American Monk And Zen Wartime Responsibility

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]KIPPO news has a short feature on Thomas Kirchner, who is a monk at Rinsenji Temple in Kyoto. Towards the end of the profile is this: "At the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya, he engaged in work to publish books. During that time, he thought of death because of depression from frustration, a serious disease and excommunication". This doesn't seem like the standard way of concluding such a piece.


[floatr][/floatr]There are a a few references to Kirchner on the net. One interesting point is that it appears he translated the apology issued by the Myoshin-ji sect for its wartime complicity. A number of sects offered apologies following the publication of "Zen at War" by Brian Victoria in 1997. A review of Victoria's next book, "Zen War Stories", gives an account of how Buddhist leaders came under pressure to admit the extent of their involvement. Kirchner himself believes that Victoria overstates his case and underestimates the pressure all religious leaders were under to conform.

[Socratesabroad]

Towards the end of the profile is this: "At the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya, he engaged in work to publish books. During that time, he thought of death because of depression from frustration, a serious disease and excommunication". This doesn't seem like the standard way of concluding such a piece.

From a 2005 interview:

Q: You must have faced many challenges in your life.

A: I was very idealistic in my twenties, but when I entered my thirties I calmed down a bit and found myself standing at a crossroads, wondering whether Zen practice was all there was to life. I left the monastery and became interested in Eastern medicine, which has connections with Buddhism. I entered acupuncture school and became a licensed therapist after three years of study. I'm not too confident with the acupuncture needles, but when it comes to shiatsu I can hold my own against anyone (laughter)! After finishing the medical course I studied for a master's degree in Buddhist Studies at Otani University, then worked as a copy editor at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya. In the late 1990s a health breakdown caused me to reevaluate my life, and I realized that Zen had been the most meaningful thing I had ever done. I decided to return to the temple world, and came to Kyoto.

From a brief look on the web, I came away with
1) guys like Kirchner help get beyond Zen's familiar trappings

Among the many sects of Buddhism, Zen Buddhism has attracted special attention in relation to Japanese spiritual culture, and has been very popular in Europe and the United States. However, few Zen Buddhism sects have their own websites written in English, and "those websites have just introduced temple buildings and gardens," according to the council.
The English version of the council's website was created by Thomas Kirchner, a monk from the Tenryu-ji Branch of the Rinzai school. Kirchner, who is very knowledgeable about Zen, has worked as a researcher for the International Research Institute for Zen Buddhism, Hanazono University, and published an English translation of a collection of koan, Zen riddles.

1) their penetrating examination continues into Zen's nooks and crannies, which were otherwise glossed over by Suzuki and his ilk (and yes, I actually recognized Suzuki from study of Zen and samurai in classical J Hist)

But the leaders of Myoshin-ji―]
Both of Mr. Victoria's books peel back layers of the career of D. T. Suzuki, who taught at Columbia University in the 1950's and remains the best-known Japanese advocate of Zen in the West.