Soto Zen m asters a n d scholars .

For many Western Zen practitioners, Kodo will be

best known as the fou nder of a lay Zen training c e n te r at A n t a iJ i temple (3i:��) , located in Kyoto. In his book entitled Sawaki Koclo kiki kaki , Kodo fi rst talked of the hardships he endured as a d raftee i n the mil itary j u st p ri o r to the Ru sso-Japanese War.

With the war's

outbreak, however, Kodo went to the battlefield where he states: I and my comrades gorged ourselves o n killing people. Especially at the battle of Baolisi temple, I chased our enemies i nto a hole where I was able to pick them off 1 08

very effi c i e ntly. Beca use of t h i s , my company commander req uested that I be g iven a letter of commendation, but it wasn't issued ( 6 ) . As to how his comrades felt about h i s accomplishment, Kodo records the fol lowing conversation among them: "Who the hell is that guy? " " He's only a Zen priest" "I see. Just what you 'd expect from a Zen p riest. A man with guts" ( 6 ) . I n this simple conversation can b e seen what i s perhaps t h e fi rst modern reference to the effectiveness of Zen training on the battlefield. As fol lowing sections will reveal, however, it was certai n ly not to be the last reference to this topic.

I n fact, even during the war there was a much

more notable personage whose Zen training was thought to have contributed to his martial prowess .

This personag e

was no l ess t h a n General N o g i M a re s u k e (P.J**A/ 1 8 4 9 1 9 1 2 ) , commander o f the Third Army a n d one of the war's g re atest heroes. 1 09

N o g i had previously received i nstruction and undergone

koan training with the noted R i n z a i Zen master N ante nbo ( i¥J�./ 1 839- 1 925). Sharf described Nantenbo hi mself as " a staunch nationalist a n d p artisan t o the J apanese m il itary" ( 1 1 -1 2).

In his personal re m e m b rances, N antenbo reca l led

havi n g explai ned to N o g i that the essence of Zen was contai ned I n the single word J ikl ( d i re ct/� ) . Though one word, J i k i had three interrel ated yet disti nct meamngs: 1 ) movi ng forward without hesitation, 2 ) direct tra nsmission from m ind-to-mind, and 3 ) yamatodamashii (the spirit of J apan/�TJl) (Kasu mi 1 68). Sharf summed up the relationsh i p between

Zen and

the Russo-Japanese War period as follows: I t clearly served the i nterests of late M e ij i Zen apo logi sts to identify the " essence of Zen" with both the "spirit of bushido [the way of the warrior] " and the "spirit of Japan," notions then replete with connotations of imperial conquest and uncond itional obedience to the emperor" (1 2 ) . 110

As will be seen shortly, there is much more to be said about

the

re l a t i o n s h i p

yamatodamashii, and Zen .

b etwe e n

bushido

(m:±im:)

,

Before p reced i ng with t h at

discussion, however, it is important to take note, as is done i n the fol lowing section, that not .9l1 M e iJ i Buddhists were supporters of what Kitagawa referred to as "eth nocentric national ism" ( 2 3 1 ) .

111

E n d note 'There has been debate with i n Zen circles as to whether the s a t ori (1'8 U ) experience of Zen is the equivalent of Buddha Shakya m u n i ' s e n l ightenment.

own

e x p e ri e nce

of

" awa k e n i n g , "

I.e.

For Soen, however, there was noth ing to

debate. He stated: "To say the Buddha had a sa tori experience sounds as if we were talking about a Zen monk, but I think i t i s permissible to say that a monk's attai n i n g sa ton corre s p o n d s to the

B u d d h a ' s awa ke n i n g e ffo rtlessly"

(Eastern Buddhist, XXVI, No. 2, 1 4 1 ) .

112

C HAPTER

4:

UCH IYAMA G U DO-

RADICAL SOTO Z E N

P R I EST General

I nt ro d u c t i o n

The reader w i l l recall from t h e p revious chapte r a discussion by Anesaki Masaharu regard i ng the resolution of the conflict between the M eiJi Gove rn ment and J a p a n ' s traditional Buddhist sects. He noted that by the end of the MelJ i period, Buddhist leaders had "gladly accepted the role of tools of the Govern ment. "

Together with their Shinto

cou nterparts, they provided an "easy-going serviceableness to the ru l i ng classes backed by their g lonfication of the regime" ( 3 9 1 -9 2 ) . As already noted, similar comments have been made by Kitagawa, Yoshida, Theile, and Scharf among others . This

said,

it

is

i m p o rtant

to

note

that

t h es e

characterizations, or rather generalizations, were not meant as blanket statements.

Kitagawa, for example, points out 113

that "there were even a few Buddhists active i n the socialist and anarchist movements, and some who at least worked closely with members of such movements" ( 2 3 2 ) .

That is

to say, there were some Buddhist p riests who not o n ly o pposed t h e i r g overn ment's

I nc re a s i ng ly i m p e ri a l i s t i c

policies , but actually sacnficed the i r l ives i n t h e process of doing so. Th is chapter Wi l l focus on one such group of " radica l " Buddhists.

I n terms o f their actua l numbers, which was

qu ite sma ll, it may be argued that any focus on this g roup is u nwarranted.

This and the fol lowing chapter wi l l make

clear, however, that i n spite of their lack of numbers, they had a significant i mpact on the Buddhist leaders of their time, espec ially as these leaders continued to fo rmulate thei r i ndividual and col lective responses to Japan ' s m i l itary expansion abroad and political repression at home.

114

Radical Buddh ist Pri ests and the " H i g h Treason I ncident"

It is the H igh Treason I ncident (*�.i!f) of 1 9 1 0 that first brought to l i g ht the existence of politically radical Buddhist priests .

Specifically, there we re fou r Buddhist

p ri ests who were fi rst arrested , and then convicted, for their a l l eged participation in a conspi racy to k i l l one o r more members o f the Imperial fami ly.

These fou r were

part of a l arger g roup of twenty-six in all who were also convicted of the same crime. Of the four priests, the Ve n. Uchiyama Gudo . He never complained about [the quality of] his food. No matter how humble it was, he ate it g ladly, t reating it as a delicacy. Further, h e was i n d i ffe re nt to what he wore, wearing tattered, though never SOiled, clothi ng and hats. This is according to 302

Zen Master Yamazaki E k iju's description of the Colonel as co nta ined in the latter's posthumous book, Taigi (741 ). Sugi moto 's adm i rers , moreover, were not simp ly to be fou nd within Zen circles.

Needless to say, he also had

the support of leading members of the I mperi a l m i litary, especially its officer corps .

This is clear, first of all, from

the fact that two generals contributed a piece of their own c a l l i g raphy as part of the i ntroduction to Taigi its e l f. Furthermore, when one of Sugimoto's fel low lay Zen trainees wrote a second account of his l ife, Lt. Col. Koz u k i Yos h i o ( J:. FJ m*) of the Impenal Army, wrote one of the prefaces.

This book, entitled appropriately, Lt. Col. Sugimoto Goro 's

was written by Oya m a S u m ita (*JlJ�;t:), a government official. Lt. Col. Koz u k i's preface concluded with the fol lowing words:

303

For the sake of our I mperial nation there is nothing that would make me happier than for this book to result In the birth of a second and third Sugimoto ( i i i ). I f J apa nese m i l itary leaders lent their support to p ro moting Sug i moto' s ideas, it is hardly surpnsin g to find leading gove rnment officials doi ng likewise .

I n a second

p reface to the same book, the V i ce- M inister of t h e Com m unications Min istry, Owada T e iJ i ( *® IB�=) had this to say: At p resent, all the people of our nation have risen to complete the goals of this sacred war. At such a time it is i ndeed fel icitous for thi s i nvincible cou ntry to h ave obtained this book which promotes the rebi rth of the Lt . Colonel's g reat spirit with in the m inds of one hundred m i l l ion citizens. What an u n l im ited J OY it is for East A s i at (v i i ) For all the statements o f support noted above, i t was not here that the true significance of Sugi moto's life, thought, and w ri t i n g s was to be fou nd. That is to say, none of the g roups mentioned above needed to be convinced of the justice of Japan's sacred war. Yet there was one g roup who 304

were not necessarily convinced that this war demanded the sacrifice of their lives - the school age youth of Japan.

It

was with these youth that Taigi was desti ned to have its g reatest impact . I n his war recollections, Okuno Takeo ( JJ:mJM� ) wrote of the effect that Taigi had on his and his schoolmates' l ives as fol lows : By 1 943-44 the war situation in the Pacific War had gradually worsened . Middle school students began to read Sugimoto G o ro's Taigi with great enthusiasm . . . . By word of mouth we got the message - read Taigi , it's terrific ! It teaches what true reverence for the Emperor really is! I was then attending Azabu middle school [in To kyo] . I n 1 943 I had taken turns i n reading Taigi. The resu lt of this was that I and my friends formed a stude nt club we called the Chikushinkai (Bamboo Mind Society/ 1'r/t\�) to put into practice the spirit of Taigi . We bought in instructors from the outside and held study meetings. The same kind of Taigi study circles sprang up i n all the middle schools i n Tokyo . We then started to communicate among ourselves. . . I later learned that in almost all middle schools throughout Japan Taigi had been fervently read and student study societies created ( Chua Koran 77). .

.

.

.

305

While there is no way to accu rately assess the i mpact that Taigi had on the youth of Japan, the preceding quote makes It clear that it was a sig mficant motivational factor. While it m ay be argued that these youth were, after a l l , sti l l students, i t should be remem bered that after 1 9 43 even students as young as fifteen came under pressure to assume a variety of wartime roles.

l e n ag a has wntten the

following g raphic description of thiS development: In 1 943 d efe rments were ended fo r stu d ents in u n i v e rs i t i e s , technical colleges, and h igher schools . . . . M o b i l i zation reached t h e lowe r g rades i n fo rm a l ly throug h quotas for youth volunteers ( boys fifteen to seventeen years of age) and volu nteers for M anchu ria­ M o n g o l i a Development Youth Patriotic Units . M ad e responsible for fil li ng the quotas, teachers p ressu red the children directly by saying, "Any Japanese boy who doesn't get into this ' holy war' will be shamed for l ife . " The teachers would visit a student's home and get h is parents' tearful approval. Many boys in their m id-teens b e c a m e y o u t h p i l o ts a n d you t h t a n k e rs , o r "volunteered" for service i n Manc h u ri a a nd Mongolia. These rosy-c hee ked teenagers were put i n special attack u n its and blew themselves u p c rash i n g i nt o enemy ships ( 1 9 5-9 6 ) . 306

The vaunted unity of Zen and the sword as advocated by the E k iJu's and S u z u k i's of the B u d d hist world had come to this - p l ac i ng youth who were l ittle more than children into "special attac k units" ( tokkotai/ �I��) to become the i nfamous kamikaze (:Mtlmt) pilots headed on a one-way trip to oblivion. Ze n Masters i n the War Effort

I t woul d be comfortmg, thou g h mcorrect, to bel ieve that E k iJu and his " Imperial State-Zen " were somehow unique or isolated phenomenon with i n Zen circles during the war years . The truth is that he was merely " representative" of what both other leading Zen masters were saYing and doing at this time.

If there is anything that disti ngu ished him at

a l l from h is conte mporaries it was that one of h is lay disciples, i . e . Sugi moto G o ro , had come to epitomize i n l ife (or, better said, in death) what many Zen m asters and scholars merely talked about in a somewhat abstract way. 307

Nevertheless, the i mporta nce of this " me rely talked about" role of Zen m asters should not be u nderestim ated . As

p revi o u s ly

d i sc u sse d ,

the

g ov e rn m e nt

c e rt a i n ly

appreciated its i mportance a s a potential morale booster (or destroyer) .

Sugimoto had h i m s e l f described what he

believed the appropriate role of not only Zen p riests but all Buddh ist priests ought to be. He wrote: Each B u d d h i st temple d eve l o p i n g sp i ri t u a l Priests should b e the doing they can claim religion ( 1 9 8 ) .

should be a training c e n t e r for d i sc i p l i n e w i t h i n the peo p l e . leaders of this training. I n s o the right t o b e called men o f

Not surprisingly, E k iJu found that i n saying this Sugimoto had d isplayed a "grand attitude" ( 1 9 8 ) . Yet he was far from alone in the Zen world in his acceptance of this role. M aste r Hata

Zen

Esho ( 1 8 6 2- 1 944/�SHB ) , who was b o t h

administrative head of the Soto Zen sect and chief abbot o f E i h e ij i, was a lso in agreement.

He wrote the followin g i n

the December 1 942 issue of Sansho: 308

One fu l l year has elapsed si nce the outbreak of the Gre ater East As i a n War. It is said that the wa r has e n t e re d a stage of protracted fighting. In such a stage t h e need for materials will increase more and more . . . . We Zen priests cannot directly produce so m uch as a grain of rice or a sheet of paper. However, in terms of developing the spIritual power of the people, there is a way for us, i ncompetent thou g h we be, to do our publ ic duty. I believe that we shou ld do everything in our power to go in this di rection (409- ' 0 ) . If there i s any question a s to what this most powerful Soto Zen master thought of Japan's war effort, or Buddhism's relationship to that effort, Esho clarified his position in the same issue of Sansho. He wrote: O n Decem be r 8th Buddha Shakya m u n t looked at the morning star and realized perfect enlightenment while seated u nder the Bodhi tree. One year ago, on this very d ay, through the p rocl amation of the I mperial edict to annihilate A m e r i c a and England, our country s t a rted afresh toward a new East As i a, a g reat East Asia . This signifies nothing less than the enl ightenment of East Asia . . . . As we now welcome the first anniversary of the outbreak of the Greater E ast Asi a n War, we rea l i ze that the future wi l l not be easy. We m ust therefore renew ou r conviction that nothing else but certain victory lies ahead (407).

309

In accordance with Esho 's directions, Soto Zen leaders focused their efforts on " developing the spiritual power of the people . " Typical of this effort was an exhortation written on January 1 , 1 94 1 by the sect's administrative head, Om o r i Zenkal (*�tij1�) .

His article i ncorporated the very same

quote from Zen Master Dogen about "forget [ting] the self" that Sugimoto had used previously. Zenkal went on to add : The essence of the practice of an [ Imperial] subject is to be found in the basic principle of the Buddha Way which is to forget the self. It is by giving concrete form to this essence in any and all situations, regardless of time or p lace, that Buddhism is, for the first time, able to repay the debt of gratitude it owes the state (So to Shuho 1 ). The following yea r Zen Master Yamada R e l r i n ( 1 8891 979/l1I mB�) wrote a book entitled Evenmg Talks on Zen

Studies (Zengaku Yawal t.!j!�elli ) .

In postwa r years R e i r i n

would go on to first become President of Soto Zen-affi l i ated Komazawa University and then the chief abbot of E i h e ij i .

31 0

R e i r i n began his book by pointmg out that Emperor K i m m e l ( 5 3 9- 5 7 1 /�D}J ) first al lowed Buddhism i nto Japan because he recognized that " it would be of service to h i m " ( 2 5). R e i r i n then went o n t o speculate a s t o whether o r not Buddhism was still able to render such service. He wrote: J apan has now plunged in the most serious situation It has faced smce the beginning its history. The question I S whether or not Buddhism can now be of service to the E mperor. In both quantity and quality, it is necessary for Buddhism to p rovi de such excel lent service. All B u d d h ists, reg a rdless of sectarian affi l iation , m ust come forwa rd to d o their great duty in support of I mperial rule ( 2 6 ) . R e i r i n clearly be lieved h e was doi ng his part i n this effort because he took a whole chapter to address one of the most d ifficult problems o n the wartime h o mefront the consolation of parents whose sons had fa llen i n battle. Util iz i n g the popular fol k belief in Japan concern i n g the trans m i g ration of souls , R e i r i n p rovided the fol l owi ng explanation: 31 1

The true form of the heroic spi rits [of the dead] is the good k a rm i c power that has resulted from their loyalty, b rave ry, and nobi l i ty of characte r. This c a n not disappear . . . . The body and mind that will be produced by this k a r m i c power cannot be other than what h as existed up to the present. . . . The loyal, brave, noble, and heroic spirits of those officers and men who have died shouting, "May the Emperor live for ten thousand years l " w i l l be reborn right here in this country. It is only natural that this should occur ( 5 3-4 ) . Finally, like so many of h is predecessors, R e i r i n could not fo rego a discussion of the "viri l ity" HOJ o Tok i m u ne received from his Zen training ( 1 83 ) .

H e then went o n to

assert that it was Zen which made possible the maintenance of an adamantine mind and the gushing forth of a pure and fiery spirit ( 1 90) . If one would but " annihilate the ego, " he wrote, then an "absolute and mysterious power and radiance would fill one 's body and mind" ( 8 5 ) .

All of this, plus " an

u n l i m ited g ratitude to the I mperi a l m i l i t a ry " for their 11

"wonderful fruits of battle ( 8 1 ) .

31 2

Soto Zen scholars of the period were no less supportive of Japan's war effort than were that sect's Zen masters . O n e o f the sect's best known scholars, a specialist in the thought of Zen Master Dogen ( 1 200- 1 2 5 3/i@;&) , was Dr. K u re bayas h i Kodo (.**�� ) .

In postwar years he wou l d

succeed Yamada R e i r i n as President o f Komazawa University. At the outbreak of fu ll-scale war with Chma m 1 9 3 7 , he wrote an article entitled "The [China ] Incident a nd Buddhis m . " Ku re bayashi's article, appearing i n the October 1 9 3 7 issue o f Sansho, began with the now customary advocacy of the "Just war" theory. " It goes without sayi ng, " he said, " that the North China I ncident (375).

IS

a war on behalf of Justice"

Not only that, but "all of Japan's wa rs since the

S i n o- Japa nese War have been such wars " ( 3 7 5 ) . And as if that were not enough, he added, "And in the future should there be further wars there is no doubt they w i l l also be Just" ( 3 7 5 ) . 31 3

ASide

fro m

g iv i n g

p resent and futu re J a p a nese

g overnments carte blanche to fight wherever and whenever t hey wished, K u re bayashl's statement IS notable for the rationale he provided to Justify his position. He wrote: The reason [Japan's wars are Just] is, I dare say, because of the influence of the Buddhist spi nto The spirit of Japan which was nurtured by Buddhism is ceaselessly wo rki n g toward s coopera ti o n among peoples a n d eternal peace i n the Orient. Without the influence of Buddhism, a thoroughgoing, i nternational frate rna l spirit would be impossible ( 3 7 5 ) . Ku rebayash i went o n to assert that Japan's actions in China were the "practice of compassion . " ( 3 7 6-77 ) .

Based

on this, he had the fol lowi ng to say about the Impenal m i l i t a ry : Wherever the Imperial mil itary advances there i s only charity and love. They could never act in the barbarous and cruel way in which the Ch i nese soldiers act. This can truly be considered to be a g reat accomplishment of the long period which Buddhism took i n nurtu ring [the Japanese mil itary] . Expressed in different words, it means that b rutality itself no longer exists in the officers and men of the I m peri a l m i l itary who h ave been schooled in the spirit of Buddhism ( 3 7 7 ) . 31 4

K u re bayas h i concluded the a rticle by rem i n d i n g h is readers that " it was only the Japanese people who embodied the true spi rit of Buddhism" ( 3 7 8 ) .

"Without a fa ith in

Buddhis m , " he asserted, "this nation cannot p rosper, nor can h u manity find happi ness" ( 3 7 8 ) .

One can only wonder

w h at K u rebayash i would h ave s a i d to l en aga' s

well­

docu mented assertion that "there were s o many atrocities [ committed by Japan ese troops] that one cannot even begin to list them all" ( 1 6 7 ) . K u reb ayas h i was not, o f course, the only Zen scholar to voice his support of Japan's war efforts. Dr. H ldane J osan, a p rofessor at the R i n z a i Ze n sect-affili ated u n ive rs i ty, R i n z a i G a k u i n, also wrote an article about the same "incident." His article was entitled, reveali ngly, "The Cu rrent I ncident and the Vow and Practice of a BodhIsattva ." I t appeared in the October 1 93 7 issue of Zenshu, a monthly periodical

31 5

Jointly supported by all thirteen branches of the R i n z a i Zen sect. Hidane began his article with the assertion that up to this point Japan's modern wars had been a matter of " selfdefense" ( 1 9 ) .

" It is impossible , " he wrote,

"to find a ny

other meaning to either the S i no- J ap a nese War, the R us soJ a p a nese War, or the Manchurian Incident [of 1 9 3 1 ] " ( 1 9 ) . The current fighting, however, was different: Speaking from the point of view of the ideal outcome, this is a ng hteous and moral war of sel f-sacrifice In which we will rescue China fro m the d a n g ers of Communist takeover and economic slavery. We will help them live as true O ri e nta ls. It would therefore , I dare say, not be u n reasonable to call this a sacred war I n corporat i n g the great practice of a Bodhisattva ( 1 9). There is one other Imeage (or school) of Zen Budd h i sts whose wartime words and actions are noteworthy. As S h a rf has noted, this l i neage, though rel atively small i n number, has been quite influential in spread ing their version of Zen i n the West, especially the United States (40 ) . The fou nder 31 6

of this group was Zen Master Harada Daiun Sog a k u ( 1 8 701 96 1 /IJj{ EB*�*.Il&-) . Ph i l i p Kapleau, a prominent descendant i n this l i neage, included the fol lowi ng descri ption of this master i n his now famous book, The Three Pillars of Zen: Nomi nally of the So to sect, he [Da iun] welded together the best of Soto and R i n z a i and the resulting a m algam was a vibrant Buddhism which has become one of the g reat teachmg lines of Japan today. Probably m ore than anyone else I n his time he revita li zed, t hrou g h his p rofound spiritu al I nsig ht, the teachings o f Dogen­ z e nJ i, which had been steadily d rained of their v i g o r t h ro u g h the s h a l l ow u nderstanding o f p riests a n d s ch o l a rs of t h e Soto s e c t in whose hands t h e i r exposition h a d hitherto rested . . . . Like all masters of high spiritual development, he was the keenest Judge of character. He was as quick to expose p re t e n s e and sham as he was to detect it. Exceptional students he d rove merci lessly, exacting from them the b est of which they were capable. From all he demanded as a sine qua non since rity and absolute adherence to his teach i ngs, b ro o k i n g not the slightest deviation . Casual o b s e rve rs often fou n d him rig i d a n d narrow, b u t d isciples and students who were faithful to his teachings knew him to be wise and compassionate ( 2 73-74) .

31 7

Another promi nent member of this l i neage, Maezu m i Ha kuyu Ta izan ( 1 9 3 0- ) , fou nder of the Zen Ce nter o f Los A n g e l es, had this to say about Dalun: Daiun H a rada R o s h l was a Zen master of rare breadth and accomplishment in the twentieth-century Japan . . . . He became abbot of Hoss h l nJ i and dUring the next forty years, until his death In 1 9 6 1 , made the monastery famous as a rigorous Zen tra ining center, k nown for its harsh climate, its strict discipline and its abbot's keen Zen eye ( Maezumi and Glassman 1 94) . Whatever else he may have been, the fact is that Daiu n was also one of the most committed Zen supporters of Japan's m i litary actions.

If, as Kapleau clai ms,

Dalun

" revita li zed " Zen, he did so b y creating something he designated as "War Zen " (sensa Zen / !\tl�*¥) as early as 1 9 1 5 . I t was i n this year that he published a book entitled

A Primer on the Practice of Zen

(Sanzen no kaitei/ #*ji!(l)�

m) of which IIWar Zenll formed the eleventh chapter. The fi rst subtitle of this chapter was e ntitled "The Entire Universe is at War" ( 1 1 2 ) . 31 8

In this section he noted

that while "It was unavoidable that Japan had e ntered the [ First] World War,

happily, in one part of the [Ch i nese]

p rovince of Shandong, Japan had reached the point where i t was singing the song of victory" ( 1 1 2 ) .

I t was this

environment, he wrote, that had led him to tal k about " War Zen" I nstead of " Peace Zen." For Daiun there was nothing strange about Japan being at war for " if you look at all phenomena in the universe you Will see that there IS nothing which is not at war" ( 1 1 2 ) . In the natu ral world, for example, plum seeds try to take over the world for plums, while rice g rains try to take over the world for rice, etc.

The human world is the same, with

pol iticians struggling with one another to take over the pol itical world, merchants stru g g l i n g with one another to take over the busi ness world, etc. Buddhism is also not exempt from strugg le, accord i ng to Daiun, the proof being that Buddha Shakya m u n i had himself 31 9

conquered de mons in the cou rse of realizing enlig htenment. Thus, " it can be said that without plunging i nto the war arena, it is totally impossible to know the Buddha Dharma " ( 1 1 6). Based on the above, Daiun then went on to point out that " in all of the phenomena of either the ordinary world or the spiritual world, there is not one where war is absent. How could Zen alone be free of this principle?" ( 1 1 7 ) " I t is impermissible, " he wrote, "to forget war for even an instant" ( 1 1 7). In fai rness to Daiun it must be pointed out that aside from his initial praise for Japan's m i litary success,

the

"War Zen" of which he wrote was centere d on what he believed should

be

the

a p p ro p riate

mental

attitu d e

practitioners in their search fo r enlightenment.

o f Zen

I n support

of this i nterpretation is the fact that one of his concluding statements pointed out: "The Great Way of the Buddhas and 320

[Zen] Patri archs is neither i n war nor peace. . . " ( 1 1 7- 1 8 ) . This said, i t i s also true that the military-like attitude he displayed here toward Zen train ing formed the basis of what I c h i kawa Hakugen would l ater refer to as his "fanatical m i litarism" ( Nihon 1 5). One of Daiun's quotes on the rel ationship of Zen and war whose meaning is quite clear is the following. It appeared as part of an article he wrote in the March 1 9 3 4 issue of the m agazine Chuo Bukkyo (Central Buddhism/JtI��k�) . It read: The spirit of Japan is the G reat Way of the [Shinto ] Gods. It is the substance of the U niverse, the essence of the Truth. The J ap a nese people are a chosen people whose m ission IS to control the world . The sword which kills is also the sword which g ives l ife. Comme nts opposing war are the foolish opinions of those who can only see one aspect of things and not the whole. Politics conducted on the basis of a constitution are premature, and therefore fascist pol itics shoul d be implemented for the next ten years. Similarly, education makes for shal low, cosmopol itan-m inded persons . All of the people of this country should do Zen . That is to say, they should al l awake to the Great Way of the Gods. This is MaHayana Zen" ( 1 77). 321

By 1 9 3 9 Daiun no longer found it necessary to even discuss anti-war thought. "The One Road of Zen and War" is an a rticle he wrote for the N ove m b e r 1 9 3 9 Issue of the magazine Daijo Zen (Mahayana Zen/ jd'�*¥) . It read in part: [If ordered to] march: tramp, tra m p , or shoot: bang , bang. This is the manifestation of the highest Wisdom [of Enlightenment] . The unity of Zen and war of which I speak extends to the farthest reaches of the holy war [now u nder way] . Verse: I bow my head to the floor in reve re n c e of that whose nobility is without equal ( 1 9 7 ) . By the beginnmg of 1 943 the tide o f war h a d clearly tu rned against Japan.

The government called on B u dd h ist

leaders to do their u tmost to mobil ize the entire civilian popu lation in the war effort.

Under these circu mstances

Daiun wrote the following i n the F e b ru a ry 1 9 43 issue of the periodical Zen no Seikatsu (The Zen Life/ �.!j!(/)��iS): It has never been as necessary as it is today for all one hundred m i l l io n people of th is country to be committed to the fact that as the state lives and dies, so do they . . . . We must devote ourselves to the practice of Zen and the discernment of the Way. We must push 322

on In applying ourselves to "combat zazen, " the King of meditation [samadhil ='*] (252). By the latter part of 1 944 the outlook for Japan h ad become bleak.

The unthinkable was becoming thinkable,

the home islands cou ld be subject to invasion.

I n this

situ ation every ab le-bod ied citizen, both young and old, and a rmed often with no more than ba mboo spears, was being trai ned to repel the invaders.

In response, Daiun

w rote the followmg a rticle entitled , " Be Prepa red, One H u n d red Mil lion [Citizens] , for Death with Honor' " which appeared i n the J u ly issue of that year's Daij'O Zen: It is necessary for all one hundred mil lion citizens [of Japan] to be prepared to die with honor . . . . If you see the enemy you must kill h i m; you m ust destroy the false and establish the true - these are the card inal points of Zen . It is said that if you kill someone it is fitting that you see their blood . It is further said that if you a re riding a powerfu l horse nothing is beyond you r reach . Isn 't the purpose of the zazen we have done in the past to be of assistance in a n emergency like this? ( 2 83 ) .

323

Chronologically spea king, there was still one year left before Japan 1 s fi nal su rrender.

This was the period when

the kamikaze suicide attacks, already mentioned, came to the fore as the last desperate, yet futile, attempt to stave off defeat. By early 1 945 most Buddhi st-related p u b l icat i ons had closed down as part of the overa l l effort to funnel all available resources to the m i l itary effort.

Thus, for the

most part, Budd hist leaders, Zen and otherwise, lost their p ri nted voice.

In general, however, newspapers were stil l

being pri nted and, o n occasion, Buddhist viewpoints were stil l to be found . O n e o f t h e l ast Zen-related voices to be heard was that of Dr. Masunaga R e i ho (iI;JdllJ.) , a Soto Zen p riest and scholar who in the post-war years would publish substantial works in English.

From May 25 to J u n e 1 , 1 94 5 Masunaga

wrote a series of articles in the Chugai Nippo (�� B �)

324

e ntitled "The Sou rce of the Spirit of the Speci al Attac k Forces. " His argument was as follows: The source of the spirit of the Special Attack Forces lies in the denial of the individual self and the rebirth of the sou l which takes upon itself the burden of history. From anCient times Zen has described this conversion of mind as the achievement of complete enlightenment (295). In the J a panese language there is the phrase '�ku tokoro

made it ta " (fj < c C:: -3 *1?�1" J 1t:) which roughly means " to go as far as one can go . "

In equ ating the sUicidal spi rit of

kamikaze p i lots with the com plete e n l i g h te n me n t of Buddhism, it can be safely said that Masunaga had taken Zen as far as it could go. Z e n Secta rian Activities

As mentioned in the beginning, this dissertation makes no p rete n se at being a complete history of either the words or actions of Zen (or Buddh ist) adherents and organizations during the wartime years. Its focus has been, instead, on an 325

exploration of the i d e a s that motivated recogn ized Zen leaders.

H aving said this, it is also true that Zen leaders

had long set store on the i mportance of knowledge being united with action . Thus, though cursory at best, there is a need to see in what way their ideas were translated into actions. In examining this issue, the first thing that must be recognized is that to a great extent the actions taken by J apan's two major Zen sects closely paralleled those taken by other sects irrespective of doctrinal d ifferences.

Many

of these, havi ng to do with social re l ief at home a nd m issionary work abroad, have already been a ll u de d to. Others, however, have yet to be examined . One example of Zen sectarian war-related action was the h o l d i n g of special religious services designed to ensure VictOry i n battle. The belief in the efficacy of such services p redated the introduction of Buddhism into Japan, and was 326

connected to the bel ief that "merit, " a type of spiritual compensation, was created as a result of meritorious acts, as for example the copying or recitation of sutras, the buildi ng of temples, etc. Not only cou ld merit be created, but it cou ld be transferred to others. Fu rthermore, in the

Mahayana tradition the idea of merit transference became a normative standard of conduct for a bodhisattva, h avi ng been incorporated into the perfection of morality ( sh7/a ), one of six such perfection s .2 I n Japan the conduct of these special services was p a n -Buddh ist in nature and thus not limited to the Zen tradition alone. I n fact, the Zen tradition had originally been opposed to such services with their attendant prayers for worldly favors.

However, as Nakamura HaJime ( �t-t5[:) has pointed

out:

327

F ro m the time of To kiyon HOJ o ( 1 2 2 7- 1 2 6 3 ) and Tokimune Hoj o ( 1 2 1 5-1 2 8 4 ) o nwa rds, the nobil ity, patrons of the Zen sect, assailed priests with demands fo r prayers whenever they worried themselves even over trivialities. Thus, the temples of the Zen sect were going to be a sort of seminary of prayers ( 5 83 ) . Unde r these circu mstances, the most common practice In Zen temples came to be the recitation, in whole or I n p art, o f the PraJlla- paramita ( Perfection o f Wisdom ) sutras. As R i n z a i Zen sect-affiliated I m a i Fukuzan ( �:JH; llJ ) pointed out in the J a n u a ry 1 9 3 8 edition of Zenshu, these sutras were thoug ht to be particularly efficacious " because they teach that wherever these sutras a re circu l ated, various d isasters and demons will disappear to be replaced by good fortune" ( 1 8 ) .

Because these sutras consiste d , in thei r

J a p a n ese version, of some six hundred volumes, it was also typical in ceremonial use to read only a lim ited number of passages from the total col lection.

328

The following passage describes one such service held at SOJ iJ i (*!ffl�) , the second of the two head monasteries of the Soto Zen sect.

It appeared on the front page of the

N ov e m b e r- Dece m be r 1 944 issue of the Soto Shuho ¥Ii), the sect's administrative organ.

(S:Iii.I *

In this case the focus

of the service was on the completion of a sect-wide effort to make millions of hand-written copies of the very short

Prajfia param l ta hridya sutra which was considered to contain the essence of the teach ings contai ned i n the l a rg e r collection.

As already noted, the hand-copying o f sutras

was seen a merit-producing act, e s p e c i a l l y when done on such a massive scale. The highlights of the article, beginning with its title, are as follows:

329

The Service to Pray for Certain Victory [Based on the Completion of] the Consecrated Copying of Ten M illion Prajna Para m i ta Hridya Sutra s

.

•

.

.

The g reat victory that was recently ach ieved off the coasts of Taiwan and the Ph i l i p p i n e s can be said to have astonished the world. Yet, in spite of that, the seventy of the terrific cou nterattack by the A m e ri c a n and B ri t i s h enemy, who depend o n massive amounts of materials, increases day by day. Outside the cou ntry, extre mely fierce fig hting is gOing o n the P h i l ip p i ne island of Leyte. Within the country, the ugly enemy lawlessly dares to bomb the I m peri a l capital and reconnoiter our I mperial land. The national crisIs on the w a r fro nt is unprecedented. There has never been a fall as severe as this one, nor has there ever been a g reater need fo r a l l one h u nd red m i l l i o n I mperial subjects to rouse themselves. It was our sect that fi rst proposed zealously u niting together for the purpose of the consecrated copying of 1 0 million copies of the Prajfia paramita hridya sutra. The goal of this effort is our fervent prayer for certain victory. Bu rning with enthusiasm, our whole sect, clerics and lay alike, applied themselves to this proj ect with the result that they greatly exceeded the planned ten million copies by some one million three hu ndred and eighty thousand. Some of the copies were written i n b lood and others were sealed in blood . Some of the copies were written i n b ra i l l e by wou nded soldiers who had lost their sight. We were also deeply moved 330

by the unsurpassed honor to have copies bestowed on us by members of the Imperial Family. For seven days beginning from Septe m b e r 1 , [ 1 9 44 ] , the Great Prayer Service was solem nly held at the g reat monastery of SOj ij i. Reve rently we prayed for the health of His Majesty, the wel l-being of the I mperial lands, and the surrender of the enemy countries ( 1 ) . One of the notable features of the preceding quotation is the way in which the then current war situation was woven i nto the description of this ' religious service.' Even soldiers who had lost their sight in battle were g iven a prominent role.

What needs to be further exami ned , however, is the

meaning of the term " prayer" ( kl to/ mm) as used in the s e rvice. Lacking a personal ' God' to whom entreaties can be m ade, Buddhism uses the doctrine of 'merit transference' to Insure ItS 'prayers' are answered. In the case of both the R i n z a i a nd Soto Zen sects, they actu a l ly changed ( o r sometimes restored) eleme nts o f t h e concluding ' me rit tra nsfer verse' (e kobun / mJ(R]Jt) to reflect the nation's war 331

priorities. This done, the merit that was generated by the ceremonial recitation of one or more sutras, or making handwritten copies thereof, cou ld then be applied to the realization of military goals. According to the A p r i I 1 5 , 1 942, edition of the Soto

Shuho, that sect's newly approved e kobun i nclude d such phrases as 1 ) unending martial fortu ne and health for the officers and men at the front, 2 ) continuing victory In the holy war, 3 ) enhancement of national prestige, etc. And of cou rse there was the phrase, " May the sacred life of His M aj esty, the Emperor extend for ten thousand yea rs and may He be in good health" ( 6 ) . A s for t h e R i n z a i Zen sect, I m a i Fukuzan, mentioned a bove, poi nted out: " I n ou r sect, religious services have been performed duri ng wartime for more than six hundre d yea rs with the goal o f enhancing mil itary power" ( 1 7 ) .

It

was only after the beginning of the M e ij i period , h e further 332

noted, that this custom had momenta rily fallen mto disuse. The reason for this was that these mil itary verses were considered to be disloyal by some senior offici als of the new govern m ent. These officials knew of t h e i r e a rl i e r association with the local armies of feudal lords (who often doub led as temple patrons) , rather than being exclusively dedicated to the person ( and army) of the E mperor. I m a I pointed out that there was no longer any reason to be hesitant about resu rrecti ng the m i l itary-o riented

e kobun of the past.

On the contrary, nothing cou ld be

more appropriate in light of the outbreak of war with China. A comparison of the p re- M e ij i verse he proposed as a model for the R i n z a i sect with that subsequently adopted by the Sat o sect reveals little in the way of substantive difference . There was, however, one differe nce . T h a t is, t h e

Mahayana Bodhisattva o f compassion, i . e . A valokitesh vara (J. Kanzeonl Umfi) was transformed i nto a military fig u re . 333

A valokitesh vara was 'elevated' in the R i n z a i verse to no less than the rank of general. (J. Kanzeon Shogun Bosatsu/

i!mffm!l!�j(i) [2 1 -22]. With A valokitesh vara as its protector, if not its head, how could the I mperial military be anything less than compassionate? While the conduct of the type of religious services d e s c ri b e d

a bove

m ay

be

con s i d e re d

an

i n ta n g i b l e

contnbution to Japan' s war effort, such services were only one part of a much larger effort. On the tangible side must be listed the fund-ra ising activities undertaken to p rovide a nu mber of aircraft to the m i litary.

These fu nd-raising

activities were u ndertaken by the leaders of both the Soto and R i nz a i Zen sects, not to mention other sects. In the case of Soto Zen, the fund-ra ising effort began on the fourth anniversary of ful l-scale war in China, i.e. J u l y 7, 1 941 .

Within two weeks sufficient funds were raised to

buy one fighter plane "of the latest model" for the I mperial 334

N avy and two hospital transport pla nes for the I mpenal Army.

These planes were named "Soto No. 1 , No. 2 , " etc.

The S e pte m b e r 1 , 1 94 1 issue of Soto Shuho contai ned the fol lowing com ments about this effort: In accordance with the national policy of constructing a ful ly-armed state , our sect, u n ited as one, h as contri bu ted [ a i rp l a n es named] " Sot o" with the hope that the si ncerity of this act will turn into the maj estic form of these planes flying high in the sky of the Greater East As i a Co-prosperity Sphere . . . . and believing this will contribute greatly to the stimulation and g rowth of the people's spirit ( 3 ) . The R i n z a i Zen sect, specifically the Myos h i nJ i branch ( feP/t\�5�), was not to be found wanting in this effort. Thus, although this branch was considerably l ess than one-third the size of the undivided So to sect, it had, by J u l y 1 944, contributed two fighter aircraft to the I mperial Navy.

In

light of: 1 ) the Zen-oriented "spiritu a l tra i n i n g " being p rovi ded to soldiers, especially officers , of the I mp e ri a l Army, and 2 ) the fact that the Soto and R i n z a i sect's fig hter 335

p lanes were donated to the I mperial N avy, it can be said that the Allied Forces fought "Zen" on the g rou nd, in the air, and at sea. In terms of their material significance, these donations of a few airc raft were marg i na l ly significant at best. However, as the earlier quote from the Sot'O sect pointed out, they were designed pri marily as a method to enhance the " people's spirit. " As has already been pointed out, this was, both at home and abroad, and within the military itself, where the bulk of the Zen (and overall Buddhist) effort was placed. In J u ne 1 942 the 50to sect had established "The Wartime Center for the Development of an I nstructor Corps to Train I m perial Subjects " (!I!.l�tliH.�.��lill�JIA.�ji)j ) . The N ov em b e r

1 , 1 943 issue of Soto Shuho used its front page to describe the p rinciples upon which this cente r was based. The main pri nciple or goal was " Increase fighting power, " under which 336

a

total

of

hierarchica l ly .

s ixteen

su b-pri n c i p l e s

w e re

a rra n g e d

The first eight sub-pri nciples were, broadly

speaking, all war-related and read as fol lows:

1.

Promotion of the Belief i n Certai n Victory

2.

The Establishment of Wartime Life

3.

The Practice of Vol u nteering Oneself for Public Duty

4.

Clarification of [the Concept of] Our N atio nal Structure

5.

Guard and Maintain the Prosperity of the I mperial Throne

6.

Respect the [Sh in to] Deities and Reve re One's Ancestors

7.

Train the Subjects of the E mperor

8.

Recompe nse the Debt of G ratitud e Owed the E m peror

337

Taken a s a whole, the pre ced ing sub-pri n c i p l e s , espeCially Nos. 3-8, show the unmistakable i nfluence o f the themes first developed in the " National Doctrinell of the M e iJ i period. Zen priests, like all Buddh ists priests in Japan, were si mply bei ng called u po n to continue their role as " Doctrinal I nstructors , " with the added duty of promoting belief i n "certain victory." It is also noteworthy that the fi rst clearly B u d d h ist element In this hierarchical list did not make Its appearance until the ninth sub-pri nciple.

It read, "Take refuge I n the

Three Treasures [I .e. The Buddha, Dharma, and Samgha ]." This is, of course, the one tenet of belief shared by B u d d h i sts everywhe re .

I n wartime Soto Zen evangelization efforts,

however, it and other Buddhist/Zen doctrines ranked in the lower half of concern. As Japan's situation grew ever more critical, Zen priests were called upon to do more than just e ngage in what was 338

also popu larly called "thought war" (shisosenl J!HttUltl ) . Thus, in J a n u a ry 1 944, those Zen priests who had not been drafted or otherwise involved in the m i litary effort as chaplains, continental m issionaries, etc. were called upon to l eave their " Dharma castles, " i . e . temples, take up factory work, and " aid in the increased production of military goods " ( 1 ) . This cal l appeared i n the Fe b ru a ry 1 , 1 944 issue of

Soto Shuho, but had been issued by the m u lti-sect G reat Japan Budd hist Federation (Dainihon Bukkyoka ll * 8 *�b.�� ). It thus applied to all Buddhist priests between the ages of sixteen and forty-five. The heart of the announcement read as fol lows: As has been said, "The buildup of military power comes from spiritual power. " It is for this reason that we ask for a total of approximately ten thousand leading p ri ests fro m e ach of the sects to come forth as v o l u nteers and d i rectly engage in p ro d u ct i o n i n i mportant i ndustrial factories. At the same time t hey w i l l be expected to p rovide spiritu al t ra i n i n g a n d g uidance t o the industria l warriors [ i n these factories] (1 ) . 339

To the bitter end, the "code of the warrior," i .e. bushido, would play an important role in critical aspects of Japanese society. As the 'spiritual advocates' of this code, Zen priests, and the pri ests of other sects, would continue to discharge their duties in this regard even as they joined the ranks of the " industrial warriors." Six months later, however, time had fi nally run out for both "Imperial Way-Buddhism " and its sub-branch " Impenal State/ I mperial Military-Zen. " In warfare, at least, the ' power of the spirit, ' even with Zen's 'samadhi power' attached, was no match for the 'power of the atom' (plus the determ ined resistance of all those opposed to J ap a nese mil itaris m ) .

340

End notes

'The shouted word " Katsu" by itself

IS

meaningless.

It has

traditionally been used in the Rinzai Zen tradition to express a state of mind that has transcended dualism, cutting through f a l se

notions

of

self

and

oth e r,

and

m a n i fe st i n g

Enlig htenment itself. 2The six perfections of morality associated with the conduct of a Bodhisattva are as follows: 1 ) donation, 2 ) morality, 3 ) patience, 4 ) vigor, S ) meditation, and 6 ) wisdom .

341

C HAPTER 1 0 :

THE POST-WAR JAPANESE RESPONSES

TO " I M PERIAL WAY-BUDDHI S M " General

I n trod u c t i o n

As noted above, Japan's surrender o n August 1 5 , 1 945 marked the formal collapse o f both Imperial Way-Buddhism a n d I mperial State-Zen .

The various sects composing

i nstitutional Buddh ism even changed aspects of their dally l itu rg ies to reflect the demise of these movements.

The

question which remains to be answered is simply this - how should these movements be understood, i .e. were they an authentic or orthodox expression of the Buddha Dharma ? The answer or answers to this question are, of course, qu ite complex.

To beg i n with, there are in Japan alone

thirteen maj or sects and more than fifty s ubsects.

A

complete answer would therefore require a d etai led study of each and every major sect if not some of the more 3 42

i mportant su bsects.

The n there is the question of a n

examination o f the Mahayana school itself t o which all of Japan's Buddh ist sects belong. This school in turn is fou nd n ot only m Japan but throughout the countries of east and central ASia. Such a study as described above is far beyon d the scope of this dissertation. Yet, in the postwa r years there have been a few attempts, both by mdividual B u d d h ist l e aders and scholars, and even a sma" n umber of the J a p a n ese Buddh ist sects i nvolved, to come to g nps with the question posed above.

While the fol lowing examination

of t h ese attempts cannot be considered as prov i d i n g anythi ng like a definitive answer, they d o at least mark the beginnmg of the search. D.T. S u z u k i's Response (s)

In as much as it was D. T. S u z u k i who had been a leader in calling for the punishment of "obstreperous heathens," 343

it is noteworthy that he was probably the first B u d d h ist leader in the postwar period to address the moral questions re lated to Buddh ist war participation.

Yet, it must be

stressed that at no time u p to Japan's defeat did S u z u k i ever write critically in any of his many books about Japan's war effort, or Buddhism's support for that effort. Not only did Suzu k i fail to criticize Japan 's war effort, he continued to advocate the efficacy of Z e n tra inmg i n warfare throughout the war years. I n 1 94 1 , for example, he published a book entitled "One True World" (lsshinjitsu no

sekail -A�O)t!!� ). Here he stated that "the essence of the warrior is to die" ( 1 88). H e then went o n to state: " I think the quickest and best way to be prepared to die is found in Zen" (2 1 2). As to any questions of morality that might enter the mind of the Zen-tra ined warrio r, Suzuki had this to say:

3 44

Ze n dislikes subterfuge . One must, directly employing body, m ind and life itself, go straight ahead, that is to say, thrusti ng the sword directly, into the work at hand. . . . Whether what one does is right or wrong can be looked at l ater. This is the life of Zen which must, at the same time, be the life of the warrior" ( 1 89-90) . As later as 1 9 44 Suzu k i wrote encou ragi ngly of the re lations h i p betwe en Buddhism and bushido in a book e ntitled Nlhonteki relsei (Japa nese Spi ntuahty/ 8 *�B� ). Here Suzuki exte nded the relationship between wa rrio rs and Buddhism to include the Pure Land schools of B u d d h i s m a s well a s Zen. He wrote: At the time of a mission, when making preparations to meet the enemy, the warrior recites the phrase ''Namu Amida Butsu " (Adoration to Buddha Amita /m1mIJiiI� ltt iA ) and then plunges [into battle] , recites the phrase once again and plunges [into battle] . Entering [into battle] with perfect freedom is known as " Plunging [into battle] calling on Buddha [Amita '5] name." H aving cut off [all thought of] good and bad, right and wrong, all of one's action becomes a repetition of the preceding phrase. This is known as the practice of single-mi ndedly calling on Buddha [Amita 's] name, or the u niversal calling on Buddha [A mita 's] name" ( 1 44-45).

345

I n these words can be heard an echo of what Shin sect scholar Osu k a Shudo had written in 1 90 5 : "Truly, what could be more fortunate than knowing that, should you die, a welcome awaits in the Pure Land [of Buddha Amita 1 I f there was a nyth m g that d istinguished S u zu k i's writings from those of his contemporaries it is that he did not advocate absolute submission to the will and edicts of the Emperor.

Nor did he employ the Jingoistic slogans then

associated with Japan's " sacred war."

This said , there is

a bsolutely nothing to suggest that he had any m isgivmgs o r reservations about the use of Buddh ism in gene ral, or Z e n in particular, as the basis for the spiritu al arm m g of the modern J apa nese warnor.

On the contrary, he

wrote

again and again of the importance and appropriateness of doing so, especially as attendant questions of morality were, for h im, of little or no concern.

346

Returning to the immediate post-war period, it was i n Octo b e r 1 945 that S u z u k i first broached the topic of B u d d h ist war responsibility.

He did this in his new preface included

i n the repri nt of the book mentioned above, i .e. Japanese

Spirituality. He began by assigning to Shinto the blame for p rov i d m g

the

" co nceptu a l

backg rou n d "

m i l itaris m, i mperialism and total itarianism.

to Japanese He then went

on to discuss the Buddh ist role as follows: I t is strange how Budd h i sts neither penetrated the fundamental meaning of Buddhism nor included a global I nste a d , they d i l igently vision in thei r m ission . p ractice d the a rt of self-prese rvation through their narrow-m inded focus on "pacifying and preserving the state . " Rece iving the protection of the politically powerful figu res of the d ay, Budd h i s m combined with the state, thinking that its ultimate goal was to subsist within this island nation of Japan. As militarism became fashionable in recent years, Budd hism put itself in step w i t h it, constantly endeavou ring not to offend the powerful figures of the day. Out of thiS was born such t h i ngs as tot a l i ta ri a n i s m , refe re nces to [Shinto] mythology, " Imperial Way"- Buddhism, etc. As a result, B u d d h ists forgot to include either a g lobal vision or concern for the masses with i n the d u ti e s t h ey performed . I n addition, they neglected to awake within 347

the Japa nese relig ious consciousness the philosophical and rel i g ious elements, and the spiritu al awake ning, that are an intrinsic part of Buddhism. While it may be said that Buddhism became "more J ap a nese" as a result, the p n ce was a retrogression in terms of J a p a nese spirituality itself. That is to say, the opportunity was lost to d eve l o p a worl d vision w it h i n J a p a nese s p i ri t u a l i ty t h at was s u ffi c i e n t l y exte n s ive o r comprehensive ( 6-7 ) . One of the striking featu res of the above statement is that nowhere does Suzuki discuss his own role in a ny of J a p a nese Buddhis m's failings.

As will be seen shortly, this

was not always the case. In fact, he started to allude to his own responsibility in the very next parag raph fol lowi ng the preceding quote. He wrote:

" I bel ieve that a major reason

for Japan's collapse was tru ly because each one of us l acked an awareness of J ap a n ese spirituality" ( 7 ) . Acco rd ing t o the above, if S u z u k i h imself had a ny personal responsibi lity for Japan 's collapse, he shared that responsibility equally with each and every J apanese.

348

Cou l d

his writi ngs be in any way responsible for what happened to Japan? About this Suzuki wrote: This work [Japanese Spirituality] was written before Japan's u ncond itional surrender to the Allies. It was therefore u nable to g ive clear expression to the meaning of J a pa nese spiritual ity ( 7 ) . Th is one sentence was the closest that S u z u k i wou ld ever come in the postwar years to admitting that anythmg he had ever written might have influenced the cou rse of events. Even here Suzuki went on to explain that the reason this particu lar book lacked clarity was due its " academic nature," coupled with its "extremely u norganized structure. " This does not mean, however, that Suzu k i never again spoke of his own responsibility. I n 1 947 Suzu k i publ ished a book e ntitled Nihon no

reseika (The S p i ri t u a l i z i n g of Japan/ B *O)B��t) . This book was a col lection of five lectu res that he had given at Shin sect-affil i ated Ota n i University i n Kyoto during the month 349

of June 1 946. The focus of h is tal ks was on Shinto, for by t h is t i m e he had decided that the blame fo r J a p a n ' s m i litaristic past lay in this religion.

According t o S u z u k i,

Shinto was, among other things, a "primitive rel igion" that " lacked spiritu a lity" ( 3 4 ) .

It was factors l ike these t hat

had led to Japan's " excessive nationa l is m " and " m i litary control" ( 3 4) . The solution to this situation was, In S u z u k i 's eyes, qu ite simple - "dispose of Shinto " ( 1 ). As mentioned above , thiS IS not to say that S u z u k i denied all responsibility for what had happened . H e said: This is not to say that we were blameless. We have to accept a g reat deal of blame and responsibility. . . . Bot h before and after the M anchu rian Incident [of 1 93 1 ] all of us applauded what had transpired as representing the growth of the Empire . I think there were none amongst us who opposed it. If some were opposed, I think they were extremely few i n n u m ber. At t hat time everyone was saying we had to be aggressively i mperi alistic. They said Japan had to go out i nto the world both i ndustrially and economically because the country was too small to provide a living for its people. There simply wasn 't enoug h food; people would starve. I have heard that the Manchurian Incident was fab ricated 350

through various tricks . I think there were p robably some people who had reservations about what was going on, but instead of saying anything they simply accepted it. To tell the truth, people like myself were Just not very interested in such things ( 5 -6) . There are a nu mber of noteworthy statements i n the above quotation i ncluding the fact that Japan had been " aggressively i mperialistic." Yet, as S u z u k i went on to write, " It was E u rope which had orig inally taug ht Imperialism and colOnial ism to Japan" (7).

Furthermore, Japan's i mperialism

m ay be said to have occu rred al most by popu lar accla i m , except for those " extremely few" who opposed i t .

As for

S u z u k i h i mself, he tells us that he was "just not very interested in such things." This, of course, is the very same S u z u k i who right up to the end of the war continued to write books extolling the unity of Zen and bushicTo and the usefulness of this combination on the battlefield. Even i n the m idst of Japan ' s utter d efeat S u z u k i rem a i ned d eterm i ned t o fi nd somet h i ng praiseworthy i n 351

Japan's war efforts.

He described the positive side of the

wa r as fol lows: Th roug h the g reat sacrifice of the J apa nese people and nation, It can be said that the various peoples of the countries of the Orient had the opportunity to awake both economically and politically . . . . This was Just the beginning, and I believe that after ten, twenty or more years the various peoples of the Orient may well have formed independent cou ntries and contributed to the Improvement of the world's cultu re in tandem with the various peoples of E u rope and A m e r i c a (7). In an echo of his prewar writi ngs, Suzuki continued to praise the " g reat sacrifice" the Japanese people al legedly made to " awake" the peoples of Asia . What one finds m issing i n Suzuki's writings, however, is any mention of what it "cost" in terms of mill ions of lives lost for the peoples of A s i a to be " awakened. " T o h i s E n g l i s h-reading a u d ience, Suz u k i offe red a different interpretation of the war. The following appeared i n an autobiographical accou nt of his life edited by Abe Masao : 352

The Pacific War was a ridiculous war for the J a p a nese to have initi ated; it was probably completely without Justification. Even so, seen i n terms of the phases of h istory, it may have been i nevitable. It is undeniable that whi le B ri t i s h interest in the East has existed for a long time, interest In the Orient on the part of A m e ri c a n s heightened a s a consequence of thei r comi ng t o Japan after the war, meeting the J ap a nese people, and coming into contact with various Japanese things (Zen 24). Added to the awakening of the peoples of As i a, S u z u k i tells u s that another positive s i d e of t h e wa r was the increased

A m e ri c a n presence and interest in Japan.

In

su m , i t would seem that a l l parties i nvolved benefited i n some way from Japan' s "great sacrifice. " It is also noteworthy that S u z u k i did not find war itself " ridiculous" but only the Pacific War, which was " p robably" u nj ustified although some how " i nevitable. "

Nowhere i n

S u z u ki's writings does one find the least expression of reg ret for Japan's earlier colonial efforts in such places as K o re a or Taiwan . For S u z u k i i t wou ld appear that things started to go wrong only after the Manchurian I ncident of 1 9 3 1 . 353

One is left to speculate as to what it was that made the Pacific War so "ridiculous. " While the nu mber of intel lectu als, especially in the West, who have praised Suzuki are legion, a small but growing number of critics have been concerned both by Suzu ki's [and Zen' s ] apparent l ack of moral awa reness.

Art h u r

Koest l e r was one of the fi rst to raise these concerns In a book publJshed in 1 9 60 entitled The Lotus and the Robot. He began his discussion of Zen as fol lows: Zen was introduced into Japan in the late 1 2th century - more than five centu ries after Confucianism and earl ier forms of Buddhis m . It took immediate roots; but it became radically transformed in the process, and the flower was characteristically Japanese. By a feat of mental acrobacy, of which perhaps no other nation wou l d be capab le, the gentle, no n-vi olent doctrine of the Buddha became the adopted creed of the murderous samurai. . . . How was this possible? The secret is not in the Buddha's smile, but in a simple formu la applicable to all these d iverse activities, the pa nacea of Zen: trust you r i ntu ition, short-ci rcu it reflection, d iscard caution, act spontaneously. It is amazing what wonders this prescription can achieve (242-43 ) . 354

Koest l e r later went on to discuss both S u z u k i and some of the Western intellectuals like Alan Watts and Christ m as H u m ph reys who considered themselves to be his disciples. Koest l e r first noted that both Watts and H u m phreys found

A lice in Wonderland to be imbued with the spi rit of Zen. K o es t l e r then wrote: This brings me back, for al most the l ast time, to Professor Suzuki and the question whether he and his disciples are trymg to fool the reade r o r themselves. Since A lice is now being used as a Zen manual, I may as we" confess that I have always been puzzled by Dr. S u z u k i ' s stri k i n g spi ritu a l rese m b l an c e e i t h e r t o Twe ed ledu m or Tweedl e dee, whose twm such nesses are no doubt meant to symbolize the identity of tea and no-tea, arrow and target, author and reader, the deluding and deluded mind ( 2 59-60). Although Koest l e r was a jou rnalist and not a scholar, S u z u k i's writings were also of concern to two noted scholars, P a u l D e m i ev i l l e and R. J. Z w i W e rb l owsky. D e m l e v l l l e, a specialist in East Asi a n Buddhism, noted his concerns i n a

1 9 66 review of Suzu ki's Zen and Japanese Culture while 355

W e rb lowsky w rote an arti cle i n 1 9 6 7 entitled " Some Observations on Recent Studies of Zen . " Writi ng from a Jewi sh context, W e rb lowsky was p a rticu l a rly troub led by Suzuki's state ment in Zen and

Japanese Culture

that " [Zen ] may be found wedded to

a narchism or fascism, communism or democracy" ( 6 3 ) . After quoting this passage, Werblowsky went on to add, " Dr. Suzuki forgot to add to the l ist of possibilities also Nazism with its gas chambers (as the an noying Mr. Koestler has rudely p o i nted out ) " ( 3 2 1 ) . What both of these men fou n d unacceptable was the way i n which S u z u k i placed Zen above all moral considerations.

Beyond that, they a lso criticized

S u z u k i for h is suggestion that Zen cou ld be identified with practically a l l of Japanese cu ltu re. In a more recent article by Zen scholar John McRae of C o rn e l l U niversity, S u z u k i is criticized for having promoted an understanding of Zen in which "anything is acceptable as 356

long as it is bizarre and incomprehensible" ( 5 3 6) .

McRae

continued : I suggest that this IS a d i rect result of S u z u ki's description of Zen as something experiential, irrational, mystical, and completely a bove the co nstrai nts of h u man history. . . . The u ltimate I rony of S u z u ki's contribution to our understandmg of Ze n IS that his u nswe rvmg emphasIs on the non-dogmatic natu re of Ze n was accepted by him and others as inviolable dogma. The champion of absolute freedom was completely enchained by his own rigid preconceptions ( 5 3 7 ) . Finally, i n writing about Suzuki a nd other m odern J a p a nese proponents of Ze n , R o b e rt Sharf had this to say: "Western enthus iasts syst e m a tica l ly failed to recognize the nationalist

ideology

u n d e rl y i n g

m o d e rn

J a p a nese

constructions of Zen" ( 3 9 ) . Writing specifically about S u z u k i, S h a rf added: Suzuki held that the cultu ral and spiritual wea knesses of the Occ i de nt virtually precluded the possib i lity of W este rne rs' ever coming to truly comprehend Zen. One is led to suspect that Suzuki's lifelong effort to bring B u dd h ist enlightenment to the Occident had become inextricab ly bou nd to a studied contempt for the West, 357

a West whose own cultu ral arrogance and i mperi al ist incl inations Suzuki had come to know all to well ( 2 9 ) . There i s very little consolatio n for either S u z u k i o r t h e West i n the p reced ing q uotatio n .

As t o S u z u k i's

u nd e rly i n g attitude toward Wes t e rn e rs, the fo l l owing revealing statement is included in h is book entitled Toyot e ki

ichi ( Onental Oneness/_j¥(j(J-) published in 1 94 2 : There i s a Zen master who said, "Thrust you r swo rd i nto the boundless s ky, whether I t reaches it or not IS of no I mportance . " Zen has any number of such fine expressions. This particular one ought to be the view of life of Orientals. I n the development of such things as science, philosophy, machinery, and i ndustry, the Orient, as of today, is still not equal to the Occide nt. However, when it is a question of spiritual and religious l i fe, where is t h e re a n Occ ide ntal who can fully u nderstand the preceding statement? W hethe r that Occ i dental be a rare wise man or a contemporary sai nt, he wou ld be l i ke a deaf m ute i n the face of th is expression. In truth, there are m any O r i e n t a l s about whom the same can be said. However, one can only fi nd those who a re capable of u ndersta n d i n g this statement among O ri e nt a l s (79-80). I n light of these sentiments one can only won der why S u z u k i even bothered writing so many books in E n g l is h on 358

Buddhism and Zen. Was this a reflection, as S h a rf maintains, of his " studied contempt for the West " ? Or did he, perhaps, s i m ply write what he thought his J a p a n ese- or E n g l i s hspeaking audiences wanted to hear.

Whatever position one

takes o n this issue, his ethnocentnc if not racist attitude is clear.

G iven this, as well as his p rofessed belief in the

unity of Zen and the sword, the question must also be asked as to whether S u z u k i and others like him "truly comprehend Ze n"? The S h i n Sect ' s Declaration of War Responsibi l ity I n t ro d u c t i o n I n the postwar years there h ave only been fou r

dec l a rations dealing with war responsibil ity o r complicity by the leaders of traditional Buddh i sts sects. The fi rst of t hese four was by the H i g a s h i Hong anJ i branch of the Shin sect i n 1 987, while the N i s h i HonganJ i branch fol lowed suit fou r years l ater i n 1 991.

I n 1 99 2 the Soto p u b l ished a 359

"Statement of Repe ntance" ( zangemon/ 1I1tix) apolog izing for its warti me role.

(It will be discussed in g re a t e r detail

in the fol lowing section ) . The latest statement by a sect concerning its wartime role was issued o n J u n e 8 , 1 994 by the J i m o n branch (-:1j:r'5m) of the Te ndai sect (�it* ) , the smallest of that sect 's three branches.

It's admission of war responsibility amou nted to

one short phrase contained in "An Appeal for the Extinction of Nuclear [Weapons] . "

It read : " H aving reached the 5 0th

annivers ary of the deaths of the atomic bomb victims, we repent of our past cooperation and support for [Japan ' s ] war of aggression" (Nihon Shukyosha 54). What all of these statements s hare in common is the fact that even the earliest of them, i .e . the H ig a s h i HonganJ i branch ' s declaration o f 1 9 8 7 ,

was not issued until more

than forty years after the end of the war.

By comparison,

the first Christian organization in Japan to issue a similar 360

statement was twenty year's earlier in 1 9 67. This statement was entitled "A Confession of Responsibil ity during W.W. I I by the United Church of C h rist i n Japan." Even this recognition o f wart i me complicity by Japan ' s l a rg e s t P rotestant organization was more than a generation in the making (Nihon

Shukyosha 6). It should a lso be readily apparent that the four current statements of Buddhist war complicity rep rese nt only a small perce ntage of Japanese Buddh ism's thirteen m ajor sects with thei r numerous branches.

For example, none of

the b ranches of the R i n z a i Zen sect have yet to formally address this issue i n any manner. I n that sense, It can be said that the stateme nts i ncluded below rep resent the beginning rather than the end of this i mportant, if not crucial, issue for institutional J ap a nese Buddhism.

361

The 1 9 87 Declaration of the H i g a s h i H o n g a nj i Branch

The following admission of war responsibility was made as part of the " Memorial Service for All War Victims" held on A p r i l 2, 1 987. The statement was read by Kog a S e iJ I (i!i HftlJ=) , administrative head of the branch. It read in part:

As we recall the war years, it was our sect that c a l l e d the war a "sacred war. " It was we who said, "The heroic spirits [of the war dead] who have been enshrined i n Yasu k u n i S h ri ne' have served in the great undertaking of guard i ng and maintai n i ng the p rosperity of the I mperial Throne. They should therefore to be revered for having done the great work of a Bodhisattva." This was an expression of deep ignorance and shamelessness on ou r part. When recalling this now, we are attacked by a sense of shame from which there is no escape . . . . Cal ling that war a "sacred war" was a double lie. Those who participate in war are both victims and victimizers. I n light of the great si n we have committed, we must not pass It by as being nothing more than a " mistake. " The sect said to revere things that were never taught by Saint [Shin ran]. When we who are priests think about this sin, we can only hang our heads In silence before all who are g athered here (Nihon Shukyosha 34).

362

The 1 9 9 1 Declaration of the N i s h i H o n g a nj i Bra nch

The

fo l l owi n g

state m e n t

was

issued

by

the

a d m i n istrative assembly o f the N i s h i HonganJ i bra nch o n F e b ru a ry 2 7 , 1 9 9 1 . It was entitled liThe Resolution to Make O u r Sect's Strong Desire for Peace Known to All in Japan and the World." I n as much as the Gulf War was mentioned in the opening sentence, it is clear that this, together with the question of nuclear warfare mentioned in paragraphs two and three, was the central focus of thiS deciaratlon.The fou rth paragraph, however, included the following : Althou g h there was pressure exerted on us by the m i l itary-controlled state, we must be deeply penitent before the Buddhas and Patriarchs, for we e nded u p cooperating with the war and losing sight o f the true nature of this sect. This can also be seen in the doctrinal sphere, where the [sect's] teaching of the existence of relative truth a nd absolute truth was put to cunning use (Nihon Shukyosha 39).

363

Other Commen tators

There have been very few commentators i n any l anguage who h ave written extensive ly on the genera l question of i nstitu tional Buddhism's war responsibility.

Instead, what

one finds a re scatte red comments here and there which touch on this topic.

Typical of these is the following

statement by the noted h istorian l e n aga Sab u ro who wrote s i m p ly: " Bu d d h i s m had always l acked the capacity t o challenge the state, and Japanese Buddhism rallied behmd the war" ( 1 2 3 ) . A s b rief a s the preceding statement is, the assertion that " Buddhism had a lways lacked the capacity to challenge the state" suggests that the root cause of i nstitutional Buddhism's col laboration with the state was to b e found somewhere deeply e mbedded in this religion, either i n its doctrinal content or in its historical deve lopment (or both ) . This area is clearly worthy of future research, but the sheer 3 64

size and scope of such research p l aces i t outside t h e boundaries of this dissertation.

This topic

will, however,

be revisited in the final " Issues Awaiting Further Research" secti o n . One o f the first postwar scholars of Buddhism t o address the genera l question was Yo shida Kyui c h l in his 1 9 70 book entitled Nihon no kindai shakai to Bukkyo ( Modern J a p a nese Society and Buddhism/ B *O)ilit\:*f�t:{Aft) . His comments, of course, predate all of the sectarian statements i ntroduced above. He wrote: I n g enera l it can be said that the re lations h i p of Buddhism and war was one of ready compromise. Even i n postwar society the question of [the meani n g of] August 1 5 , [ 1 9 4 5 ] was hardly discussed [in B u d d h ist circles ] . Here, too, the easy road was take n . . . . The result was that with i n the [ postwar] context of the collective penitence of one hundred millio n [citize ns ] , the p recepts o f Buddhism we re lost sight of. . . . F u rtherm ore, after the war [the questio n of] the re l i g i o u s responsibility for that war was nonexistent ( 2 5 9-6 1 ).

365

A second Buddh ist scholar and priest to look at this question was Kaneoka Shuyu (�IR3��) , a professor at Toy o University. H i s book, published in 1 97 3 , was entitled Bukkyo

no fukken (The Rehabil itation of Buddh lsm/iA�O)�jUi) . H is writings, too, predate the sectarian admissions previously introduced. He wrote: I n the previous great war, Buddhism , which ought to love peace, underwent a complete change and rushed i nto [a stance of] wa r cooperation, p rayi ng fo r "Confusion to the hated enemy" and "Surrender of the enemy cou ntry. " Fu rthermore, when g reat numbers of soldiers went off to the front, it prayed for their "u nending martial fortune " . . . . If one holds on to Buddhism's original position of loving peace, there is no way these kinds of prayers could have been made. I cannot, under any c i rcu mstances, accept the fact that the attitude held by Buddh ist adherents of that time was one of seeking peace. Similarly, I cannot accept the fact that, with peace now restored, [these same B u d d h i sts] use the p rete n se that Budd h ism I S a religion of peace to conceal everything they have done. Without e x posing the p re d i spos ition [ i n B u d d h is m ] whi c h p roduced a logic g iving easy affi rm ation t o war, it doesn't make any difference how much the facade is c hanged, the world will still remain a scene of carnage. The logic which was employed by [then] B u d d h i st adherents to justify their affirmation and cooperation 366

with war was that of "sacred war" and "just war. " This war, [they claimed,] was a "Just war." " Killing one i n order to save many" was i n accord with the m i nd of Lo rd Buddha. " Soldiers, go to the b attlefield a nd sacrifice you rselves for the Imperial nationl " was the logic of t h i s affirmation of war. . . . But for [true] B u d d h ists there can never be someth ing like a "Just war. " I n Buddhism there is n o "wa r-affi rming logiC. " There is nothing I can add to this point. The question is whether or not this self-evident logic can be i mplemente d " ( 1 09-1 1 1 ) . U nfortunately, Kaneo ka d i d not g o on to identify what he meant by the phrase "the predisposition [in Buddhism] which produced a logic giving easy affirmation to war. "

He

may wel l have been alluding to something similar to l e n a g a's earlier statement.

One thing he did make clear, however,

was h is unhappiness with postwar i nstitutional Budd h ism's unwillingness to address its complicity in the war. As will be seen i n the fol lowing section, he was not the only one who felt this way. Finally, there are the comments of a l ay B u d d h i st attorney, Endo M a koto ( 1 9 3 0-/ilili1Ji.£ ) . In 1 9 86 he published 367

a book entitled Irna no otera ni Bukkyo wa nai (There Is no Buddhism in Today's Temples/�O)d:):i!j:r:fk�r�tJ: � \ ) . As the title s u g g ests, Endo was

h i g h ly crit i c a l

of conte m p o ra ry

i nstitu t i o n a l J apanese Buddhism , one of whose m a ny shortcomi ngs he sees as its wartime collaboration with m i litarism and its postwar reluctance to take responsibility for that collaboration . He wrote: During the Pacific War some forty years ago, were there Buddh ist organizations which opposed that war on the basis of the fundamental Buddhist commandment not to kill l iving th ings? Were there a ny B u d d h ist o rganizations opposed to that war? Were there any Buddhist priests opposed to t hat war? . . . Apart from the Youth League for the Revitalization of Buddhism led by Seno Giro , there were none. Without exception, all of the traditional Buddh ist organizations, together with newly-established Buddh ist organizations, prayed for "the successful conclusion of the sacred war [and] the surrender of the savage A m e ricans and Engl is h . " They also sent chaplains t o t h e battlefield w h o said, " If you die I ' l l make sure you go to Paradise, so kill the enemy while you ' re still alive ! " Following the war, these same " high priests, " espoused peace and ended up occupying important positions in their respective sects. From the m i d - 1 9 2 0 's through 368

August 1 5, 1 945, it was these priests who had willingly dashed off magazine articles and books saying, "Japan is the land of the gods. This is a just war so ki ll the C h i nese soldiers and the savage Ameri c a n s and B r i t i s h for the sake of His Majesty, the Emperor" . . . . Even today Budd h ist organizations th roug hout the country continue to hold daily rel igious services in which they pray for the long life of Emperor H i ro h ito (49-5 2 ) . I n Endo 's opinion, the preceding was b u t o n e example of the following: The teaching for the salvation of humanity which the g re a t teacher, Shakyamuni, expounded two thousand five hundred years ago has completely d isappeare d from today's temples ( 3 ) . I t i s now time to examine how " Imperial State/MilitaryZen " fared upon examination in postwar Japan .

369

E n d n ote

'As the text i ndicates, Yasukuni Shrine ( �OO�tl) is a Shinto sanctu ary located on Kudan H i l l i n Tokyo.

Whe n f i rst

established on June 29, 1 8 6 9 , it was known as the Tokyo Shokonsha (Jk:5Rffl1A*i) .

In 1 8 79 it was g ranted Its p resent

name by Emperor MeiJ i . means " peacefu l , "

The Chi nese character for yasu

the implication bemg that the shri ne

safeguards the peace and well-being of the nation.

Si nce

1 87 5 all the " heroic spirits" (eirei/ 5tH) of the nation ' s war dead have been enshrined here.

370

CHAPTER

11:

THE POST-WAR JAPANESE RESPONSES TO " I M PERIAL STATE-ZEN " I n t ro d u c t i o n

I n terms of sheer volume it can b e said that far more has been written o n the relationshi p of the Zen school and war than on any other single school or sect of J apanese Buddhism. The reason for this is not that It has been such a popu lar topi c of Buddhist writing, but, i nstead, i s due to the vol u m i no u s writings of one man, the l ate Zen scholar and ( fo rmer) R i n z a i Zen p riest, I c h i kawa Hakugen ( 1 9 0 21 98 6/mJ l I S � ) .

I n the postwar years it can be said that he

a lmost single-handedly broug ht this topic before the public a nd made it a n a rea of scholarly research.

His writin g , i n

turn, has sparked further i nvestigation o t rel ated issues within other sects as wel l . Before i nvestig ating I c h i k awa' s wri tings however, i t would b e helpful to get a ' lay of the land' by looking a t the 371

comments made by other Zen adherents to get some idea of the overa ll tenor of the d iscussion.

DOing this shou ld

help to put the breadth and depth of I c h i k awa's contribution to this tOPIC In clearer focus. Following this, an examination of the Soto Zen sect ' s relatively recent statement on its war responsibi lity wil l show how one of the Zen school's two major sects is struggling to come to g rips with this p ro b l e m . Ya n a g i d a S e i z a n ' s Response

Yanagida Seizan ( 1 922-/t9P EB�IlJ ) is one of the best known Zen scholars of the postwar period.

He started life as the

son of a R i n z a i Zen priest in a small village temple in S h i g a prefecture. As a n adult h e went o n to become the director of the Institute for Humanistic Studies of Kyoto University. Followi ng retirement, he next founded and became the first d i rector of the International Research Institute for Zen Buddhism l ocated at Hanazono Un iversity. 372

In 1 9 8 9 h e

p resented a series of lectu res on Ze n at both Stanfo rd U niversity a nd the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1 9 90 Seizan published a book entitled Mirai kara no

Zen ( Zen from the Future/**tJH ; QJi¥ ) . This book, containing a number of lectures he had presented in the Umted States, is relatively unusual in Zen scholarship in that its contents Inc luded material that was both personal and confessional in n ature .

This included h is own personal experience as a

young R i n z a i Zen p riest during and Immediately after the war. The highlig hts of this experience are as follows: When as a chi ld I began to become aware of what was going on a rou n d me, the J apanese were fi g ht i n g n e i g h b oring China. Then the war expanded t o the Pacific regIon, and finally Japan was fighting the rest of the world. When Japan surrendered on August 1 5, 1 945 , I h ad thus experi enced two m ajor wars. As someone who was b rought up while these wars were expanding, I did not have the luxury of thinking deeply about the relationshi p between the state as a sovereign power engaged in war and Zen Buddhism. No doubt this was largely due to the fact that I had neither the opportunity t o go to the battlefield nor directly engag e i n battle. Furthermore, having been brought up in a remote Zen 373

temple , I was compl etely ignorant o f what was happening in the world. In the last phase of W. W. II, I was tra ining as a Zen monk at E i g e nJ i [ 5t�mi:i!f] , proud of being away from the secular world and convinced that my total devotion to Zen p ractice would serve the state . At any rate, with Japan's defeat I became aware of my own stupidity for the first time, with the result that I developed a deep sense of self-loathing. From 1 9 4 5 to 1 950, I d id not see any point to human life, and I was both mentally and physically in a state of collapse . I had lost m any of my friends; I alone had been left behind. We had fought continuously against China, the home country of Zen. We had believed that it was a just war without h arbori n g the slightest doubt. I n a state of i nexpressible re m o rs e , I c o u l d n e i t h e r physica l ly n o r mentally fi nd rest a n d was day after day ill at ease, not knowing what to do. There is no need to say how total is the contradiction between the Buddhist precepts and war. Yet, what could I, as a Buddhist, do for the hundreds of millions of my fellow human beings who had lost their l ives in the war? At that time, it dawned on me for the first time that I had believed that to kill oneself on the state 's behalf is the teaching of Zen . What a fanatical idea l All of Japan's Buddhist sects - which had not only contributed to the war effort but had been one heart and soul in propagating the war i n their teachings flipped around as smoothly as one turns one ' s hand and proceeded to ring the bells of peace. These sectarian leaders had been among the leaders of the country 374

who had egged us on by uttering big words about the r i g h te o u s ness [of the war] . They acted in a totally shameless manner. In as much as Japan was supposed to have become a civi l ized country overnight, there was nothing I cou ld do about thei r actions. I n my own heart , however, there was a wou nd which would not heal . I am not ta lking about what the state or others should have done, but as far as I was concerned, my actions were unpardonable. Again and again I thought of committing suicide ( 5 6- 5 7 ) . Se i z a n d id not, o f cou rse, commit suicide, b u t in some sense it is refreshing to meet a Buddhist, a Zen adherent, who was so moved by his earlier support for the war that he e ntertained the idea of killing hi mself. The i rony is that by comparison with the numerous Zen/Buddhist leaders who h ave been previously introduced, Seizan bore ve ry little responsibil ity for what had happene d .

Yet, i n what might

be cal led the ideal ism of youth, he felt obliged to take the sins of his elders on his own shoulders . In so doing he neither sought to ignore what had h appened nor place the blame on someone else. 375

A major point Seizan

shared in common with the

p reviously introduced postwar com mentators on Buddhism was his disdain for the way in which the previously p ro-war l eaders of the various sects had so abru ptly abandoned their war cries and become peacemakers. That such Buddhist leaders did exist has been well documented. I c h i kawa Hakugen

IS

one o f those who recorded

numerous statements made by these i nstant converts to peace.

One of his examples dealt with Masanaga Reiho. It

will be recalled that Reiho was last heard from as he extolled the vi rtues of Japan 's kamIkaze

pi lots. On September 1 5,

1 9 4 5 , exactly one month after Japan's surrender,

Rel ho

wrote the followi ng: The cause of Japan 's defeat . . . was that among the vari o u s cl asses with i n our cou ntry there were not sufficient capable men who cou ld d i rect the war by truly g iving the i r all . . . . That is to say, we l acked i ndividuals who, having transcended self-interest, were able to employ the power of a life based o n moral principles . . . . It is religion and education that h ave the 376

responsibility to develop such individuals . . . . We must d eve lop patriotic citizens who u nderstand [the Zen teaching ] that both learning and wisdom must be united with practice. They will become the generative power for the revival of our people. . . . and we will be able to preserve our glorious national structure . . . . It is for this reason that religionists, especially Buddh ists, are required to besti r themselves (Nihon 3 1 1 ). In peace as well as war, it wou ld seem, Buddhists were req u i red "to besti r themselves. "

And , of course, required

"to preserve our glorious national structure . " B e that a s it may, Seizan never questioned what mechanisms i n either Zen or Buddhism had made these leaders ' earlier fervent support of the war possible i n the first place .

Was it simply a moral failure on their part, or

was there more to it than that?

As deeply affected by

these issues as Seizan was, he failed to investigate them fu rther.

Instead, he spent h is scholarly life investigating

the early development of Zen (Ch. Ch 'an ) in China.

377

Y a m a d a M u rna n ' s Respo nse

It wil l be recalled that R i n z a i Zen master Yamada Murnon was the editor in 1 942 of a strongly pro-wa r book by Se k i Se isets u entitled The Promotion of Bushic/O.

As already

noted, In postwar J apan Mumon went on to beco me both P res i d e nt of Hanazono U n ive rs ity and c h ie f abbot o f Myos h i nJ I, the largest branch o f the R i n z a i Zen sect. I n 1 9 64 a collection of Murnon's sayings was publishe d i n English under the title A Flower In The Heart. Altho u g h not meant I n any se nse to b e a scholarly work, Murnon neve rtheless made some noteworthy o bservations about both m odern Buddhist history and Japan's p articipation i n the Pacific War. His h istorical comments were as follows: The only time when Buddhism in Japan met a suppression by the hand of a government was duri n g the M e iJ i restoration period. Then, its teachings were denounced and the sacred i mages desecrated. Only the desperate efforts of their leaders saved it from the fate of a n utter exti nction, b u t the price they h a d t o pay for its survival was high, for the monks, they agreed, would 378

take up arms at the time of national emergencies. The d e a l i n g was surely reg rettable. If these celebrated priests of the Me iJ I era had been deceived by the name of loyalty and patriotism, we of today were taken i n by the deceitful name of holy war. As a consequence, the nation we all loved lost its gear and tu rned upside down. This teaches us that we must beware not so much of oppression as of compromise ( 1 1 ) . As i nterest i n g as the p reced i n g quotation i s , i t d escribed the events from what i s basically an outsider's, or third party's point of view. That is to say, nowhere does M umon take personal responsibil ity for what happened . Yet, later on he did broach this topic. He wrote: For a long time I have entertai ned a wish to bu ild a temple in every Asian nation to which we caused so much i ndescribable s u fferi ngs and damages during the p ast war, as token of our sincere penitence and atonement, both to mourn for their dead and ours and t o pray for a perpetual friendship between her and our cou ntry a nd for fu rth u r cultura l i n te rcou rs e s ( 2 8 ) . [English left u ncorrected] In the preceding quote M umon does at least admit to a c o l l e ct i v e responsibil ity for what happened t h o u g h still without any discussion of h is personal role. I n fact, Mumon 379

eventually went on to try, at least to some degree, to Justify the war. He wrote: The sacrifices listed above were the stepping stones u pon which the South-East Asian peoples cou ld obtain their political i ndependence. In a feeble sense, this war was a holy war. Is this observation too partial? . . . " If it were for the sake of the peace of the Far East , " a phrase i n one of the war-time songs, still ri ngs i n my ears ( 3 1 ) . I n light of the above, one cannot help b u t recall the colloquial expression "Wi l l the rea l Yamada Mu mon please stand up? " If t h i s questio n can be fairly asked about the contradictions mherent in the prevIous English quotes, the q uestion is put i nto even sharper re lief by a subsequent statement made by Mumon, this ti me i n Japanese. statement was distributed at the inaugural

This

meeti ng of the

" Association to Repay the Heroic Spirits [of Dead Soldiers ] "

(Eirei n i kotaeru ka i/ 5tR';: .:: ttjt.Q�) which was held o n June 22, 1 976. Mumon was one of the fou nders of this association whose p u rpose was to lobby the Japanese D i e t for 380

rei nstatement of state fu nding for Yasu k u n i Shri n e .

As

p reviously noted , t h i s Shi nto s h n ne was desig ned to venerate the " heroic spirits" of all Japan's war dead. Mumon's statement was entitled "Thoughts on State Maintenance of Yasu k u n i Shrine . " I t contained the fol lowing passage: J apan destroyed Itself in order to g randly g ive the countries of ASia their i ndependence . I think this is truly an accomplishment worthy of the name " holy war. " All of this is the resu lt of the meritorious deeds of two million five hundred thousand heroIc spirits i n our cou ntry who were loyal, brave, and without rival . I think the various peoples of Asia who ach ieved their i n d e p e n d e n c e w i l l c e a s e l e s s l y p ra i s e t h e i r accomplishments for all eternity (49 ) . To his E nglish-speaking audience Mumon described the war as havi ng been in some "feeble sense" a holy war. To his J apanese audience, however, these words disappeare d to be replaced with " meritorious deeds, " " he roic spirits , " " ceaselessly praise," etc. I n light of this, there can no longer be a ny question of who the real Mumon was, at least to his 381

Japanese audience.

I n the introduction to A Flower In The

Heart, U m e h a ra Ta k e s h l (tf.ijlm�) described Mumon as "one of those rare monks from whose presence emanates a sense of genuine holiness" ( 7 ) . A genUine holiness, it would appear, that was strong enough to extend the belief i n " holy war" di rectly i nto the postwar period . M u mon was, of course, by no means the only one who thought as he did. The idea that Japan had done a favo r to those Asian nations it forcefully occupied became a n article of faith among Japan's postwar conservative politicians and com mentators. As recently as May 3 1 , 1 9 9 5 , an article in the

Ne w

Zealand

Herald p o i n t e d

out:

" H a rd - l i n e

conservatives . . . a rg u e that Japan fought the war to help Asian l i beratio n from Western colomalism" ( 8 ) .

The only

thing m issing i n comments like these is proof that significant n u m be rs of citize ns i n those formerly occupied countries happen to agree. 382

As a h i n a So g e n' s Response Asa h i n a Sagen ( 1 89 1 - 1 9 7 9/�tt�*5i) was b oth the abbot of E n g a k uJ i ( p:jjt�) and the administrative head of the E ng a kuJ i branch ( p:j:W:�) of the R i n z a l Zen sect.

It will be

recalled that Shaku Soen had earlier been an abbot of this same temple. Though Sagen

had never been his d isciple,

their thinking was quite similar. Further, like Yamada Mumon, Sag e n had been active in conservative causes in the postwar years, m ost n otably as one of t h e foun d e rs of the "Association to Protect Japan" ( Nihon

0

mamoru kail 8 * �

�Q�) ( Maruyama 7 1 ) . I n 1 978 Sagen published a book entitled Kakugo wa yo;

ka (Are You Ready?/:;tffil�J:: � 'n\) . The last part of this book was very autobiographical in nature a nd included extensive comments about the war, its historical backg round, and h is own role in it.

As with so many of the books previously

i ntroduced, Sog e n began h is d iscussion by p raising the 383

t h i rteenth ce ntu ry m i l itary ru ler HOJ o To k i m u ne and his Chi nese Zen master M ugaku Sogen.

According to Soge n,

the roots of both Zen involvement in prayer services and the subsequent close relationship between Zen and the state can be traced back to this period . He wrote: The reason that Japanese Zen began to chant sutras In both morn i ng and evening se rvices was due to the Mongol invasion. Although other temples were making a big deal of their prayers [to protect the cou ntry ] , Zen priests were only doing zazen. They were out of step [with the other sects] and said to be indifferent to the affai rs of state. The result was they commenced to recite sutras ( 1 5 1 -52). Jumpi ng more than six hundred years to the nineteenth century, Sagen wrote that the S i no-Japanese War had been caused by China's having tried to "put Japan under its thum b " i n K o re a ( 1 5 5 ) . The subsequent Russo-Japanese War was, in h is opinion, due entirely to Russian actions. " Russia rapidly i ncreased its a rmaments and i ntended to destroy J ap a n without fighting. It was decided that if Japan were going to 384

be destroyed without fighting, it might as well have a go at it and be destroyed" [ Italics mine] ( 1 5 7 ) . The preceding comments were, o f cou rse, only a warmup for his lengthy discussion of the Pacific War.

He began

this discussion with the following comments: Shortly after the [Pacific] War started, I realized that t h i s was one we were going to lose. That is to say, the civil and military officials of whom the Japanese were so proud had turned i nto a totally d isgusting bunch ( 1 50). Now here is somethi ng unprecedented - a Zen m aster who was critical of the m i litary' mass ki lling they engaged i n?

Was it because of the

Thei r occupation of other

people's countries? Soge n explained it as follows: I ' m not going to mince words - the top-level leadership of the Navy was useless. I know because l iving i n Kamaku ra as I did, I had met many o f them . . . . For example, two close friends of [Ad m i ra l ] Ya m a m oto I s o ro k u (d. 1 943/L1J*1i+i\) told me the following story: After the great victory Yamamoto achieved i n the air attack on Pearl H a rb o r, he had a meeting with [General] TOjo H i d e k i [ 1 885-1 948/.��.] . Yamamoto told him that this was no longer the era of b attl eships w i t h 385

their big guns. Rather, it was unquestionably the era of the a i rp l ane. Therefore every effort should be made to build more a i rp l a n es. Yamamoto was right, of course, in having said this. TOj o, however, being the kind of person he is, in addition to being an Army General, was consumed with jealousy, for, unlike the Navy, the Army had yet to ach ieve any major victories. The result was that, due to his stubbornness, TOj o told Yamamoto that he refused to accept orders from him in as much as the latter was merely the Commander­ in-Chief of the Combined Fleet while he [Toj o] was the nation's Prime Mi nister [ 1 9 4 1 -44] . They were like two children fighting. Yamamoto' s two fnends claimed that because Japan wasn't building more a i rp l a n e s, it was losing the war. I [Sogen] said to them, why wasn't Yamamoto Willing to risk his position in opposing him? Why didn't he t e l l TOj o he woul d resign his position as Combined Fleet Commander? . . . If I had been there, I would have let go with an explosive " FooI I " . . . . The Army and the N avy don 't exist for themselves, they exist to d efend the cou ntry . . . . With people like these at the top how can they accomplish what is expected of them. We ' re already losing. With people like them as commanders, we cannot expect to win. . . . They're only thinking about themselves ( 1 63-64 ) . Here, then, was Soge n's analysis o f why Japan lost the war.

It was all very simple - the nation's military/political

leaders we re t h i n k i n g o n ly of the mselves a n d t h e i r 386

respective military branches. It was their self-centeredn ess as opposed to the Zen ideal of " e g o l ess ness " and " nom mded ness" that had spelled Japan's doom . the

Questions of

moral ity of Japan's wa rtime actions, its invasion and

control of other Asian countries, etc. had, in Sagen's view, nothing to do with it. Even though Sogen claimed to have realized that Japan faced defeat at an early stage of the wa r with the Allies, this did not mean that he subsequently withdrew h is support for the nation's war effort.

On the contrary, he wrote of

numerous i nstances in which he g ave lectu res a nd led " trai ni ng camps" (renseikai/ .rot�) to help mainta i n the people's morale.

One such lectu re was given at the N aval

Technical Research Institute in Tokyo. With evident pride, Sogen twice mentioned that all the members of this i nstitute were u niversity g raduates and that it was the most important c e n t e r for n aval 387

technology in Japan. His lecture was given to all two hundred workers at the institute and l asted for a ful l three hours a nd twenty minutes.

Although he did not give the deta i ls

of h is talk, he clai med there was not so much as a cou g h from h i s audience the entire time.

" I ' ll be satisfied if what

I 've said has been of even a small benefit to the state, " he concluded ( 1 68). As an example of one the training camps he led, he wrote about a military-sponsored visit of some forty-fou r wou nded war veterans to E n g a kuj i.

They u nderwent Zen

traming as best they could for a one week period. When it came time for them to leave, Sogen addressed them as fo l l ows: Even though you have sustained injuries to your eyes or to you r hands, you a re still b rave and seasoned warriors . This is now a time when the people m u st give everything they have to the state. You , too, h ave something precious to g ive. That is to say, transfer your spirit to the people of this nation, hardening their resolve. You were not sent to a place like this to be 388

pampered. I took charge of you because I wanted you to have the resolve and the cou rage to offer u p the last thing you possess [to the state] ( 1 7 1 ) . "They cried, " Sogen went on, " al l of them" ( 1 7 1 ) . As well they m ight, for the Japanese state was not satisfied with Just an eye or an arm, it l iterally wanted a I I of you . And Zen masters like Sagen were ever ready to assist the state in making sure it got what it wanted. Finally, Sage n was not critical of all those in leadership positions d,u ri ng the war.

There was one i nstitution, o r

figure, for whom he h a d u nwaverin g respect both duri ng and after the war. That person was, of course, the Emperor. As to why this was so, Sogen wrote: liThe debt of g ratitude owed the Emperor . . . i s so precious that there

IS

no way to

express one's g ratitude for it or to repay it" ( 1 8 3 ) . Although Sag e n d i d n ' t d iscus s Empero r H i ro h i to ' s wartime role, h e had nothing b u t praise for h i s actions fol lowing Japan 's defeat.

It was the Emperor's " nobility of 389

spirit,

II

Sogen maintained, that so moved Genera l Doug las

M acArthur, head of the Occupation Forces, that he decided to treat Japan leniently, maintaining its integrity as a smgle country.

It was in this spirit that Sogen left h is Japa nese

readers with the fol lowing partmg thought: The prospe rity and everything we e nJ oy today is c o m p l et e l y due to the selflessness and no-m mded ness of the Emperor's benevolence. I want you to remember this. Human bei ngs must never forget the debt of g ratitude they owe [others] ( 1 89). Based on the above, it can be fairly said that Sog e n , l i ke Yamada Mumon, demonstrated that though t h e n a m e " Imperial State-Zen

II

m ight have disappeared at war's e nd,

it's spirit was anything but dead. This explains, at l east in part, why, even today, not a single branch of the R i n z a i Zen sect has ever publicly discussed, let alone apologized for, its wartime role. To do so would inevitably call into question the modern h istory of that sect and possibly its entire seven hu ndred year h istory in Japan. 390

I c h i k a w a H a k u g e n ' s Response

The irony of the preceding comments is that while the R i n z a i Zen sect has spawned some of the strongest advocates of " I m pe rial State-Zen," it has also produced some of its m ost s evere cri t i cs .

W h i l e Yanagida Se izan m ay be

considered one such critic, his was, as already noted , a l i m ited critique at best.

The same, however, cannot be

said of R i nz a i Zen-affiliated I c h i kawa Hakugen. H akugen's classic statement on the role of Buddhism, particu larly Zen, i n the wartime era was entitled The War

Responsibility of Buddhists (Bukkyosha no senso- sekininl iA��Cl)ti�.if), published i n 1 970.

He developed his ideas

sti l l fu rther in a series of articles and books including

Religion

under Japanese Fascism (Nihon Fashizumu k a no

shukyo/ B $7 7 �Ab. tCl)*�), published in 1 97 5 , and a major article included in Buddhism During the War (Senji ka no

391

Bukkyo/ ti�'"fo)fA�) , published in 1 977, and edited by N akano Kyotoku (�ilJl.). I n Religion under Japanese Fascism, Hakugen J ustified his call for a critical evaluation of the relationship between Buddhism and Japanese mil itarism

in

the fol lowing way:

I n rec e n t t i me s , J apanese B u d d h ists ta l k a b o u t Buddh ism possessing the wisdom a n d philosophy to save the world and humanity from collapse. However, I believe Buddhism first has to reHect on what kind of doctri nes a nd missionary work it advocated during the M e ij i, Ta isho, and Showa periods to oppose exploitation a nd oppression within J apan itself, as wel l as Korea, Taiwan, Okinawa, China, and Southeast Asia. Beyond that, Buddhism has the duty and responsibility to clarify i ndividual responsibility for what happened and express its determination [never to let It happen again] ( 2 2-2 3 ) . I n the preceding work, as wel l a s many of his oth e r works, H a kugen set out to d o Just what he said needed to be done.

He not only clarified i ndividual responsibility but

also looked at those doctrinal and h i storical aspects of both Zen and Buddhism which he believed lent themselves, rig h tly o r wrongly, to abuse by supporters of Japanese 392

m il itarism .

One of the i ndividu als whom Hakugen felt was

most responsible for the development of what he called " Im perial Way-Zen " ( Kodo Zen/ �ii*¥) was none o t h e r that S u z u k i Dalsetz. Hakugen felt that Suzuki's position as expressed in A

Treatise on the New [Meaning of] Religion In the latter part of the M e iJ i period helped form the theoretical basis for what fol lowed . I n justification of this assertion, he quoted the same passage from that treatise previously i ntroduced in this dissertation . He stated that S u z u k i had been speaking of China when he mentioned a " lawless cou ntry" in this treatise ( 3 5 ) .

H akugen then went on to say:

[Su z u k i ] considered the S i no-J a p anese W a r to b e religious practice designed to punish China i n o rder t o advance humanity. This i s , a t least i n its format, the very same logic used to support the fifteen years of warfare devoted to "The Holy War for the Construction of a New Order in East Asia . " Suzu k i didn't stop to consider that the war to punish China had not started with a Chinese attack on J apanese soil, but, i nstead, t o o k place on the continent of China. Suzu k i was unable 393

to see the war from the viewpoint of the Chinese people whose l ives and natura l e nviron ment were b e i ng devastated . Lacking this reflection, he considered the war of aggression on the continent as religious practice in the name of religion . . . . The log ic that S u z u k i used to support h is " religious conduct" was that of " the sword that kills is identical with the sword that g ives life " and " kill one in order that many may live. " It was the e x peri e nce of " ho ly war" which spread t h i s logic throughout all of Asia. It was Buddhists a nd Buddhist o rg anizations that integ rated this experience of war with the experience of the emperor system ( 3 5 ) . t

Needless to say, Suzuki was not the only Zen adherent who Haku gen bel ieved shared responsi b i l ity fo r the war. Mention has already been made, for example, of H a rada Daiun Sog a ku who Hakugen i dentified as a " fanatical m i l ita rist .

II

As for S u g i m oto G o ro and Yamazaki E k iju, Hakugen had this to say: In the first instance Sugi moto and Yamazaki used Zen as nothing more than a means for the practice of the Imperial Way. Not only that, but by forcing the meaning and tenets of Zen to fit within the context of a religion ce ntered on the Emperor, Zen itself was obl iterated (87).

394

As mentioned above, Hakugen's research did not stop with merely identifyi ng those Individual Zen adherents whom he believed were responsible for what had tra nspired.

He

is unique among postwar Zen (and Buddhist) scholars in trying to determi ne what long-standmg Buddhist doctri nes or p r eM e iJ i historical developments might have either contributed to o r faci litated

Buddhist war collaboration .

One example of a contributing h istorical development is contai ned in his book Zen and Contemporary Thought

(Zen to gendal- shiso/�t!Jltt!!�). He wrote: In the Edo period [ 1 600-1 867] a Zen deepening of Shinto was attempted by Munan [ 1 603-76], HakUln [ 1 685-1 768] and Tor e i [ 1 7 2 1 -9 2 ] . This was accompanied by the further assimilation of Zen in Japan. This assimilation took p lace at the same time as the establish ment of the power of the e mperor system, with the result that Zen lost almost all of its independence. The completion of this transformation took p lace as a result of the i mpact of the so-called "High Treason Incident" on the. Zen world ( 1 7 7 ) .

395

On the doctrinal side, Hakugen looked for those Buddhist i deas that seem to have made Buddhism susceptible to militaristic manipulation.

One example he gave of such an

Idea concerned the Buddhist teaching of " wago " (®�) o r harmony.

Out of

harmony, he postul ated , had come

Buddhism's " nonresistance " and "tolerance. " He continued: With what has modern Japanese Buddhism harmonised itself? With State Shinto. With the power of the state. With militarism. And therefore , with war. To what has modern Japanese Buddhism been nonresistant? To State Shinto. To the power of the state. To militarism. To wars of aggression. Toward what has mode rn Japanese Buddhism been tolerant? Toward the a bove mentioned entities with which it harmonized. Therefore, toward its own war responsibility. And I shou ld not fo rget to include myself as one of those modern Japanese Buddhists who did these things ( 1 1 1 -1 2 ) . Hakugen's g reat strength was the way in which he tenaciously uncovered layer after layer of causal factors ( i ncluding those with i n h imself) that p recipitated, if not enabled, Buddhism, especially Zen, to unite with militarism . Nowhere is this cleare r than i n h is exa m i nation of the 396

h i storical character of Japan ese Buddhism w h i c h was included in his book The War Responsibility of Buddhists

( 1 50-54). In addition to his preceding comments, H akugen clai med

t h e re

were

a

tot a l

of

twelve

h i s t o ri c a l

c h a racteristics which, deve lop ing ove r t h e centuries, p roduced i n J ap anese

Buddhism a

rece ptive ness to

authoritari a n i s m . The first o f these characteristics was the subservience of Buddhism to the state. Hakugen pointed out that there were a number of Mahayana

sutras ori g i nating i n I n d i a

which emphasized the role o f Buddhism a s t h e " protector of the state. " These sutras had been particularly welcomed in Japan where this aspect of Buddhism became even more pronounced.

Duri ng the Edo period Buddhism came u nder

total government control and, mixed together with Shin to, became what was essentially a state religion.

397

As a state rel igion Buddhism became a mere s hell of its fo rmer self with its attention focused on ancestor veneration in the form of fu nerals and memonal services. Thus, it became a religion with a limited social nexus - the extended family.

Not su rpri s i n g ly, It was antagonistiC to

Christianity because of the latter's t ransnational and modern character.

The repression Buddhism itself experienced at

the beginning of the M e iJ i period only served to rei nforce its opposition to not only Christianity but socialism as wel l . It fu rther served to strengthen its subservie nce t o a nationalism based on the emperor system and militarism. H akugen's second characteristic concerned Buddhist views on humanity and society. On the one hand, Buddhism emphasizes the equality of human beings based on the i r possession of a Buddha-nature, that is t o say, t h e i nn ate potential to realize Buddhahood.

On the other hand, the

doctrine of karma, with its corollary bel ief in g ood and bad 398

k a rm i c retri bution, tends to serve as a k i nd of mora l J u stification fo r soc ial I nequal ity. Differe nces i n soc i a l status, wealth, happiness, etc. are seen as Just rewards for g ood or bad conduct both in this and previous lives, having nothing to do with the political or social structure of society. Understood in this light, social i nequ ality is not o nly Just, but represents true equality .

It is, furthermore , o nly

natu ral for B u d d h i s m to protect a society with clear differences i n social status since such a society faci l itates the working out of past karma.

Soci alism, on the other

hand, advocates the purposefu l l eve l i n g of these social differences, thus becoming the proponent of " evil equality . " A s such, it must b e rejected. The t h i rd c h a racteristic was conce rned with the question of social morality, i.e. the encouragement of good and the punishment of evil. In this context Hakugen d iscussed one of Japan's oldest quasi-l e g a l docu ments, the " Seventeen 399

Article Constitution " of Pri nce Regent Shot o k u ( 573-62 1 /� f!:a:T) , allegedly p romulgated in 604.

This Constitution

contained the following wa rnmg: " If you receive an I mperial command, it must be obeyed without fai l . The Sovereign is Heaven, and I mperial subjects are the earth . . . . Should the earth seek to overthrow Heaven, there will only be destructi on . " Hakugen maintained that as a semi-state rel igion from this period onwards, Buddhism sought to protect not only the state, but its hierarch ical social structure as well .

On

the basis of havi ng i nternalized this essentially Confucian l og i c , Buddh ism became a faithful servant of the M e lJ i gove rnme nt ' s conservat ive social poliCies, wo rk i n g to create the ideal I mperial subj ect. The fou rth characteristic concerned both human rights and justice. The Buddhist doctrine of dependent co- a ri s i n g , accord ing to H akugen, mea ns that all phenomena are i n a constant state of flux, being born and dying without a ny 400

permanent substance to them, that is, they are "empty. " When this doctri ne is applied to the self it produces the concept of "eg olessn ess" or " no-self, " leavmg no room for the independence of the individual . The end result of this was that the Western principle of " n atura l law" did not develop within Buddhism, leaving the modern concepts of human rig hts and Justice without a fou n d atio n .

In

the afo rementioned Seventeen Article

Constitution, there is an admonition to " turn one's back on s e l f- [ i n t e rest] and embrace the public-[good ] ." In Hakugen's view there exists a direct connection between this and the wartime slogan " exterminate the self and serve the public"

(messh, hokol �iA.�) .

The "public" referred to, he

maintained, was none other than the state a nd Emperor. Thus, "The teaching of ' no-self' became both a theory and ethic serving Mikado I mperialism " ( 1 5 2 ) .

40 1

The lack of Buddhist dogma was the fifth characteristic H akugen identified.

Lacking a transcendent, personal God

who had to be worshipped and defended, Buddhism fai led to establish the type of compelling basIc dog ma a believer would fight to preserve. In Japan, this resulted in the neglect of both thought and theory. Instead, Buddhism concentrated on the inner self with the individual's subjective feeli ngs playing the centra l role.

There was little concern for the

resu lts of external actions. The sixth characteristic concerned the idea of "on" (m ).

Forming the heart of Buddhist ethics, on is the teaching

that a debt of gratitude is owed to those from whom favo rs a re received.

Traditionally, on was owed to fou r classes

or types of individuals: 1 ) one's parents, 2) the king, 3 ) all sentient beings, and 4) either Heaven and earth, or the Three Treasures of Buddhism, i .e. the Buddha, Dharma, and Samgha. H a kugen a rgued that in Japan the debt of g ratitude owed 402

one's parents had converged with that owed one's Sovereign. This produced a corresponding weakening of the sense of indebtedness to "all sentient beings. " The Buddhist belief i n the mutual interdependence of all things formed the seventh characteristic. Hakugen stated that this belief led in modern Japan to an organic view of the state coupled with a feeling of intimacy towards it. Encompassed within this viewpoint was the recognition of the pre-eminence of the state, with the i nd ividual being no more than a constituent element. In similar fashion, it meant that capitalists, too, were preeminent, with workers being subsumed beneath them i n an extended family system that emphasized harmony and cooperation. Hakugen's eighth characteristic focused on the doctrine of the M iddle Way.

He maintained that the Middle Way

doctrine of early Buddhism in India had become the operating principle for social development in modern J ap a ne se 403

Buddhism.

This did not mean, however, some type of

c o m p romise between extreme left-w i ng a n d right-wi ng pol itical Ideology.

Instead, it became a constant search for

comp romise that sought to avoid confrontation before it occu rred.

In the end, this led to a very vague theory of

social reform . The ninth characteristic centere d on the tradition of a ncestor ve neration.

As " nation-p rotect i n g " Buddhism

assi m ilated Itself to Japan, I t promoted the customs and virtues of ancestor veneration. The end result was that the entire nation came to be regarded as one large fa mily i n which loyalty between subject and Sovereign was the chief virtue. This logic was extended and e m p l oyed as a support mechanism for the sacred war as voiced by the wartime slogan "the whole world under one roof" [hakko ichiu/ j\f,t­ !¥].

404

The spirit of "aging" formed the tenth characteristic. The M iddle Ages In Japan gave rise to a culture in which old and m atu re things were val ued.

Out of this came such

aesthetic concepts as "wabi" ( rustic a ntiqueness/t>�) and

''sabi'' ( ancient sohtariness/��) . An extension of this way of thin king saw proposals for social reform b ra nded as childlike and immature.

To become a matu re adult meant

to dismiss such proposals, especi ally if they challenged the existing order, and become accepting, o bedient, and u ncritical of the status quo. The

e l eventh

c h a racteristic

i nvo lved

Budd hism 's

emphasIs on "peace of mind" rather than Justice. Lacking a God as the author of transcendental principles, Buddhism was not compelled to build a kingdom of God based on justice here on earth.

Furthermore, because Buddhism i s a

religion based on the idea o f the "emptiness" (5 k t. shunyatal gg) of things, it had al most no basis for maintaining a n 40 5

a ntagonistic attitude towards State Shinto.

Buddhism's

focus on individua l peace of mind also contributed to its failure to establ ish the will to reorganize society. H akugen's twelfth and final cha racteristic concerned the Buddhist logic of ''soku ''

(en), a copula that l itera l ly

means "just as it is" and is roughly equivalent to 'such ness' and non-duality. I c h i k awa contended that the logic of soku 1

appearing as it does throughout Buddhist thought, leads

to a static, aesthetic perspective, a detached subjective harmony with things.

In Hakugen's view, Buddhism lacks a

dynamic theoretical basis for either confronting real ity or p romoting social change. It is clear that each one of the twelve characteristics noted above involves assumptions and viewpoi nts that a re clearly open to extensive schol arly debate .

The defe ns e

o r c ritiq u e of these al leged characteristics wou ld be a monumental task i n itself.

This task, once again, extends 406

beyond the confines of this d issertation.

This sai d , it is

equa l ly clear that Hakugen has ra ised some challeng i ng issues with his critique that are worthy of further scholarly i nvestigati o n .

At the very l east, his critiq u e stro n g ly

suggests that the issue of Buddhism's collaboration with J ap anese m i litarism is one with very deep roots withi n Buddhist history and doctrine.

FOi

this insight, If for nothing

else, futu re students of this topic will remain Indebted to this pioneering scholar. The 1 9 9 2 Soto Zen Sect ' s Declaration of War Respo n s i b i l i ty I n t r o d u ct i o n I f the R i n z a i Zen sect has been unwi lling to face its

p ast, it cannot be claimed that the postwar leaders h ip of the Sato Zen sect was any more anxious to do so. Yet, a series of a l legations concerning human rig hts abuses by this sect had the cumulative effect of forcing it to face its 407

past in spite of its unwillingness to do so. Unquestionably the single most important event in this series of allegations was the sect headquarters' publication in 1 980 of the History

of the Soto Sect 's Overseas Evangelization and Missionary Work (Soto- shu kaigai ka ikyo dendo shi/ .���*rm�ffiil\i5l!). I n the January 1 9 9 3 issue of Soto Shuho, the sect headquarters announced that it was recalling all copies of the above mentioned publication . The reason given for this was as follows: The content of this book consists of the history of the overseas missionary work u ndertaken by this sect since the M e iJ i period, based on the reports of the persons i nvolve d . Howeve r, u p o n i nvest i g at i o n , it was d iscovere d that this book contai ned many accou nts that were based on d iscriminatory ideas. There were, fo r e x a m p l e , words w h i c h d i sc ri m i nated a g a i nst peoples of various national ities. Fu rthermore, there were places that were filled with u ncritical adulation for " m i l itarism" and "the policy to tu rn [occupied peoples ] i nto loyal I mperial subjects ( 2 6 ) . I m mediately followi ng the above a nnounce ment was a " Statement of Apology" ( Shazaibunl IfBJt) issued by the 408

administrative head of the sect, Ot a k e Myogen (*¥ID)J�). The state ment contained a passage which clearly shows how the p receding work served as a catalyst for w h at amou nted to the sect's repentance of its wartime role. highlights are as follows: We, the Soto sect, have since the M e iJ i period and through to the end of the Pacific War, utilized the good name of "overseas evangel ization" to violate the human rig hts of the peoples of ASia, especially those in East Asia . This was done by making com mon cause with, and sharing in, the sinister designs of those who then held political power to ru le Asia. Furthermore, withi n the social climate o f " ceasing to b e Asian and beco m i ng Western , " we despised the peoples of Asia and their cultures, forcing Japanese cu ltu re on them and taking actions which caused them to lose thei r national pride and dignity. This was all done out of a belief in the superi ority of Japanese Buddhism and our national stru cture. Not only that, but these actions, which violated the teachings of Buddhism, were done in the name of Buddha S hakya m u n i and the su ccessive Patriarchs in India, China and Japan who tra nsmitted the Dharma. There is nothing to be said a bout these actions other than that they were tru ly shamefu l . We fo rt h ri g htly confess the serious m i st akes w e comm itted i n the past h i story of o u r ove rseas m issionary work, and we wish to deeply apologize and 409

Its

express our repentance to the peoples of Asia and the wo rld . M o reove r, t h e se actions a re not m e re l y t h e re s po n s i b i l i t y o f those people who we re d i rectly I nvo lved I n overseas m issionary work. Needless to say, the responsi bility of the entire sect m ust be questioned in as much as we applauded Japan's overseas aggression and attempted to Justify it. Even fu rther, the So to sect's publ ication In 1 9 8 0 of the History of the Soto Sect's Overseas Evangelization and Missionary Work was done without reflection on these past mistakes. This meant that within the body of the work there were not only positive evaluations of these past errors, but even expressions which tried to glorify and extol what had been done. In dOing thiS, there was a complete lack of concern for the pain of the peoples of ASi a who suffered as a resu lt. The publication involved claimed to be a work of history but was written from a viewpoint which affi rmed an Imperial h istorical understanding, recalling the ghosts of the past and the disgrace of Japan 's modern history. We are ashamed to have published such a work. At the same time, we cannot escape a deeply g u ilty conscience i n that this work was p u b l ished some thirty-five years after the end of the Pacific War. The reason for this is that si nce the M e ij i period our sect has cooperated in waging war, sometimes having been fl attered into making common cause with the state, and other times rushing on its own to support state policies. Beyond that, we have never reflected on the 41 0

great misery that was forced upon the peoples of Asia nor felt a sense of responsibility for what happened. The historian E. H. C a r r has said: " History is an endless conversation between the past and the present . " Regretfu l ly, our sect has fai led to engage In this conversation, with the result that we have arrived at today without questioning the meaning of the past for the present, or verifying ou r own standpoint in the light of past h istory. We neglected to self-critically examine our own "war responsibility" as we should have done immediately after having lost the war In 1 9 45 . Although the Sota Sect cannot escape the feeling of bemg too late, we wish to apologize once again for our neg ligence and, at the same time, apologize for our cooperation with the war. . . . We recognize that Buddhism teaches that all hu man beings are equal as children of the Buddha . And fu rther, that they are Iivmg beings with a dignity that must not, for any reason whatsoever, be i mpaired by others. Nevertheless, our sect, which IS grounded in the belief of the transference of Shakya m u n i's Dharma from master to disciple, both supported and eagerly sought to cooperate with a war of aggression agai nst other peoples of Asia, calling it a holy war. Especially in Korea and the Korean peninsula, Japan first committed the outrage of assassinating the Korean Queen [in 1 895], then forced the Korea of the Lee Dynasty into dependency status [in 1 904-5], and finally, through the annexation of Korea [in 1 9 1 0] , obliterated a people and a nation. Our sect acted as an advanced guard i n 41 1

this, contriving to assimi late the Korean people i nto this country, and promotmg the po l i cy of turning Koreans i nto loyal Imperial subjects. When human bemgs exist as human beings, they cannot help but seek a place where they belong . People feel secure when they have a guarantee of their identity co ming from such thmgs as their own fa m i ly, language, nationality, state, land, culture , religious belief, etc. Havi ng an Identity guarantees the dignity of human beings. However, the policy to create loyal Imperial su bjects depnved the Korean people of their nation, t h e i r language, and, by forcing them to adopt Japanese family and personal names, the very heart of the i r national culture. The Soto sect, together with Japanese rel igion in general, took upon itself the role of Justifying these barbanc acts In the name of rel ig ion . In China a Id other cou ntnes, ou r sect took charge of pacifi catloll activities directed towards the peoples who were the victims of our aggression . There were even some priests who took the lead In making contact with the secret police and conducting spying operations on thei r behalf. F i rst, we We com m itted m istakes on two levels. subordinated Buddhist teachings to world ly teachings in the form of national policies . Then we proceeded to take away the dignity and identity of other peoples. We sole mnly prom ise that we will neve r make this mistake again. . . . Furthermore, we deeply apologize to the peoples of Asia who suffered under the past pol itical domination of Japan. We sincerely apologi ze that i n its overseas evangel ism and missionary work 41 2

the Soto sect made common cause with those in power and stood on the side of the aggressors ( 2 8-3 1 ) . I n reading the above statement it is difficult to escape the feeling that forty-eight years after the end of the war it was, in the wo rds of the preceding text, also " too late" for a leader of the Zen tradition to address the issue of war respo nsibil ity.

This said, it is clear that without this

statement of apology it would have been I m possible for the Soto sect to have restored U c h iyama G udo' s p ri estly status as It subsequently did i n April 1 9 9 3 , some e ig h tyt h re e ye a rs after having deprived him of it. In spite of the positive good that has issued from the Soto sect's statement of apology, Zen scholars like I c h i kawa Hakugen make it clear that the rationale for Ze n ( a nd Buddhis m 's ) support o f J ap anese m i litarism i n p articular, and state-sponsored warfare in general, IS far more deep ly e ntrenched i n Zen and Budd hist doctri ne and h istorical 41 3

practice, especially in its Mahayana form, than any Japanese Buddhist sect has yet to publicly admit. Of all the Japanese Bu ddhist sects to date, the Soto s e ct ' s state ment comprehensive.

of apol ogy i s c e rta i n l y the

most

Yet, it al most totally Ignores the question

of the doctri nal and h istorical rel ationship between the Buddhism and the state, let alone between Buddhism and the emperor.

Is, for example, " state-protecting Buddhism"

(gokoku bukkyo/ mi�11�) an mtnnslc part of Buddhism or m e re ly a histo rical accretion?

Similarly, IS the vau nted

u n ity between Zen and sword an orthodox or heretical doctnne?

Is there such a thing as a physical " life-giving

swo rd " o r i s i t n o m o re than a Zen metaphor that Suzu k i and others have terribly m isused out of context? The Soto Zen sect has made a beg inning, even a good beg inning, in addressing some of the many issues involved i n t h e m od ern h i sto rical

relati o n s h i p b etwee n 41 4

itself

( representing symbolical ly, at least, institutional Buddhism as a whole) and J a panese m i l itaris m . dissertation itself, it IS only a beginning.

But, l i ke thiS It rep resents no

more than the first step in what will, if continued, require a fundamental re-evaluation of what have heretofore been considered intimate parts, If not essential parts, of Zen and Buddhist thought and practice.

It remains to be seen

when, and If, such a fundamental re-evalu ation will take place.

41 5

CHAPTER

1 2: ISSU ES AWAITING FURTHER RESEARCH I nt roduction

The most i mportant area requiri ng fu rther research c e nte rs on the q uestion of whether or not the support Japanese Buddhism provided for the state 's war efforts as demo nstrated i n this dissertation was a n u npre cedented phenomena In Buddhist history. As has been seen, I c h i kawa Hakugen In particular argued that such support should be considered an outg rowth or extension of certain historical and doctrinal antecedents .

In h is view, these antecedents

were to be found in Japan in the first i nstance but with roots reach i n g back as far as India , the birt hp l ace of Buddhism. H akugen is by no means the only scholar of Zen to have voiced his concern about the seeming lack of social and moral awareness i n this Buddhist school .

Neither is he

alone in seeing this issue as having its roots i n p re- m o d e rn 41 6

Zen hi story .

A b e Masao, p reviously introduced, is a

conte m po ra ry Ze n scholar who has come t o s i m i l a r conclusions. H e wntes: It is undeniable . . . that through its long h istory Zen did not sufficiently o r syste matically clanfy h ow to save others in the i r i ndividual and social l ife b eyond the p roblem of awakening to each person 's true self. Zen has provided a basic framework for the relationship between self and others but almost no definite form of hu man moral ity or social eth ics except mo nastic reg u l ations. This IS due l argely to its overwhe l m i ng emphasIs o n i nd ividual self-awakening . This relative lack of co ncern with i nd ivi dual a n d soc i a l ethics becomes an increasi ngly serious problem as Zen begins to confront Issues in contempora ry society and enter Western cultures ( " Foreword" vili ). A third Zen scholar, this time a Westerner, has also exp ressed his support of Hakugen's and A b e's conclusions. This scholar is C h risto p h e r Ives whose book Zen A wakening

and Society

was wntten specific a l ly to a d d ress the

rel ationship between Zen Buddhism and ethics, in society. He states:

41 7

especially

Without carefu l reflection - grou nded In self-cntical examination of Buddhist texts, principles, and values Zen may continue to wander through a range of social o ri e n tatio n s, some of which may run contrary to the p ri nci ples and spirit of the traditio n . H i storical ly, monastic Zen has not studied, ana lysed, or responded self-critically to the fu ll range of suffering in the social world. This lack of a critical spirit has contributed to problematical support of the status quo, whether the aristocracy, samurai dictators, m i litarists, or certain large corporations (I x). There are, however, dissenting voices to the view that Zen's

modern-day

moral

h istorical antecedents.

l apses

h ave

l o ng-sta n d m g

One such voice I S that of R o b e rt

S h a rf, whose article on "Zen and Japanese Nationalism " has been previously quoted . He writes: The "Zen" that so captured the imagination of the West was in fact a product of the New Buddhism of the M e iJ i. . . . Western enthusi asts systematical ly fa i led to recognize the nationalist ideology u nderlying modern Japanese constructions of Zen [ Italics mine] ( 3 9 ) . Sharf further argues against the ancient origins o f the alleged unity between Zen and bushidO for the simple reason that "the term bushidO itself is rarely attested i n p re- M e ij i 41 8

l iterature" ( 6 ) .

He goes on to state, however, that " [this]

did not discourage Japanese intellectuals and propagandists from using the concept to explicate and ce lebrate the cu ltural and spiritual superiority of the Japanese " ( 6 ) . Sharf' s opi n ion notwithstanding, Stewa rt McFarlane points to a so mewhat older relationship between Zen a nd the martial arts. He writes: The appl ication of Zen theory and practice to the traming of martial skill and technique, and the investing of the wa rrior l ife with spiritu a l values, a re rea l ly Tokugawa [ i .e. Edo period] phenomena. . . . Zen formed only one element in the process (404). Thomas Cleary, on the other hand, appears to agree with Sharf in finding modern causes for Zen's war cooperation. In h is book The Japanese Art Of War he states that it was militarism itself which " distorted" Zen.

He writes:

M il itarism has d istorted Zen along with the rest of J apanes e c u ltu re , produ c i ng aberrat ions in w h i c h various forms o f Japanese machismo o r masochism are regarded as not only having some relation to Zen, but even as bei ng products or manifestations of Zen 41 9

" practice" or " realization . " Furthermore, J apanese people today are Just as susceptible to being deceived by deviant Zen as are Westerners, with the result that the various conflicting elements I n modern Zen a re generally not analyzed for what they really are ( 1 1 9 ) . Unfortu nately, Cleary does not go on to provide a n i n - d e pth a n a lys i s of wh at these "vari o u s confl l ct m g e lements in modern Zen" might be.

Yet, unli ke Sharf,

he

does find one historical culprit which has " Infected Zen over the centuries. " Namely, the Shinto religion.

He writes:

The Shmtoistic elements that have i nfected Zen over t h e centuries m ay be b ri efly stated a s fo l l ows: fet i s h i s m , i n clu d i ng ritu a l i s m a n d atta c h ment to p araphernalia; devotion to persons l iving and dead; fondness for rice wine, a sacramental libation in Shinto worship; h i e rarchy and aut horitari a n i s m; a tendency to regard the phys ical body as real; ra c i s m; and local sectari anism. [ Italics mine] ( 1 1 8 ) . I n f i n d i n g Shinto

t o blame for m a ny o f Zen' s

shortcomings, Cleary takes a position similar to Suzuk i 's i n the latter's postwar critique o f Buddhist war collabo ration. It w i l l b e recal l ed , h owever, that m a ny M e ij i period 420

p roponents of Shin to were equ ally convinced that it was B u d d h i s m and Zen that had corru pted their rel i g i o n . " Deviance , " like beauty, it wou ld seem, l ies in the eye of the beholder.

This said, it wou ld be interesting to know

which modern Japanese and Westerners Cleary believes have been "deceived by deviant Zen. " I nc l u de d i n Cleary ' s d eviant Zen is the a l leged connection between Zen and bushido.

Cleary

IS

a nxious

that the two are not viewed as being identical. He writes: An exami nation of re levant primary l ite ratu re makes it clear . . . that Bushido is spiritually and prag matical ly d i ffe re nt fro m B u d d h i s m , eve n it some of its practitioners did learn somethi ng about Buddhism and apply it to their arts. The participation of warriors and strategists in shaping the format of Zen i n Japan is one way to expl ain the cloud of mystery surrounding Zen, as the appeara nce of a ruse, part of the art of the advantage, one that has h istorically been used to dress certain alien and un-Buddhist e lements of Bushido i n the dign ity of Buddhism. Many Japanese themselves have unknowingly been deceived by this maneuver, to say noth ing of Westerners ( 1 1 7) . 42 1

If Cleary fails to identify exactly who it is that has been deceived , he also fal ls to explain who or what It is that is doing the deceiving. Unl i ke Cleary who believes such th ings as militarism and Shinto "distorted" Zen, Winston King, author of Zen and

the Way of the Sword, takes a position not unlike Suzuki's. That i s to say, Zen could not be d istorted, at least not ethically, for Zen has no ethics to distort! He wntes: Wa rrio r-Ze n took on the coloring of the wa rri o r­ dominated cultu re and institutions of medieval and Tokugawa Japan, becom ing more ful ly Japanese even if not more Buddhist in the process. Thus the ethics of the sword could and d id, at least for a time, become the ethics of Zen, not uncongenial with the Confucian statecraft ethic adopted by the Tokugawa regime but showing l ittle of its " Buddhist" quality. For essentially Zen, with its slight regard for scripture and literary or ritual tradition, has no means of checking its " Buddhist" quality from time to time or maintaining a consistent witness to a good or holy l ife-pattern. In a word, it has no intrinsic ethical quality or inner monitor, but . . . h istorically seems to be primari ly a psychological tech n iq u e fo r maxi m i z i ng the visce ra l e nergies whatever their orientation ( 1 90- 1 9 1 ) . 422

If this is indeed what Zen is all about, there can be little doubt that somewhat like Lt. Col . Sugimoto Goro shou ld be considered to h ave mastered it in every respect.

That

is to say, had he not mastered this "psychological technique for m ax i m i z i n g the visceral

energ ies whatever t h e i r

o ri e ntat i o n "? In a n extended description of Japan's modern m i l itary, King did claim to have found a "whiff of Zen influence . " H e writes: Sometimes t his sen�e of Japanese spiritu al superiority of the J ap ,a nese '( Easte rn? ) spi rit over America n (Western ? ) technical superiority that would i n the end prevail over immense physical odds - perhaps a whiff of Zen influence here - fou nd its way i nto m i l itary manuals. In an I mperial Japanese Army manual, g iven to the users of the lunge m ine, we fmd this advice: " attack 'with s p i ritual vigour and s te e l- p i e rc i n g passion'" ( 2 2 3 ) . H ad King studied this issue further, one can only wonder at what point the whiff of Ze n wou ld have tu rned i nto something a little stronger smelling? 423

But then again, if as

King claims Zen has "no instrinsic ethical quality,"

what is

there to smell? Finally, with regard to the connection between Zen and u ltra-nationalism at a more general level, Nakamura Hajime, one of Japan 's best known contemporary Buddhist scholars, has this to say: Japa nese u ltra-nationalism did not suddenly appear inthe post-MeiJi period. Its beginnings can be traced to the very remote past. . . . Many Buddhists of l ater date believed that Japan was superior to all other lands, as we can see clearly in the following line from a poem by Ean ( 1 2 2 5- 1 277), a Kamakura Zen monk: "To the end of the end of the last generation will this land of Ou rs surpass all other lands" (434). If there is any common thread to be found in all of the p recedi n g

q u otes,

it

is

that

rea c h i n g

a

s c h o l a rl y

u ndersta nding of the origins and deve lopment o f the relationship between Zen and the state, and Zen and the sword, are frought with controversy, both within and without Japan. This is, furthermore, likely to be the case for some 424

time to come, g iven the potential depth and breadth of the a re a s which must be rese arched to reach such an u nderstanding. Needless to say, that study the confines of the present dissertation .

IS

clearly beyond

It may, however,

be helpfu l to at least look at the d i rectIon such future research should take. Future research should begin, first of all, with a detai led e xa m i nation of the position(s) taken by the historical founder of Buddhism, Buddha Shakya muni, towards warfare and towards the state .

This wou ld be followed by an

examination of subsequent relevant doctrinal developments i n Buddh ist th Inking, particularly with i n the Mahayana tradItion. It would also be useful to compare these Mahayana developments with their counterparts in the Southern school of Buddhism. Is there somethi ng uniquely Mahayana in what transpired? Or uniquely Zen?

42 5

Finally, it wou ld be necessary to take an in-depth look at the actu a l p re-modern h istory of Buddh i st - state rel ations in both India and the cou ntries of East Asi a , i ncluding China a n d Korea a s wel l a s J apan.

Once again,

comparing and contrasti ng this history with that of the countries adhering to the Southern school wou l d p rove helpfu l .

Only follOWing such a thorough study would it be

possible to make normative Judgements on such phenomena as " I mperial Way-Buddhism" and " Imperial State-Zen . " That is to say, only then could o ne determine,

with

any degree of certai nty, whether these phenomena were heretical aberrations of Buddh ist thought and p ractice or m e re ly extensions

of p reviously

historical rel ationships.

e x i sti n g

ideas

and

It is, of course, quite possible that

there could be elements of both . \Nhile such a major study as desCribed above is beyond the confines of this dissertation, the author does recognize 426

a responsibility to continue research in these areas in the future .

Failure to do so, would, in some sense, betray the

promise of what has already been accomplished.

In this

endeavor, the author looks forward to the advice and support of colleagues as he conti nues his quest for a deeper u nderstandi ng of the relationship between Buddhism, the state, and the sword.

427

REFERENCES CITED Works In Western Languages

Abe, Masao, ed. A Zen Life: D. T. Suzuki Remembered. New York: John Weatherhl ll, 1 9 8 6 . "Foreword" See Zen Awakening and Society by C hristopher Ives . Anesakl, Masaharu . Tuttle, 1 9 6 3 .

HIstory O f Japanese ReligIon. Rutland , Vermont:

Aral, Seklzen. "A Buddhist View o f World Peace. " (December 1 92 5 ) : 3 9 5-400 . Beasley, W.G. The Praeger, 1 9 74. Behr, Edward.

Japan Evangelist

Modern HIstory O f Japan. 2nd ed. New York:

Hlromoto, Behmd The Myth. New York: Vintage, 1 98 9 .

Bellah, Robert N .

Tokugawa RelIgion. Boston: Beacon Press, 1 9 5 7 .

Borton, Hugh. Press, 1 9 70.

Japan 's Modern Century. 2 n d ed. New York: Ronald

Boas, George. Sons, 1 96 9 .

The HIstory of Ideas. New York: Charles SCribner's

Cleary, Thomas.

The Japanese Art Of War. Boston: Shambala, 1 9 9 1 .

Dem u§vl lle, Pau l.

Cholx d'etudes Bouddhlques. Lelden: Bri l l, 1 9 7 3 .

Draeger, Donn F. 1 974.

Modern BUJutsu

&

Budo. New York: Weatherh lll,

Earl , David Magarey. Emperor and Nation Unrverslty of Washington Press, 1 9 6 4. 428

in Japan. Seattle:

Fisher, David H. 1 970.

HIstorians ' FallacIes.

Gluck, Carol. Japan 's Modern University Press, 1 9 8 5 . Hane, Mlklso. Reflections Pantheon, 1 988.

New York: Harper Torchbooks,

Myths. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

On The Way To The Gallows. New York:

Hardacre, Helen. Shinto and the State, 7 868- 7 988. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1 98 9. Helslg, James W. and John C. Maraldo, eds. Rude Honolulu: Un iversity of HawaII Press, 1 9 9 5 . Haltom, D.C. Modern Paragon Book, 1 9 6 3 .

Japan and Shmto Natlonaltsm. New York:

Humphreys, Chnstmas. lenaga Saburo. 1 968.

Awakenmgs.

Zen Buddhism. London: 1 949.

The PacIfIC War,

1 93 7 - 1 945. New York: Pantheon,

Ives, C hristopher. Zen Awakenmg of HawaII Press, 1 9 9 2 .

and Society. Honolul u : University

Jaffe, Richard. " Buddhist Clerical Marriage I n Japan: Origins and Responses to the 1 8 72 Nlku)1kl Saltal Law." 7 990 Anthology Of Fo Kuang Shan International Buddhist Conference : 470-48 1 . Kapleau, Philip.

The Three Plmars of Zen. Tokyo: Weatherhlll, 1 9 6 5 .

Ketelaar, James Edward. Of Heretics and Martyrs Princeton, NJ: Princeton Umverslty Press, 1 9 90. King, Winston L. King. Zen University Press, 1 9 9 3 .

m Meljl Japan.

and the Way of the Sword. Oxford: Oxford

42 9

Kitagawa, Joseph. University, 1 9 66.

Religion In Japanese History. New York: Columbia

Klshimoto, Hldeo, compo and ed. tr. John F. Howes Tokyo, 1 9 56. Koestler, Arthur. 1 960.

Japanese Reltgion In the MeIJI Era,

The Lotus and the Robot. London: Hutchinson

& Co.,

Large, Stephen S. lI For self and society: Seno Giro and Buddhist socialism In the post-war Japanese peace movement. II The Japanese trajectory: modernization and beyond. Ed. Gavan McCormack and Yoshlo Sugimoto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 988. 8 7 - 1 04. Matsunami, N.

The Constitution of Japan. Tokyo: Maruzen, 1 93 0.

Maezuml, Hakuyu Talzan and Bernard Tetsugen Glassman. The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment. Los Angeles: Center Publications, 1 977. McFarlane, Stewart "Mushm, Morals, and Martial Arts - A Discussion of Keenan's Yogacara Critique." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 1 714 ( 1 990): 3 97-43 2. McRae, John. 1 990

I

I

American Scholars In Dialogue With Our Mentors. II

Anthology Of Fo Kuang Shan International BuddhIst Conference :

5 30-5 49 . Miyamoto, Musashl. A Book Of Five Rmgs. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1 974. Moore, Charles A" ed. of Haw a i i , 1 9 67.

Trans. Victor Harris.

the Japanese Mmd. Honolulu: University Press

Murakami, Shlgeyoshl. Japanese Religion in the Modern Century. Trans. H . Byron Earhart. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1 9 80. NaJlta, TetsuQ and Irwin Scheiner,

eds. Japanese Thought In the

Tokugawa Penod. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1 9 78. 43 0

Nakamura, Haj l me .

Ways Of Thinking Of Eastern Peoples: Indla­

Chlna- TIbe t-Japan. Honolulu: East-West Center, 1 9 64. New Zealand Herald, 3 1 May 1 995: 8. Nltobe, Inazo.

Bushido. Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle, 1 96 9.

Notehelfer, F.G. Kotoku ShusU/ (PortraIt London: Cambndge University, 1 9 7 1 .

Of A Japanese RadIcal).

Nukanya, Kalten.

ReligIon of the SamuraI: A Study of Zen Philosphy and DIscIpline In China and Japan. Luzac s Onental Rel i g i ons Serres, '

vol. 4. London: Luzac, 1 9 1 3 . Peattle, Mark R. Ishlwara KanJI, and Japan 's Confrontation West. Princeton NJ: Pnnceton University Press, 1 97 5 .

with the

Robinson, Richard H . The BuddhIst RelIgIon : A Hlstortcal Introduction. Belmont, CA. : Dickenson Publ i shing, 1 970. Saunders, Dale E. Press, 1 9 64.

BuddhIsm In Japan. Westp ort , CT: Greenwood

Sharf, Robert H. "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism. " RelIgIons 33/1 ( 1 9 9 3 ): 1 -43.

History of

Shore, Jeff. "Japanese Zen and the West: Beglnmngs. " 1 990

Anthology Of Fo Kuang Shan International Buddhist Conference : 4 3 8-460. Shaku, Soyen. Zen for Americans. Trans. Dalsetz Teltaro SuzukI. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1 974. Suzuki, Daltetz T. Zen and University Press, 1 9 5 9 .

Japanese Culture. Princeton NJ: Princeton

Theile, Notto R . BuddhIsm and Christiamty University of Hawai i Press, 1 9 8 7 . 43 1

In Japan. Honolulu:

Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi, ed. et al.

StudIes in MysticIsm and Reltgion Presented to Gershom G. Scholem. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew

University, 1 9 6 7 . Woodard, William P . The AllIed Occupation Of Japan Japanese ReligIons. Le/den: E.J. Brill, 1 9 72. Yamada, Mumon. A Flower In The Kodansha International, 1 9 64.

7 945- 7 952

And

Heart. Trans. Gyo Furuta. Tokyo:

Yamamoto, Tsunetomo. Hagakure. Trans. Willi am Scott Wilson. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1 9 79. YOkOI, Yuho With Dalzen VictOria. Weatherhill, 1 97 6 .

Zen Master Dagen. Tokyo:

Yokoyama, Wayne 5 . , trans. "Two Addresses by Shaku Soen." Eastern BuddhIst (New Senes) Vol. XXVI No. 2 Autumn 1 9 9 3 .

The

Works In Japanese

(tklll 'lili) Sonn 'O alkoku ron (�mlilE�) Tokyo: Benkyodo Shoten, 1 9 1 2.

Akiyama Goan

(Yiti*'Jj£�a) Bukkyo selten shiron (iA'U\�ASEiii ) Tokyo: Kelso Sholn, 1 89 9.

Anesakl Masaharu

(tlJJ:t�*}Jm) Kakugo wa yoi ka (:w:m,:cI:: � \tJ\) Tokyo: PHP Ken kyuJo , 1 97 8 .

Asahlna Sagen

Chuo Bukkya ( �*iA�) March 1 93 4 (N/hon selshm to Bukkya) See Ima no otera wanai by Endo Makoto.

m

Bukkyo

Chuo KOron (�*�:a) August 1 943 (Special Edition) . See by Ichikawa Hakugen. 432

Nihon Fashlzumu ka no sllukyo

Chugal N1ppo (!:p�� B ¥Ii) 29 January 1 9 1 1 (No. 3 2 59). 2 5 May - 1 June 1 9 44. See N1hon Ichikawa Hakugen .

Daldo Shmpo (;*;Iiij *fi fi)

•

Fash,zumu ka no shukyo by

No. 1 ; 1 1 March 1 889.

Da ljo Zen (*�t!i1) November 1 9 3 9 . See Nlhon Fashlzumu ka no shukyo by Ichi kawa Hakugen. July 1 944. See N1hon Fashizumu ka no shukyo by Ichikawa Hakugen.

(*:i:1=) Otera no kane wa naranakatta ( a�O)iI'iPl '; t.t1J\ ? 1t) Tokyo:

D a l to Satoshl

Kyol ku S h i ryo Shuppan-kal, 1 9 94.

(jlii�) Ima no otera m Bukkyo wa nal ( �O)i5�I:iAfi'it.t� \) Tokyo:

Endo Makoto

Nagasaki Shuppan, 1 9 86.

(Bir:aJjfUR) Zen no teblki (:t!i!0)=F��) Tokyo: Yukosha, 1 9 27.

Fueoka Selsen

(i!i J l l iit!) Yakushm Nihon to shmdaijo bukkyo ( Biift B * c *fi**iAJl) Tokyo:

Furukawa Kakugo

Chuo Bukkyosha, 1 93 7 .

(L�UIH.lH15· ) Sanzen no kaltei (#�¥O)\li1l) Tokyo: Kokushokan Gyokal, 1 9 1 5 .

Harada Sogaku

(�m�;XllJJ ) and Shimakage Mei (&�fi). Bukkyo no sensa kan (iAJlO)��il) Tokyo: Dalto Shuppansha,

Hayashlya Yuj I ro 1 937.

Heimm Shinbun (lJ'Ji*'fJlfJ) , No. 3 9; 7 August 1 894.

43 3

[Honganjlha ] Honzan rokujl (*1i�5m*LUa.O July 3 1 , 1 89 4 October 1 5 , 1 9 1 0