Zen War Stories
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ZEN WAR STORIES Following the critically acclaimed Zen at War (1997), Brian Daizen Victoria here explores the intimate relationship between Japanese institutional Buddhism and militarism during the Second World War. Victoria reveals for the first time, through examination of the wartime writings of the Japanese military itself, that the Zen school’s view of life and death was deliberately incorporated into the military’s programme of ‘spiritual education’ in order to develop a fanatical military spirit in both soldiers and civilians. Furthermore, it is shown that D. T. Suzuki, the most famous exponent of Zen in the West, was a wartime proponent of this Zen-inspired viewpoint which enabled Japanese soldiers to leave for the battlefield already resigned to death. Victoria takes us on to the naval battlefield in the company of warrior-monk and Rinzai Zen Master Nakajima Genjō. We view the war in China through the eyes of a Buddhist military chaplain. The book also examines the relationship to Buddhism of Japan’s seven class-A war criminals, hung by the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1948. A highly controversial study, this book will be of interest not only to those studying the history of the period, but also to anyone concerned with the perennial question of the ‘proper’ relationship between religion and state. Brian Daizen Victoria is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Asian Studies, the University of Adelaide. THE ROUTLEDGECURZON CRITICAL STUDIES IN BUDDHISM SERIES General Editors: Charles S. Prebish and Damien Keown The RoutledgeCurzon Critical Studies in Buddhism Series is a comprehensive study of the Buddhist tradition. The series explores this complex and extensive tradition from a variety of perspectives, using a range of different methodologies. The Series is diverse in its focus, including historical studies, textual translations and commentaries, sociological investigations, bibliographic studies, and considerations of religious practice as an expression of Buddhism’s integral religiosity. It also presents materials on modern intellectual historical studies, including the role of Buddhist thought and scholarship in a contemporary, critical context and in the light of current social issues. The series is expansive and imaginative in scope, spanning more than two and a half millennia of Buddhist history. It is receptive to all research works that inform and advance our knowledge and understanding of the Buddhist tradition. THE REFLEXIVE NATURE OF AWARENESS Paul Williams BUDDHISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS Edited by Damien Keown, Charles S. Prebish, Wayne Husted ALTRUISM AND REALITY Paul Williams WOMEN IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE BUDDHA Kathryn R. Blackstone THE RESONANCE OF EMPTINESS Gay Watson IMAGING WISDOM Jacob N. 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McMahan SELF, REALITY AND REASON IN TIBETAN PHILOSOPHY Thupten Jinpa BUDDHIST PHENOMENOLOGY Dan Lusthaus ZEN WAR STORIES Brian Daizen Victoria by RoutledgeCurzon 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX 14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Reprinted 2004 Transferred to Digital Printing 2005 RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2003 Brian Daizen Victoria Typeset in Goudy by LaserScript Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0–7007–1580–0 (hbk) ISBN 0–7007–1581–9 (pbk) DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE WHOSE LIVES WERE STOLEN FROM THEM IN THE NAME OF “HOLY WAR” CONTENTS List of illustrations Preface Acknowledgements PART I 1 The Zen master wept 2 Monks and soldiers move on their stomachs 3 The Zen of assassination 4 Ōmori Sōgen – the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of Zen 5 Zen Master Dōgen goes to war – the militarist and anti-Semitic writings of Yasutani Haku’un 6 Carrying Zen to China 7 Zen “selflessness” in Japanese Militarism Section one: The General and the Zen master Section two: Zen – the foundation of military spirit PART II 8 Buddhist war bereavement 9 Confessions of a Buddhist chaplain 10 Buddhism — the last refuge of war criminals Section one: Colonel Tsuji Masanobu goes underground Section two: Finding religion on death row 11 Buddhism - a top secret religion in wartime Japan Epilogue Postscript Notes Bibliography Index ILLUSTRATIONS 1 Rinzai Zen Master Nakajima Genjō as a young priest. 2 Rinzai Zen Master Nakajima Genjō wearing the uniform of a Japanese Imperial Navy sailor attached to the battleship Ise. 3 View of Nakajima Genjō’s ship, the Japanese Imperial Navy battleship Ise. 4 Shōinji Temple located in the village of Hara in Shizuoka Prefecture. 5 Rinzai Zen Master Omori Sōgen. 6 Sōtō Zen Master Yasutani Haku’un. 7 Nakajima’s master Rinzai Zen Master Yamamoto Gempo. 8 Female student corps at Meiji University undergoing bayonet training. 9 The Japanese funerary hall located in the grounds of the Wat Ratchaburana temple in Bangkok, Thailand. PREFACE In late 1997 I published a book, Zen at War, that sent shock waves throughout Zen communities in the West, for it demonstrated that wartime Japanese Zen masters, almost to a man, had been fervent supporters of Japanese militarism. Moreover, these masters claimed the Buddha Dharma was itself synonymous with that militarism. What was especially disconcerting to some readers was the fact that many of those Japanese Zen masters who first introduced Zen to the West, especially in the postwar era, turned out to have been some of the strongest proponents of Japanese militarism, cloaking their support in the guise of such phrases as “the unity of Zen and the sword.” I remember being deeply moved by one reader whose pained reaction was posted on the Internet. He said simply, “What the hell went wrong?” He went on to add that if my book had any failing, it was that while I had done a good job in revealing the wartime deeds and acts of Japan’s leading Zen figures, I had failed to interpret or explain what it all meant within the context of Buddhism as a whole; that is to say, is Zen, if not Buddhism, a totalitarian or ‘fascist’ faith? This book is meant to address, at least to some degree, the question of “what went wrong.” However, rather than using the survey approach that characterized my earlier book, each chapter in the present volume focuses on discrete events or personalities. Any disjunction between chapters resulting from this approach will hopefully be compensated for by the opportunity to take a more in- depth look at the material. In any event, I have tried to include sufficient background information in each chapter so that the reader will find it unnecessary to have read Zen at War in order to make sense of what is presented here: each book stands by itself, although, taken together, they give a much broader and deeper picture than either of them does alone. Approach I caution readers that this book, especially its first part, is not intended as a description of the nature of Zen (or Buddhism as a whole) in any theoretical or abstract sense. Rather, it describes what a number of prominent Japanese Zen leaders believed or interpreted Zen to be, primarily in the 1930s and 1940s. On the other hand, material in the second part has a broader focus, showing that Buddhist support for Japanese militarism was by no means limited to the Zen school alone. Let me also point out that my conflated use of the words “Buddhism,” “Mahāyāna Buddhism,” and “Zen” is done if not quite purposely then at least consciously - I seek to introduce readers to the way in which these terms were used by the principals themselves at the time. If contemporary scholars of Buddhism must of necessity distinguish between these terms, we must also recognize that for most believers of Buddhism (or any religion for that matter) their “sectarian viewpoints” represent, at least to them, the essence if not the totality of their faith. This attitude was embodied in the 1930s by Sōtō Zen Master Iida Toin (1863-1937) who wrote: “Zen is the general repository for Buddhism.”1 Thus, in seeking to understand the (Zen) Buddhist faith of those introduced in this book, we must, at least initially, seek to understand Buddhism as they themselves understood it. No doubt some readers will be disappointed to learn that despite the title of this book, Zen War Stories, there are only two chapters (chapters 1 and 9) that relate actual “battlefield tales.” As far as Zen is concerned, it is only Zen Master Nakajima Genjō who describes his experience on the naval battlefield. Nevertheless, I dare to call the entire book by this name because every chapter in Part I does describe one or another aspect of Zen’s support for Japanese militarism.