Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Hey Harry,

Hell man! That's serious stuff!

I would have to read the book to fully accept it but I woudln't be too surprised if it was true.

Many of us fall very easy on the "delicate and pure east" versus the "barbarian and corrupted west" thinking and this can help us put certain things into perspective.

I guess after being almost banned in the previous century a number of priests decided to follow the government no matter what (there are mercenaries everywhere!), and even others may actually believe what they were saying (there are bastards everywhere!). I think we tend to forget that Budhism in Japan (I cannot say about other places) for some people it's just a profession, something they do becasue they father did or because the family owns a Temple (some actually earn a lot of money!).

I guess we'll just have to be careful with what we read (although a Budhist priest when I asked him for a good book about Zen he told me "there is none, just meditate!")

Salud!

Historic "pseudo-dharma jibberish" tends to be obvious now, for what it "really" was.  We're so clever now. 

But will the dharma of our time be seen as having some other evil, commercial, innocent, or otherwise misguided agenda in it, a generation from now?  Sure, quite possibly.

This is a reason to return to zazen, I think.  If the person who showed me zazen was an evil dictator and if the students I sat with were murderous terrorists, the zazen would still be worth doing.

-Darren.

Ah, Japan. So much beauty, so much terrible tragedy, both from within and without. As I get older and learn more about the reaility of the world, I find that Japan doesn't really have that shiny a past. The military there certainly did some amazing horrendous stuff, but we also dropped bombs on them. Is that right, or was it more "right" of us to stop them by dropping bombs? In the end, if people wish to be controlled, taken over, or killed, isn't that thier choice? Who are we to dictate such things? Last I heard, only God can do that. Granted, I don't believe in such things, but that's what they say.

I've been struggling for years now on how a being can call themselves enlightened, yet still take lives, or at least condone it, even by non-action. Our current war brings this out into the light of day: Bush, as well as many members of his Cabal, and also a great many of the soldiers in Iraq, are "Christians", yet they still continue to war. I thought the Bible said, "thou shalt NOT kill", not "thou shall kill only thy enemy". Christianity is supposedly all about Peace, yet most Christians don't sesem to care one way or the other about killing and death. If they did follow ANYthing from thier own Doctrine, they'd be very much opposed to any war, as most religions would.

I've just always found it fascinating that people can either put aside thier supposed "deepest beliefs" in order to kill a man, or find some way to use thier religion to justify it. I say if you're pro-Jesus, you're also anti-war, anti-establishment, and should be horrified with what's going on around you.

Not to get on a soapbox... It's terribly interesting how this same thing has gone on for centuries, isn't it? And the sad part is we all know what's wrong, but few do anything about it. heck, I feel bad sometimes posessing a sword or even a Tanto, knowing that it was created for the purpose of harming another.

Then again... what if the Universe has no "rules", and killing is fine? Logically, we know little to nothing about the true nature of the Universe... who is to really say what is right or wrong? Yes, we FEEL that we know, but until you die, you really just don't know. And even then you might not find out, depending on how the Universe works. Or doesn't.

So do we keep fighting against war, knowing that it's a losing battle? Or do we just say it's okay, it's how the universe works? I mean, things are destroyed all the time, and perhaps even entire civilizations have been wiped out since the Universe was created, just from two Galaxies colliding. Should something like that be stopped?

I'm babbling, but I find this whole idea of "what is right, what is wrong, what is zen?" fascinating.

-E

Hi.

The time: early 1950s

The place: a history classroom in a public highschool with high academic standards

The discussion: The Soviet Union and its Iron Curtain.  The evil Soviets did not allow truthful information about the great USA through.  The USA on the other hand was open and free.

My contribution:  "Don't you think the Iron Curtain works both ways?"

The response from another student:  "If you're not a communist, you deserve to be one."  The teacher did not intervene.  This statement was allowed to stand unchallenged.

Brown v. Board of Education was in the future.  Segregation, Jim Crow and Lynching were daily events.

Is this a fair basis to use to condemn the USA?

People make mistakes, ugly mistakes.  Mass movements are dangerous on all continents.  Groups lose higher functions (like reason).  That's the world we live in.  Only the ignorant are surprised by the sins of others.  If I use my intellect for self awareness, my sins seem overwhelming.  Every man's life (and that includes women's lives, too) contains ugly parts.  I try and I believe everyone tries to do better than their worst.  How many lifetimes are you from enlightenment?

jb

hello everybody

men fight each other to the death in all geographic locations

please tell me if there is such a place where violence is absent

i believe one of our greatest Shakuhachi Traditions comes directly from Kinko Kurosawa himself a samurai, a person of martial position in the 1700s in Japan

recently i was looking into the history of chi gung, accupuncture etc. and found an inseperable relationship to martial reality

the Shaolin are buddhist monk martial artists etc.

even hatha yoga has the famous warrior poses

if someone were to kill those clossest to me i too would consider violence

so it goes in endless cycles

being fortunate so far i am not forced into violence and i feel sad when confronted with the violent cultural imperatives arround me

for me attempting to play the music of the Japanese Shakuhachi tradition gives not only physical well being but i find that progress depends on a compassionate view like merri notes are soft and flatter than 1/2 step above the next note down and the dynamic of TA da as opposed to ta DA etc.

thankyou all for writing  in this forum, i read it everyday

sincerely

indigo

Daniel Ryudo wrote:

I read Zen at War a year or several years ago.  It was kind of sad to read that none of the Zen masters spoke out against the war -- most were very supportive of it  -- but in Japan a famous proverb is "the nail that sticks out will get hammered down," and in comparison with the West, Japan doesn't have a strong tradition of individuals taking a stand against authority.

This is a bit of a wild stab, so I'd be happy to receive any corrections or other ideas on the matter.

Buddhism and Shinto have, for the most part, co-existed rather well in Japan since Buddhism's introduction, bar a few moments such as the Meiji Restoration where an official separation was ordered. At this time it seems like Buddhism took something of a backseat to Shinto (since, naturally, if you're restoring the Emperor to power then his religious authority within Shinto is quite significant). Buddhism eventually adapted to the Emperor-based political system but perhaps never held as much sway as State Shinto, and many of us know what considerable effect State Shinto had on the people of Japan. My guess is that whilst I've no doubt some people genuinely believed in what they were saying, perhaps other Buddhist figures in Japan were simply parroting what the nationalists said, as how Daniel Ryudo mentioned in the "nail that sticks out" analogy, as a means to divert conflict from the Buddhism that, at the time, was somewhat in the shadow of Shinto - even well into WW2 after Meiji was gone. Nowadays it's a very divisise tactic to say "you're unAmerican/unAustralian/unsupporting of the country/etc", maybe the same applied back then?

Again, as I said, it's something of a guess, but I just thought I'd throw it in.

Hi.

During the war in Viet Nam, the cardinal of NY said that Catholics could not use their religion as evidence of a claim of conscientious objection to the war.  The hierarchy of the church sided with the government of the US.  Power sided with power.

The Dalai Lama (formerly the absolute ruler of Tibet) did not institute a parliament until his government was in exile in India.  Power sided with the status quo.

Falwell said that if George W. Bush wanted to abolish the income tax or double it, Falwell would endorse the idea.

Religion, Buddhist or Christian, Jewish or Hindu, can take the wrong side of any argument.

The idea of univesal art or religion is a dream.  Wherever it went, Buddhism took on qualities of the culture it invaded.  So did Christianity and every other religion.  20 years ago, it wa very important to perform rituals in Tibetan and now English is the recommended language.  The older generation of lamas is dying out and more modern ideas are surfacing.  Zen took on Japanese culture.  I don't like either Tibetan or Japanese culture.  I am American.  I cannot look at anything with eyes that are not American eyes.  A language is a world view & each language has its own image of reality.  Sound, per se, is not culturally bound, but try to learn just intonation or a scale from a foreign culture.  It ain't eary.  Sound may be a universal, undifferentiated medium, but its manifestations all take place within a culture.  On the other hand, maybe there is a scale or chord in Esperanto.

jb

Apropos of this interesting discussion is a section of David Chadwick's biography of Shunryu Suzuki (Suzuki-roshi was the founding abbot of the San Francisco's Zen Center in the '60s). Chapter six of "Crooked Cucumber" covers the war years. From that chapter:

   In this precarious political climate Shunryu felt compelled to help his society as best he could. Most people didn't want to think about what was happening [i.e., the build-up to war], but he had a special rapport with young people, whose minds were more open.
   
   "Even before the war I had strong feelings against war. I organized young men in my area to have the right understanding of the situation in Japan at the time. We invited good people from the government to come and answer our questions. My focus was not so much on preventing war as on trying to counter one-sided views of Japan's situation, of ourselves, and of human nature. I didn't have any big purpose for my group; I just didn't want my friends to be involved in the kind of nationalism which I thought might destroy Japan completely. It's more dangerous than war."

    Suzuki was in charge of a small local temple in which he could, to a point, get away with that attitude.  But he was more than aware of the possible repercussions of his actions.  Many other monks had lost their positions, some were simply arrested for openly speaking out against the war. The "nails that stuck out" were quickly hammered down and it became obvious, particularly after Pearl Harbor, that things would come to a head.  His superiors in the Soto Zen organization asked Suzuki to head a new organization to promote "patriotic imperial Buddhism". He understood that, if he refused, his career was over, his family disgraced and put in genuine jeopardy. So he accepted, attended the celebratory dinner party, then resigned the next day. As Chadwick writes:

  The subtle distinction between refusing and resigning made all the difference. When he returned to Rinso-in, neither he nor the temple had lost face.

Suzuki's attitude toward the war was even criticized by his own Zen teacher, Kishizawa.  Chadwick writes:

   Kishizawa was leading Buddhism's support to the nation's war effort.  He wrote a book on the precepts in which he expressed support for Japan's militarism. He told yound men to fire their guns with the mind of Buddha, like the samurai of old, with no thought of life and death.

Chadwick writes of Suzuki's experiences after the beginning of the Pacific war, when it was impossible to speak out without immediate retribution. There's a very moving anecdote of the day the government came to Rinso-in and took their temple bell to be melted down for war materials.
Highly recommended reading!

Elliot

Harazda wrote:

Tibetan, unlike English, is a spiritual language, like Sanskrit.

I have so much to learn here.  I'm trying to keep track of all the things that aren't spiritual.  First, the jiari shakuhachi, then the English language.  What's next?  The internet?!  Oy.

-Darren.

jb wrote:

I don't like either Tibetan or Japanese culture.  I am American.  I cannot look at anything with eyes that are not American eyes.  A language is a world view & each language has its own image of reality.  Sound, per se, is not culturally bound, but try to learn just intonation or a scale from a foreign culture. It ain't eary. 
jb

Please excuse my plain sarcasm and trailing off the subject, but what overall American culture are you implying?

Is it the language that conditions a culture? How come then, that many different cultures(or shall we say sub-cultures) developed within English or adopted it, each having quite distinct view of reality, yet sharing the same language?
Are you saying that because we have grown up within other-than-Japanese culture we cannot understand it nor even like it?

Id rather stop now. I guess it is too many questions.

yours bewildered,

Marek

THANK YOU, Daniel, for that illuminating post.  Wow!  There's a lot there I never knew.