Editor’s note: This is a rebuttal from Brian Victoria to Jundo Cohen’s recent piece (found here) critiquing the quality of Victoria’s translations.
Foreword
Inasmuch as the Sweeping Zen website is not a peer-reviewed academic journal, the following article is written in essay form with abbreviated endnotes. Further, I refer to Jundo Cohen’s statements as contained both in his abbreviated article on the Sweeping Zen website as well as the longer report he linked to.
Introduction
In his 1938 book, Zen Buddhism and its influence on Japanese culture, D.T. Suzuki wrote:
“Whatever form Buddhism takes in different countries where it flourishes, it is a religion of compassion, and in its varied history it has never been found engaged in warlike activities.”[1]
What a wonderful statement if it were true, for Buddhism could then justly claim to be the sole truly peaceful religion in the world! Alas, as regular readers of the Sweeping Zen website already know, it simply isn’t true. In fact, D.T. Suzuki himself invoked Buddhism in urging Japanese soldiers to sacrifice their lives as early as the Russo-Japanese War. In 1904 he wrote:“Let us then shuffle off this mortal coil whenever it becomes necessary, and not raise a grunting voice against the fates. . . . Resting in this conviction, Buddhists carry the banner of Dharma over the dead and dying until they gain final victory.”[2]
Further, in an article Suzuki wrote for an Imperial Army Officers Journal in June 1941 he clearly explained how, for many centuries, Zen had been intimately connected to Japan’s warriors and the incessant warfare they engaged in:
In Japan warriors have, for the most part, practiced Zen. Especially from the Kamakura period [1185-1333] through the Ashikaga [1337-1573] and Warring States period [1467-1567], it is correct to say that all of them practiced Zen. This is clear when one looks at such famous examples as [warlords] Uesugi Kenshin, Takeda Shingen, and others. . . . I believe one should pay special attention to the fact that Zen became united with the sword.[3]
Aside from revealing Suzuki’s own uncritical acceptance of the unity of Zen with decidedly physical swords, it is equally clear that the Zen school in Japan has a heritage of a close relationship to warfare extending over many centuries. In supporting Japan’s modern wartime aggression, Suzuki, Yasutani Haku’un, Sawaki Kōdō and many other Japanese Zen leaders were doing no more than following in the well-trodden footsteps of their predecessors.
Nevertheless, once a religious myth has been established, i.e., of Buddhism, Zen included, as a religion of peace, it is difficult to dispel. This is especially the case when it challenges deeply held beliefs on the part of the adherents of any religion. This is even more so in the case of Zen when the disciples of allegedly “enlightened” Zen masters are confronted by the support their masters gave to naked military aggression, as was the case in Japan’s 1937 full-scale invasion of China or its earlier brutal colonization of Korea beginning in 1905.
While some disciples, both in Japan and the West, have found a way to accept the moral failures of their masters, most often by simply ignoring them, other disciples have set out on a self-appointed mission to defend these masters, or at least those masters connected to their own Dharma lineage, at whatever cost. In the first instance they do this by denigrating anyone who introduces the wartime record of the master in question, i.e., he “mistranslated” the master’s words, “took them out of context,” “sought to hide contradictory evidence,” etc.
Jundo Cohen’s Critique
Jundo Cohen provides a good example of the above phenomenon in a recent article posted on the Sweeping Zen website entitled, “‘Zen At War’ Brian Victoria: Throwing Bombs at Kodo.” The article is available here. Readers acquainted with this article will know that Cohen makes a determined effort to defend, or salvage, as much of Sawaki Kōdō’s wartime record as possible. Yet, he also provides some genuinely new information about this controversial master. This is to be welcomed, for it allows readers to better judge that wartime record.
However, the truth is that, at least indirectly, I suggested the need for such an effort in the Preface to my book Zen at War. On p. xv of the 2nd edition, I wrote:
In an attempt to show at least some of the complexity of the Zen Buddhist response to Japan’s military actions, I have included sections on Zen Buddhist war resisters as well as collaborators. On whichever side of the fence these Buddhists placed themselves, their motivations were far more complex than can be presented in a single volume. Nor, of course, can their lives and accomplishments be evaluated solely on the basis of their position regarding the relationship of Zen to the state and warfare. A holistic evaluation of these leaders, however, is not the subject of this book. (Emphasis mine)
I would sincerely like to believe that Cohen failed to read these lines and therefore criticized me without knowing that at the very outset of Zen at War I informed readers that the complexity of my subjects’ motivations could not be presented in a single volume. As a survey, I could present no more than an introduction to the personages involved. As I made clear, their lives should not be evaluated solely on the basis of their wartime speech and actions.
It is quite understandable that Cohen feels the need to defend Sawaki, for he is the disciple of Nishijima Wafu Gudo who Cohen informs us was himself an Imperial Army soldier stationed in Manchuria from 1943-45 as well as a self-identified lay student of Sawaki in the war’s early years. Given this, it is reasonable to assume Nishijima was well acquainted with Sawaki’s stance toward the war. Notwithstanding this, in postwar years Nishijima essentially denied Sawaki’s wartime support for Japanese aggression. Speaking in English, Nishijima said:
Some American man wrote the book which criticizes Master Kōdō Sawaki in the war so strongly. But I think the book includes some kind of exaggeration. And meeting Master Kōdō Sawaki-rōshi directly, he was not so affirmative to the war, but at the same time he was thinking to do his duty as a man in Japan. So in such a situation I think his attitude is not so extremely right or left. And he is usually keeping the Middle Way as a Buddhist monk. I think such a situation is true.[4]
Compare this defense with the opening lines of Cohen’s recent article: “In the heat of wartime, Kodo Sawaki frequently expressed views in support of his country, combining Buddhist and Zen Doctrines, soldiering, mercy and military duty, Kannon and the Emperor in ways that may be criticized and shocking to people today. Brian Victoria is right.” A few paragraphs later, Cohen adds: “He [Sawaki] interpreted various Buddhist and Zen doctrines in order to do so in a way many of us (I am one) may find often wrong and shocking.”
In comparing Cohen’s words with those of his master, Cohen clearly breaks with his master’s viewpoint. I applaud him for this, even though it has taken him a long time to do so. Yet the question must be asked, would Cohen have ever criticized Sawaki’s wartime record if I had not first raised the issue? That said, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that Cohen also writes: “The picture of Kodo Sawaki, and the views he expressed, are much more subtle than Victoria lets on and wants to let us see. Brian Victoria is wrong.”
In reflecting on these words, let me first remind readers that Sawaki had become a Sōtō Zen priest at age eighteen, taking a solemn vow to observe the associated precepts including the first precept forbidding killing. This was followed by two years of Zen training. At age 21, however, he enlisted in the Imperial Army where he served in the Thirty-third Infantry Regiment. Following the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904, Sawaki, now aged 25, was ordered to northern China to fight Russians in the summer of that year.
It was following the Russo-Japanese War that Sawaki is quoted as having said that he and his comrades literally engaged in a “stomach-full” (hara-ippai) of killing Russian soldiers, unquestionably breaking the first of his priestly vows. True, Sawaki later criticized himself for his reckless bravado at the time, especially for having sought fame and rewards in the process. Thus, he urged his disciples and readers to give up all such motives as they fought in the Asia-Pacific War (1937-45), i.e., they should fight and die selflessly inspired by the teachings of Zen Master Dōgen.
Cohen and I clearly have differing interpretations of what Sawaki meant when he later recounted his battlefield experiences. My position is detailed in both the article posted on the Japan Focus website, i.e., “Zen Masters on the Battlefield (Part I) and the companion article, “The Non-self as a Killer,” posted on the Sweeping Zen website.
What Cohen fails to note is that the primary reason I included this episode in Zen at War was not to demonstrate what a “blood-thirsty” Zen priest Sawaki was, but for a completely different reason, i.e., to show what was perceived at the time to be the effectiveness of Zen training on the battlefield. On p. 35 I wrote: “In this simple conversation [with his fellow soldiers] we find what is perhaps the first modern reference to the effectiveness of Zen on the battlefield. Although Kōdō himself never fought again, he continued to support the unity of Zen and war.” In short, my purpose was to give a concrete example of where and when Zen’s connection to Japan’s modern battlefields began.
As for Sawaki, there can be no debate on the fact that he killed a sizeable number of human beings even though, as a Buddhist priest, he had pledged not to do so. This raises perhaps the single most important question this article poses for those readers, lay or cleric, who have taken similar vows, i.e., what to do if ordered by your political leaders to kill fellow human beings whom you have never met but are designated as the nation’s “enemies”?
Especially given that America and its European allies are now in a perpetual state of war, this is a question that should be seriously considered and debated by every Western Buddhist. For example, are Buddhists free to disregard their vows if their political leaders order them to kill? Are they free to kill as Buddhists so long as they are fighting a “defensive” or “just” war? If so, who determines whether the war is “just”? Do their nation’s political leaders determine this, and they simply obey? Do senior Buddhist clerics, e.g., “Zen masters” or the Dalai Lama, determine this, or do they themselves make this determination? And what happens, or what should they do, if they decide not to obey such orders, i.e., not to kill?
In Sawaki’s case, Japan had begun its forceful imperial expansion with its victory in the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894-5. As a result, Japan acquired its first overseas colony in the form of the Chinese island of Taiwan. Then, in the war in which Sawaki fought, Japan defeated a fellow imperialist power, i.e., Imperial Russia, thereby removing the last impediment to its colonization of a militarily weak Korea, a process it began immediately after its victory in 1905. While Sawaki, a Buddhist priest, was only one small part of Japan’s colonial enterprise, he was nevertheless directly involved.
Why is this so important? First, as noted above, it forces those of us who identify as Buddhists, to determine what is, or should be, our response to the state’s call to break the precept against killing? In Japan’s case, it also underscores an important claim made by James Ketelaar in his book, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: “[Buddhism] was indeed one, if not the only, organization capable of offering effective resistance to state policy.”[5]
This is certainly not to suggest that Sawaki could have, by himself, had an impact either on the Russo-Japanese War or the subsequent Japanese-initiated wars of colonial expansion throughout Asia. Yet, as I point out in Chapters III, IV, and VI of Zen at War, there were a few Japanese Buddhist priests who did speak out against war on the basis of their Buddhist faith, even at the cost, in one instance, of being hung to death. Sawaki, the “patriot” (according to Cohen), was very clearly not one of them.
If Cohen were to be believed, Sawaki repeatedly criticized the war effort in “subtle” ways on numerous occasions. Here, however, we need to recall a comment made by one of contemporary Japan’s most respected Buddhist scholars, Sueki Fumihiko, concerning D.T. Suzuki: “When we frankly accept Suzuki’s words at face value, we must also consider how, in the midst of the [war] situation as it was then, his words would have been understood.”[6]
This observation equally applies to Sawaki and his fellow Zen leaders. Thus, the critical question that Cohen fails to address is whether Sawaki’s wartime disciples, not to mention the readers of his many wartime articles, were ever motivated to oppose the war due to his alleged antiwar comments. Is there any record that Sawaki’s comments, either oral or written, provoked any political controversy, or repression, or condemnation on the government’s part or on anyone’s part? If there were, Cohen certainly doesn’t present it, nor do I know of any. In other words, even if all of Cohen’s interpretations of Sawaki’s alleged antiwar comments were proven correct, they were either so subtle, or otherwise acceptable, that they had no demonstrable effect on his audiences, his reputation, or his readers.
In this connection, perhaps the most damning evidence Cohen presents in his criticism of my research concerns Sawaki’s reference to “a description of Japan’s main allies, Hitler and Mussolini, as ‘devils from hell’.” To this I can only say, “Wow!” If, in the midst of war, Sawaki really had described the two leaders of Japan’s military allies as “devils from hell” that truly presents Sawaki in a new light. I freely admit it would force a major and positive revision in my understanding of the man. In fact, Sawaki would be, to the best of my knowledge, the only person in all of wartime Japan to have ever done this!
Cohen himself notes his surprise at what he discovered. He writes: “Would not arrest await someone publishing anything even slightly doubtful of the war effort or casting some aspersion on Japan’s allies as “devils” at such a sensitive time in the war?” Still further, Cohen wonders how such a condemnation got by the eyes of wartime censors? “I have been told by some very familiar with the period and Buddhist publishing of the time (1942) that Sawaki would have had to worry about censorship and arrest even for much more mild criticism, but that it is also likely that censors were so overwhelmed with more mainstream and widely read publications that a relatively small Buddhist journal like “Daihōrin” would have garnered only secondary attention.”
Oh, if this were only true! In that case I would be the first to give a full nine bows to Sawaki for both his insight into the nature of Hitler and Mussolini and, even more importantly, for his courage in having denounced them as the devilish personalities they undoubtedly were. I would also bow to Cohen for having brought this important information to light. Alas, when Sawaki’s comments are read in the context of the Buddhist legend he referred to, the meaning is the complete opposite of what Cohen claims.
The actual point Sawaki was making is that Germany and Italy’s attack on France, England and their allies was well-deserved retribution for the manner in which the latter countries had oppressed the former countries in the wake of WW I even while spouting rhetoric about peace and disarmament. That said, rather than going into a detailed explanation of Cohen’s error here, let me invite interested readers to read the related addendum attached to this article. Readers of Japanese will find the relevant passage posted there as well.
Suffice it to say at this point that it is impossible to imagine Sawaki could have successfully criticized Hitler and Mussolini in wartime Japan without serious repercussions. As I detailed in Chapter 11 of Zen War Stories, pp. 204-27, the Criminal Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Justice was especially worried about the possibility of antiwar, morale-destroying comments made by Buddhist priests and other religious figures. Thus, the idea that the “censors were so overwhelmed. . .” that Sawaki’s comments went unnoticed is simply erroneous.
In Japan’s case there was nothing like a “Censorship Board” through which all publications had to be vetted. Rather, it was the editor(s) of each publication whose personal liberty, if not life, not to mention the continued existence of their publication, was at stake if they dared publish something that was deemed subversive. Knowing this, the editors of each publication took great care to ensure that no questionable writings appeared in their publications, especially as they would be held personally responsible.
Further, as detailed in Zen at War and Zen War Stories, Daihōrin (Great Dharma Wheel), was the largest, pan-Buddhist magazine in wartime Japan. It was at the forefront of publishing articles demonstrating Buddhist support for the war effort. For example, the illustrations accompanying this article date from the magazine’s March 1937 issue, demonstrating that even prior to Japan’s full-scale invasion of China in July 1937 Daihōrin was fully in accord with the Japanese military and eager to demonstrate the practical role Buddhism, particularly Zen, could play in military indoctrination, most especially by instilling a readiness to die in battle.
Daihōrin’s Zen connection is not surprising in that the magazine’s president, Ishihara Shummyō was himself a Sōtō Zen priest. In an article that appeared in the same March 1937 issue, Ishihara had this to say:
Zen is very particular about the need not to stop one’s mind. As soon as flint stone is struck, a spark bursts forth. There is not even the most momentary lapse of time between these two events. If ordered to face right, one simply faces right as quickly as a flash of lightning. This is proof that one’s mind has not stopped.
Zen master Takuan taught . . . that in essence Zen and Bushido were one. He further taught that the essence of the Buddha Dharma was a mind that never stopped. Thus, if one’s name were called, for example “Uemon,” one should simply answer “Yes,” and not stop to consider the reason why one’s name was called. . . .
I believe that if one is called upon to die, one should not be the least bit agitated. On the contrary, one should be in a realm where something called ‘oneself’ does not intrude even slightly. Such a realm is no different from that derived from the practice of Zen.[7]
Those familiar with Sawaki’s wartime writing will readily recognize the similarity in their understanding of Zen’s importance to the Japanese military’s mindset. It is thus not surprising that Sawaki’s wartime articles were so frequently published in this magazine. And even more importantly, there is not the slightest chance that fellow Zen priest Ishihara would have been unable to understand Sawaki’s Zen-related writing. Nor is it conceivable that Sawaki could have inserted some kind of secret or merely ‘subtle’ antiwar message into his articles published in this magazine. Like Sawaki, Ishihara’s own liberty, plus the continued existence of his magazine, depended on a continuous demonstration of support for Japan’s war effort. Laments on the death and destruction caused by war were acceptable in general, but not opposition or criticism of the war in progress. After all, no less a personage than Emperor Hirohito had stated in his December 8, 1941 “Declaration of War on the US and England” that the war was being fought for no other purpose than “to establish eternal peace in East Asia.”
In a similar vein, Japanese authorities would not have made it possible for Sawaki to address repentant political prisoners, or allowed him to travel to, and lecture in, wartime Manchuria, etc. if he had given them the slightest reason to question the content of his message, most especially his support for the war effort and his loyalty to a divine land ruled by a divine emperor. Nor would the Japanese government’s Bureau of Decorations have awarded Sawaki a “Medal of Honor” in the form of a silver cup for “promoting the public interest” on November 3, 1943.
Further, Cohen does not deny that Sakai Tokugen, one of Sawaki’s closest disciples, noted that during the war years Sawaki frequently injected the government’s wartime slogans into the Dharma talks he gave at Daichūji, specifically:
In Sawaki’s lectures on Zen Master Dōgen’s writings, you will find such phrases as ‘the eight corners of the world under one roof’ and ‘the way of the gods’ scattered throughout. At that time we all truly believed in such things as ‘one hundred million [citizens] of one mind’ and ‘self-annihilation for the sake of one’s country.’ We were consumed with the thought of repaying the debt of gratitude we owed the state, and we incessantly feared for the destiny our nation.[8]
Let us also not forget what Sawaki himself claimed to have learned from his own experience on the battlefield while engaging in a “stomach-full of killing”:
Following the end of the fighting I had the opportunity to quietly reflect on my own conduct. I realized then that while as a daredevil I had been second to none, this was nothing more than the greatness of Mori no Ishimatsu, Kunisada Chūji, and other outlaws and champions of the underdog. However, as a disciple of Zen Master Dōgen, I still didn’t measure up. . . . I had been like those who in the act of laying down their lives sought something in return. . . . That is to say, I had been like those who so wanted to become famous, or awarded a posthumous military decoration, that they were ready to lay down their very life to get one. Such an attitude has nothing to do with [Buddhist] liberation from life and death.
Such fellows have simply replaced one thing with another, exchanged one burden for another. They sought honor and fame for themselves through laying down their lives. This is nothing other than the substitution of one thing for another. Even had they succeeded in acquiring these things, one wonders whether they would have been satisfied. In any event, this is what we identify in Buddhism as being endlessly entrapped in the world of desire.
What can be said is that liberation from birth and death does not consist of discarding one’s physical life, but rather, of discarding desire. There are various kinds of desire, including the desire for fame as well as the desire for wealth. Discarding desire, however, means giving up all forms of desire. Religion exists in the renunciation of all forms of desire. This is where the way is to be found. This is where enlightenment is encountered. . . .
Expressed in terms of our Japanese military, it denotes a realm in which wherever the flag of our military goes there is no ordeal too great to endure, nor enemy numbers too numerous [to overcome]. I call this invoking the power of the military flag. Discarding one’s body beneath the military flag is true selflessness.[9] (Emphasis mine)
As a Sōtō Zen priest myself, what I personally find to be most offensive is Sawaki’s claim made in May 1944 that it was Zen Master Dōgen, the 13th century founder of the Sōtō Zen sect in Japan, who first taught the proper mental attitude for the imperial military. Sawaki wrote:
Zen master Dōgen said that we should discard our self. He taught that we should quietly engage in practice having forgotten our Self. Dōgen expressed this in the chapter entitled “Life and Death” of the Shōbōgenzō [A Treasury of the Essence of the True Dharma] as follows: “Simply discard body and mind and cast yourself into the realm of the Buddha. The Buddha will then serve as your guide, and if you follow the guidance given, you will free yourself from life and death, and become a Buddha, without any need to exert yourself either physically or mentally.”
Expressed in different words, this means that the orders of one’s superiors are to be obeyed, regardless of content. It is in doing this that you immediately become faithful retainers of the emperor and perfect soldiers. If you die you will be worshipped as a god in [Shintō] Yasukuni shrine.[10] (Emphasis mine)
In light of the above quotes, it is no surprise that Sōtō Zen sect-affiliated scholar, Hakamaya Noriaki wrote: “When one becomes aware of Sawaki Kōdō’s [wartime] call to ‘Invoke the power of the emperor; invoke the power of the military flag,’ it is enough to send shivers down your spine. . . . Not only was Sawaki not a Buddhist, but he also took up arms against [Sōtō Zen Master] Dōgen himself.”[11] Note, too, that Sawaki directs soldiers to follow their superior’s orders regardless of their content (sono koto no ikan o towazu). This is the same mentality that made suicidal mass “banzai charges,” etc. possible.
Hakamaya, together with fellow Buddhist scholar, Matsumoto Shirō, is the founder of the “Critical Buddhism” movement, encompassing the only concerted attempt by Japanese Buddhist scholars of any sect to understand and critique the doctrinal underpinnings of institutional Buddhism’s wartime support for Japanese aggression. At a June 2014 Buddhist Studies forum held at the International Research Institute for Japanese Culture in Kyoto, Sueki Fumihiko introduced the book written by these two scholars as one of the two most important works written on Japanese Buddhism in the postwar period. The second book he referred to was the Japanese edition of Zen at War, i.e., Zen to Sensō.
For Cohen, however, Hakamaya is, like myself, no more than “a very controversial and radical critic within the Soto school. . . a gadfly.” Clearly, anyone, whether Japanese or Western, who dares to criticize Sawaki becomes a less than human annoyance in Cohen’s eyes, to be attacked or dismissed, with scant consideration of their deeper or overall message. This attitude reflects a failure to appreciate an important dimension of contemporary Japanese Buddhist scholarship, i.e., the need to understand what ‘went wrong’ in wartime Japanese Buddhism if one hopes to prevent it from occurring again.
Accordingly, Cohen seeks to defend quotations like the above on the proper mental attitude for the imperial military. How? By stating that, on the one hand:
“The passage strikes me as, in hindsight, a great misuse of the Teachings of Dogen Zenji.” Nevertheless, Cohen then goes on to defend Sawaki by writing: “(although given that the source of the quote was himself [i.e., Dogen] living in a time of great warfare in 13th Century Japan, with a government in the hands of the Shogun and loyalty to Lord & Emperor a cherished Japanese value even in his day, I entertain that Dogen might actually have agreed with Sawaki!) (Emphasis mine)
Although Dōgen left behind voluminous writings, Cohen does not provide even one piece of written evidence to support his assertion that “. . . Dogen might actually have agreed with Sawaki!” Cohen’s assertion is, in fact, based on nothing more than his own speculation. Such unsupported speculation is the very antithesis of the academic enterprise.
In fact, Dōgen did have something to say about the rulers of his day. Specifically, in the Shukke-kudoku fascicle of his masterwork, the Shōbōgenzō, Dōgen referred to Japan as follows: “In a minor nation in a remote land, although there is a king in name he does not have the virtue of kings; he is unable to confine his greed.” (Translation mine) Thus, nothing could be further from Dōgen’s thought than the wartime propaganda that described Japan as a divine land ruled by a divine emperor, with the attendant right to place “a (Japanese) roof over the eight corners of the world” (hakkō-ichiu).
As for Cohen’s comments on Sawaki just saying and doing the things that any wartime “patriot” would do, it must never be forgotten that Japanese conduct was equally bad, or even worse in some respects, than that of Germany or Italy during WW II. Unfortunately, Westerners typically know little about this because what happened in Asia since the early 1930’s is less taught at school than the events of WWII in Europe.
For example, Sawaki’s advice notwithstanding, the Japanese treated their prisoners much worse than the Nazis, i.e., 27% of POW’s died in Japanese hands compared with 4 per cent of those held in German captivity.
Further, apart from the Russian front, the total number of casualties caused by Japan was higher than those of the Nazis. First, the number of prisoners or slave labor that died in Japanese mines, factories, etc. is comparable to that in Nazi concentration camps. Second, there were an estimated 10 million civilian, and 2.5 million military casualties in China alone. By comparison, Japan lost 1,300,000 soldiers and 672,000 civilians (about 1/3 of whom died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
While the Nazis exterminated from 5 to 6 million Jews during WWII, this is but half the number of Chinese people killed by Japan from 1937-45 and even before. Additionally, the manner in which civilian Chinese were killed reveals the extreme violence and barbarism Japan’s soldiers were capable of.
Added to this is an estimated 100,000 to 400,000 so-called “comfort women,” i.e., women from all East Asian countries as well as a few Europeans, who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese. Apart from the concentration camps, not even the Nazis committed such atrocities as the mass rape and murder of civilians as in Nanjing in December 1937 where the death toll is estimated to have been somewhere between 100,000 to 300,000. In 1945, Manila, too, experienced over 100,000 civilian deaths, not to mention various other Japanese war atrocities. Among these the infamous Japanese Unit 731, a biological warfare lab conducting experiments on human beings, was responsible for more than 200,000 deaths.
Sadly, Westerners, including Western Buddhists, have not cared much about any of this inasmuch as it did not seem to concern them. Nevertheless, even current Japanese Prime Ministers continue to honor, with annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, etc., the Japanese military leaders who were directly responsible for the deaths of some 12.5 million Chinese. This is despite the fact that these wartime leaders were subsequently convicted and hanged as war criminals by the Allies in the postwar period. By comparison, if a German chancellor were to visit a shrine dedicated to Hitler even once, he or she would no doubt be forced to resign immediately, probably tried and sent to jail. Not so in today’s Japan.
While Sawaki was clearly not personally responsible for the barbarism that accompanied Japan’s aggression, he nevertheless supported the overall Japanese war effort. Thus, it is disappointing to find someone claiming to have distant relatives who perished in Nazi concentration camps who would defend, or make excuses for, someone like Sawaki, a man who so clearly advocated “invoking the power of the military flag” even as the Japanese Imperial Army ruthlessly extended its control throughout Asia.
Nevertheless, Cohen continues his attempt to defend as many of Sawaki’s actions as possible. In his eyes, “. . . Sawaki was a patriotic Japanese who supported his country, its Emperor and its troops in battle during wartime and in no uncertain terms.” Further, nothing more could, or should, be expected of Sawaki because:
Right or wrong, what was seen to the victors as a war of aggression, was felt by many Japanese of the time to be a war of national survival. Although some (many, in fact) Japanese were enthusiastic jingoists encouraging war for the glory of the Japanese empire, most Japanese, with access to limited outside information, thought of the war as a fight for their country’s defense, if not an unavoidable evil . . .
Compare this statement with a true antiwar priest I described in a recent article in Japan Focus entitled “’War is a Crime’: Takenaka Shōgen and Buddhist Resistance in the Asia-Pacific War and Today.” In September 1937, two months after Japan’s full-scale invasion of China, Takenaka said:
War is both criminal and, at the same time, the enemy of humanity; it should be stopped. In both northern and central China, [Japan] should stop with what it has already occupied. War is never a benefit to a nation, rather it is a terrible loss…. From this point of view, I think it would be wise for the state to stop this war.[12]
A month later Takenaka spoke out for a second time:
It looks to me like aggression. From a Mahayanistic point of view, it is improper to deprive either oneself or others of their lives to no purpose, incurring enormous financial costs and loss of life in the process. War is the greatest crime there is…. It would be better to stop the war in such places.”[13]
For having dared to simply say (not write) these words, Takenaka, aged 70, was indicted under Section 99 of the Army Penal Code that forbade “fabrications and wild rumors.” On April 27, 1938 the Nagoya High Court rendered its verdict, a four-month prison sentence, suspended for three years. Like Germany, wartime Japan was truly a totalitarian state.
In Takenaka we have an example of a Shin sect Buddhist priest from a small temple in the countryside who had no difficulty in recognizing Japan’s invasion of China as “aggression” on the basis of his Buddhist faith. Government propaganda notwithstanding, to suggest that Sawaki was any less capable of understanding the nature of Japan’s invasion of China is to insult the memory of an undoubtedly intelligent man.
Cohen similarly suggests that Sawaki was somehow coerced into writing his vehemently pro-war statements in 1944 as follows: “. . .under the much tighter censorship rules in place in 1944 Japan, any publication would have been expected to contain such strong, “over the top” patriotic statements. . .” This implies that Sawaki tailored his speech to match the requirements of a wartime government facing defeat. In other words, either Sawaki submitted to the will of the state by writing “over the top” articles or he lacked the courage to say and write what he really thought. Once again, we find Cohen denigrating the very man who on more than one occasion demonstrated that outspokenness and courage were two personality traits he had in abundance.
Takenaka and the handful of true antiwar Buddhist priests have yet another important lesson to teach us, i.e., if one were willing to be imprisoned or worse, it was possible to speak out against the war. As I detail in Zen at War, these antiwar priests are the true “heroes of the faith” just as in Nazi Germany you had such men as Martin Niemöller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others.
Cohen claims that Sawaki should also be recognized as an antiwar figure because he described war as a hellish enterprise, lamented the accompanying bloodshed, etc. If that were true, then D.T. Suzuki’s Rinzai master, Shaku Sōen, should be considered the very paradigm of a modern, anti-war Zen priest. Readers of Zen at War will recall that Shaku volunteered to serve as a military chaplain in the Russo-Japanese War. Shaku’s wartime Diary of Subjugating Demons (Gōma Nisshi) contains numerous passages describing just how hellish the war was. One representative passage reads:
Everywhere on and below the mountain, the corpses of enemy soldiers were scattered in disorder and piled up high. Some had heads smashed in, the blue blood flowing out copiously; others had bones broken and flesh crushed, their guts staining the ground; others still held their guns, their hair standing on end with rage. Others had wholly swollen bodies, festering and emitting stench. They numbered four or five hundred, and the sight was indescribable.
My eyes spun and my nose stung; confronted with this [scene], I forgot my hostility, and a feeling of pity welled up in my breast. The Buddha preached four types of suffering in the human realm, among which the most painful is the suffering of encountering that which we despise. . . . I descended the mountain with my eyes covered, reciting the Four Universal Bodhisattva Vows as I went. By the roadside, I mourned the war dead, and then I returned to the encampment.[14]
Here the question must be asked, what did Shaku actually do after he returned to the encampment, i.e., what effect did this hellish scene have on him? Did he abandon the chaplaincy and return to Japan, or become a pacifist, etc.? No, he simply continued to fulfill the mission that had brought him to the battlefield in the first place:
I wished to have my faith tested by going through the greatest horrors of life, but I also wished to inspire, if I could, our valiant soldiers with the ennobling thoughts of the Buddha, so as to enable them to die on the battlefield with the confidence that the task in which they are engaged is great and noble. I wished to convince them of the truths that this war is not a mere slaughter of their fellow-beings, but that they are combating an evil, and that, at the same time, corporeal annihilation means a rebirth of [the] soul, not in heaven indeed, but here among ourselves. I did my best to impress these ideas upon the soldiers’ hearts.[15]
Note, too, that Shaku’s hellish descriptions of war were published at the end of 1904, i.e., in the midst of the Russo-Japanese War that concluded in September 1905. Shaku was neither censored nor criticized, let alone punished, for his honest descriptions of battlefield horrors or the pity he felt even for enemy soldiers, albeit dead enemy soldiers. First and foremost, however, Shaku continued to do his duty as a chaplain, i.e., to “inspire, if I could, our valiant soldiers with the ennobling thoughts of the Buddha, . . .” Yet, even while doing so, Shaku continued his descriptions of war as evil and hellish:
War is an evil and a great one, indeed. But war against evils must be unflinchingly prosecuted till we attain the final aim. In the present hostilities, into which Japan has entered with great reluctance, she pursues no egotistic purpose, but seeks the subjugation of evils hostile to civilization, peace, and enlightenment. She deliberated long before she took up arms, as she was aware of the magnitude and gravity of the undertaking. But the firm conviction of the justice of her cause has endowed her with an indomitable courage, and she is determined to carry the struggle to the bitter end.
Here is the price we must pay for our ideals – a price paid in streams of blood and the sacrifice of many thousands of living bodies. However determined 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 bought for an egotistic purpose, but are an inevitable step toward the final realization enlightenment, how could I, poor mortal, bear these experiences of a hell let loose on earth. . . . Mere lamentation not only bears no fruit, it is the product of egotism and has to be shunned by every enlightened mind and heart.[16] (Emphasis mine)
Note there can be no question concerning the meaning of Shaku’s two preceding quotations since they were translated by D.T. Suzuki and included in an English language book entitled: Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot, published in 1906. Significantly, the description of war as “a hell let loose on earth” became a recurrent theme in Japanese Buddhist discussions on warfare from this time onwards, a theme concerning which government authorities raised no objection. Over and over again, we see that the ‘egolessness’ of the enterprise is the key that unlocks the door to Buddhist support for warfare. This alleged egolessness was, in reality, the ‘fig leaf’ used to disguise Japan’s colonial ambitions while concurrently motivating Japanese soldiers to sacrifice their lives in the undertaking. In claiming this, Shaku truly was a worthy precursor of Sawaki!
Given this background, coupled with his own battlefield experiences, it is not the least surprising that Sawaki shared Shaku’s view of war as a hellish enterprise. Yet this shared view certainly doesn’t demonstrate that Sawaki would have had any reason to subsequently oppose Japan’s fifteen long years of war, a war that actually began as early as 1931 with the Imperial military’s takeover of Manchuria. On the contrary, Sawaki would have had every reason to support this war just as Shaku had done in his time.
While Cohen clearly spent a great deal of time researching Sawaki’s wartime record, he has failed to present any statements in which Sawaki, unlike Takenaka and other true antiwar priests, clearly expressed his opposition to Japan’s wartime aggression, most especially against China. In this connection, it should be noted that only the grossly deluded would describe Japan’s 1937 full-scale invasion of China, a fellow Asian country, as a fight against “Western imperialism.”
To the best of my knowledge, the first time Sawaki expressed criticism of Japan’s war effort is a postwar statement introduced in my recent article on Sweeping Zen entitled, “The “Non-Self” as a Killer.” Sawaki is quoted as saying:
With the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), we enlarged Japanese territory and annexed Korea. We believed that it really happened. But when we lost World War Two, we lost everything and tuely [sic] understood that we had only incurred the enimity [sic] of other countries.
People often ask about loyalty, but I wonder if they know the direction of their loyalty and their actions. I myself was a soilder [sic] during the Russo-Japanese War and fought hard on the battlefield. But since we had lost what we had gained, I can see that what we did was useless. There is absolutely no need to wage war.[17]
Note that this statement was made in postwar Japan, i.e., after Japan’s numerous wartime atrocities, such as the infamous “Rape of Nanjing,” had become well known. Nevertheless, the only concrete reason Sawaki gave for opposing the war was that Japan had lost its colonial possessions, i.e., “since we had lost what we had gained, I can see that what we did was useless.”
While I would certainly agree there is no need to wage war, the question that should to be addressed is what of the millions of human beings who lost their lives in this “useless” endeavor? Whose responsibility is that? Did Sawaki ever take personal responsibility, or repent, the “over the top” words (according to Cohen) he expressed during the wartime era?
Despite his extensive research and detailed writing, Cohen succeeds in creating no more than a ‘straw man’ in his defense of Sawaki’s wartime record. Or to borrow an old adage, no matter how much “subtlety” or “context” Cohen adds to the mix, “it is impossible to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.”
Sawaki’s actions are all too representative of a typical “patriotic” religious leader in a country at war. In that sense he is not to be singled out as having acted more egregiously than many others. In fact, by explicitly calling for the humane treatment of both war prisoners and enemy civilians he may be considered a cut above the others. However, as a man who pledged himself to uphold the Buddhist precepts, Sawaki remains an abject failure, most especially for having so fervently invoked the Buddhadharma to justify killing on a massive scale. Without clear evidence to the contrary, no number of explanations, excuses, or flawed understandings on Cohen’s part can alter that.
Conclusion
Let me first thank readers for having read both this as well as Cohen’s article(s). I can easily imagine that these articles may appear to be little more than yet another tedious “ugly spat” within the Zen family. Perhaps the best that can be said about this spat is that, for once, it doesn’t involve matters related to sex! Nevertheless, it is clearly related to one of Buddhism’s three major ‘poisons’ – ill will.
Nevertheless, I suggest these and related articles raise a far more important question. That is to say, they force us to frankly and honestly recognize the ‘dark side’ of Buddhism’s commitment to peace. This is especially important for Western Zen adherents who must now recognize that our Japanese predecessors, Sawaki included, transmitted what amounts to a “poisoned chalice,” poisoned, that is, by the many war-condoning rationales stemming from the alleged “unity of Zen and (a physical) sword.”
Given this, the critical question becomes whether Western Buddhists in the Zen tradition will continue to drink from this chalice, defending and making excuses for the poison it contains, or, on the contrary, will use this occasion to rededicate themselves to a Buddhadharma that does not endorse warfare and the deaths of multiple thousands, even millions, of their fellow human beings? I leave this question for each of my readers to answer.
Addendum
As promised in the article above, the following is a detailed explanation of Cohen’s flawed understanding of Sawaki’s comments identifying both Hitler and Mussolini as “devils from Hell.” While I begin with my own translation of the passage Cohen refers to, those readers able to read Japanese will find the original text at the conclusion.
I received a letter from a man who is now in French Indo-China writing about the beginning of WW II in Europe. [He wrote]: “War in Europe has begun again. It is just like a Children’s Limbo (Sai no Kawara).” [Calling it] a Children’s Limbo is interesting. It made me recall a Buddhist hymn I heard in my youth sung by an old woman with a tinkling voice full of lament: “Piling up ten pebbles I miss father; piling up twenty pebbles, I miss mother; piling up thirty pebbles I miss home; brothers and sisters trying to help me. . .”.
Looking to the left or right, we see France, Germany and their allies doing such things as holding peace conferences, promoting disarmament, building the Maginot line, claiming that this year they will build only so many warships, and so on. At the same time they collect war reparations and impose various [economic] sanctions [on Germany and Italy], all the while thinking: “Piling up ten pebbles I miss father; piling up twenty pebbles, I miss mother; piling up thirty pebbles I miss home. . .”
Well, England and France have acted like this. And then suddenly a gust of wind blew, and demons from hell appeared. One of them was a red demon named Hitler and the other a blue demon named Mussolini. They reached out with their iron clubs named “blitzkrieg,” saying, “You’ve been selfishly demanding too much!” [End of quotation]
In order to understand this passage, we first need to recognize that Sawaki’s remarks are based on the legend of Sai no Kawara attributed to Japan’s Pure Land sects in the 14th and 15th centuries. According to this legend, children who die prematurely are sent to the underworld for judgment just as are all sentient beings. There, the ten Kings of Hell review their life and pronounce judgment, assigning them to be reborn in one of the six realms of existence.
In the case of children, however, there is a difference. While children may be pure, they nevertheless have had no chance to accrue good karma. Further, they are guilty of having caused great sorrow to their parents through their untimely death and must be punished for having done so. As unfair as it might seem to Western sensibilities, their punishment is to be sent to Sai no Kawara, i.e., the riverbed of souls in purgatory, where they are forced to remove their clothes and labor for their salvation. Their labor consists of building small stone towers, piling pebble upon pebble, in the hope of one day ascending these towers into Buddha’s paradise.
However, in the midst of their efforts, the old hell hag Shozuka no Baba summons demons from hell who, upon arrival, scatter their stones and attempt to beat the children with iron clubs. This further punishment is due to the children’s arrogant belief that they can gain entrance into Buddha’s paradise through their own efforts. If this additional punishment for children once again offends Western sensibilities, it must be remembered that this legend is, after all, related to the Pure Land (Jōdo) sects of Buddhism which teach that, in the current age of so-called ‘degenerate Dharma’ (mappō), there is nothing humans can do to achieve their own salvation. All efforts to do so are labeled ‘self-power’ (jiriki), and such arrogant efforts are bound to fail.
In this context, it is important to note that the demons arriving to knock down the children’s stone towers are not ‘evil’, but simply executing the task they have been assigned. It is the children’s own arrogance that brings them further misfortune.
In fact, in Japanese Buddhist folklore, demons (oni) have a soft heart despite their fierce appearance. When treated with respect they can even turn into fiercely loyal and protecting deities. For example, the 7th century founder of Buddhist esoteric mountain asceticism in Japan, i.e., En no Gyōja, is said to have been protected by two oni, one in front of him and one behind, whenever he went into the mountains to engage in ascetic practices. In fact, following an old but now disappearing Japanese custom, I personally have a ceramic figure of an oni attached to the outside of my toilet door whose assigned task is to ‘protect’ those using the facilities.
Further, since this is a Buddhist legend, there is, in the end, no need to worry about the children’s safety, for despite their transgressions, they will ultimately be saved by the ‘other power’ (tariki) of the Buddhist protector of children, i.e., a bodhisattva named Jizō (Skt. Ksitigarbha). Jizō arrives on the scene just in time to rescue the children, typically by hiding them in the sleeves of his robe.[18]
In light of this legend, it is clear that Sawaki’s reference to Hitler and Mussolini has none of the Christian connotation of the words “devils from Hell.” I have translated the word oni as “demon” based on the authoritative Kenkyusha dictionary’s translation, i.e., “demons, ogres or fiends.” Any of these translations is much better than the word “devil” exactly because of Christian view of a ‘devil’ as ‘evil incarnate’.
In a Buddhist context, the demons from hell are simply doing their duty in punishing children who deserve to be punished. Thus, Sawaki describes Hitler and Mussolini as demons from Hell because they are likewise doing their duty in punishing France, England and their allies for their oppression of Germany and Italy even while the former countries mouthed slogans of peace and disarmament. In short, karmically speaking, France, England and their allies had it coming to them; Hitler and Mussolini were merely the agents, demons if you will, who rightly punished them for their arrogant actions! When properly understood, what concern would these words have been to wartime Japanese authorities?
For Cohen to turn the meaning of this passage into proof of Sawaki’s antiwar stance would be comic if he himself did not take it so seriously, imagining he had discovered the undeniable proof that I sought to hide from readers. I can only hope Cohen’s position was no more than the result of his ignorance of the Pure Land school of Buddhism and its associated folklore, coupled with a limited understanding of Buddhist Japanese.
I could go on to point out additional errors of fact and opinion in Cohen’s writings, but I will not further impose on my longsuffering readers except to note that Cohen refers to French Indonesia in the first sentence of this quotation. Of course, such a country never existed inasmuch as today’s Indonesia was previously ruled by the Dutch, not the French, and was therefore known as the “Dutch East Indies.” The correct translation of the relevant Japanese word, Futsuin, is “French Indochina” which was the Japanese-occupied area from which Sawaki received the letter he described. [End]
Original Japanese text
今彿印へ行って居る男から、第二次欧洲戦乱の起こり書けた時に、手紙がきた。『又欧州戦争が起こりました。まるで賽の河原でございます』—賽の河原は面白い。儂は子供の時に婆さんが賽の河原の和讃を、『十を積んでは父恋し。二十積んでは母恋し、三十積んではふるさとの、兄弟我が身のためにとてーーー』と云うて、チリンチリンと、情けない声を出してやって居ったのを覚えて居る。左右すると、フランスやイギリスが、やれ、平和會議とか、やれ、軍縮とか、やれ、マジノ線とか、やれ、今年は軍艦をこれだけしか作らせんとか、色々な事を云うて、それから澤山賞金を取り、種々な制裁を加えてやつてをつたが、それを賽の河原の石積みのやうに考へる。『十を積んでは父恋し、二十積んでは母恋し、三十積んではふるさとのーーーー』イギリスやふらんすがまあこれをやつて来た。さうすると、一陣の風がパツと吹いた。地獄の鬼が現れて、それがヒトラーと云う赤鬼や、ムツソリーニと云う青鬼となつて現れて、連戦即決と云う黒金の棒を伸べ、『お前は余り虫が好過ぎるぞ』—————（原文ママ）。
[1] Suzuki, p.34. In the postwar era, this book, first published by Otani University in Kyoto, was republished in an expanded edition by Princeton University Press as Zen and Japanese Culture.
[2] Suzuki, “A Buddhist View of War.” Light of Dharma 4, 1904, pp. 181–82.
[3] Quoted in Victoria, “Zen as a Cult of Death in the Wartime Writings of D.T. Suzuki,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 30, No. 5. August 5, 2013. This article is available on the Web here: http://japanfocus.org/-Brian-Victoria/3973 (accessed 26 September 2014).
[4] Warner, “Gudo Nishijima Roshi: Japanese Buddhism in W.W. II,” available on the Web here.
[5] Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan, p. 215.
[6] Sueki, “Daisetsu hihan saikō,” p. 8.
[7] Ishihara, “Bukkyō Nippon no Shihyō o kataru Zadankai” (A Discussion on the Aims of Buddhist Japan) in the March 1937 issue of Daihōrin, p. 86.
[8] Quoted in Tanaka, Sawaki Kōdō–Kono Koshin no Hito, v. 2, p. 455. Available on the Web at: http://japanfocus.org/-Brian-Victoria/4133 (accessed 29 September 2014).
[9] Sawaki, “Shōji o Akirameru Kata” (The Method of Clarifying Life and Death) in the May 1944 issue of Daihōrin, pp. 5-7. Available on the Web at: http://japanfocus.org/-Brian-Victoria/4133 (accessed 29 September 2014).
[10] Sawaki, “Shōji o Akirameru Kata” (The Method of Clarifying Life and Death) in the May 1944 issue of Daihōrin, p. 6.
[11] Hakamaya, Hihan Bukkyō, p. 297.
[12] The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 37, No. 4, September 15, 2014. Available on the Web at: http://japanfocus.org/-Brian-Victoria/4182 (accessed 29 September 2014).
[13] Ibid.
[14] Quoted in Micah Auerback, “A Closer Look at Zen at War” in Tikhonov and Brekke, Buddhism and Violence, p. 163.
[15] Quoted in Victoria, Zen at War, p. 26.
[16] Ibid., pp. 27-28.
[17] Available on the Web at: http://antaiji.org/archives/eng/hk20.shtml (accessed on 26 June 2014).
[18] For further background on the Jizō figure in Japanese Buddhist folklore see the entry by the same name in the online “Dictionary of Japanese Buddhist Statuary” available at: http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/jizo1.shtml.
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