The Direction Inherent in Civilization

From the internet I found that Shobogenzo Book 1, 3, and 4 are now available through Booksurge. Although I hold half the copyright to the Shobogenzo translation I myself was not informed about this move at all. I am not a legal expert, but I think that, in going ahead with the publication without either informing me or making any arrangement with me regarding royalties, Gudo Nishijima must have done something illegal.

Having done that, Gudo then threatened on his blog to take legal action against me. Why should a graduate in law from Tokyo University put himself in such a vulnerable legal position? This is one question I have been asking myself. There must be a reason for it.

I remember in the early 1990s I was on a train on the Seibu-Ikebukuro line, going into work in Tokyo. It was late morning, past the rush hour, and in my carriage there were only a few people. One of them, an elderly scruff, started barking aggressive commands at me in broken English. Whether my intuition was right or wrong I do not know, but I sensed he was playing out some wartime experience, and I reacted. I grasped him by his shirt and drew his face towards mine.

Can you guess the reaction of this weedy old man as a large foreigner with the calloused knuckles of a karate black-belt pulled him onto his toes? His face lit up. It was as if he was saying to me: “Yes, please, go on and strangle me. I deserve it.”

I let go of him and walked through into the next carriage.

I wrote a few days ago that the battle between Gudo Nishijima and myself is not personal; it is philosophical. That was only partly true. It is not only philosophical. It has to do with the direction of culture, or civilization. It has to do with my deep-seated hatred for Japanese cultural arrogance which, for me, is personified by Gudo Nishijima himself. I want to defeat Japanese cultural arrogance.

I don’t hate Gudo Nishijima and I don’t hate Japan. My wife is Japanese. My sons are half Japanese. My sons’ grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins are Japanese. I don’t hate Japanese people. But there is something about the way Japanese society works (again I refer readers to Karel von Wolferen’s brilliant expose of the Japanese System) which sickens me. And Gudo Nishijima, through his life, has been very much a stalwart of that System.

The battleground Gudo invites me onto is a legal one -- like the old man on the train who wanted me to beat him up physically. No thank you. It is not about defeating one old man in the confines of a court. It is about defeating a wrong direction, out in the open.

Today, as it happens, is July 4th, the day when American citizens celebrate the founding of a new republic. It was 230 years ago that the Founding Fathers proclaimed the primacy of individual rights, under the banner of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

It is primarily because of the enormous directive power of this idea, I believe, that individual Americans, protected by their constitution, and guided by reason, are gradually finding their own way to the ultimate pursuit of happiness, which is sitting in the full lotus posture, as taught by Zen Master Dogen -- with body, with mind, and shedding body and mind.

Japanese civilization has progressed in a different direction, not respecting individual rights or human reason. Again, Karel von Wolferen has laid it out much more clearly than I can. Japanese civilization has evolved into a System, enigmatically exercising its power from the top down. Japanese society was like that before the Second World War, and after Japan’s surrender in the Second World War Japanese society became even more like that.

I use the word “surrender” instead of “defeat” because in a real sense the Japanese System, 60 years on, still has not been defeated yet.

So my philosophical battle with Gudo Nishijima over the role of thinking in Zazen can be seen as a small part of a much wider conflict, which has to do with the direction of civilizations. The really big question at the beginning of the 21st century, not least for Japan, is: which way will China go.

The teaching that “just to sit is to drop off body and mind” did not originate with the Japanese Zen Master Dogen. Master Dogen brought the teaching back from his Chinese Zen Master Tendo Nyojo. Let us hope that the Chinese Zen Masters of the 21st century do not pervert the original teaching in the way that Japanese Zen Masters such as Master Kodo Sawaki, Master Taisen Deshimaru and Master Gudo Nishijima have perverted the teaching in the 20th century -- with their irrational exhortation to pull in the chin. The wrong direction of Japanese civilization may be seen as the wrong direction to pull in the chin, writ large.

The teaching of Fukan-zazengi is one that can unite America, China, and Europe -- but never in the way that Gudo Nishijima has imagined (with America acting as the chief of police in a global police state). The true teaching of Fukan-zazengi has to do with samadhi as a spontaneous happening, not as something which is imposed from above.

So far, there is not one person who truly understands what I am going on about. But gradually people will understand. It is inevitable. Because I am pointing in the direction which is inherent in all energy.