Zen War Stories

by Brian Daizen Victoria

Following the critically acclaimed Zen at War (1997), Brian Victoria explores the intimate relationship between Japanese institutional Buddhism and militarism during the Second World War.
Victoria reveals for the first time, through examination of the wartime writings of the Japanese military itself, that the Zen school's view of life and death was deliberately incorporated into the military's programme of 'spiritual education' in order to develop a fanatical military spirit in both soldiers and civilians. Furthermore, that D. T. Suzuki, the most famous exponent of Zen in the West, is shown to have been a wartime proponent of this Zen-inspired viewpoint which enabled Japanese soldiers to leave for the battlefield already resigned to death. Victoria takes us onto the naval battlefield in the company of warrior-monk and Rinzai Zen Master Nakajima Genjô. We view the war in China through the eyes of a Buddhist military chaplain. The book also examines the relationship to Buddhism of Japan's seven Class-A war criminals who were hung by the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1948.
A highly controversial study, this book will be of interest, first and foremost, to students of Zen as well as all those studying the history of this period, not to mention anyone concerned with the perennial question of the 'proper' relationship between religion and the state.

Genres: History, Japan, Religion, Buddhism, Zen, War

288 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2003

About the author

Brian Daizen A. Victoria is a Zen-priest, living with his family in New Zealand.
He's lecturing on Asian Literature and Language at the University of Auckland.
He is very active in the Human Rights Movement and author of many books about Buddhism.

Reviews

[Kakanier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Großartiges Buch. Sollte man als Zen-Buddhist auf jeden Fall lesen. Großartige Einführung in die Geisteswelt der japanischen Rechten zurzeit des ersten und zweiten Weltkrieges. Ich frage mich, wie das andere Buch hieß, das sich mit der Entwicklung der offiziellen rassistischen Politik befasst. Ist ein guter Zusatz hierzu.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Looks at all the fascist leanings and fascists in the zen Buddhist community in Japan.
Spoiler alert...there were a lot.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 3 out of 5]

As long as the readers won't read it as a serious research monograph, this is a fantastic book. Maybe it should belong to good journalism. At least, it is equivalent to Iris Chang's book on Nanjing Massacre. The world need to know what Japanese Buddhists are capable of, not to despise them, but to reflect upon our humanities and see whether we can do better than that.