This is from Zizek's 2007 book "Violence", a major theme of which is evaluating the different forms of systemic violence that are inherent to different societal models, such as the modern global capitalist model or a Marxist model. Generally I find Zizek to be a rational and credible if radical guy, but there is a brief passage on Buddhism that left me feeling like I was missing something:
"...the Buddhist ethics of solidarity with every living being, falls into this picture. After all, what Buddhism offers as a solution is a universalised indifference -- a learning of how to withdraw from too much empathy. This is why Buddhism can so easily turn into the very opposite of universal compassion: the advocacy of a ruthless military attitude, which is what the fate of Zen Buddhism aptly demonstrates."
I have no doubts that a logical train of thought led to this argument, but it is still quite an audacious thing to say that the history of Buddhism "aptly demonstrates" that it can "so easily" turn into "the advocacy of a ruthless military attitude." To be clear, I do not think that Buddhism is an inherently peaceful ideology, but I also don't think it is clearly more militaristic than anything else, which is what Zizek is arguing here clearly and simply. My question is, what historical events is he referring to when he talks about Buddhism encouraging violence? And not just scenarios where a militaristic attitude emerged in a generally Buddhist region, but specifically scenarios where Buddhism directly led to and encouraged the militarism. He is making a pretty sweeping statement, that the Buddhist value of solidarity with the universe has empirically been a direct cause of violence. Where is that true?
EDIT: I didn't mean to add the "Diplomacy" flair and I can't seem to make it go away.
Ah, Zizek. I actually like him and what he has to say (to say nothing of needing to clean my ears out after he finishes speaking) about culture and capitalism, but whenever he suddenly stops and mentions Buddhism (or dedicates an entire podcast episode or paper to it...) I get ready to cringe. In truth, one of the main reasons I turned to history rather than philosophy is because I noticed a tendency of philosophers to start speaking out of their ass when speaking historically. No offense to the students of philosophy. And again, I actually like Zizek and agree with a lot of what he has to say.
tl;dr is that Zizek tends to treat Buddhism as a single, monolithic historical phenomenon. When in reality, Buddhism is an incredibly diverse tradition. It features the celibate monks who don't touch womem in Thailand, wandering mountain ascetics in Korea, married householders who pass their temples to their children or nephews in Bhutan, half-monk yogis called "Bandhe" in Tibet, and Zen Priests who've picked up rifles and gone to war in the name of the Emperor in Japan.
Zizek isn't wrong is what I'm saying here. But he tends to take something like "Zen Priests developed a justification for warfare and murder during World War II" and then applies it to all of Buddhism.
I want to be clear that I'm not applying a no-true-Scotsman fallacy here. I'm not saying World War II-era Japanese Zen aren't "True Buddhists" but that what exists in the tradition of that era is not in the Buddhist traditions of other places in other eras.
What exactly is he referring to in the terms of Zen? I'll quote myself from a thread asking about wars based on Buddhist beliefs:
At around that time, the Japanese Sanghas initiated a hostile takeover of the Korean Sangha(s).[5] And in a few short decades, the Japanese would launch a campaign to dominate Asia. There are Buddhist origins of this, with Japanese Buddhists seeing a hierarchical structure of Asia with Japanese Buddhists at the top, Korean and Chinese Buddhists below, the average Chinese and Korean below that, and finally, all other Asians (esp. Christians) at the bottom. This was not only desirable, it was the alleged path of civilization.[6]
In World War II, Zen Buddhism was key to wartime propaganda. It's difficult to summarize decades of propaganda and twisted logic, but they tried such unique justifications of warfare as
- Emphasizing how the conquest of other countries and conversion of them to Buddhism would ensure that the victims of war (i.e. the people just murdered) would be reborn in Buddhist countries and have opportunities at enlightenment and liberation.
- The extreme dissociation of the self from the body. Zen Priests at the time often emphasized the lack of agency of an individual [7]. Paraphrasing: if you cut someone with your sword, you are not cutting them, it is merely the will of the universe acting through your matter. No blame.
Brian D. Victoria, himself a Soto Zen Priest, writes about what he calls "wego" or what we might otherwise refer to as "group identity." Buddhists, who have at their core belief the elimination of the ego and the independent self, are still just as susceptible at losing that individual self to a group self. Replacing their ego with (Victoria's) "wego." The natural downside to this is losing (or more accurately, giving up their agency) to whomever leads that group - Lama, guru, Khaan, Emperor, general, etc. And specifically in reference to World War II Japan, that Japanese Fascism embraced this.[8]
Zizek, in his Podcast episode/lecture, "The Buddhist Ethic and the Spirit of Global Capitalism (2012)" bases a whole podcast around this idea that Buddhism is often used as a cultural import into the corporate and financial world. Why? To remove oneself from a moral code, and treat all life as something incendental to existence. Essentially: to remove one's moral compass in the name of spiritual "centered-ness."
Neither here nor there, but while he's definitely right, that Western Buddhism has seen an explosion of followers who would better be seen as extras in The Wolf of Wall-Street rather than as weekenders at a monastic retreat. And if you ask me, those kinds of people (as well as Zen Priests falling victim to their "wego") in Buddhist terms fall into "the extreme of Nihilism." Buddhist philosophy, especially the Madhyamaka, refer repeatedly to the extremes of Nihilism and Eternalism which are to be avoided. To distill it to the point of likely inaccuracy (my apologies to any Lamas, Panchens, or Gelongs that might be reading this, lol) Nihilism in Buddhist terms refers to the belief that the self doesn't exist in any capacity, even at the level of conventional existence. While Eternalism is the belief that the self always exists (a reference quite literally to Vedic religion which bases its understanding of the soul/self). To say that poor people or Australians don't really exist any way would be to fall into that extreme.
I only point that out because while, yes Zizek is right about Buddhism having a tendency to fall into the idea that Buddhism can have this form of extremism, it is defined as extremism within Buddhism itself. It differs from other religious extremisms, I suppose, in that it is not theologically defined by the expansion and defense of the religion and its civilization itself, but rather by the philosophical route it took to get there.
And he seems to ignore that this is an extreme view within Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism, where Madhyamaka Buddhism finds its adherents, holds the Bodhisattva up as the spiritual ideal, as opposed to the Theravadin Arhat. The difference between a Bodhisattva and an Arhat is that an Arhat maintains individual liberation for his own sake (a criticism that the Mahayana have of the Arhats beings that they hold onto their ego ignoring it for the sake of liberation). The Bodhisattva, meanwhile, practices an intense level of compassion, refusing to obtain complete liberation until all other beings have been enlightened.
The difference between the Buddhist ideal (Boddhisattva) and its violent perversions (say a kamikaze pilot) is no different from the Christian ideal (Saint) and its violent perversions (a Crusader). Both have their roots in historical sources, the Abhidharma of Buddhist philosophy in the former, the Bible in the latter, and both can at times be conflated. Plenty of Christian Saints were Pagan Kings who converted and then suppressed their motherfaith with ruthlessness. The Fifth Dalai Lama, to name one example, is a historic figure who is considered a Bodhisattva (at a certain level) and is known to have conducted wars (well, wars were conducted in his name). Master Seosan, sticking to Seon (Korean for "Zen"), recruited an army of warrior monks when King Seonjo asked during the Imjin War (1592-1598). Apparently without a lot of hesitation, either. In the lead up to World War II, when Japan was expanding across Asia and the Pacific, Japanese Buddhists saw the Japanese expansion (and the expansion of Buddhism) in terms of expanding civilization. As far as I can tell, the Japanese Buddhist Priests at the time weren't counting on military expansion, but it's hard to see how to have colonialism without some level of military force. And of course, it resulted in World War II.
Basically, Zizek is coming to an incredibly diverse tradition from an etic perspective and criticizing it from a single point of view, i.e. that there are some extremists. Without recognizing that not only is this a single perspective on that religious group, but that it is defined as an extremist view from within the tradition itself. Not as a No-True-Scotsman-style "extremists aren't real Buddhists" but by philosophical definition, they are falling into what Madhyamaka philosophers call "the extreme of Nihilism," and Buddhist philosophy repeatedly defines itself as "the Middle Way," that is the middle way between Nihilism and Extremism.
Sources:
Andrew Skilton, A Concise History of Buddhism
Hwansoo Ilmee Kim, Empire of the Dharma
Samuel Hawley, The Imjin War
ed. Michael Jerryson and Mark Juerguensmeyer, Buddhist Warfare
Karma Phuntsho, The History of Bhutan
Brian D. Victoria, "A Buddhological Critique of 'Soldier Zen' in Wartime Japan"
Brian D. Victoria, Zen at War
Slavoj Zizek, "The Buddhist Ethic and the Spirit of Global Capitalism"
Buddhism has historically advocated a "ruthless military attitude?"
Certain Buddhists but not Buddhism itself. Killing leads to hell -- the destiny for warriors:
"When a professional warrior strives & exerts himself in battle, his mind is already seized, debased, & misdirected by the thought: 'May these beings be struck down or slaughtered or annihilated or destroyed. May they not exist.' If others then strike him down & slay while he is thus striving & exerting himself in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, he is reborn in the hell called the realm of those slain in battle. But if he holds such a view as this: 'When a professional warrior strives & exerts himself in battle, if others then strike him down & slay him while he is striving & exerting himself in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, he is reborn in the company of devas slain in battle,' that is his wrong view. Now, there are two destinations for a person with wrong view, I tell you: either hell or the animal womb." https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn42/sn42.003.than.html
One might even argue that Buddhism advocates extreme non-hostility, at least for its monastics:
"Monks, even if bandits were to carve you up savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, he among you who let his heart get angered even at that would not be doing my bidding. Even then you should train yourselves: 'Our minds will be unaffected and we will say no evil words. We will remain sympathetic, with a mind of good will, and with no inner hate. We will keep pervading these people with an awareness imbued with good will and, beginning with them, we will keep pervading the entire world with an awareness imbued with good will — abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.' That's how you should train yourselves." https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.021x.than.html
More quotes https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/nonviolence.html
u/JimeDorje