This US policy of re-Nationalising Japan led to the bizarre reality of Japanese Zen masters (that had committed war-crimes against US troops during WWII), being ‘invited’ to the US to convert Westerners to fascistic Japanese Buddhism…
Tag: Japanese nationalism
Interpreting Ch’an – Basic Errors in Western Discourse
This has created a situation whereby ‘Chinese’ history and culture has been inadequately interpreted by one culture (i.e. the ‘West’), through the erroneous scholarship of another (i.e. ‘Japan’), which is compounded by the fact that neither the West nor Japan are willing to admit the errors they have made…
The Differences Between Chinese Ch’an and Japanese Zen in a Nutshell
This time period saw the Rinzai and Soto actively deny their Chinese cultural roots, and support the government’s anti-China policies. This coincided with the Rinzai and Soto Zen traditions ‘abandoning’ the Vinaya Discipline for ordained monks and nuns because it was viewed as both ‘Indian’ and ‘Chinese’, and therefore ‘un-Japanese’ in nature. This abandoning of the Vinaya Discipline marks a significant deviation of the Japanese Zen tradition from its Chinese Ch’an origin.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 