buddhismBut it was from the third and fourth books that I profited most.
The Rape of Nanking—Iris Chang.
Horror.
Zen at War—Brian Victoria.
Religion.
Denial.
In The Rape of Nanking historian Iris Chang employs intellect, inquiry, reason, "discriminative thinking," the faculty of mind which according to the master is "good only for building bridges" and which is anathema to Zen Buddhists in general, to identify, document, and classify the monstrous varieties of torture and murder perpetrated in Nanking by the Japanese army in the year immediately preceding WW II—live burial, mutilation, death by fire, death by ice, death by dog.
Chang:
Chang:
Much worse.
Chang argues that for Asians the Second World War began not in 1939 but in 1931 when Japan occupied Manchuria as the first step toward military domination of East Asia. Its method was a ruthless and sophisticated "military machine" in the service of a "master race mentality."
Did Zen Buddhists in general oppose and resist it?
No.
To the contrary most supported and defended it.
Indeed—
Encouraged it.
The Rape of Nanking—Iris Chang.
Horror.
Zen at War—Brian Victoria.
Religion.
Denial.
In The Rape of Nanking historian Iris Chang employs intellect, inquiry, reason, "discriminative thinking," the faculty of mind which according to the master is "good only for building bridges" and which is anathema to Zen Buddhists in general, to identify, document, and classify the monstrous varieties of torture and murder perpetrated in Nanking by the Japanese army in the year immediately preceding WW II—live burial, mutilation, death by fire, death by ice, death by dog.
Chang:
The Japanese not only disemboweled, decapitated, and dismembered victims but performed more excruciating varieties of torture. Throughout the city they nailed prisoners to wooden boards and ran over them with tanks, crucified them to trees and electrical posts, carved long strips of flesh from them, and used them for bayonet practice. At least one hundred men reportedly had their eyes gouged out and their noses and ears hacked off before being set on fire. Another group of two hundred Chinese soldiers and civilians were stripped naked, tied to columns and doors of a school, and then stabbed by zhuizi—special needles with handles on them—in hundreds of points along their bodies, including their mouths, throats, and eyes.At Nanking, in "the forgotten holocaust of the second world war," at least 260,000 and perhaps as many as 350,000 Chinese noncombatants were murdered, thousands only after first suffering unimaginable horror.
Chang:
[A] pregnant woman began to fight for her life, clawing desperately at a soldier who tried to drag her away from the group to rape her. Nobody helped her, and in the end the soldier killed her, ripping open her belly with his bayonet and jerking out not only her intestines but a squirming fetus.Chang documents worse—
Much worse.
Chang argues that for Asians the Second World War began not in 1939 but in 1931 when Japan occupied Manchuria as the first step toward military domination of East Asia. Its method was a ruthless and sophisticated "military machine" in the service of a "master race mentality."
Did Zen Buddhists in general oppose and resist it?
No.
To the contrary most supported and defended it.
Indeed—
Encouraged it.
