[Buddha-l] Zen War Guilt/Zen and the Sword

[Gad Horowitz]

what could "zen itself" possibly be?

and whose feet are not made of clay?



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen Hopkins" <stephen.hopkins at ukonline.co.uk>
To: <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 6:27 PM
Subject: [Buddha-l] Zen War Guilt/Zen and the Sword


> Denizens -
>
> In light of responses to my first post, perhaps a little background by way
> of clarification might be helpful.
>
> I'm not at all shocked, as it happens, by revelations about the personal
> misdeeds, if I may characterise them as such, of Zen masters, or those of
> other 'spiritual' teachers for that matter.  Some of the finest teachers I
> have had the good fortune to encounter have had their fair share of
failings
> - 'enlightened with defilements', perhaps - and unusual histories in other
> regards - one who I learned a great deal from happened to have been a rear
> gunner in WW2 bombers.  Be a lamp unto yourself.  Don't look at the finger
> pointing.  Nor am I unduly exercised by the problem of 'war guilt'.  But
my
> father, who was almost killed by a sword wielding Japanese soldier - that
> sword hangs now, as it did throughout my childhood, in the room of my
> parents house that they still call mine - understandably takes a different
> view.
>
> No, what concerns me, both as a Buddhist practitioner and simply as a
human
> being, in the personal and the collective spheres is, I suppose, how it
can
> be that sincere practitioners of Zen in Japan (at all levels, and in
> particular, though by no means only Zennists) and institutions who
represent
> or embody it can seem to be either unable or unwilling to acknowledge what
I
> will call, for want of a better way of putting it, moral failings of the
> grossest kind without, in the main, first being pushed pretty hard by work
> of the kind Victoria has produced.  What does this imply for those of us
who
> study Zen about Zen itself?  Especially, perhaps, about those who even now
> have yet to apologise, if such exist.  Is it that, as Victoria put it in
> 2003, "....institutional Zen Buddhism in Japan is not Buddhism.  And
> therefore, what has passed as Zen has for a very long time been a
distortion
> of Buddhist teachings"?
>
> My interest in Victoria's question about the possibly heretical nature of
> the Zen and the sword doctrine flows both from the problems, as I see
them,
> outlined above, and from my own study of Hitsuzendo, in which the unity of
> zen, ken and sho is often alluded to.  And from that sword on my childhood
> wall.  Switching to Soto Zen isn't an answer.
>
> My interest in post Victoria reassessments of DT Suzuki also flows from
> these sources, and from a long standing interest in Suzuki's work.  His
work
> was amongst the first I read when my interest in Buddhism began, thirty
> years or more ago.  If his feet are also made of clay, well, so be it -
I'd
> just like to know.
>
> Steve Hopkins
>
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