The Zen of Total War: Buddhist Justifications for the Greater East Asia War
*The Following was originally written as a term paper in the spring of 2014. This version contains some edits from the original.*
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| 'War Flag of the Imperial Japanese Army' |
The Zen of Total War: Buddhist Justifications for the Greater East Asia War
The Allied counteroffensive against
the evils of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in the mid-20th century
is held up as the pinnacle of a good war.
World War II itself is popularly referred to as the ‘Good War’. In the United States, every war since has
been compared to the example set by World War II when determining if the new
war is just or not. Unpopular wars in
Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan are rarely seen as living up to the bold example
of World War II, in which the common conception is Americans begrudgingly but
bravely fought clearly defined enemies of malicious empires, and in doing so
ensured freedom while saving the world from tyranny.
After the isolationist position of
Japan was forcibly ended by American naval might in 1854, Japanese society went
through a rapid period of modernization.
In less than 80 years Japan would fully modernize and become directly
competitive with the colonial powers in Europe and the United States. The rapid influx and perceptions of modernity
that were imported from the West put the religious establishment of Japan in an
increasingly precarious situation. In
order to remain relevant in the face of modernist hostility, the Zen Buddhist
establishment allied itself with the imperial government, and openly proclaimed
nationalist and imperialist positions that would lend support to the Japanese
war effort. Although coopted by the
Imperial Japanese government, Buddhist justifications for the Greater East Asia
War were logical innovations consistent with trends in earlier Buddhist
doctrine.
A history of Buddhist doctrine on
conflict and the developments of the Zen school are necessary in order to
understand their use in the Greater East Asia War. After reviewing this history in light of an
overview of Just War Theory, the paper will discuss in detail some Buddhist
justifications of the war and how they compare to Just War theory, focusing on
the authority of the emperor as legitimate authority, and the doctrine of
Karma’s relation to the principle of discrimination.
Just War Theory
In the military philosophy that grew out
of the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, the merits of war are judged through
what has become known as the Just War Tradition, or Just War Theory. The basis of Just War Theory is that a war
can be just, but it must meet a series of criteria before going to war, and a
series of moral requirements for conduct during the war. Holding on to their original Latin titles,
these set of criteria are Jus ad Bellum and
Jus in Bello respectively. Jus ad
Bellum consists of six criteria; just cause, legitimate authority, right
intention, last resort, proportionate results, and hope of success. The primary criteria examined in this paper
are legitimate authority and right intention; therefore they will be explained
in more detail below. (Fiala 38-39)
According to Just War Theory, a war must
be declared and waged by a legitimate authority. The head of state or equivalent governing
body is the only one who can declare war.
This prevents private citizens from waging war. Traditionally legitimate authority was
considered ordained by God. The divine
right of kings was the reason a monarch was in power, and this is why he or she
would have the authority to declare war.
A more secularized interpretation is that the sovereign ruler or elected
body represents their country, and therefore are the only ones able to declare
war.
A just war must also be waged with the
right intention. This is closely linked
with just cause but varies at the level of motive. For instance, a war may be legitimately waged
to defend a persecuted population as its cause, but the deeper intention may be
ensuring dominance over the economic market where that population lives. The cause is just, but the intention is not. Additionally the motivation behind a war,
even if there is just cause, cannot be stemming from desires of vengeance.
Jus
in Bello are the criteria used to guide conduct once war is
underway. These criteria are
discrimination, proportionality, and honoring legal rights of enemies. These can be summarized briefly. Discrimination means that only combatants can
be attacked. A combatant is a soldier of
the enemy force, who is arguably engaged in the offending military
campaign. In the chaos of war it is
assumed some noncombatants will be killed, on accident. They, however, cannot be the target of direct
military action. The direct killing of
noncombatants is murder, thus the principle of discrimination renders them as
illegitimate targets. Proportionality is
the attempt to reduce what is known as ‘overkill’. Excessive killing of civilians in pursuit of
a legitimate military goal is never acceptable, even if the civilian deaths are
unintended. Similarly, just because an
army may have the military force to obliterate every soldier of an enemy army
does not mean that is acceptable. The
use of force must be in proportion to the minimal amount necessary to ensure
the enemy force can no longer carry out their unjust campaign. Finally, the legal rights of enemies must be
respected. Enemy soldiers have human
rights, and weapons designed to inflict extra pain should not be used. Additionally, the second a combatant becomes a
noncombatant they are subject to the same protections to which civilians are
entitled.
In terms not entirely dissimilar to
these, Japan saw its military intervention in the Greater East Asia War as
justified. Of course Japanese leaders
did not use European Just War Theory.
However, Japan did have its own explanations for the war which made it
moral and just. The Buddhist
establishment in Japan openly supported the efforts at creating hegemony over
the other Buddhist nations of East Asia.
For their part, the European colonial powers in China and the rest of
East Asia did not find the Japanese war justified. Nor did the growing American interests in the
Pacific. Illustrating these contrary
perspectives, the Greater East Asia War is more commonly known by what its
victors called it, World War II, or ‘The Good War’ as described above. What are the implications of a war justified
by the opposing sides using competing and unrelated systems for justifying
war? Can two sides of a conflict really
be just? This paper will now explore in
depth some of the justifications supported by the Japanese Buddhist
establishment for their role in the Greater East Asia War, in light of a longer
lineage of Buddhist teachings on nonviolence and justified violence.
Buddhism, Killing, and
War
Japan claimed to be a Buddhist nation,
and this brings with it a long tradition of pacifism. Buddhism has prohibitions against murder,
much like the Judeo-Christian traditions.
The first Buddhist precept is to abstain from the taking of life. The underlying principle for all of Buddhist
ethics is to cultivate compassion and love for all sentient beings, whether
they are human or nonhuman (Victoria 193).
Part of this total life ethic is the Holy Eightfold Path, which along
with right action includes right livelihood.
Right livelihood prohibits Buddhists from making their living in a
profession which causes harm to other people (Victoria 193). Buddhism is unique in this explicit
prohibition on killing in warfare. The
Buddha himself is said to have explained to a soldier in the Yodhajivasutta that a soldier who dies
on the battlefield is inevitably reborn into a hell (Kent 159).
The inescapabilty of politics from
monastic communities, however, forced later Buddhist interpreters to consider
if there were ever exceptions to the prohibition against killing. The exception to the rule was developed under
the doctrine of skillful means, as presented in a narrative of the Buddha in a
past life as a bodhisattva. A
bodhisattva is a being advanced on the path to enlightenment who has vowed,
rather than achieving nirvana, to help save all sentient beings (Victoria
225). The bodhisattva has become so
exceptionally compassionate that they are able to use actions otherwise
prohibited in compassionate ways. An
example is found in the Upaya-kaushalya
Sutra, which describes the Buddha in a past life as a bodhisattva (Victoria
225). The not-yet-Buddha was traveling
on a boat and discovered that there was a robber onboard who was planning on
killing all five hundred passengers.
Rather than letting the robber get the karmic consequences of killing
five hundred innocent people, the not-yet-Buddha kills the robber himself
(Victoria 226). This is skillful
means. Breaking a moral prohibition with
compassionate intentions is a potential possibility. In Buddhist ethics, intention trumps physical
action. The killing of the robber was
skillful means because the not-yet-Buddha killed out of compassion for the
robber and the five hundred, and readily accepted the karmic results of this
action. Usually it is interpreted that
only a bodhisattva has enough compassion and good karma to use skillful means,
but the Upaya-kaushalya Sutra set the
doctrinal precedent that killing one individual so that many can live was
potentially morally permissible (Victoria 226).
Buddhism developed originally with a
monastic focus. The first adherents were
converts from many competing ascetic movements.
Quickly the Buddhist monastic community, the Sangha, became involved in
politics of kings, who sought religious legitimacy in return for their gifts of
land and riches to the monastic community (Victoria 196). The quintessential Buddhist ruler was King
Ashoka, who converted to Buddhism during his reign in the 3rd
century BCE in India and subsequently supported massive projects in order to
spread the Dharma throughout his realm (Victoria 197). Ashoka, however, continued to engage in
defensive activities of the realm, such as fighting off tribal insurrections on
his borders or, according to the Ashokavandana,
executing eighteen thousand Jains because an individual Jain committed a
minor insult against Buddhism (Victoria 198).
The Sangha would become entwined with the governance of King Ashoka, who
eventually exerted so much power over the monastic community that his
permission was required for one to enter into the Sangha (Victoria 198). Thus the reign of Ashoka marked a substantial
political involvement of the Buddhist establishment and the beginning, over two
millennia ago, of the defense of the dharma being an acceptable justification
for killing.
Zen Buddhism
The particular branch of Buddhism
which would come to dominate in Imperial Japan was Zen. Zen is the Japanese form of Ch’an Buddhism
which originated in China. Ch’an was
able to gain lasting support because of its internalization of indigenous
Chinese religions of Taoism and Confucianism, especially the Confucian value of
submitting to the authority of the sovereign leader (Victoria 203). Often described as iconoclastic, the Zen tradition
rejected texts and debate on doctrine and instead emphasized inner experience
and spontaneity (Victoria 206). This
rejection of intellectual distinctions eventually got pushed to strange, but
logical extremes. Some texts went as far
as saying that killing was only wrong if the killer failed to see his victim as
something separate from emptiness (Victoria 204). The scholar Brian Victoria argues that the
Zen school’s rejection of debate on doctrine would eventually be key to its
easy complicity and involvement with the Imperial Japanese government’s
nationalist and militaristic endeavors (Victoria 206).
Although it would become an integral
part of the modern imperial government, Zen was originally persecuted during
the modernization of Meiji Japan. Buddhism
was attacked with two major critiques, one of government ideologues claiming it
was superstitious and contrary to modern scientific advancement. The other claimed it was a foreign religion,
and naturally opposed to innate Japanese spirituality (Sharf 3). To defend against this existential threat,
Buddhist leaders began to repackage Buddhism as a world religion that was
rational, and completely compatible with scientific empiricism. Additionally, Sharf explains, “They became
willing accomplices in the promulgation of kokutai
(national polity) ideology—the attempt to render Japan a culturally homogeneous
and spiritually evolved nation politically unified under the divine rule of the
emperor” (Sharf 5). Buddhist priests
even began to don Shinto robes in order to emphasize the Japanese character of
Buddhism. As Japan become militarily stronger
and developed colonial ambitions, the earlier critique of Buddhism as foreign
became an asset to emphasize Asian unity, which Japanese colonialism could
provide (Sharf 5).
The Emperor, Authority, and Intention
The Emperor held an immensely important role
in both governmental and spiritual life of Japanese society. His word was law; law from heaven itself. He was both the symbolic father and
embodiment of the Japanese nation.
Japanese expansion and colonialism
was justified by their strong belief that their nation was racially, culturally
and religiously superior to all others.
Tendai sect priest Gyōei wrote that pure Mahayana Buddhism was only
found in Japan because, “All Japanese had the disposition of bodhisattvas”
(Victoria 81). Although on the surface
this statement would normally just mean that the Japanese were inherently
compassionate, its deeper political implication is that every individual in
Japan was capable of using skillful means.
Every individual could break the prohibition on killing due to their
inherent compassion. Other Zen leaders
also wrote extensively on the superiority of Japanese Buddhism. Jōdo sect priest Dr. Shiio Benkyō declared
that only in Japan was modern Buddhism in the form that the Buddha prescribed
in his time (Victoria 81). Benkyō
explains,
“Buddhism in India collapsed due to [the nature] of Indian
culture. Buddhism in China collapsed
because it ran directly contrary to the history and nature of the Chinese
state, and was therefore only able to produce a few mountain temples. On the other hand, thanks to the rich
cultivation Japanese Buddhism received on Japanese soil, it gradually developed
into that which the Buddhist teaching was aiming towards.” (Victoria 82).
If
Japan was the only Asian country to get Buddhism correct, and the emperor was
the embodiment of Japan, then therefore everything the Emperor did, said, or
wanted was automatically in line with Buddhist doctrine. The invasions of other Asian countries were
called compassionate acts, comparable to a father striking his child in order
to build good character (Victoria 89).
Japan, ruled by the infallible emperor, argued that they were being
unselfishly compassionate by invading and reestablishing proper Buddhism
throughout East Asia. In this sense, the
authority attributed to the emperor and the intention attributed to the
nation’s military campaign were comparable to legitimate authority and right
intention, two criteria of the Jus ad
Bello pillar of Just War Theory.
The Doctrine of Karma
The doctrine of Karma is the Buddhist doctrine which has to do with
the results of actions, and has serious implications for the application of the
Just War criteria of discrimination. The
common American idea on karma is that it is a form of justice dealt out
metaphysically. It is colloquially
equivalent to phrases such as ‘what comes around goes around’ or ‘they got what
they had coming’. Traditional Buddhist
interpretations of Karma do not entail this sense of justice; rather there is a
focus on consequences being the natural response to certain actions. Just as if one were to practice archery, they
become an archer. Archers have a set of
physical attributes, such as uneven muscle development of their arms and
shoulders, which are the natural consequences of becoming archers, not a
punishment. Karma works in the same way
with moral actions. Every good and bad
action sets off a chain of events which has natural consequences. The sum of all of these actions is a causal
stream.
Although there is no soul in Buddhism which is retained from life to
life, the causal stream is what causes one to be born into their circumstances,
and affects events in their life. For
example, in The Shorter Exposition of
Kamma the Buddha says, “Here, student, some woman or man is a killer of
living beings, murderous, bloody-handed, given to blows and violence, merciless
to living beings… he is short-lived wherever he is reborn (Ñanamoli).” Being reborn short-lived is not a punishment,
because the new birth is a completely different person than the murderer. They are just inheriting the natural
conclusions to actions which occurred in someone else’s lifetime. Because person ‘A’ committed murder, person
‘B’ will die early, but this is not a punishment, but the natural outcome of
the action of murder playing out across lifetimes.
The working of the karmic causal stream across lifetimes combined with
the idea of skillful means makes the Just War criteria of discrimination and proportionality
almost inconsequential. Military
chaplain Satō Gan’ei explained Karma on the battlefield in a booklet, produced
in 1902, which explains,
“Everything depends on karma.
There are those who, victorious in battle, return home strong and fit
only to die soon afterwards. On the
other hand, there are those who are scheduled to enter the military yet die
before they do so. If it is their karmic
destiny, bullets will not strike them, and they will not die. Conversely, should it be their karmic
destiny, then even if they are not in the military, they may still die from
gunfire. Therefore there is definitely
no point in worrying about this. Or
expressed differently, even if you do worry about it, nothing will change.”
(Victoria 15).
This
view of causality negates any form of responsibility for war deaths. Ally or enemy, civilian or soldier, if an
individual dies in war there was nothing that could have been done to avoid
it. There is no need for discrimination
or proportionality. If someone is going
to die, they will die.
The Buddhist doctrine of skillful
means, the ability to break a moral code compassionately, paradoxically
broadened the permissibility of killing, all in the name of producing good and
limiting negative karma. By fighting and
killing the enemies of Buddhism, Japanese soldiers both gained meritorious
karma from defending the Dharma, and they simultaneously stopped their enemies
from gaining further negative karma because of their actions against the
Dharma. In these ways, the defeat of the
enemy was a meritorious and compassionate act (Victoria 93).
Conclusions
The justifications given by
Japanese Buddhists for the Greater East Asia War are important to understand in
their entirety and with historical precedents in mind. The results reveal a war justified by its
corresponding system of morality.
Although there are notions which roughly align with Just War criteria, Buddhist
justifications for war are based upon a different framework than that of Just
War theory. It is nothing but a cultural
assumption that Just War Theory can actually justify a war, and furthermore it
is only a cultural assumption that Just War Theory would be the only justifier
of war.
Accepting any philosophical system for justifying war by
necessity requires the acceptance of several assumptions. First and most obvious is that accepting any
system requires the thinker to believe that it is theoretically possible for
war to be justified. One could argue
forever on the semantics of what words such as ‘justified’ and ‘war’ actually
mean, but it is simple enough to state that even a well-defined checklist
approach such as Just War Theory requires assuming that war can be justified,
and fulfilling the Just War criteria is how that is achieved. That could never be proven in any sense,
without an act of God. Therefore one
either accepts the arbitrariness of their justification criteria, or takes it
as a matter of faith that they are correct.
The same holds true for those who accepted Buddhist justifications for
war.
Although this seems like rather philosophical and
abstruse discussion, it has very important implications for modern foreign
relations. World War II is commonly
considered by Americans the ‘Good War’; definitively a just war. However, this paper has shown that the Japanese
also believed their side of the war was justified. If two opposing sides of a war are justified,
how can there be peace? Until a
universal philosophical system for justifying war is accepted by all nations -
a very unlikely prospect - the solution to peace will have to be found outside
of these theories. In that regard it is
essential to recognize that the ‘enemy’ side of a conflict has logical reasons
for their activities, other than evil and malice. This paper’s investigation of
justifications given by the often demonized Imperial Japanese illustrates the
importance of looking at a conflict from multiple moral perspectives and in turn
avoiding the shortfalls of regarding ethical cultural assumptions as truth.
Works
Cited
Fiala,
Andrew. The Just War Myth: The Moral Illusions of War. Lanham, Md.: Rowman
&
Littlefield,
2008. Print.
Fumihiko,
Sueki. "Chinese Buddhism and the Anti-Japan War." Japanese Journal
of Religious Studies 37: 9-20.
Web.
Hur,
Nam-Lin. "The Soto Sect and Japanese Military Imperialism in Korea." Japanese
Journal of Religious Studies 26:
107-134. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Kent,
Daniel W.. "Onward Buddhist Soldiers: Preaching to the Sri Lankan
Army." Buddhist Warfare. :
Oxford University Press, 2010. . Print.
Ñanamoli.
"Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta: The Shorter Exposition of Kamma ." .
Access to Insight, 30 Nov. 2013. Web. . <http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.135.nymo.html>.
Sharf,
Robert H.. "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism." History of Religions
33: 1-43. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Victoria,
Brian. Zen at war. 2nd ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, 2006. Print.
Victoria,
Brian. "The Reactionary Use of Karma in Twentieth-Century Japan."
Web.
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