Imperial-Way Zen: Ichikawa Hakugen's Critique and Lingering Questions for Buddhist Ethics

Notes

Introduction 1. For the sake of expediency, I am using “nationalism” here inclusive of kokkashugi (nationalism in the sense of identification with and allegiance to a sovereign country) and minzoku-shugi (nationalism in the sense of identification with and allegiance to an ethnic group). See chapter four for further discussion of “nationalism.” 2. For an introduction to “State Shinto” (kokka Shintō) in English, see Hardacre, Shintō and the State. 3. Standouts in this regard are Futaba Kenkō, Nakano Kyōtoku, Kashiwahara Yūsen, Yoshida Kyū’ichi, Ishii Kōsei, Mizuta Zen’itsu, Shigaraki Takamaro, Ōnishi Osamu, Ienaga Saburō, Fukushima Kanryū, Ōki Michiyoshi, Sueki Fumihiko, Kiba Akeshi, Tsujimura Shinobu, Ōtani Ei’ichi, Eizawa Kōji, and Nibu Shōjun. See the bibliography for their writings on Buddhism and nationalism. 4. See Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan; Davis, Japanese Religion and Society; and Thelle, Buddhism and Christianity in Japan. 5. Garon, Molding Japanese Minds. In English translation, see Murakami, Japanese Religion in the Modern Century. 6. See Anderson, Nishi Honganji and Japanese Buddhist Nationalism, 1862–1945; Victoria, Zen at War; Victoria, Zen War Stories; Ives, “Ethical Pitfalls in Imperial Zen and Nishida Philosophy”; Ives, “The Mobilization of Doctrine”; and Ives, “Protect the Dharma, Protect the Country.” 7. Williams, Defending Japan’s Pacific War. 8. Myōshinji is the head temple of one of the thirteen branches of Rinzai Zen in Japan. 9. Ichikawa Hakugen chosaku-shū (The collected writings of Ichikawa Hakugen, hereafter IHC) 3:15. 10. IHC 3:16. 11. IHC 3:15. 12. A dhāran . ī is a short phrase chanted in Buddhist practice and regarded by some practitioners as a magical formula. N O T E S  13. IHC 3:16. 14. IHC 3:15. 15. IHC 3:16. 16. IHC 3:17. The three holidays (sandaisetsu) were New Year’s (shinnen), National Foundation Day (kigensetsu), and the Emperor’s Birthday (tenchō-setsu). 17. A central construct in the modern imperial ideology, kokutai is often translated as “national polity.” The first character, koku, means realm or country, and in the compound kokutai it also connotes the nation in the sense of a unified group of people (the Japanese). The character tai connotes the body, which allows for a rendering of kokutai as the body politic. This character also connotes “essence,” which has led some to translate kokutai as “national essence.” Leslie Pincus writes that the characters can be rendered as “the body of the nation” and “the substance of the state” (Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan, 211 n. 3). In short, kokutai can be understood as the character or essence of Japan, a body politic constituted by familial relations and accompanying values. See chapter one for further discussion of this construct. 18. IHC 3:17. 19. Middle schools in the prewar educational system were roughly equivalent to presentday high schools. 20. IHC 3:18. 21. Nishimura Eshin, “Kaisetsu” (Commentary), in IHC 1:511. 22. IHC 2:198. 23. Hisamatsu (1889–1980) was also a professor of Buddhism at Kyoto University. During the war he started a Zen study-practice group that evolved into what is now called the F.A.S. Society. The abbreviation F.A.S. refers to awakening to the Formless Self, standing in the standpoint of all humankind, and creating history suprahistorically . For further discussion of Hisamatsu, see Ives, “True Person, Formless Self: Lay Zen Master Hisamatsu Shin’ichi”; Ives, Zen Awakening and Society, 69–83; and Antinoff, The Problem of the Human Person and the Resolution of that Problem in the Religio-Philosophical Thought of the Zen Master Shin’ichi Hisamatsu. 24. Ogasawara (1888–1970), whose Buddhist ordination name was Shian, was a Shin (True Pure Land) priest on the faculty of Buddhist University (Bukkyō Daigaku) and an adjunct professor at Hanazono. He has been characterized as a Buddhist anarchist. For a treatment of his relationship with Ichikawa, see chapter ten of Yagi Yasutaka, Ogasawara Shūjitsu/Noboru: Owari honzōgaku no keifu (Ogasawara Shūjitsu and Ogasawara Noboru: In the lineage of the Owari study of medicinal herbs). 25. In 1935 Ichikawa translated Theodore Stcherbatsky’s The Central Conception of Buddhism . 26. IHC 2:198. This translation of Dōgen is by Masunaga, A Primer of Sōtō Zen, 89, partially adapted. 27. The term kyōdan has been rendered “sectarian group,” “parish organization,” and, in Shin Buddhist circles, “church.” In general, “kyōdan” designates the clerics and parishioners (danka) of an established Buddhist sect. 28. Nishimura, “Kaisetsu,” 511. 29. According...