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"Essay on Zen at War"
Claude AnShin Thomas

Over the past several weeks I have been reading the book Zen At War by Brian Victoria. I originally became aware of this book as I was walking across America engaged in a Spiritual Pilgrimage from Yonkers, New York to San Francisco, California. I found the title intriguing as I myself have been a student of Zen for the past 37 years and have been a fully ordained Zen Buddhist Monk in the Soto Zen tradition and also ordained in the Zen Peacemaker Order being established by Bernie (Biasen Tetsugen) Glassman Roshi, for the past 5 years. Also, Glassman Roshi is, to the best of my knowledge, the only direct Dharma successor of Maezumi Hakuyu Taizan in the U.S.. I include this note because Maezumi's name is mentioned in this book along with Phillip Kapleau's as being prominent members in the lineage of Zen Master Harada Daiun Sogaku (Harada Roshi), Harada Roshi being mentioned as one of the "most committed supporters of Japans Military actions". I was also interested in the title of this book because my first 27 years of Zen studies were in Martial Traditions, my own military service and my relationship with that service. The book also interested because of my recent encounters with some Zen Students as well as some students of other Buddhist traditions my complete astonishment when encountering their expressing their belief in the act of compassionate killing or the liberation of the soul through the act of killing by an enlightened master. Another reason for my reading this book was the request of a friend of mine who is a writer for this magazine.

When I first began reading this book I found it quite heavy going and could only read about 20 pages at a time. Heavy going because I found the truth of this books presentation incredibly dense, incredibly powerful. I also found the courage of the author to look into and uncover this aspect of Buddhist Traditions to be incredibly uplifting. For the first time in quite some time I felt a kinship with someone not trapped or consumed by values that seem so indelibly etched in the institutionalized representations of spiritual teachings. In this case, Japanese Zen Buddhism.

Many questions that I have asked have found some answers through Brian Victoria's painstaking research and his daring to present this work. While at the same time I am also uplifted by his demonstrating and addressing through endless examples, the divisiveness that comes hand in hand with the reality of institutionalization.

An interesting note: while Brian Victoria was a Zen Student in Japan and was demonstrating against the war in Vietnam, I was a soldier fighting in that war. I served in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967 as a helicopter Crew Chief.

Having been indoctrinated as a young boy through nationalized U.S. ideology of the righteousness of war, having then served in the military (voluntarily and at the behest of my father) and fought in a war (voluntarily and influenced by the stories of my father and his friends who also had fought in the 2nd war and/or Korea) I understood the attitudes that were so clearly elucidated in Zen at War.

Having grown up in a Christian culture that espouses a belief rooted in the 10 commandments passed through Moses. With the 5th commandment being, THOU SHALT NOT KILL. The institutional response to that commandment as I grew up with was understood and professed in the terms of; except when the government or the state requires you to do kill. It was here, at precisely this point, that I began although at first not so coherently, to understand the power of the intellectual self, the intellectual mind, to shape the world in any way that it wants. And that this process simply continues to perpetuate the never ending cycles of suffering.

I can also write now from a Zen Buddhist perspective. The 1st of the 10 Grave Precepts of the Zen Buddhist tradition is NOT KILLING. What Brian Victoria brings to our attention in this book is the writing of the revered Zen Master D.T. Suzuki. On the subject of Zen, the Sword and Killing Suzuki writes: "The sword is generally associated with killing and most of us wonder how it can come in contact with Zen, which is a school of Buddhism teaching love and mercy. The fact is that the art of swordsmanship distinguishes between the sword that kills and the sword that gives life. The one that is used my a technician cannot go any further than killing, for he never appeals to the sword unless he intends to kill. The case is altogether different for the one who is compelled to lift the sword. For it is not really he but the sword that does the killing. He had no desire to do harm to anybody, but the enemy appears and makes himself a victim. It is as though the sword performs automatically its function of justice, which is the function of mercy.........When the sword is expected to play this sort of role in human life, it is no more a weapon of self-defense or an instrument of killing, and the swordsman turns into an artist of the first grade, engaged in producing a work of genuine originality."

Here we are presented a very clear and dramatic example of the institutional response to the precept of not killing, to the Buddha's teaching of love and mercy. And here we see the power of the intellectual self, the intellectual mind, to shape the world in any way that it wants, in this case in support of the Japanese war effort. And we can readily see through the historical accounts of the 2nd War how the process of intellectual gymnastics simply continues to perpetuate a never ending cycle of suffering.

I forever sought escape from these cycles and found none in the religious traditions indigenous to my society and culture which espoused the ideology of salvation. The ideology that an entity external to myself would upon my request forgive me of my sins and I would gain everlasting salvation in some utopian existence at some point after death, that is if my repentance was sincere, with the very nature of sincerity being determined by the established rules of whatever particular sect was espousing this doctrine.

This attitude is not so different from institutional Buddhist belief or teaching on merit. That "merit," is a kind of spiritual compensation or reward, created as a result of meritorious acts, and that as a result of accumulated merited you will be born into a higher station in your next life. So if you were to commit acts of killing in the name of God or service of in the case of Japan, the Emperor. Then you were not actually killing and your soul or the station that you would be born into would not be jeopardized.

Both can clearly be seen as rationales for not doing the necessary work of waking up in this life. Not daring to swim against the current as the Buddha states we must to wake up but to sacrifice all that is taught and known to be the way out of perhaps fear or the craving for power, for position.

In my desire to transcend the endless cycle of suffering the path to freedom became known to me through the simple truths expressed in the basic teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. These truths are truths that have always been known to me. That have always been self evident. These truths are that people constantly insist on seeing life as they want it to be and then go about creating institutions to serve that vision and that these institutions rather than freeing individuals enslave them in the endless cycle suffering.

As a teacher of martial arts for the longest time I believed completely in the goodness of what I was doing much like one of the people that Brian Victoria mentions in his book, the person of Lieutenant Colonel Sugimoto Goro. Sugimoto came to represent the Zen Military Ideal. Lieutenant Colonel Sugimoto Goro gave his life in support of the illusion and was said to have died standing up with blood running from his mouth facing the East he declared "may the Emperor live for 10,000 years. As a result of this story (the truth or myth of it cannot be confirmed) Sugimoto became a hero, an institutional icon unlike the monk Godo who was put to death for his opposition to the institutional ideal, his priesthood revoked by the Soto Zen Sect upon his execution.

The teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha and the lesson that I hope we are able to extract from the gift that Brian Victoria has presented us with is to directly question the dysfunction of institutional Buddhism. To directly question the dysfunction that exists in Buddhist communities organized around teachers or individuals purported to be gifted or enlightened while at the same time recognizing the gifts of these teachers. Let us walk the path of the Soto Zen Monk Gudo whose story is told by Brian Victoria in Zen At War. Gudo was a student of Sakazume Kojo, abbot of Hozoji Temple and spoke out against the repressive and expansionists policies of the imperial government. Much of what Gudo wrote was destroyed by the government that executed him for his anti government stance. Brian Victoria has shared with us some of what has survived of Gudo's writing, writing that led to his eventual conviction and execution. Gudo's belief that "within the Dharma there is neither superior nor inferior", a direct quote from the diamond sutra. This quote in particular, put him in direct conflict with one of the Buddhist leaders of his time who wrote on the same theme but in support of the government and it's policies noted that Differentiation (is) Equality.

The question facing us today is the question that has always faced us throughout time; DARE WE BE DIFFERENT from those who have gained prominence through the institutional structures of organized religion regardless of our tradition. DARE WE SEEK THE FREEDOM FROM SUFFERING PROMISED TO US BY THE SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA by embracing the 4 Noble Truths and the 8 Fold Path, or do we, like many of the prominent Zen Masters who have passed down there teaching to us, capitulate to protect an institutional position, to protect the illusion of power, and prestige.

Brian Victoria writes "If it is possible to transmit the light of the Dharma lamp from master to disciple, perhaps it is also possible to transmit the darkness." I would add that this is a certainty. And I would also introduce the question regarding the whole institutional certification of the enlightenment experience (or Kensho in Japanese Zen traditions) that is so much praised or sought after in the Zen traditions that have been brought to American from Japan. Is this truly enlightenment when it is used in much the same way as a college degree or some other such accomplishment to lend prominence and prestige to ones studies within a given structure.

Brian Victoria addresses this issue through the Post War writing of D.T. Suzuki. "Generally speaking, present-day Zen Priests have no knowledge or learning and therefore are unable to think about things independently or formulate their own independent opinions. This is a great failing of Zen priests." Brian Victoria then writes: One result of this "great failing" had been Zen's collective collaboration with the war, including mouthing government propaganda during wartime and then suddenly embracing world peace and democracy in the postwar era. As far as Suzuki was concerned, " It would be justifiable for priests like these to be considered war criminals." What D.T. Suzuki failed to mention was that he was one of the foremost of these priests.

On the question of the enlightenment of these priests D.T. Suzuki wrote "With satori (enlightenment) alone, it is impossible for Zen priests to shoulder their responsibilities as leaders of society. Not only is it impossible, but it is conceited of them to imagine they could do so. In satori there is a world of satori. However, by itself satori is unable to judge the right and wrong of war (or the right and wrong of any thing). With regard to disputes in the ordinary world, it is important to employ intellectual discrimination. Satori by itself cannot determine the good or bad of a thing." I will also add that healthy intellectual discrimination can not be attained if an individual is not able to touch life directly and intoxicants of any kind at any level prevent this possibility.

The power of rationalism and justification is immense and ZEN AT WAR shows us a very clear picture of this. Can we take the gift of this book into our daily lives, into the nature of our community of practice and can we use this book as another tool to wake up!!

<Back | Short Stories & Essays | Next >

"Essay on Zen at War"
Claude AnShin Thomas

Over the past several weeks I have been reading the book Zen At War by Brian Victoria. I originally became aware of this book as I was walking across America engaged in a Spiritual Pilgrimage from Yonkers, New York to San Francisco, California. I found the title intriguing as I myself have been a student of Zen for the past 37 years and have been a fully ordained Zen Buddhist Monk in the Soto Zen tradition and also ordained in the Zen Peacemaker Order being established by Bernie (Biasen Tetsugen) Glassman Roshi, for the past 5 years. Also, Glassman Roshi is, to the best of my knowledge, the only direct Dharma successor of Maezumi Hakuyu Taizan in the U.S.. I include this note because Maezumi's name is mentioned in this book along with Phillip Kapleau's as being prominent members in the lineage of Zen Master Harada Daiun Sogaku (Harada Roshi), Harada Roshi being mentioned as one of the "most committed supporters of Japans Military actions". I was also interested in the title of this book because my first 27 years of Zen studies were in Martial Traditions, my own military service and my relationship with that service. The book also interested because of my recent encounters with some Zen Students as well as some students of other Buddhist traditions my complete astonishment when encountering their expressing their belief in the act of compassionate killing or the liberation of the soul through the act of killing by an enlightened master. Another reason for my reading this book was the request of a friend of mine who is a writer for this magazine.

When I first began reading this book I found it quite heavy going and could only read about 20 pages at a time. Heavy going because I found the truth of this books presentation incredibly dense, incredibly powerful. I also found the courage of the author to look into and uncover this aspect of Buddhist Traditions to be incredibly uplifting. For the first time in quite some time I felt a kinship with someone not trapped or consumed by values that seem so indelibly etched in the institutionalized representations of spiritual teachings. In this case, Japanese Zen Buddhism.

Many questions that I have asked have found some answers through Brian Victoria's painstaking research and his daring to present this work. While at the same time I am also uplifted by his demonstrating and addressing through endless examples, the divisiveness that comes hand in hand with the reality of institutionalization.

An interesting note: while Brian Victoria was a Zen Student in Japan and was demonstrating against the war in Vietnam, I was a soldier fighting in that war. I served in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967 as a helicopter Crew Chief.

Having been indoctrinated as a young boy through nationalized U.S. ideology of the righteousness of war, having then served in the military (voluntarily and at the behest of my father) and fought in a war (voluntarily and influenced by the stories of my father and his friends who also had fought in the 2nd war and/or Korea) I understood the attitudes that were so clearly elucidated in Zen at War.

Having grown up in a Christian culture that espouses a belief rooted in the 10 commandments passed through Moses. With the 5th commandment being, THOU SHALT NOT KILL. The institutional response to that commandment as I grew up with was understood and professed in the terms of; except when the government or the state requires you to do kill. It was here, at precisely this point, that I began although at first not so coherently, to understand the power of the intellectual self, the intellectual mind, to shape the world in any way that it wants. And that this process simply continues to perpetuate the never ending cycles of suffering.

I can also write now from a Zen Buddhist perspective. The 1st of the 10 Grave Precepts of the Zen Buddhist tradition is NOT KILLING. What Brian Victoria brings to our attention in this book is the writing of the revered Zen Master D.T. Suzuki. On the subject of Zen, the Sword and Killing Suzuki writes: "The sword is generally associated with killing and most of us wonder how it can come in contact with Zen, which is a school of Buddhism teaching love and mercy. The fact is that the art of swordsmanship distinguishes between the sword that kills and the sword that gives life. The one that is used my a technician cannot go any further than killing, for he never appeals to the sword unless he intends to kill. The case is altogether different for the one who is compelled to lift the sword. For it is not really he but the sword that does the killing. He had no desire to do harm to anybody, but the enemy appears and makes himself a victim. It is as though the sword performs automatically its function of justice, which is the function of mercy.........When the sword is expected to play this sort of role in human life, it is no more a weapon of self-defense or an instrument of killing, and the swordsman turns into an artist of the first grade, engaged in producing a work of genuine originality."

Here we are presented a very clear and dramatic example of the institutional response to the precept of not killing, to the Buddha's teaching of love and mercy. And here we see the power of the intellectual self, the intellectual mind, to shape the world in any way that it wants, in this case in support of the Japanese war effort. And we can readily see through the historical accounts of the 2nd War how the process of intellectual gymnastics simply continues to perpetuate a never ending cycle of suffering.

I forever sought escape from these cycles and found none in the religious traditions indigenous to my society and culture which espoused the ideology of salvation. The ideology that an entity external to myself would upon my request forgive me of my sins and I would gain everlasting salvation in some utopian existence at some point after death, that is if my repentance was sincere, with the very nature of sincerity being determined by the established rules of whatever particular sect was espousing this doctrine.

This attitude is not so different from institutional Buddhist belief or teaching on merit. That "merit," is a kind of spiritual compensation or reward, created as a result of meritorious acts, and that as a result of accumulated merited you will be born into a higher station in your next life. So if you were to commit acts of killing in the name of God or service of in the case of Japan, the Emperor. Then you were not actually killing and your soul or the station that you would be born into would not be jeopardized.

Both can clearly be seen as rationales for not doing the necessary work of waking up in this life. Not daring to swim against the current as the Buddha states we must to wake up but to sacrifice all that is taught and known to be the way out of perhaps fear or the craving for power, for position.

In my desire to transcend the endless cycle of suffering the path to freedom became known to me through the simple truths expressed in the basic teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. These truths are truths that have always been known to me. That have always been self evident. These truths are that people constantly insist on seeing life as they want it to be and then go about creating institutions to serve that vision and that these institutions rather than freeing individuals enslave them in the endless cycle suffering.

As a teacher of martial arts for the longest time I believed completely in the goodness of what I was doing much like one of the people that Brian Victoria mentions in his book, the person of Lieutenant Colonel Sugimoto Goro. Sugimoto came to represent the Zen Military Ideal. Lieutenant Colonel Sugimoto Goro gave his life in support of the illusion and was said to have died standing up with blood running from his mouth facing the East he declared "may the Emperor live for 10,000 years. As a result of this story (the truth or myth of it cannot be confirmed) Sugimoto became a hero, an institutional icon unlike the monk Godo who was put to death for his opposition to the institutional ideal, his priesthood revoked by the Soto Zen Sect upon his execution.

The teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha and the lesson that I hope we are able to extract from the gift that Brian Victoria has presented us with is to directly question the dysfunction of institutional Buddhism. To directly question the dysfunction that exists in Buddhist communities organized around teachers or individuals purported to be gifted or enlightened while at the same time recognizing the gifts of these teachers. Let us walk the path of the Soto Zen Monk Gudo whose story is told by Brian Victoria in Zen At War. Gudo was a student of Sakazume Kojo, abbot of Hozoji Temple and spoke out against the repressive and expansionists policies of the imperial government. Much of what Gudo wrote was destroyed by the government that executed him for his anti government stance. Brian Victoria has shared with us some of what has survived of Gudo's writing, writing that led to his eventual conviction and execution. Gudo's belief that "within the Dharma there is neither superior nor inferior", a direct quote from the diamond sutra. This quote in particular, put him in direct conflict with one of the Buddhist leaders of his time who wrote on the same theme but in support of the government and it's policies noted that Differentiation (is) Equality.

The question facing us today is the question that has always faced us throughout time; DARE WE BE DIFFERENT from those who have gained prominence through the institutional structures of organized religion regardless of our tradition. DARE WE SEEK THE FREEDOM FROM SUFFERING PROMISED TO US BY THE SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA by embracing the 4 Noble Truths and the 8 Fold Path, or do we, like many of the prominent Zen Masters who have passed down there teaching to us, capitulate to protect an institutional position, to protect the illusion of power, and prestige.

Brian Victoria writes "If it is possible to transmit the light of the Dharma lamp from master to disciple, perhaps it is also possible to transmit the darkness." I would add that this is a certainty. And I would also introduce the question regarding the whole institutional certification of the enlightenment experience (or Kensho in Japanese Zen traditions) that is so much praised or sought after in the Zen traditions that have been brought to American from Japan. Is this truly enlightenment when it is used in much the same way as a college degree or some other such accomplishment to lend prominence and prestige to ones studies within a given structure.

Brian Victoria addresses this issue through the Post War writing of D.T. Suzuki. "Generally speaking, present-day Zen Priests have no knowledge or learning and therefore are unable to think about things independently or formulate their own independent opinions. This is a great failing of Zen priests." Brian Victoria then writes: One result of this "great failing" had been Zen's collective collaboration with the war, including mouthing government propaganda during wartime and then suddenly embracing world peace and democracy in the postwar era. As far as Suzuki was concerned, " It would be justifiable for priests like these to be considered war criminals." What D.T. Suzuki failed to mention was that he was one of the foremost of these priests.

On the question of the enlightenment of these priests D.T. Suzuki wrote "With satori (enlightenment) alone, it is impossible for Zen priests to shoulder their responsibilities as leaders of society. Not only is it impossible, but it is conceited of them to imagine they could do so. In satori there is a world of satori. However, by itself satori is unable to judge the right and wrong of war (or the right and wrong of any thing). With regard to disputes in the ordinary world, it is important to employ intellectual discrimination. Satori by itself cannot determine the good or bad of a thing." I will also add that healthy intellectual discrimination can not be attained if an individual is not able to touch life directly and intoxicants of any kind at any level prevent this possibility.

The power of rationalism and justification is immense and ZEN AT WAR shows us a very clear picture of this. Can we take the gift of this book into our daily lives, into the nature of our community of practice and can we use this book as another tool to wake up!!