Relaxed Parents

Some of you will know that I have an on-off flirtation going with Zen Buddhism and have done for a long time. Like most people, I initially saw Buddhism (and especially Zen) in fairly idealistic terms. I’m probably as prone to what Edward Said defined as Orientalism as the next Western liberal with a couple of volumes of D.T. Suzuki or Alan Watts on the shelf. Or at any rate, I was twenty years ago. (Possibly the only difference now is that I have several shelves full of those seductive books and even more unfulfilled good intentions).

Zen is, of course, an experiential religion (and make no mistake - it’s a religion, not a wussy ‘philosophy’) and that experience is fundamentally one of getting on your mat and sitting. Just sitting (more on sitting here and here, in that order). I don’t sit enough - in fact, I haven’t for months - but that’s another story. The other side of it is the ethical and philosophical side which has probably engaged rather more of my attention than it should do. It’s nice reading - comforting books about the dharma and being excellent to one another and showing compassion and so on.

Brian Victoria’s Zen at War is not one of those nice books. It’s a detailed account of the complicity of the Japanese Buddhist hierarchy (yes, hierarchy - just like the Pope) in the creation of the Japan that fought the Great Pacific War. Zen Buddhism doesn’t come out particularly well as an institution but the accounts of the heroism of individual Buddhists in following their consciences is inspiring.

Aside from analysing the contribution of Zen to the creation of what one might call a Japanese Nationalist psyche in the Meiji era, Victoria also examines a number of writers in detail, dissecting how the central notions of compassion were twisted and corrupted to justify the horrendous activities of the Japanese government and military in Manchuria.  The Chinese were effectively subjected to a colonial policy every bit as vicious and exploitative as those imposed by the West “for their own good” - the requirement of compassion to the whole was used to justify barbaric treatment of individuals and minorities.  Buddhist missionaries sent out to Manchuria effectively became government spies.

It’s a challenging read.  The upside of it is the willingness on the part of a small number of academics and priests to question their faith’s history and try to answer difficult questions about it, frequently in the face of considerable opposition (Japan’s reticence in confronting the ghosts of its past is notorious).

I think Buddhism is robust enough to stand up to this level of inquiry.  I’m not entirely sure the same could be said of Catholicism, though the Pope’s recent actions during his US visit are a start…