One of the reasons why many disliked Brian Victorias book, "Zen at war" was that the rhetoric of Dangerous Dharma was used as a way to justify the killing of innocents.
It sort of goes like this...
"If sentient beings are not taught the Dharma, and in a wicked environment in which they cannot learn the Dharma is it then not compassion to release them from that wicked environment to find rebirth in an environment that they can learn the Dharma?"
This sort of rationale can be extended to excuse all sorts of behaviors, including slavery, rape, robbery and wholesale human crimes.
I tell people that Charles Manson was a Zen student back in the beat-nick days of proto-hippies. He came to a radical view on his own, a Dangerous Dharma. Apparently, the Aum Shinrikyo in Japan came to similar views -- to kill those who they saw as saying and spreading lies.
Of course, this is real schizophrenia psychopathic stuff.
Piggybacking on your excellent comment to add that Brian Victoria's Zen at War is a fascinating look at how Buddhism was both coerced from without and adjusted from within to appeal to the Imperial Japanese state's expectations of a "good" religion
>I just don’t see in Buddhism
Zen at War by Brian Daizen Victoria
A compelling history of the contradictory, often militaristic, role of Zen Buddhism, this book meticulously documents the close and previously unknown support of a supposedly peaceful religion for Japanese militarism throughout World War II. Drawing on the writings and speeches of leading Zen masters and scholars, Brian Victoria shows that Zen served as a powerful foundation for the fanatical and suicidal spirit displayed by the imperial Japanese military. At the same time, the author recounts the dramatic and tragic stories of the handful of Buddhist organizations and individuals that dared to oppose Japan's march to war. He follows this history up through recent apologies by several Zen sects for their support of the war and the way support for militarism was transformed into 'corporate Zen' in postwar Japan. The second edition includes a substantive new chapter on the roots of Zen militarism and an epilogue that explores the potentially volatile mix of religion and war. With the increasing interest in Buddhism in the West, this book is as timely as it is certain to be controversial.
> I just don’t see in Buddhism
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Zen at War by Brian Daizen Victoria
A compelling history of the contradictory, often militaristic, role of Zen Buddhism, this book meticulously documents the close and previously unknown support of a supposedly peaceful religion for Japanese militarism throughout World War II. Drawing on the writings and speeches of leading Zen masters and scholars, Brian Victoria shows that Zen served as a powerful foundation for the fanatical and suicidal spirit displayed by the imperial Japanese military. At the same time, the author recounts the dramatic and tragic stories of the handful of Buddhist organizations and individuals that dared to oppose Japan's march to war. He follows this history up through recent apologies by several Zen sects for their support of the war and the way support for militarism was transformed into 'corporate Zen' in postwar Japan. The second edition includes a substantive new chapter on the roots of Zen militarism and an epilogue that explores the potentially volatile mix of religion and war. With the increasing interest in Buddhism in the West, this book is as timely as it is certain to be controversial.
Recommended reading on Zen Buddhism as the ideological motor of enlightened genocidal atrocities by Imperial Japan. Through an annihilation of the self, what else is murdering a newborn with bare hands? "You" are but an observer. They're not your hands. It's a cosmically meaningless dance of phenomena.
> However, there are countless counterexamples, so I guess this analogy simply fails to get the point across.
Maybe my pointing it out failed. Since this already went a bit long, it's all I'll build on here. Here's what I'm striking at from another branch in the thread:
> But I do believe the human mind is basically the same for everybody (its essence and mechanisms and phenomenology), so I'm very skeptical about the prospect of arriving at very different conclusions if what they are doing is actually very similar (I'd rather doubt then that what they are doing really is the same).
If I accept these premises, any experience that may be replicated to a reliable mental input should be experienced roughly equivalently by any human subject. We might reasonably limit this to a certain set of physical requirements (paraplegics and marathons etc.) as a limitation of experience, but mentally, this is what we are: if you do it properly, based on this well and truly being a thing, anyone will have an emancipatory experience of pleasure being a slave pig begging to drink your piss in a nightclub bathroom.
My point is not to blow up your position claim I universalize it to any possible activity. It was to ask whether you do this, whether you really do accept that more or less anything that someone's subjective experience is capable of finding profound meaning in, can be objectively, scientifically, universally meaningful to any somewhat healthy human mind, so long as its experience reproduced with the right mental inputs.
If we accept this, the next step from that would then be to question what exactly makes meditation special among this infinitude of things. To me, it appears that would something like the spiritual component. The meaning you have input into it that others might not, possibly cannot. Similarly, the offense you take over meditation being used as this secularized tool for self-medication in the West is interesting, as it is more insistent on protecting some abstract ideal of what meditation is over what it does. It's not enough to have the right experience: to do it properly, you must come to face with and accept this experience as a foundational truth for viewing human subjectivity and reality as such. It's a real problem: how can you really say your practices are more genuine than the billionaire who, to survive in the chaotic sprawl of postmodern capitalism, uses meditation as a rather medicalized form of escapism to make himself the most efficient possible money-making machine? Jack Dorsey's a master meditator, I've heard. I agree that Western Buddhism or whatever contains many cultural pathology, for what it's worth, but not on the grounds of protecting the honor of meditative practices. (Not even going here.)
On the other hand, were you to disagree with the piss slave argument, then these premises on philosophy of mind or phenomenology seem to fall apart.
To be clear, my position is not that anything can be profound or sublime to anyone, but that some things can't be that for some people. Our experience is contingent on a variety of factors within and without our control. Then, simply understanding his person and his mental make-up, I'm prepared to claim that Sam Harris -- no matter how hard he tries -- is unlikely to ever become a blissfully satisfied piss whore.
I am comfortable ignoring Taylor's _The Fall.
His thesis and evidence as reviewed are about as convincing as Tolle's story about the prehistoric flower.
Enlightenment does not prevent people from 'falling' into ridiculous ideas. Guru scandals are part of life. Caveat Emptor.
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[A compelling history of the contradictory, often militaristic, role of Zen Buddhism, this book meticulously documents the close and previously unknown support of a supposedly peaceful religion for Japanese militarism throughout World War II. Drawing on the writings and speeches of leading Zen masters and scholars, Brian Victoria shows that Zen served as a powerful foundation for the fanatical and suicidal spirit displayed by the imperial Japanese military. At the same time, the author recounts the dramatic and tragic stories of the handful of Buddhist organizations and individuals that dared to oppose Japan's march to war.]9https://www.amazon.com/Zen-War-Brian-Daizen-Victoria/dp/0742539261/)
Amazon 1 Star reviews:
++++++++++++++++++++ Don't waste your time on this. It's just another dull rehashing of Veres Gordon Childe and his posse's ignorant theories. The only upside of this book is that it does have a bibliography, whereas most amateur history doesn't. The downside of the bibliography is that you can see at one glance that the references are completely out of date and are entirely drawn from the little clique of people who embraced this nonsense, without any reference to the original data. ++++++++++ what the hell do we know when there has been a systematic destruction and hiding of historical facts that fast-forward to today, it's virtually impossible to know the truth about mankind's history. We can only speculate which is what this book is about. ++++++++++++++++
Steven Pinker’s book on declining violence; he discusses and rejects most of the “Noble Savage” trope. Now, Taylor does adduce a great deal of claimed evidence. But it’s virtually all anecdotal: such-and-such tribe in such-and-such valley supposedly practices such-and-such. This contrasts with Pinker’s focus on statistical analysis based on comprehensive global data.
The most famous piece of anecdotal evidence for Taylor’s picture, particularly of sexual openness among “primal” peoples, was Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa. Yet Taylor never mentions Mead. And for good reason: she was wrong, bamboozled by lying Samoans having fun with her. But such problems were not unique to Mead.
Taylor uses modern anthropology to extrapolate to prelapsarian life, before 4000 BC. However, that predated writing, so we have zero verbal sociological evidence, and only the archaeological evidence of objects, whose interpretation can be problematical. For example, Taylor says the absence of weapons in early graves shows people weren’t warlike. Well, maybe weapons were too important to bury! And archaeology is pretty mute about whether people were sexually open, empathic as opposed to individualistic, reverential about nature, and so forth. +++++++++++++++++ the last few chapters basically amounted to a call for the world to relinquish control to collectivist world government in order to deal with the existential threat of environmental degredation.
Living in a way that considers what is best for everyone is something to strive for, but when this is imposed via coercive institutions, it takes responsibility away from the people and leads to a battle for control of said institutions and thier favor. THAT is the biggest obstacle keeping humanity from moving on from the cycle of power lust and dominance.
Really, that's the only instance? https://www.amazon.com/Zen-War-Brian-Daizen-Victoria/dp/0742539261 All religions have have advocated for violence at one point or another; Buddhism isn't an exception
Well there's honestly not much English content written info on it. The best book describing it was written by a western liberal monk who felt guilt about Japanese monks... so he took on the mission of shaming Japan with a book about it: Zen at War it is intended to discredit the militant Buddhism of WWII Japan but you can just as well study it to get a sense of what militant Buddhism could be like. Here are some quotes from the ultra conservative Buddhist monks of that time:
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>"Our loyalty to the emperor and patriotism are sacred... whereas in the West such things are private matters and therefore lifeless. Why? Because the people and the king in western countries don't become one family... since society is based on individuals who only think of themselves." - Inoue Enryo
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>"we are sometimes accepting and sometimes forceful. We now have no choice but to exercise the benevolent forcefulness of killing one in order that many may live" - Myowa Kai
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>"Were the level of wisdom of the world's peoples to increase, the causes of war would disappear and wars cease. However in an age when the situation is such that it is impossible for humanity to stop wars, there is no choice but to wage compassionate wars which give life to both oneself and one's enemy. Through compassionate war, the waring nations are able to improve themselves, and war is able to exterminate itself."
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>"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." - Takuan
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>"The true significance of military power is to transcend self-interest, to hope for peace. This is the ultimate goal of the military arts. Whatever the battle may be, that battle is necessarily fought in anticipation of peace. When one learns the art of cutting people down, it is always done with the goal of not having to cut people down. The true spirit of Bushido is to make people obey without drawing one's sword and to win without fighting. In Zen circles this is called the sword which gives life. Those who possess the sword that kills must, on the other hand, necessarily wield the sword which gives life." - Seisetsu
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>"War is moral training for not only the individual but for the entire world. It consists of the extinction of self-reeking and the destruction of self-preservation. It is only those without self-attachment who are able to revere the emperor absolutely." - Sugimoto
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>"The Entire Universe Is at War
>
>If you look at all phenomena in the universe you will see that there is nothing which is not at war. In the natural world, for example, plum seeds try to conquer the world for plumbs, while rice grains try to conquer the world for rice. The human world is the same, with politicians struggling with one another to conquer the political world, and merchants struggling with one another to conquer the business world."- Daiun
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>"Pacifistic humanitarism, which takes the position that all conflicts are inhumane crimes, is the sentiment of moralists who don't know the true nature of life. We, on the other hand, know of numerous instances in which peace is far more unwholesome and evil than conflict. In this regard, Nietzsche, who taught the logic of war instead of peace, was a man with a firm grip on living truth rather than the abstractions of pacifists." - Hakugen
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>"it is guiltless to kill from compassion. If I kill you, the objective is not to kill you, but to save you, because if I do not kill you, you will kill a great many other people, thus causing great suffering and incurring great guilt. By killing you, I prevent you from doing this, so that I can save both you and them. To kill people from compassion in such a way is not wrongdoing." - T'ai-hsu
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>"Mediation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one's body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears, and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one's master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead." - Jocho
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There was about 10 books written in this time that I am trying to find for more info, but they are all either untranslated or out of print:
And if you're curious what standard western Buddhists think of this you can look here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/9cskg6/zen_soldier_buddhism/
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Contact me if you're interested in collaborating on anything.
Before I start, let me state my original point again more explicitly and in a more formal structure:
Proposition 1: Christianity also has extreme views. Example: Quote above.
Proposition 2: Any religion can be used to justify violence. Example: the strong link between the Catholic Church, Fascism and right-wing authoritarianism.
Conclusion: Saying 'Islam has some pretty extreme views' is just vacuous horseshit which contributes nothing to the discussion.
After reading your post, I'm afraid I don't see anything which undermines either proposition or the structure of the argument. With that in mind, I'll address some of the points which I think require some reconsideration.
>If there were a religion with extremely peaceful texts and nothing but that you'd be surprised to see violence carried out in it's name
Like Buddhism? Even Buddhism can be used to justify violence and war - supporting P2.
> The largest fiqh or school of Sharia in the world, is the go to school for the Taliban. As well as Pakistan where 82% of the population supports the death penalty for adulterers and 72% support the death penalty for apostates, we are talking about a huge portion of major Islamic nations and schools of thought.
In the 12th Century Christianity was used to justify the horrors of the Inquisition. Additionally, many famous people such as Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Agnese Visconti were executed as a result of alleged adultery.
"Yeah, but nobody is executed nowadays". That's not the point. The point is that Christianity, like Islam can, and has been used to justify this sort of violence (P2).
>Pointing at Hitler and saying "Gott mit uns" is equivalent to pointing at Saddam Hussein not Islamic extremists.
The Ba'ath Party was well known for being secular, for future reference this is probably a bad analogy to use. Again, the point I was making wasn't that the Nazis and the Catholic Church have a relationship which is analogous to that of ISIS and the Salafi Movement within Islam. The point was simply that religion can, has been, and is employed to legitimise and justify violence (P2). Islam isn't some unique exception.
On the last point, I don't dispute it at all. Frankly I think all religion is detrimental; whatever minor benefits it might bring in terms of comfort or guidance, these are outweighed by the fact that huge swathes of the world's population defer their moral responsibility to institutionalised forms of superstition.
I appreciate your engagement but I don't think any of the points you made necessarily contradict or undermine my initial position.
The first thing that comes to mind is Brian Victoria's Zen at War, where the author argues that Suzuki was a pro-war fascist. But the thing is that Kemmyo Taro Sato has shown that most everything Victoria says about Suzuki is wrong. Victoria didn't defend his earlier claims but replied with other material, to which Soto argues that Victoria deliberately misquotes Suzuki to make his anti-war positions seem pro-war. Might be too much stuff, but could make for good essay.