War and the Transcendence of Life and Death: The Theoretical Foundations of Buddhist Cooperation in the War Effort During the Colonial Period in Korea
Abstract
:1. Introduction1
“Buddhist ethics has certainly set before itself a transcendent ideal. Social, political and economic ethics have a subordinate place here. The supreme and final goal is individual redemption from sins and sorrows and sufferings”.
2. The Ideology of the ‘Imperial Way’ and Buddhism’s ‘Non-Duality of the Real and the Conventional’
2.1. The ‘Imperial Way’ and Buddhist Union
“Imperial-Way Buddhism utilizes the exquisite truth of the Lotus Sutra to reveal the majestic essence of the national polity. Exalting the true spirit of Mahayana Buddhism is a teaching which reverently supports the emperor’s work. […] That is to say, Imperial-Way Buddhism is the condensed expression of the divine unity of Sovereign and Buddha … put into contemporary language. For this reason, the principle [sic!] image of adoration in Imperial-Way Buddhism is not Buddha Shakyamuni who appeared in India, but his majesty, the emperor, whose lineage extends over ten thousand generations”.
“The Nichirenist movement in Japan before the outbreak of World War II aimed at the attainment of an ideal world by means of the practical realization of Japanese integration and world unification through a Buddhist theocracy based on the Lotus Sutra. It was a Buddhist religious movement which developed in accordance with a political orientation”.
“Palgoeng (八紘) means inclusion and ilu (一宇) means unification. The three worlds and sentient beings are inclusive of each other, and ‘I’ and ‘we’ are unified. […] Therefore, palgoeng ilu [=J. hakkō ichiu] is a totalitarian ideology that presupposes that we ourselves ‘abandon the self’ (K. mora 沒我) and ‘abandon self-interest’ (K. molli 沒利). The Tennō represents the Emperor’s duty, and as his subjects (K. sinmin 臣民) it is the duty of us, his subjects, to worship him, the Emperor. This is the compassion of the Buddha, and at the same time, it is the Buddha-mind (K. bulsim 佛心) of us Buddhists”.
“Shinran (親鸞) of the Jōdo Shinshū sect in Japan did not rely solely on chanting the Buddha’s name with his mouth, but recognized the value of faith, escaped the delusion of utility, and chanted the Buddha’s name in gratitude for the grace of Buddha Amitābha, that is, with a body that had already achieved rebirth only by being embraced by His great mercy. This means that the character of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism can be recognized in its pure and absolute ‘there is no self’ (J. muga 無我) and ‘there is nothing to acquire’ (J. mushotoku 無所得) faith in ‘other-power’ (J. tariki shinkō 他力信仰)”.
2.2. Religious Instrumentalization and the ‘Non-Duality of the Real and the Conventional’
“Since the emergence of Buddhism, Buddhism has been believed and utilized as Buddhism, so that the world of truth (眞) and the world of everyday life (俗) are not two, but universal principles (理) and concrete facts (事) are being fused, and throughout the world―East and West, from antiquity to the present day―the Empire of Japan is the only place in the world where everything is Buddhism, from small matters such as an individual’s daily life to large matters such as national politics, and where everything is the Dharma of the sages (聖賢法). For this reason, the Empire of Japan is a Buddhist Kingdom (K. bulgug 佛國)”.
“A Buddha statue whose body is smashed will appear in many different forms. This is what we mean when we say “what is called the body of a Buddha is actually not the body of a Buddha”. In the water it will become a torpedo, in the air it will become a bomb, and on land it will become a bullet”.
3. War and the ‘Transcendence of Life and Death’
“In battle there are no individuals, only nations, and in death there is no fear, only loyalty and devotion (K. chung ui 忠義). Accordingly, since there is no physical body and no self, both ‘life and death’ are empty (空). Only when the ‘true self’ (K. jina 眞我) appears does it merge with the Mind of the Buddha (佛心). This ‘true self’ can freely associate with all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the ‘Lotus Treasury World’ (K. hwajang segye 華藏世界). It is this ‘true self’ which comes to the Yasukuni Shrine (J. Yasukuni-jinja 靖國神社) and protects the nation. There can be no doubt about this fact”.
“A person’s ‘birth and death’ (K. saengsa 生死) is like a piece of a cloud. Clouds just gather and disperse without a fixed location, and the essence of human birth and death is the same. If one realizes that birth and death are essentially empty, one will literally transcend ‘birth and death’”.
“The claim has just been made that śūnyatā represents an absolutely transcendent field, and, at the same time, a field that is not situated on the far side of where we find ourselves, but on our near side, more so than we are with respect to ourselves; and further, that its disclosure represents a conversion properly described as absolute death-sive-life”.
“He goes on from there to oppose his notion of Critical Buddhism to “Topical Buddhism”, a term coined to refer to an esthetic mysticism unconcerned with critical differentiation between truth and falsity and not in need of rational demonstration, a kind of thinking that he feels actually dominates the Buddhist tradition”.
4. Buddhist Totalitarianism and the Extinction of the Individual
“Totality (K. jeoncheseong 全體性) is not an accumulation of multiple segments (K. bubun 部分), but rather segments becoming a part of the whole. Totality needs the categories of segment and unification to express its essence, and the part needs the category of completeness to ‘express’ the content of the totality. Thus, the whole is ‘expressed’ in the parts, and the whole can maintain its essence by including the parts in integration”.
“Buddhism, complete and one, can neither be human-centered nor can it be a one-dimensional theory. It must always be Buddha-centered. Humanity must engage in the Bodhisattva practices of self-sacrifice in this world. This is the starting point of Mahayana Buddhist doctrine. The ‘absolute revelation theory’ (K. jeoldaecheongyeseol 絶對天啓說) centered on the ‘Absolute Buddha’ (K. bonbul 本佛) is the core of all efforts to revive Buddhist authority. […] When we thoroughly promote the ‘view of the Buddha-as-Divine’ (K. bulta singwan 佛陀神觀), the Buddhadharma will correspond to the tenets of ‘absolute monotheism’ and eventually return to ‘absolute reality’ just as the ocean has a salty taste”.
“The Buddhadharma states that no object, no matter where in space, is not the ultimate of the Dharma, and that it was the responsibility of the Sangha to fulfill this according to its role and conditions. Simply looking at this example, the specificity of Mahayana Buddhism lies in the ‘absolute transcendence’ (K. jeoldaejeog chowol 絶對的 超越) while its universality is to be found in the ‘absolutely infinite’ (K. jeoldaejeog muhan 絶對的 無限)”.
5. Conclusions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
1 | This paper builds upon discussions presented in my previous works: “Sigminji joseon-ui hwangdobulgyowa gong-ui jeongchihag” 식민지 조선의 황도불교와 공의 정치학 [The Imperial-Way Buddhism and the Politics of Emptiness in Colonial Korea] (The Journal of Korean Studies, Vol. 22, 2010, pp. 49–74) and “Haebang hu hangugbulgyolongwa sigminji geundaeseong-ui yeonsog: Jomyeong-giui chonghwabulgyolongwa jeonchejuui“ 해방 후 한국불교론과 식민지 근대성의 연속: 조명기의 총화불교론과 전체주의 [Narratives of Korean Buddhism and the Continuation of Colonial Modernity in Post-1945 Korea: The Chonghwa Bulgyo Narrative and Totalitarianism of Jo Myeong-gi] (Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies, Vol. 76, 2023, pp. 105–133). |
2 | During the Pacific War, Terada Yakichi (寺田彌吉, 1900–1971) attempted to philosophically explain Japan’s total war system and he theorized about it exactly at the time of the unfolding of all-out war. Shouting slogans such as ‘With the philosophy of total war […] all citizens are soldiers’, he declared that no one could escape war since there was nothing outside of war (Terada 1943). |
3 | Kumārajīva (tr.): Jingang bore boluomi jing 金剛般若波羅密經 (T.08.0235.0235a23), “如來所說身相卽非身相. 佛告須菩提! 凡所有相皆是虛妄, 若見諸相非相則見如來”. |
4 | This logic was very important for both Suzuki Daisetz and his friend Kitarō Nishida, who were active in 20th century Japan. In particular, the ‘logic of immediate negation’ was known as Suzuki’s representative argument (Sueki 1996, pp. 175–200). |
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Kim, Y. War and the Transcendence of Life and Death: The Theoretical Foundations of Buddhist Cooperation in the War Effort During the Colonial Period in Korea. Religions 2025, 16, 143. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16020143
Kim Y. War and the Transcendence of Life and Death: The Theoretical Foundations of Buddhist Cooperation in the War Effort During the Colonial Period in Korea. Religions. 2025; 16(2):143. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16020143
Chicago/Turabian StyleKim, Youngjin. 2025. "War and the Transcendence of Life and Death: The Theoretical Foundations of Buddhist Cooperation in the War Effort During the Colonial Period in Korea" Religions 16, no. 2: 143. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16020143
APA StyleKim, Y. (2025). War and the Transcendence of Life and Death: The Theoretical Foundations of Buddhist Cooperation in the War Effort During the Colonial Period in Korea. Religions, 16(2), 143. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16020143