Critical Buddhism

Engaging with Modern Japanese Buddhist Thought

James Mark Shields

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138254756
• eBook ISBN: 9781317157595
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the relative calm world of Japanese Buddhist scholarship was thrown into chaos with the publication of several works by Buddhist scholars Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro, dedicated to the promotion of something they called Critical Buddhism (hihan bukkyo). In their quest to re-establish a "true" - rational, ethical and humanist - form of East Asian Buddhism, the Critical Buddhists undertook a radical deconstruction of historical and contemporary East Asian Buddhism, particularly Zen. While their controversial work has received some attention in English-language scholarship, this is the first book-length treatment of Critical Buddhism as both a philosophical and religious movement, where the lines between scholarship and practice blur. Providing a critical and constructive analysis of Critical Buddhism, particularly the epistemological categories of critica and topica, this book examines contemporary theories of knowledge and ethics in order to situate Critical Buddhism within modern Japanese and Buddhist thought as well as in relation to current trends in contemporary Western thought.

Chapter 1
Buddhism, Criticism, and Postwar Japan

Nobody foresaw in 1946 what now appears as an inherent disposition to continue the myth of prewar Japanese order … the reification of this model of social relationships that was fundamentally legitimated by the machinery of emperorism. While it is undeniable that this interlocking network of relationships has resulted in guaranteeing minimal security and welfare for every Japanese by incorporating all into a national program, it has also severely inhibited the spirit of criticism and opposition within all areas of Japanese society. This effort to make the Japanese appear as members of the vast “middle stratum” has been reinforced immeasurably by an ideology of cultural exceptionalism that has sought to construct a national subjectivity devoid of class and gender divisions (Nihon-jinron).1

On receiving an initiation from his guru, Rudra took the idea of nonduality as license to act out his dark side. Since there is no absolute good or evil and all social codes originate in the conceptual mind, he felt that he could do anything he wanted. He ran brothels and criminal gangs, and taught yoga to his henchmen to make them more efficient murderers. When a fellow disciple told him he was perverting the dharma, Rudra asked his guru which of them was right. The guru told Rudra that he was wrong. Enraged, he drew his sword and killed his teacher on the spot. This act propelled him into hell. He was not put there as a punishment, his own state of mind put him there. And he never gets out.2

Taken together, the above quotes provide the basis for the two-sided project of Critical Buddhism. The first, taken from an analysis of contemporary Japanese political culture, makes the point that postwar Japan has only tentatively, and, the authors are by no means the first to claim, insufficiently come to terms with its recent past and some of the deeper problems surrounding the construction of Japanese “modernity” and “subjectivity.” This point is extrapolated upon at some length and with great nuance by John Dower in his work on postwar Japanese culture and the “legacy of censored democracy” brought about by collusion between postwar Japanese leaders and American occupation authorities.3 As Dower puts it:

[O]ne legacy of the revolution from above was a continued socialization in the acceptance of authority—reinforcement of a collective fatalism vis-à-vis political and social power and a sense that ordinary people were unable to influence the course of events. For all their talk of democracy, the conquerors worked hard to engineer consensus; and on many central issues, they made clear that the better part of political wisdom was silence and conformism. So well did they succeed in reinforcing this consciousness that after they left, and time passed, many non-Japanese including Americans came to regard such attitudes as peculiarly Japanese.4

Several important points are raised in this passage. First, Dower points to the substantial power exercised by the SCAP authorities in reshaping postwar Japanese political culture, especially regarding the curbing of free expression with regard to criticism of political or social authority. Though the initial impulse in the Americans’ hugely idealistic vision for reshaping modern Japan was deeply (perhaps naïvely) liberal, a scant three years after the war’s end this was to change considerably, for reasons both external and internal. This change has become known as the “reverse course,” and is said to have begun with National Security Council (NSC) document 1412 in October 1948, or alternatively with the quashed general strike of February 1947. In any event, by 1948 the Occupation had “retracted its original plans to demilitarize, democratize, and perforce weaken Japan through punitive indemnities. Japan was now a key ally in the crusade against Peking and Moscow … Americans regretted their earlier reformist zeal, especially after the Korean War broke out in June 1950.”5 Second, and perhaps more important for our purposes, is the recognition of a “re-creation” or perhaps the winnowing of a cultural mythology: namely, the widespread notion among Japanese as well as foreigners that criticism is itself foreign and un-Japanese. While it is certainly true that prewar, especially immediate prewar Japan was a culture where free expression and dissent were discouraged, it is equally true that, whether it be the Kamakura-period (1185–1333) Buddhist reappropriation of various forms of Chinese Buddhism, the adoption of Neo-Confucianism in the Edo period (1603–1868), or the revolutionary character of the Meiji Restoration (1868) itself, criticism of the status quo has often been the vehicle for change and transformation in Japan. One might even say that criticism, along with—usually combined with—the appropriation and transformation of foreign ideas, is a defining motif of both modern and traditional Japanese culture.

The second quote cited above is, at first glance, quite different from the first. Rather than a critical appraisal of recent political history, here we have an anecdotal story from within the canon of Buddhist teachings designed presumably to present a truth of some sort about Buddhist ethics. And indeed, here the meaning of the passage is much less straightforward. It would seem that the tale of Rudra’s behavior and eventual damnation is meant to be a warning of sorts, against a particular, simplistic reading of non-duality. In this regard, however, two points merit our attention: 1) while this appears to be an admonition against license in the most general sense; namely, against the erroneous view that, since all is relative or non-dual, then there is no proper way of acting; 2) at a more specific level, the nature of Rudra’s acts—all of them couched in violence—suggest that what is particularly key to this story is Rudra’s breaking of the Bodhisattva vow of compassion. Moreover, this brief parable could be read as suggesting that there is a link between the misreading of non-duality and the temptation to act in a greedy and murderous fashion. Investigation of this basic connection—at the most general level, between enlightenment or awakening and “practice”—is one of the key components of Critical Buddhism.

It is a regrettable but irrefutable fact that the historical connection between religion, violence, and warfare provides enough material for a series of heavy volumes.6 Whether it be ancient Israelites slaughtering the children of Canaan in Yahweh’s name, medieval Christian crusaders waging righteous battle against the infidel, or Osama bin Laden plotting jihad against the West, religion and warfare appear inextricably interlinked. For every Gandhi, Mother Teresa, or Dalai Lama, there seem to be dozens of generally less familiar but formidable figures ready and willing to stoke the flames of conflict with the torch of religious truth. And despite those such as Abe Masao7 and Philip Kapleau who wish to make Buddhism the sole exception to this sad litany, Buddhism also merits a chapter in this wider story. Ironically, despite his assertion that Zen is free from any form of “holy war,” Kapleau in the same book falls into the type of antinomian justification for violence that was the favorite tool of wartime Zen militarists: “Yet the right to life is not absolute, and individual life may unavoidably have to be sacrificed to preserve the health and welfare of society … If the act [of killing] were done no-mindedly, beyond self-conscious awareness of one taking life and a life being taken, no painful karma would be incurred, for in the profoundest sense there would be no killer and nothing killed.”8 Although Kapleau “hasten[s] to add that only a highly developed individual could act in this way,” this type of rhetoric is hardly less justifiable than the wartime remark by one Zen master that “the precept throws the bomb.”9 For prominent American Zen teacher Robert Aitken, such Buddhist infelicities hardly began and ended with the modern Japanese Empire: “Buddhist teaching places responsibility upon human beings for maintaining harmony and enhancing maturity, but rulers who have professed the Buddha’s Way have neglected their vows and played political games. Governments in South and Southeast Asia to this day can include the five main Buddhist precepts in their respective constitutions, yet violate them outrageously.”10

The issue of violence within Buddhist tradition has only recently emerged as an object of concern among certain scholars; even still it remains a taboo subject in some quarters. Anthropologist Marvin Harris has noted the strange irony of the emergence of “religions of love and mercy”: none of these so-called “nonkilling religions”—by which he means Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism—“has had any influence on the incidence or ferocity of war and each is implicated in devastating inversions of the principle of nonviolence and reverence for life.”11 Harris attributes this to the fact that whatever the sincerity of their personal convictions, as heads of state, those involved with spreading the religion were primarily concerned with maintaining stability within their realms and defeating external enemies. The Roman Emperor Constantine (“the Great,” 273–337 CE) is a prime example, but even the lately lionized Indian Buddhist Emperor Aśoka (“the Great,” 299–237 BCE) falls into this category. Ironically, the so-called nonkilling religions’ emphasis on compassion may have persuaded enemies to let themselves be captured, thus facilitating political expansionism. In terms of Buddhism, Harris notes that, after an early period of “peaceful missionization,” Buddhism became intimately involved in state formation in South and Southeast Asia—from the early Sri Lankan kings such as Parakrama Bahu who drove the Hindus from Tamil Nadu and attempted to conquer south India and Burma, through the Khmer Buddhist lead...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Buddhism, Criticism, and Postwar Japan
• 2 The Roots of “Topicalism”
• 3 Problems in Modern Zen Thought
• 4 Criticism as Anamnesis
• 5 Radical Contingency and Compassion
• Bibliography
• Index