[Buddha-l] liturgical languages

[Stuart Lachs]

>  Dan wrote:

> 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).

It is well known that Kapleau went to Japan as a court reporter for the war
crime trials. I think he was a court stenographer, not what we call a
reporter today.

 Clearly, that he chose to
> study with Yasutani in spite of this raises some issues.
Yes, he chose to study with Yasutani and never left him! In fact, Kapleau
writes of being impressed with the Japanese, as opposed to the Germans , for
accepting their fate/karma after the war.

 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 really do not understand how you can read this into Kapleau as he never
left Yasutani, but rather, it was the other way around; he was cut-off by
Yasutani.
Kapleau was expecting to receive Dharma transmission if the last visit
worked out well. As it happened, it did not work out well.
>
> 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.

"Kapleau's apparent apologies " that I site occurred in 1986, well after
Yasutani was dead and after Kapleau had no connection with Japan or the
Sanbokyodan.

 > 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.

I in no way meant to imply that Yamada was righteous, in fact he comes off
quite badly in the letters, at least to my mind. If anything, Kapleau sounds
more like a decent and reasonable person.
>
>
> > 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.

That is true, Jews do not need to exist in a country to have antisemitism.
>
> 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.

But it seems to me what they really were afraid of is the the Western
liberal values, not Jews. They hung that whole basket on Jews as the
Protocals directed. I think it is common to embody abstract ideas to make
them more real for people. I think we may agree more than it seems.

 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!

The Jewish idea of a chosen people was also looked at as a threat. There can
only be one chosen people.
It is not surprising to me that Japan is filled with antisemitic literature
given their right wing party/nationalistic stance. The antisemiticism gets
continued by this present generation for pretty much the reasons that the
last generation propagated the idea.

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, in no way was I trying to make excuses for Yasutani by contextualizing
his words. I was trying to place it in a time and place and maybe see that
it did not mean the same thing as it did in Germany or Europe or other
places  for all too long.

Years ago I heard Master Hua (at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas) make a
disparaging remark about Jews and money in reference to a monk he had who
was clearly a little less than balanced. I replied to Hua that the west had
a long history of this kind of talk that caused terrible suffering for
almost 2,000 years, that it recently led to unspeakable horror and suffering
during WWII, and that now his words were spreading these ideas to his Asian
followers who take his word unquestionably. Hua replied that he only speaks
the truth and if people cannot take it that is there problem! So much for
dialogue and enlightened mind.

Stuart
>
> Dan Lusthaus
>
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