Part 5 (1/2)
The aristocratic priest Dogen (1200-1253), who also left the Tendai monastery for China and returned to establish the meditative, gradual school of Soto Zen, is generally considered the second founder of j.a.panese Zen. Although he grudgingly
acknowledged the usefulness of _koan _as an aid to instruction, Dogen considered _zazen _meditation the time-proven method of the Buddha for acTheving enlightenment. For scriptural support, he preferred to go back to the earlier Hinayana sutras for their more authentic accounts of the words of the Buddha, rather than to rely on Mahayana sources, which had been corrupted over the centuries by an elaborate metaphysics and polytheism. Dogen had not originally planned to start a school of Zen but merely to popularize _zazen_, to which end he wrote a small treatise, General Teachings for the Promotion of Zazen, which has become a cla.s.sic. This was followed a few years later by a larger, more generalized work which was to become the bible of j.a.panese Soto Zen, _Shobogenzo_, or _Treasury of Knowledge Regarding the True Dharma_. In this work he tried to stress the importance of _zazen _while at the same time acknowledging the usefulness of instruction and _koan_ where required.
There are two ways in which to set body and mind right: one is to hear the teaching from a master, and the other is to do pure _zazen_ yourself. If you _hear_ the teachings the conscious mind is put to work, whilst _zazen_ embraces both training and enlightenment; in order to understand the Truth, you need both.10
Unlike the conciliatory Eisai, Dogen was uncompromising in his rejection of the traditional schools of Buddhism, which he felt had strayed too far from the original teachings of Gautama. He was right, of course; the chanting, savior-oriented popular Buddhists in j.a.pan were, as Edwin Reischauer has noted, practicing a religion far closer to European Christianity of the same period than to the faith started by the Buddha--an atheistic self-reliance aimed at finding release from all worldly attachments. Dogen's truths did not rest well with the Buddhist establishment of his time, however, and for years he moved from temple to temple. Finally, in 1236, he managed to start a temple of his own, and gradually he became one of the most revered religious teachers in j.a.panese history. As his reputation grew, the military leaders invited him to visit them and teach, but he would have no part of their life. Possibly as a result of Dogen's att.i.tude, Soto Zen never became a.s.sociated with the warrior cla.s.s, but remained the Zen of the common people. Today Soto (with approximately six and a half million followers) is the more popular version of Zen, whereas Rinzai (with something over two million followers) is the Zen of those interested in theological daring and intellectual challenge.
Historically a religion at odds with the establishment--from Bodhidharma to the eccentric T'ang masters--Zen in j.a.pan found itself suddenly the religion of the ruling cla.s.s. The result was a Zen impact in j.a.pan far greater than any influence Ch'an ever realized in China.
CHAPTER FIVE
Zen Archery and Swordsmans.h.i.+p
_ (THE KAMAKURA ERA--1185-1333)
The anti-scholasticism, the mental discipline--still more the strict physical discipline of the adherents of Zen, which kept their lives very close to nature--all appealed to the warrior caste. . . . Zen contributed much to the development of a toughness of inner fiber and a strength of character which typified the warrior of feudal j.a.pan. . . .
Edwin Reischauer, _j.a.pan: Past and Present
THE BEGINNINGS of the Zen era are about the middle of the twelfth century, when the centuries-long Heian miracle of peace came to an end. The j.a.panese aristocracy had ruled the land for hundreds of years practically without drawing a sword, using diplomatic suasion so skillful that Heian was probably the only capital city in the medieval world entirely without fortifications. This had been possible partly because of the ruling cla.s.s's willingness to let taxable lands slip from their control--into the hands of powerful provincial leaders and rich monasteries--rather than start a quarrel. For occasions when force was required, they delegated the responsibility to two powerful military clans, the Taira and the Minamoto, who roamed the land to collect taxes, quell uprisings, and not incidentally to forge allegiances with provincial chieftains. The Taira were in charge of the western and central provinces around Kyoto, while the Minamoto dominated the frontier eastern provinces, in the region one day to hold the warrior capital of Kamakura. The astounding longevity of their rule was a tribute to the aristocrats' skill in playing off these two powerful families against each other, but by the middle of the twelfth century they found themselves at the mercy of their bellicose agents, awakening one day to discover ruffians in the streets of Kyoto as brigands and armed monks invaded the city to burn and pillage.
The real downfall of the _ancien regime_ began in the year 1156, when a dispute arose between the reigning emperor and a retired sovereign simultaneously with a disagreement among the aristocracy regarding patronage. Both sides turned to the warriors for support--a formula that proved to be extremely unwise. The result was a feud between the Taira and Minamoto, culminating in a civil war (the Gempei War) that lasted five years, produced bloodshed on a scale previously unknown in j.a.pan, and ended in victory for the Minamoto. A chieftain named Minamoto Yoritomo emerged as head of a unified state and leader of a government whose power to command was beyond question. Since Yoritomo's position had no precedent, he invented for himself the t.i.tle of shogun. He also moved the government from Kyoto to his military headquarters at Kamakura and proceeded to lay the groundwork for what would be almost seven hundred years of unbroken warrior rule.
The form of government Yoritomo inst.i.tuted is generally, if somewhat inaccurately, described as feudalism. The provincial warrior families managed estates worked by peasants whose role was similar to that of the European serfs of the same period. The estate-owning barons were mounted warriors, new figures in j.a.panese history, who protected their lands and their family honor much as did the European knights. But instead of glorifying chivalry and maidenly honor, they respected the rules of battle and n.o.ble death. Among the fiercest fighters the world has seen, they were masters of personal combat, horsemans.h.i.+p, archery, and the way of the sword. Their principles were fearlessness, loyalty, honor, personal integrity, and contempt for material wealth. They became known as _samurai_, and they were the men whose swords were ruled by Zen.
Battle for the _samurai_ was a ritual of personal and family honor.
When two opposing sides confronted one another in the field, the mounted _samurai_ would first discharge the twenty to thirty arrows at their disposal and then call out their family names in hopes of eliciting foes of similarly distinguished lineage. Two warriors would then charge one another brandis.h.i.+ng their long swords until one was dismounted, whereupon hand-to-hand combat with short knives commenced.
The loser's head was taken as a trophy, since headgear proclaimed family and rank. To die a n.o.ble death in battle at the hands of a worthy foe brought no dishonor to one's family, and cowardice in the face of death seems to have been as rare as it was humiliating.
Frugality among these Zen-inspired warriors was as much admired as the soft living of aristocrats and merchants was scorned; and life itself was cheap, with warriors ever ready to commit ritual suicide (called _seppuku _or _harakiri_) to preserve their honor or to register social protest.
Yoritomo was at the height of his power when he was killed accidentally in a riding mishap. Having murdered all the competent members of his family, lest they prove rivals, he left no line except two ineffectual sons, neither of whom was worthy to govern. The power vacuum was filled by his in-laws of the Hojo clan, who very shortly eliminated all the remaining members of the Minamoto ruling family and a.s.sumed power. Not wis.h.i.+ng to appear outright usurpers of the office of shogun, they invented a position known as regent, through which they manipulated a hand-picked shogun, who in turn manipulated a powerless emperor. It was an example of indirect rule at its most ingenious.
Having skillfully removed the Minamoto family from ruling circles, the Hojo Regency governed j.a.pan for over a hundred years, during which time Zen became the most influential religion in the land. It was also during this time that Zen played an important role in saving j.a.pan from what was possibly the greatest threat to its survival up to that time: the invasion attempts of Kublai Khan. In 1268 the Great Khan, whose Mongol armies were in the process of sacking China, sent envoys to j.a.pan recommending tribute. The Kyoto court was terrified, but not the Kamakura warriors, who sent the Mongols back empty-handed. The sequence was repeated four years later, although this time the j.a.panese knew it would mean war. As expected, in 1274 an invasion fleet of Mongols sailed from Korea, but after inconclusive fighting on a southern beachhead of Kyushu, a timely storm blew the invaders out to sea and inflicted enough losses to derail the project. The j.a.panese had, however, learned a sobering lesson about their military preparedness.
In the century of internal peace between the Gempei War and the Mongol landing, j.a.panese fighting men had let their skills atrophy. Not only were their formalized ideas about honorable hand-to-hand combat totally inappropriate to the tight formations and powerful crossbows of the Asian armies (a _samurai_ would ride out, announce his lineage, and immediately be cut down by a volley of Mongol arrows), the j.a.panese warriors had lost much of their moral fiber. To correct both these faults the Zen monks who served as advisers to the Hojo insisted that military training, particularly archery and swordsmans.h.i.+p, be formalized, using the techniques of Zen discipline. A system of training was hastily begun in which the _samurai_ were conditioned psychologically as well as physically for battle. It proved so successful that it became a permanent part of j.a.panese martial tactics.
The Zen training was urgent, for all of j.a.pan knew that the Mongols would be back in strength. One of the Mongols' major weapons had been the fear they inspired in those they approached, but fear of death is the last concern of a _samurai _whose mind has been disciplined by Zen exercises. Thus the Mongols were robbed of their most potent offensive weapon, a point driven home when a group of Mongol envoys appearing after the first invasion to proffer terms were summarily beheaded.
Along with the Zen military training, the j.a.panese placed the entire country on a wartime footing, with every able-bodied man engaged in constructing sh.o.r.eline fortifications. As expected, in the early summer of 1281 the Khan launched an invasion force thought to have numbered well over 100,000 men, using vessels constructed by Korean labor. When they began landing in southern Kyushu, the _samurai_ were there and ready, delighted at the prospect of putting to use on a common adversary the military skills they had evolved over the decades through slaughtering one another. They hara.s.sed the Mongol fleet from small vessels, while on sh.o.r.e they faced the invaders man for man, never allowing their line to break. For seven weeks they stood firm, and then it was August, the typhoon month. One evening, the skies darkened ominously in the south and the winds began to rise, but before the fleet could withdraw the typhoon struck.
In two days the armada of Kublai Khan was obliterated, leaving hapless onsh.o.r.e advance parties to be cut to ribbons by the _samurai_. Thus did the Zen warriors defeat one of the largest naval expeditions in world history, and in commemoration the grateful emperor named the typhoon the Divine Wind, Kamikaze.