During World War II, the Zen monk Soen Nakagawa was living at the Ryutaku Monastery on the rural hill of Mishima, near Mount Fuji, Japan. He wrote this subtly antiwar haiku:
News of a victorious battle
I just shuffle along in the mud
at this spring temple.
After US forces captured a few Pacific islands in hellish battles, their bombers started to devastate Japanese cities. Monk Soen replaced one word of the poem, senka, with another word which sounds the same but is spelled differently:
News of a disastrous battle
I just shuffle along in the mud
at this spring temple.
Months after Japan’s surrender in August, 1945, he wrote:
City of ashes
Fuji soars serene
New Year’s first light.
Surprisingly enough, during the 1946 rohatsu sesshin (the December meditation intensive commemorating the Buddha’s enlightenment), an American was already participating at the monastery. Soen wrote:
Middle day of rohatsu
sitting with u
a G.I.
In 1951, after the retirement of his eighty-six-year-old teacher Gempo Yamamoto, who had been nearly blind since his youth, but was highly regarded for his profound insight, monk Soen assumed abbotship of Ryutaku-ji. It is a small but important monastery, founded by the eighteenth-century master Hakuin who revitalized the Rinzai School of Zen, and who created the koan, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Some Westerners were attracted to this training center, where the abbot spoke English.
In the same year, Soen Roshi went to Yokohama to see off Robert Aitken, who would later become one of the first roshis (Zen masters) in the Western world. At that time Bob was going back to the United States after a half year’s stay in the monks’ hall. Soen wrote:
One hand
waving endlessly
autumn ocean.
Although I did not have the opportunity to meet this legendary Zen master, I adored his poems. This led me to collaborate with his dharma descendant, Roko Sherry Chayat, the teacher at the Zen Center of Syracuse, in compiling a book on the Zen path of Soen Nakagawa titled Endless Vow. (As Shinge Roshi, she is now abbot of the Zen Center and the Dai Bosatsu Zendo in upstate New York.) During our work in 1995, I learned a story about how Soen’s teacher, Gempo Roshi, had contributed significantly to ending the war. I remembered vaguely having read about it in a Japanese magazine a long time before.
It felt like a coincidence that I was reminded, exactly half a century later, of Gempo Roshi’s influence on the fate of the nation, as well as of the world. I had always been troubled by how little Japanese Buddhists had done to oppose imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, militarism, and war, while Japan was brutally expanding its empire in Asia and the Pacific. So it was important for me to know that someone had done something.
In 1945, Japan was in an impossible situation, which was clear even to an eleven-year-old boy like myself. On the one hand, we had been made to believe, by a massive brainwashing education, that Japan was a divine nation; that it had never lost and would never lose in war. On the other hand, despite all the radio propaganda from military headquarters, there was no question that Japan kept losing important battles on land and sea. US bombers were cruising unchallenged at high altitudes, burning city after city.
Even in primary school, kids were all taught that surrender was utterly disgraceful and should never be considered a choice. Since there was no hope for Japan to win the war, and surrender was out of the question, the fate for us civilians was either to be killed by the enemy or to kill ourselves by jumping off a cliff or drowning ourselves. The government was propagating the poetic but horrifying message ichioku gyokusai, which meant “one hundred million people crushed like jewels.” The entire nation was taking a fanatic dive toward collective suicide.
Merely mentioning to friends or family members the potential of the nation’s surrender was regarded as an act of treason. In this state of terror, the Zen monk Gempo was one of the few people who had the wisdom to see the reality of the nation’s situation and the courage to risk his life by speaking truthfully.
Several people speak of the incident in a book called Kaiso: Yamamoto Gempo (Memories of Gempo Yamamoto), edited by Benkichi Tamaoki. In April 1945, General Kantaro Suzuki was offered the prime ministership to replace General Hideki Tojo, who had started, conducted, and ultimately lost the war as prime minister. At a secret meeting in Tokyo with Gempo Roshi, General Suzuki asked for his advice.
Without hesitation, Roshi encouraged Suzuki to assume the office and lead Japan to surrender as soon as possible. A week later Suzuki became the prime minister.
Early on the morning of August 12, a messenger from Suzuki informed Roshi of Japan’s decision to surrender unconditionally. Roshi wrote back: “Your true service is starting now. You must endure the unendurable, bearing the unbearable.”
At noon on August 15, Emperor Hirohito made his very first radio broadcast and read his edict, ordering an immediate ceasefire. The most quoted line from this historic announcement remains the paradoxical Zen phrase: “We shall seek peace for myriad generations, enduring the unendurable, bearing the unbearable.”
Wataru Narahashi, formerly a key member of the Constitution Drafting Committee, also testifies about his experience in 1945 in this book. Seeing Narahashi arrive and enter the room at the hot-springs inn to meet him, Gempo said, “Does your visit concern the status of the emperor?” Narashashi was shocked, as this was precisely the secret issue he had been sent to discuss. He said, “You are right, Roshi. We need your advice.”
The drafting committee for Japan’s new constitution had become polarized and was unable to reach agreement on whether imperial rule should be continued or eliminated. Some political leaders believed that elimination of imperial rule would upset millions of people and be a cause of nationwide riots. People had been conditioned to dedicate their lives to the emperor. Others, including those who were occupying Japan, did not want continuation of the imperial system that had led Japan to conquer most of Asia. The drafting committee was under great time pressure, as the Soviet Union was demanding that Japan be divided and the northern island of Hokkaido be occupied by the Soviets. They needed to propose a draft quickly before the Soviets threatened to move forces into Hokkaido.
Responding to Narahashi’s inquiry, Gempo said nonchalantly, “If the emperor maintains political power, it is bound to be misused. Instead, the emperor should be a symbol, shining high in the sky—like the sun.” Narahashi thought it was a brilliant idea and brought it to his colleagues and the US liaison officers in the occupation forces. Everyone supported this idea, which became one of the central concepts of the new constitution: “The emperor is the symbol of the nation of Japan.”
Like millions of other people in Japan, I had been familiar with this opening line of Article One of the constitution. But like most others, I had failed to see in this line a monk’s lifelong meditation. He just kept deepening his insight for no particular purposes, but when required, he could give guidance that helped shape the society.