Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook

Ichikawa Hakugen

882 Ichikawa Hakugen 市川白弦 (1902–1986) Ichikawa Hakugen was a Rinzai Zen priest, professor at Hanazono University, and political activist who made his mark as the foremost scholar of “Imperial-Way Zen.” In his writings he chronicled Zen support for Japanese imperialism in the first half of the twentieth century and pushed the issue of Zen’s war responsibility. He analyzed the Zen approach to religious liberation and society, political ramifications of Buddhist metaphysical and logical constructs, limitations of Buddhist ethics, traditional relations between Buddhism and the Japanese government , and the philosophical system of Nishida Kitarō*. In assessing the ethical issues surrounding wartime Zen and such Zen-influenced thinkers as Nishida, Ichikawa focused on Zen’s soteriological aim of attaining “peace of mind”; its epistemology of “becoming one with things” after extricating oneself from dualistic discrimination; its immanent metaphysical orientation (based in part on Kegonž Buddhism); such core values as loyalty, indebtedness, and gratitude; and Zen’s conservative, karmicž read on social arrangements. He argues that these facets of Zen serve to undermine a critical distance from the status quo and to support a general acquiescence to, if not valorization of, actual conditions. To designate this ethical pitfall in his tradition and in Japanese culture more broadly, Ichikawa deployed terms like “actualism” and “accommodationism.” His overall critique, and the attempt to locate it in Nishida’s use of Buddhist ideas, is evident in the passage selected below, where he stitches together statements from a number of Nishida’s works. Typical of the classical Buddhist style of argument, even philosophical positions are argued or rejected through the citation of texts, a practice Nishida himself follows in several of the passages cited. [cai] Absolu te nothingness stumbles Ichikawa Hakugen 1970, 191–6, 208–10 Nishida Kitarō* is the foremost figure in modern Japanese philosophy . With penetrating intuition and rigorous thought he constructed a new logic to convey the foundation of Japanese and Asian culture, thereby carving out a position for himself in world philosophy. Through his efforts modern Japanese philosophy and religion gained a profound expression, so that at present no new form of Japanese thought, religion, or culture can sink roots in this country without positioning itself relative to his philosophy. For us the Pacific War was an unprecedented trial, and it is surprising that in the face of this trial even the mighty philosophy of Nishida stumbled. What i c h i kawa ha k u g e n | 883 tripped it up was its fixation on actuality, which was closely bound to the “actualism ” of the Japanese people that we have witnessed in Shinto, Native Studies, and the Japanese form of Mahayanaž Buddhism. This spiritual climate still permeates us and remains at work in our daily lives. To reform our national character with its accommodation to actuality, we need to clarify the process and structure of the stumble of Japanese thought as represented by Nishida’s philosophy. In a March 1945 letter to Suzuki Daisetsu*, Nishida wrote, “I would like to set forth the person, that is to say, personality, from the standpoint of the wisdom of soku-hiž, and then connect that to the historical world of actuality.” In this short essay I will explore how and why, in the context of Nishida’s philosophy, a human being living in the world of actuality with a Zen and Kegonž Buddhist orientation could trip up. Zen Investigation, Absolute Nothingness, and the Ordinary In 1901, when he was thirty-one, Nishida wrote in his diary, “Philosophy , too, should separate from vulgar ambition and take as its foundation the peace of mind of the self, and the philosopher should quietly investigate things, unify his thought, and act in concert with his own peace of mind.” Elsewhere he declared that “one should not pursue trivial issues in one’s scholarship and thereby forget the foundation: peace of mind” (nkz 17: 57). Ten years later, in his first book, An Inquiry into the Good, Nishida stipulated, “We must now investigate what we ought to do and where we ought to find peace of mind, but this calls first for clarification of… true reality” (1: 39 [37–8]). Nishida thought that the problem of peace of mind was fundamental, that inseparably from this problem one needed to investigate the true form of reality, and that from there one established principles of action. Accordingly, he started his philosophical reflection by taking up the problem of reality. He portrayed his methodology as moving “from there to there...