Summary by Zak Madrone. Edited by Mark Unno, 3/10/02.

Hirata Seiko, "Zen attitudes to War" from Rude Awakening, 3-15.

In his article Hirata Seiko problematizes the relationship of Zen and the state in the context of war. After providing a brief history of the relationship of Buddhism to the state, Seiko offers evidence of how Japanese Zen could became involved in militarism and nationalism during the Pacific War. In the context of this historical account Seiko discusses the relationship of the Zen notion of freedom in samadhi as accepting the world as is in its "suchness" and the secular notion of freedom and its injunction to change the world. The article is an attempt to understand how the Zen position of "nonethical" non-action becomes institutionally and ideologically complicit in war.

Seiko explains that the events described in the Buddhist sutra of the destruction of the Sakya clan communicates that the Buddha rejected war grounded in a karmic notion non-violence (as opposed to a humanistic one) and that the forces of karma cannot be overcome by human intervention. This is illustrated in Buddha's final refusal to participate in stopping the invading forces from killing the Sakya clan. Seiko states, "The Buddha's ultimate refusal to act for the sake of the clan and country was rooted in his belief that the Buddhist dharma transcends ethnic and national concerns"(p.4).

Seiko goes on to explain that in the relationship between the dharma and the Imperial state in the Sung dynasty, the Chinese Buddhists deviated from Sakyamuni's position. This is exemplified by different Zen figures promoting a unity between Imperial law and Buddhist law. Seiko states, "According to this idea of the state, the destruction of the nation is tantamount to the destruction of the Buddha realm"(p.8). That is, Buddhist as state religion was enlisted to provide religious support for "protection of the state." This deviation Seiko explains was transmitted to Japan and became a part of the history of Japanese Zen making possible its participation in the Pacific War.

However, Seiko explains that philosophically, Zen simply sees change as change and will not make a distinction between a progressive or a potentially regressive movement of change (p.15). Such dualistic notions of change Seiko claims, are always already bound to illusion and hinder one's realization. Therefore the project of Zen and projects in the secular realm of social transformation are irreconcilable. Seiko quotes Dogen, "To study the Buddha Way is to study one's self"(p.15).