[Buddha-l] liturgical languages

[Dan Lusthaus]

Stuart Lachs suggests


> I doubt the Yasutani/ Kapleau break had anything to do with Brian
Victoria's
> description of Yasutani as an ultrnationalist, ultramilitaristic,
> antisemite.... At least Kapleau never mentions any of these aspects that
> Brian has brought to light.

Victoria, at least in conversation, brings out the fact that Kapleau
originally went to Japan as a journalist to cover the war trials. So we
might expect that he would have had some sort of awareness and sensitivity
to the issue (unless he was a lousy journalist). Clearly, that he chose to
study with Yasutani in spite of this raises some issues. I would agree that
the break was not caused by a sudden awakening into Yasutani's facism. But I
suspect it did play an underlying, contributing role, if nothing else, in
the authoritarian, make-excuses-for-abuses character that Yasutani did not
lose after the war, when other Zen-spokesmen apologists for Zen
contributions to the war effort softened their own rhetoric. One way of
reading all this is that Kapleau had hoped Yasutani had redeemed himself
from his former delusions, but learnt the hard way that he hadn't.

I also wouldn't take Kapleau's apparent apologies very seriously either.
They are pro forma in Japanese interactions. They are a way of (inversely)
suggesting the fault lay in Yasutani, not him (since he is big enough to
apologize -- since falling on one's sword for one's superiors is so
ingrained in Japanese manners, the average Japanese invariably assumes that
whoever apologizes is NEVER guilty, but showing loyalty and deference for
one's superior). His regrets may very well be about Yasutani's failure at
self-redemption.

That Yamada, et al. responded with that sort of ad hominum attack (another
standard Japanese tactic -- one used more recently to discredit the
so-called Critical Buddhists) suggests fear, not righteousness or even being
right.


> Yasutani's  antisemiticism however, has to be put in context. There were
no
> Jews in Japan when Yasutani wrote his antisemitic words.

Yes, which it why this becomes all the more instructive about antisemitism.
Jews needn't exist; the necessary and sufficient condition for antisemitism
is an imagination that gets its kicks by demonizing an other it imagines
rather than knows. It's a virulent and dangerous form of parikalpita.

For Yasutani and others bred (literally) on the famous forgery, The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Western liberal values that were being
opposed were viewed as manifestations of a Jewish conspiracy. The Protocols
remain popular reading in Japan, and are available, along with countless
mutations, in virtually any Japanese bookstore today (not to mention the
endless supply of Japanese antisemitic ranting on the internet -- though
there are still virtually no Jews living in Japan). Yasutani bought into the
rhetoric/ideology that Japan was a sacred nation, a Chosen Divine people
(headed by a divine Emperor) whose destiny was to rule the world. The
imagined Jewish conspiracy was the evil twin, the demonic Other laying claim
to the mirror claim. That allowed the Yasutanis to externalize that
projection rather than face up to the inner source of that diseased form of
atma-drsti. Zen master indeed!

I no more wish to make excuses for Yasutani through "contextualizing" the
antisemitism of his times, than I do for the KKK or other hate-mongers who
self-aggrandize by projecting their deluded feelings of inadequacy on an
imaginary Jewish demon. Feel sorry for their delusion, perhaps. Try to
prevent their delusions from harming other sentient beings, absolutely. A
so-called Zen master, after all, should be expected to know better. If not,
then he really has become a useless shit-stick.

Dan Lusthaus