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Shunryu Suzuki
and the war. What did he do? It's a question that keeps popping up so
here's the latest exchange on the subject. - DC
On Thu 22/10/09 7:49 AM , Valtteri Järvinen
Hello David, I noticed
that you are the author of Shunryu Suzuki's biography, so you can probably
answer me on this one.
Stuart Lachs wrote in one of his article: "Brian Victoria was so interested
in the possibility of a public pacifist/anti-war Soto monk that he contacted
Suzuki's son Hoitsu who told him: "I don't know where all of this antiwar
talk comes from, but my father and the rest of the family supported Japan's
war effort just like everyone else."
Is this the truth? "Zen Mind Beginners Mind" says that Suzuki was a pacifist
and lead a pacifist group at the time.
thanks
DC ANSWER
Hi.
First, please check out my website cuke.com's page on
Shunryu Suzuki and war.
Also, I just Googled "shunryu suzuki war" and got the same.
There's a lot there in those links and I would imagine that somewhere I say
that this is an old comment (like 15 years ago or so) by Brian and by
Hoitsu. For one thing, at the time Hoitsu didn't realize what his father had
done and had a lot of anger toward his father as well and it really bugged
him to hear people idolizing his father and saying that his father had done
things that were fairly impossible to do during the war and survive. And
that was before Brian and I started communicating about this. As you can
see, I am a fan of his work and have a
Brian Victoria section on
cuke.com.
The comments in the intro to ZMBM were removed at my suggestion for the 2000
new edition. I think I comment on this somewhere too somewhere within the
material found in those links. There was no pacifist movement in Japan
during the war.
I recently had to correct someone who said that Suzuki had openly opposed
the war at a two day seminar on Suzuki held by SFZC and UC Berkley. Nobody
could do that and get away with it. But he didn't like militarism and did
what he could within the confines of his culture and the political reality
at the time. I said that Suzuki's participation in an anti-nuclear protest
march in the fifties and comments he'd made about what he'd done BEFORE the
war were the source of these misunderstandings.
Anyway, read through that stuff and see what you think.
The important thing right now though for me is what are we doing to reduce
the enormous amount of destruction that the US is causing in Iraq and
Afghanistan. With our almost 900 military bases worldwide and our history of
war, we are not in much of a position to criticize any other country. I've
marched against war and put stuff about it on my website and vote for
anti-war candidates when I can, but I also vote for politicians who support
war. It's hard not to. I choose the lesser warmongers or those who are
trying to work within the system to reduce the harm we cause. I helped to
get guys out of going into the army during the Vietnam War, worked for the
Nuclear Freeze movement, made anti-nuclear music, and stuff like that. A person in the
future though could look at my history and say that basically I supported
America's militarism because I didn't oppose it to a greater extent, because
I was part of the economy and so forth. It all
came down basically to a bunch of words and walking. I don't want our
soldiers to get hurt and I am in favor of respecting them when they come
home and honoring the dead and taking care of the wounded and all veterans.
I just want the wars to end and say so and talk with others who think the
same.
That's sort of what Suzuki did within the confines of his culture. Not much,
but those who were there with him remember him with gratitude. I've seen
them correct Suzuki's son Hoitsu when Hoitsu said his father did nothing but
bury his head during the war. And when Hoitsu said his father was nobody
special, these men with us who had as high school students lived at Rinsoin
during the war countered strongly that he was indeed special and that his
temple Rinsoin was a beacon of light in those dark times. They said that
people could come there and meet and talk more freely than elsewhere. Suzuki
said to me once that he'd never opposed the government, always stressed that
Japan would be stronger without war. But he was a quiet person and Japanese
communicate much more subtly than Americans. And people told me that in
discussions he tended to mainly to listen and that there were others who had
more forceful ideas about how to bring the war to an honorable end and so
forth. Anyway, read all that other stuff and you'll get a better idea.
I think I'll add this exchange to that page in cuke.com and include the
elegy one of those men made in a newspaper article memorializing Suzuki where that
"beacon of light" image was also used. It's toward the end of the
Epilogue to
Crooked Cucumber.
Thanks for your question. Take care.
David |
cuke.com
- an archival site on the life and world of Shunryu Suzuki and those who knew
him and anything else DC feels like - originally a site for
Crooked
Cucumber: the Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki - not crookedcuke.com