Tracking Bodhidharma by Andy Ferguson

that “the highest and only true Dharma in the world exists within the emperor.”
    Even before Victoria’s first book unleashed a wave of controversy and self-examination in both Western and Japanese Zen circles, I had long wondered about the appearance of martial training and even combat as part of the Zen tradition. This association is clearly seen at Shaolin Temple, the purported home of Chinese Zen, which is also the home of the Chinese martial arts. Shaolin Temple and its promoters also claim that Chinese kong fu (martial arts) came from Bodhidharma himself, who taught such martial skills to monks between periods of meditation.
    In a similar fashion, Japanese Zen is widely associated with the famous feudal samurai, swordsmen who often steeled themselves for battle with Zen meditation. The samurai’s counterparts in the Japanese imperial army employed rhetorical Zen-like ideas like the “emptiness
of self and other” to rationalize killing. The idea of “Bushido,” which means “Way of the Warrior,” was infused with “Zen.”
    The biggest incongruence of Zen’s being caught up with militarism is apparent when one considers the religion’s much-vaunted Bodhisattva Path. That path is constantly emphasized by teachers at Zen temples and Zen centers, as well as by teachers in the Tibetan and other Mahayana Buddhist traditions. The ideal can be likened to a personal orientation to do good. People who vow to follow the Bodhisattva Path orient their lives and goals to fulfill the Bodhisattva ideal of helping all beings, an ideal expressed in a special vow taken by all aspiring bodhisattvas, The Bodhisattva Vow, recited at all Zen temples and centers in the world, goes like this in its basic translation into English:
    Though the many beings are numberless, I vow to save them,
Though delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them,
Though the Dharma Gates are numberless, I vow to enter them,
Though Buddha’s Way is unattainable, I vow to embody it fully.
    Without seriously questioning it, for decades I considered the Bodhisattva Vow to be a highly commendable, if not ultimate, orientation for good. It certainly conveys a grand and laudable commitment. I deeply appreciated that Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of San Francisco Zen Center, brought this vision to America’s shores from Japan and set up a community motivated by such a noble sentiment. A passage in one of Shunryu Suzuki’s lectures encapsulates the absolute devotion and confidence that Mahayana Buddhists invest in the Bodhisattva Path: “Even if the sun were to rise in the West, the bodhisattva has only one way.”
    It was only after reading Brian Victoria’s book that my views on the Bodhisattva Path developed some foundational cracks. Victoria’s research convincingly demonstrates that Japanese Zen, during the war period, saw no contradiction between its Bodhisattva Path and the path of war. My previous assumption, which was that “honest Buddhists” in Japan must have opposed the war effort there, was based on entirely erroneous assumptions. By and large, Japanese Buddhists, including Zen Buddhists, saw the war effort as an attempt to spread “true Buddhism” to the rest of East Asia and the world. The idea that that Japanese Buddhists were forced to decide between maintaining Buddhist beliefs or
supporting the war effort is a false dichotomy. The war effort in Japan was, to most Buddhists there, an attempt to give “true” Buddhism to people in other benighted countries that didn’t grasp Japan’s true Buddhist doctrines. Victoria’s research shows that the Japanese Buddhist teachers who transmitted Zen to U.S. audiences, despite claims to the contrary, did indeed support Japan’s war effort. Many of those Zen teachers were enthusiastic supporters of Japanese nationalist sentiment and militarism.
    For these and other reasons, I had to face the fact