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

This paper examines how Korea’s Buddhist community accepted the ‘Imperial Way’ (J. kōdōshugi; K. hwangdojuui 皇道主義), the wartime ideology of the Japanese Empire, during the colonial period and how it supported and contributed to the war waged by the Japanese Empire. In the process, it analyzes the ways in which the Buddhist community transformed Buddhist theory in order to justify its collaboration with the Japanese war effort. In this paper, the Buddhist doctrinal basis of this wartime collaboration is examined regarding three of its core aspects. First, when the colonial Korean Buddhist community accepted the ideology of the ‘Imperial Way’ and advocated secularism, it did so by means of the logic of the ‘non-duality of the real and the conventional’ (K. jinsokbuli 眞俗不二). Second, when colonial era Korean Buddhism encouraged its own participation in the war, it regarded war as a site of practice that ‘transcends life and death’ and thus affirmed it. Third, the colonial Korean Buddhist community proposed the concept of ‘Buddhist totalitarianism’ (K. Bulgyo Jeonchejuui 佛敎全體主義) to inquire into a totality that transcends individuality in Buddhism. Accordingly, this paper’s goal is to examine how the Buddhist community in colonial Korea transformed Buddhist doctrine for non-Buddhist purposes in a particular historical situation where its cooperation in war was demanded. Additionally, as a starting point for discussion, this issue will also be explored in parallel with the logic of Japanese Buddhism’s war contributions at the time.

1. Introduction1

After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the Empire of Japan entered a full-scale state of war, and the following year, the Japanese imperial government declared an ‘order of total war’ (J. sōryokusen taisei; K. chonglyeogjeon cheje 總力戰體制). From that moment on, Japan began a shift towards becoming a garrison state, and the situation reached its peak with the onset of the Pacific War in December 1941. As the so-called ‘order of total war’ developed, the boundaries between the frontlines and the hinterland in the Japanese Empire disappeared and everyday life turned to war.2

Under the circumstances of war, the capabilities of all sectors of society are mobilized to wage war. At that time, the Japanese Buddhist community gave birth to an ‘Imperial-Way Buddhism’ (J. kōdō bukkyō 皇道佛敎), a combination of the spirit of Japanese imperialism and Buddhism, and actively cooperated with the Japanese imperialist war efforts. The total war system of this period was not limited to Japan, but also applied to colonial Korea, the Buddhist community of which actively collaborated with the war waged by the Japanese Empire, too.

Certainly, even non-Buddhists know that Buddhism considers ‘non-harm’ (Sk. ahiṃsā) as its most fundamental value. In Buddhism, ethics were developed not in response to social restraints or political demands, but to help humanity to escape pain and agony and attain liberation. As seen in the Eightfold Path, it is a method of practice and a guide to life. Therefore, Buddhist ethics are generally accepted as follows:

“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”.

(Varma 1973, p. 201)

Of course, this value has not always been realized throughout the entire history of Buddhism. It is not difficult to find examples of a fusion of Buddhism and violence in Buddhist history. The Buddhist community in colonial Korea supported the war waged by the Japanese Empire and cooperated in various ways. In early 1941, Kim Donghwa (金東華, 1902–1980), professor at Hyehwa College, a Buddhist school at the time, publicly declared that “it is a matter of course that among the 25 qualified monk students attending Hyehwa College, all 25 apply to become student soldiers to show the sincerity of our order to the monarch and the nation” (D. Kim 1941, p. 10). Especially after the outbreak of the Pacific War, there were even some voices outright praising the war to be heard from within the Korean Buddhist community. Marking the first anniversary of the outbreak of the Pacific War, Professor Kwon Sangno (權相老, 1879–1965) of Hyehwa College said that “all Buddhist temples are battlefields” (Kwon 1942, p. 8), and Yi Jonguk (李鍾郁, 1884–1969), General Secretary of the Chogye Order, declared that “everyone is a soldier” (Yi 1942, p. 3). These were representative monks of the Buddhist community in colonial Korea, and they eagerly propagated the logic of the ‘order of total war’. They did not just encourage participation in the war with a few slogans; they tried to develop a logic of war collaboration within Buddhism.

In this paper, the theoretical basis of Korean Buddhist wartime collaboration is examined in view of three of its core aspects. First, when the colonial Korean Buddhist community accepted the ideology of the ‘Imperial Way’ and advocated a certain kind of religious instrumentalization, it did so by means of the logic of the ‘non-duality of the real and the conventional’ (K. jinsokbuli 眞俗不二). There is no shortage of research on Imperial Buddhism in Japanese academia. However, in this paper, I analyze in detail the concept of jinsokbuli, which was used as the logic of Imperial Buddhism in Korean Buddhism, by finding specific examples.

The second aspect is that when the colonial Korean Buddhist community encouraged active participation in this war; they regarded war as a site of action that transcended life and death. In this section, I use the Mahayana Buddhist concept of sunyata to delicately analyze the logic of transcending life and death, showing that the seemingly unrealistic notion of sunyata can be a realistic motivation for a soldier on the battlefield to run towards the enemy lines.

Then, the third aspect is that colonial Korean Buddhism came to propose the concept of a Buddhist totalitarianism (K. bulgyo jeonchejuui 佛敎全體主義), assuming a whole in which all individuals converge. The notion of this Buddhist totalitarianism has sometimes been resurrected under the name ‘Total Unity Buddhism’ (K. chonghwa bulgyo 總和佛敎) in the discourse around Korean Buddhism’s identity as conducted in Buddhist academic circles since after national liberation. The Buddhist totalitarianism I am referring to here is the concept raised by Jo Myenggi in 1940 in support of Japanese Totalitarianism. It is different from the concept of Tongbulgyo, which Choi Namseon raised in 1930 as part of his nationalist Buddhism. Vladimir Tikhonov also refers to ‘Buddhism as The Religion of Totality’ in his article, which only scratches the surface of the discussion of totality within Buddhism (Tikhonov 2013, p. 235). I have analyzed the theory and context of Buddhist totalitarianism in detail here.

The aim of this paper is to examine how the Buddhist community in colonial Korea transformed Buddhist doctrine for non-Buddhist purposes in a particular historical situation where it was hard-pressed to contribute to the Japanese war efforts.

On the matter of Japanese Buddhism’s wartime cooperation during this period, notable research has been produced already, such as Zen at War, in which the author Brian Victoria deals with Japanese Zen Buddhism’s support for militarism and cooperation in the state’s war efforts during the time of the total war order. Here, he proves that most Japanese Zen monks during the Pacific War were ardent supporters of militarism (Victoria 2006). Additionally, in Zen War Stories, he analyzed the role that Buddhism played as a spiritual ideology for both soldiers on the battlefield and civilians in the rear during the Japanese Empire’s total war (Victoria 2003). Victoria’s research had an actual influence on the Zen denominations of Japanese Buddhism, leading to an apology for their cooperation in the war. This can be said to be a rare but excellent example of pure academic research yielding some real-life reflection.

Regarding colonial Korean Buddhism’s cooperation in the war, Vladimir Tikhonov examined how the colonial Korean Buddhist community was controlled by the Japanese Government-General and in what way it benefitted from its wartime collaboration. Tikhonov’s analysis demonstrates that the Buddhist community in colonial Korea achieved modernization on a material level, including the establishment of missionary centers and schools, in return for its cooperation in the war. In particular, he points out that the Buddhist community viewed the Pacific War as a kind of sacred war (K. seongjeon 聖戰) and aligned the protection of the country with the protection of Buddhism. In addition, he criticizes the Korean Buddhist community’s continued support of the violence committed by both the administration and the military even after Korea’s liberation from colonial rule (Tikhonov 2013). Tikhonov’s paper analyzes the theoretical background of the Korean Buddhist community’s wartime cooperation, but it focuses mainly on the relationship between the Korean Buddhist Order’s operation and its wartime cooperation. The second section of Tikhonov’s paper (2013), “Buddhist discourse of the sacred war”, is relevant to the topic of this paper. Tikhonov provides an overview of the Buddhist discourses mobilized by Korean Buddhists during the colonial period as they cooperated in the war waged by Japan. Some of the topics Tikhonov discusses in Chapter 2 of his article, “Buddhist discourse of the sacred war”, are deeply relevant to the topic of this paper. In particular, the discussions in the fifth section, “Selfless Bodhisattvas, Selfless Warriors”, and the sixth section, “War as Practice of Buddhist Perfections”, have important parallels to the topic of Chapter 3 of this paper; some in the Buddhist world at the time tried to treat a national, non-religious call such as war cooperation as a religious perfection like enlightenment. However, whereas Tikhonov presents this point very much in the context of the whole of Japanese and Korean Buddhism, this paper takes a much more theoretical approach and analysis of the topic. In addition, Tikhonov points out in the third title of his paper, “Buddhism as The Religion of Totality”, that within Buddhism, theories such as Huayen Philosophy were mobilized to support an organismic view of the state. This paper, in contrast, first points out that in colonial Korea, Jo Myenggi posited a Buddhist totalitarianism based on German discussions of totalitarianism, and then delicately traces its theoretical origins. In this respect, this paper connects to Tikhonov’s work, but conducts a new analysis.

Hwansoo Ilmi Kim proposes the concept of transnationalism as a framework for understanding the diverse activities of Korean Buddhism during the colonial period in order to evaluate Buddhist nationalism, Buddhist governmentality, and propagation. Kim seems to think that only in this way can we rescue colonial Korean Buddhism from the simplistic dichotomy of pro-Japanese and anti-Japanese and fully understand its complex, dynamic, and creative activities (H. I. Kim 2018, p. 25). Kim’s view is useful for understanding the background of colonial Korean Buddhist wartime collaboration, which is the subject of this paper. However, I do not analyze the background in this paper. Furthermore, I do not analyze the topic of this paper with a single framework as Kim does. Nor am I attempting to present a single useful framework for evaluating colonial Korean Buddhism. My purpose in this paper is to analyze how colonial Korean Buddhists transformed Buddhist doctrine in order to cooperate with the Japanese Empire.

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

In 1854, Japan’s Tokugawa Shogunate gave up its policy of national isolation that had lasted for 200 years and opened its ports. A new Japanese government attempted national modernization in earnest by carrying out the Meiji Restoration beginning in 1868, and declared the Empire of Japan in 1889. It gradually turned into an imperialist nation upon its victories in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Afterwards, the Japanese Empire went into direct competition with the Western imperialist powers, annexing Korea in 1910 and beginning its colonial enterprise in earnest. The Empire of Japan established Manchukuo (J. Manshūkoku 滿洲國) in northeastern China in 1932 and provoked both the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and eventually the Pacific War in 1941. The Empire of Japan defined the Pacific War as the ‘Great East Asian War’, with the declared goals of ‘establishing the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ and ‘building a New World Order’. The Empire of Japan entered into an order of total war in 1938, and all areas of Japanese society were drawn into the war effort until the end of the Pacific War.

During the war, the Japanese Empire promoted a militarism centered on the Japanese Emperor, which has been referred to as the ‘Imperial Way’, and it can be understood as a specifically Japanese variety of fascism. During this period, the Japanese religious communities, including Buddhism, promoted this imperialism under the banner of “protecting the nation through faith” (J. shinkō hōkoku 信仰保國). The so-called ‘Imperial-Way Buddhism’ was evidently born from the combination of Buddhism and Imperialism, and Brian Victoria defines this Imperial Buddhism as follows: “Stated in Buddhist terms, Imperial-Way Buddhism represented the total and unequivocal subjugation of the Law of the Buddha to the Law of the Sovereign”. (Victoria 2006, p. 79). In this way, Imperial Buddhism absolutely internalized the worldly value of ‘the position of the monarch and the state’, and it can thus be said to be an instance of an ideologization of Buddhism. There is little doubt then that Imperial-Way Buddhism emerged along with the development of totalitarianism.

The logic of ‘Imperial-Way Buddhism’ in its earliest period is shown in Gokoku bukkyō (護國佛敎, “Nation-protecting Buddhism”), published in January 1938 by the Ōkura Seishin Bunka Kenkyūjo (大倉精神文化硏究所, Okura Institute for Spiritual Culture) located in Yokohama, Japan. Several chapters in this publication formally confirm the fusion of Japanese imperialism and Buddhism. In April of the same year, the Buddhist community, centered around the leadership of the Nichiren sect, organized the Kōdō Bukkyō Gyōdō Kai (皇道佛敎行道會, Association for the Practice of Imperial-Way Buddhism). The principles of this organization read as follows:

“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”.

(Victoria 2006, pp. 84–85)

Through this principle, we can see that this organization attempted to outright deify the Tennō. In other words, by equating the Emperor and the Buddha, it accorded the Tennō an absolute status and ultimately turned him into an object of faith for Buddhists. As the Emperor became a living Buddha, the Japanese Empire ruled by the Tennō became a land of the Buddha. Thus, according to the logic of ‘Imperial-Way Buddhism’, the war waged by the Japanese Empire in the name of the Emperor became a sacred war for all Buddhists.

A traditional expression symbolizing the Japanese ideology of the Imperial Way is hakkō ichiu (八紘一宇, “the eight corners of the world under one roof”), a concept which alludes to the ‘eight extensive regions’ (J. hakkō 八紘) which symbolize the entire world becoming ‘one house’ (J. ichiu 一宇) (Ōtani 2002, p. 147). The expression hakkō ichiu had already been used before the advent of the ideology of the Imperial Way. However, in 1884, Tanaka Chigaku (田中智學, 1861–1939) founded what has, since 1914, become known as the Kokuchūkai (國柱會), a spiritual practice organization centered on one of the most eminent Mahayana scriptures, the Lotus Sutra, and began making active use of this expression afterwards. Based on the contents of Nihon shoki (日本書紀, The Chronicles of Japan), he presented ‘world unification’ as the foundational national ideal of Japan and went on to initiate a movement known as ‘Nichirenism’ (Ja. Nichirenshugi 日蓮主義). He developed this movement together with Honda Nisshō (本多日生, 1867–1931) and its impact reached beyond Buddhism, influencing all areas of society, including politics and economy. Ōtani Eiichi, an eminent researcher of Nichirenism, defines the Nichirenshugi undō (日蓮主義運動, the Nichirenist movement) as follows:

“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”.

(Ōtani 2001, p. 15)

Here, we must pay close attention to the terms ‘Japanese integration’ and ‘world unification’. Nichirenism aims for ‘one unified world’ based on the monistic and monotheistic thinking of the Lotus Sutra. It made deep inroads into the military, which was the most powerful force in Japanese society at the time. A representative figure is Ishiwara Kanji (石原莞爾, 1889–1949), who was an officer of the Kwantung Army, the Japanese army group stationed in China’s Manchuria region and one of the primary instigators of the Mukden Incident. Ishiwara dreamed of a ‘Final World War’ based on Nichirenism’s ideology of the Latter Day of the Dharma (J. mappō 末法) and he firmly believed that through such a war, the world as it used to exist would come to a complete end and a new, unified world would emerge. This ‘war for the sake of peace’ is, of course, an inherently contradictory idea. The aforementioned ‘hakkō ichiu’, as referred to by the propagandist of Nichirenism Tanaka Chigaku, alludes to the idea that the world be unified under the Japanese national polity and ruled by the Japanese Tennō. Tanaka regarded this as the fundamental mission of the Japanese people and, perhaps more to the point, believed that fighting this war for world unification was the destiny of the Japanese people.

The concept of Imperial-Way Buddhism, which proactively advocated imperialism, spread immediately to colonial Korea, and Buddhists who cooperated with the colonial government actively accepted it. The monk Uyeong (宇英) affirmed that “Imperial-Way Buddhism means that by learning the deeper truth (K. jinje 眞諦) that ‘Japan, the colonial metropolis, and Joseon, the colony, are one’ (K. naeseon ilche 內鮮一體), one became a flawless subject of the Japanese empire and this is the Buddhism that realizes the great ideal of ‘hakkō ichiu’”. (Uyeong 1940, p. 1). As he mentioned, Imperial-Way Buddhism in Korea has one additional task compared to that in Japan, namely the ‘integration of colonial Korea with the Japanese Empire’, which means that Koreans ought to ‘internalize the colony’. In the same vein, the monk Yun Deukyong (尹得龍) described the mission of Imperial-Way Buddhism as follows:

“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”.

(Yun 1940, pp. 32–33)

Yun Deukyong actively accepted the logic of Imperial-Way Buddhism that emerged in Japan. To him, palgoeng ilu qua mola and molli signified a path towards actively overcoming ‘oneself’ (K. a 我) and ‘that which is one’s own’ (K. aso 我所). In terms of overcoming one’s self, the Buddhist theory of ‘no-self’ (K. mua seol 無我說) might be applied here. However, Imperial-Way Buddhism assumes an absolute self that is ‘totality’ as the ultimate goal of this theory of ‘no-self’. This appears similar to an individual human being overcoming his or her physical limitations and desires and uniting his or her own Ātman with Brahman as the cosmic universal. While talking about the theory of ‘no-self’ at the individual level, an orientation toward the absolute continues at the level of ‘entirety’. In this case, ‘entirety’ is naturally related to the Emperor or the country. It is in this way that Imperial-Way Buddhism boldly transformed Buddhist theory. Eda Toshio (江田俊雄, 1898–1957), a Japanese scholar active in colonial Korea, wrote this in an article published in Korean:

“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)”.

(Eda 1940, p. 36)

According to the Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination, all entities arise under various conditions. Following the law of dependent origination, one cannot recognize a self or an essence with self-identity. Neither can a subjectivity that presupposes a self be acknowledged. Furthermore, objectivity cannot be recognized as an object of subjective recognition. For this, the expression ‘emptiness’ (Sk. śūnyatā; K. gong 空) can be used. Eda Toshio does not stop at the point where subjectivity and objectivity disappear, but goes on to speak of the absolute. According to his logic, an individual trapped in the dimension of subjectivity and objectivity can only transcend it by heading towards the pure absolute. Eda equates this to the Pure Land Buddhist belief in ‘other-power’. Unexpectedly, he uses ‘emptiness’ as a stepping stone to reach absolute existence. This kind of thinking may be understood as a way of summoning a new subject from ‘emptiness’, a concept that denies the reality of any original subject, and so this, too, is a clear modification of Buddhist theory.

2.2. Religious Instrumentalization and the ‘Non-Duality of the Real and the Conventional’

Imperial-Way Buddhism advocates religious instrumentalization because it takes a realistic political ideology as its central value system and emphasizes that we living beings must constantly serve reality. Of course, this reality is a role given by the state to individuals or the Buddhist community under a system of totalitarian power. At the time, the Buddhist community used the ‘theory of the two truths of the real and the conventional’ (K. jinsok ije seol 眞俗二諦說) to secularize Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism’s general view of truth distinguishes between truth at the ultimate level and truth in real life, through which we fully acknowledge the value of the real world and try to achieve harmony between the two truths. Hence, it is argued that within Buddhism there is no conflict between the two truths or two worlds, which is just what the previously mentioned concept of ‘non-duality of real and conventional’ tries to convey. In colonial Korea, this idea was used to secularize Buddhism. Again, if we follow this logic, the truth of Buddhism can be found on the battlefield rather than in a temple, and it can be obtained in battle rather than through meditation. Against this background, the monk Kwon Sangno (權相老, 1879–1965), a leading figure in colonial Korean Buddhism, said the following:

“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)”.

(Kwon 1942, p. 7)

Here, ‘i’ (理) and ‘sa’ (事) are terms from the philosophy of the Avataṃsaka or Huayan school (K. Hwaeom cheolhag 華嚴哲學) that refer to the world of logic and the world of everyday life, respectively. It may be said that in Huayan philosophy, the universal principle is the causal nexus of dependent origination itself. All concrete things (事) are subject to the mechanisms of dependent origination, or, in other words, the universal principle (理) applies to each concrete thing. In Huayan philosophy, this kind of thinking is conceptualized as the ‘non-obstruction of principle and phenomena’ (K. isa muae beobgye 理事無礙法界)’. Kwon Sangno applied the relationship between reason and affairs to ‘the daily lives of empire and individuals’. Under the system of totalitarian power, nothing within the Japanese Empire could escape the logic of the empire. Imperial power penetrated everything down to the smallest details. Of course, Kwon Sangno could make the equation of the Japanese Empire with the notion of the Buddhist kingdom or Buddha-land only through much simplification. Just as everything in the Dharma realm is the Buddha’s Dharma, everyone in the world is placed within the field of imperial power. It is by this logic that Kwon Sangno absolutely affirmed the world under the wartime regime at the time.

In Buddhist tradition, the theoretical foundation of the ‘non-duality of the real and the conventional’ is the idea of ‘emptiness’. Of course, the discourse on ‘emptiness’ is connected to that of dependent origination. According to the law of dependent origination, “all entities arise depending on various conditions”, and that is why no object has its own properties. In other words, an ‘entity A’ does not have any characteristics (相) that could warrant it being called ‘A’. In that sense, entity A is empty. If the emptiness of any entity is the truth, ‘entity A’ reveals the truth, even though it cannot reveal itself. Although ‘A’ is not an entity, it at least reveals the truth of ‘emptiness’. Then, the truth does not exist outside of reality or the world (俗). As a result of this logic, the argument emerges within Buddhism that reality (俗) and truth (眞) are not two separate things. Further, the concept of ‘non-duality of the real and the conventional’ was used as a doctrine to affirm reality. However, the problem remains that based on this concept, there is a tendency to give up criticizing the more absurd aspects of reality and to blindly affirm reality, and this trend was in fact revived in colonial Korea. The logic of emptiness was not only used to secularize Buddhism, but also as a tool to dismantle Buddhist ethics:

“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”.

(Kwon 1943, p. 4)

In the final days of the Pacific War, the Japanese state started confiscating regular household items as military supplies, even resorting to the requisition of Buddha statues enshrined in temples. Kwon Sangno removes the religious aspects or properties from the Buddhist statue as a religious symbol and readily admits its transformation into a weapon of war by mobilizing the ‘logic of immediate negation’ (K. jeugbi nonli 卽非論理) that appears in the Diamond Sutra.

In Kumārajīva’s translation of the Diamond Sutra into classical Chinese, the following passage can be found: “The appearance of the body that the Tathāgata spoke of is not the appearance of the body. […] The appearance of all beings is without essence. If you can see that such an appearance is not an appearance, then you will see the Tathāgata”.3

Based on the stated fact that the nature of an entity is empty, the Diamond Sutra asserts that if one defines something as an entity, one will never be able to approach its essence. Rather, it is said that we can only approach the essence of an entity when we know that the entity has no essence. Kwon Sangno describes the decision to deny the religious symbolism of Buddha statues as a thoroughly Buddhist act and so, in the end, he distorts the Buddhist values symbolized by the Buddha statue by mobilizing the ‘logic of immediate negation’. While the expression ‘immediate negation’ or jeukbi does appear in the Diamond Sutra, in fact, the person who established it as a theory was none other than the eminent Japanese Buddhist scholar Suzuki Daisetz (鈴木大拙, 1870–1966).4

3. War and the ‘Transcendence of Life and Death’

The monk Yun Deukyong thoroughly internalized the Japanese Empire during the order of totalitarian rule and recognized colonial Korea as an integral part of Japan. He remarked that “our Japanese ideal is to unite the world and become the savior of mankind” (Yun 1940, p. 32), and simultaneously believed that the war waged by Japan was ethically justifiable because it would be the final war for the sake of consummate peace and happiness. Although Buddhism advocates non-violence and non-killing as fundamental values, many Buddhists in colonial Korea during this period not only sympathized with war itself but also tried to justify the act of killing enemy soldiers in this war. In 1942, Bang Hanam (方漢巖, 1876–1951), who was the ‘Supreme Patriarch of the Chogye Order’ (K. Jogyejong jongjeong 曹溪宗宗正) at the time, had this to say in a short article he contributed to the magazine ‘Buddhism’ (Bulgyo 佛敎) on the first anniversary of the ‘Pacific War’:

“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”.

(Bang 1942, p. 2)

Since colonial Korea’s eminent monk Bang Hanam could not distinguish between Korea and Japan during the order of totalitarian power, his country was the Japanese Empire. At least at this point, the values of ‘non-violence and non-killing’ do not become real to him. He attempts to conceal the tragedies that occur in actual war by denying any ‘discernment between life and death’ through Buddhism’s theory of ‘no-self’ and the idea of ‘emptiness’. On the contrary, he makes the bizarre claim that one’s true self appears at the moment of death. The bravery of a soldier in battle is thus said to be equivalent to the Buddhist overcoming of the self. The Buddhist logic saying that the active realization of ‘no-self’ leads to the emergence of the ‘true self’ was presented as such to soldiers going into battle. Bang Hanam declares that “life and death are empty”, that this is what the individual experiences in reality, and approves of the murderous actions of dying and killing in battle. In this instance, the possibly anti-secular Buddhist term ‘emptiness’ changes direction to actively affirm the material world.

Cases of similar incidents such as those involving Bang Hanam can also be found in Japan during the same period. During the third forum on ‘The Philosophy of Total War’ (24 November 1942) at the ‘Chuokoron Symposium’ organized by the magazine Chuokoron (中央公論) in 1942, Kyoto School philosopher Koyama Iwao (高山岩南, 1905–1993) gave a very impressive explanation regarding the issue of ‘individual responsibility’: “If we are truly committed to responsibility, we face absolute nothingness. Only when we face it do we become ‘selfless’. This is because ‘I’, my existence, disappears into ‘absolute nothingness’ (J. zettai mu 絶對無). When we thoroughly push forward with true responsibility, we will inevitably reach ‘no-self’” (Koyama 2007, p. 384). According to his words, being thorough in responsibility is only possible when an individual limits his or her personal desires and overcomes his or her own limitations. Here, a comprehensive affirmation of ‘no-self’ is possible. The irony lies in the fact that, even though there is no self, the subject is revived. In the characteristic manner of the Kyoto School, he created a new ethics based on Nishida Kitaro’s (西田幾多郞, 1870–1945) concept of ‘absolute nothingness’ or zettai mu. The ‘absolute nothingness’ referred to by Koyama is no different from the ‘nothingness’ or ‘emptiness’ that Bang Hanam spoke of.

As Bang Hanam did, requesting a state of ‘emptiness’ or ‘no-self’ from soldiers fighting in battle is a request to eliminate the fear of self-loss. It is also a request that may relieve one from the ethical burden of killing one’s fellow soldier. In this regard, Zen, which speaks of ‘no-mind’ (K. musim 無心), played a special role in Japan. In 1937, Ishihara Shunmei (石原俊明, 1888–1973), a Sōtō sect monk and the president of the publishing house Daihōringaku (大法輪閣), connected the duties of a soldier with the spirit of Zen at a roundtable discussion and said the following: “A state in which he is not shaken at all even if he is ordered to die, and is not involved in the slightest; this, I think, is completely one and the same with ‘Zen insight’ (J. zenki 禪機)”. (Ishihara Shunmei, as cited in Victoria 2006, p. 169) This can be taken as a typical example of so-called Imperial-way Zen (J. kōdō zen, 皇道禪).

Hong Yeongjin, a colonial period Korean Buddhist monk, also often described the ‘scene of battle’ as a ‘moment of meditation’, and he went so far as to say, “Once Zen becomes a complete part of our daily life, we can remain calm and unmoved even on a battlefield full of guns and swords or in a place where all kinds of danger lurk” (Hong 1941, p. 3). In Buddhism, the theory of ‘no-self’ or the logic of ‘emptiness’ is a call to actively overcome the self. However, in Imperial-Way Buddhism, this doctrine also induces a yearning for the ‘absolute world that transcends life and death’. Therefore, this understanding of Buddhism can be understood as a way of inviting death in the name of religion. Kim Taeheup, the Korean Buddhist who most actively cooperated with the policies of the Japanese government apparatus in colonial Korea, borrowed the idea of emptiness and actively spoke of the ‘transcendence of birth and death’:

“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’”.

(T. Kim 1941, p. 1)

With Kim Taeheup, it is as if someone who has transcended life is telling sentient beings that their lives are useless. But his story is not that of a saint. He seems to be saying that the world is fleeting, but if he were to tell this to a soldier, he would be telling him to fight without being afraid of death, and if he were to tell this to manual workers, it could be a story to tell them to endure the pain of death and work hard. In fact, his words are a call to use all of one’s abilities for one specific purpose. That purpose here is surely hidden, but nevertheless it becomes all-too clear. Kyoto School philosopher Nishitani Keiji (西谷啓治, 1900–1990) speaks of ‘the non-duality of life and death’ (J. seishi fuji 生死不二) through emptiness in his Shūkyō to wa nani ka (What is Religion?), published in 1961. Nishitani claims that the ‘absolute world’ is not the lofty world of gods, but rather the scene of life unfolding before our very eyes:

“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”.

(Nishitani 1989, p. 103)

Nishitani describes the religious and existential meaning of ‘emptiness’ in extremely subtle language. During the Pacific War, he attended the previously mentioned ‘Bungakukai Symposium’ on behalf of the Kyoto School and discussed the issues of “Overcoming Modernity” and “The Philosophy of World History”. The reason why this roundtable discussion became so infamous after the war was because the intellectuals who attended it so sophisticatedly praised the Pacific War and endowed it with historical and philosophical meaning. The same holds true for Nishitani, who understood war as a ‘field of absolute transcendence’, this arguably being his philosophy of war. He makes the claim that when we stand in the position of ‘subjective nothingness’ (J. shutaiteki mu 主體的無), the absolute negation of everything can change into absolute positivity. ‘Subjective nothingness’, as spoken of in Buddhism, may be understood as the realization of voluntary selflessness. Nishitani understands the ‘emptiness’ of Mahayana Buddhism as well as the enlightenment of Zen Buddhism as the realization of self-transcendence, and he even turns the battlefield into a site of spiritual cultivation.

Kim Taeheup presents the enlightenment of a Zen master as an example of the transcendence of life and death. Of course, speaking of the transcendence of life and death in Buddhism does not entail making assumptions about anything beyond biological death. In the same article quoted before, Kim Taeheup says that the ‘transcendence between life and death’ means “even though the body dies, the mind does not die”. (T. Kim 1941, p. 1), and although it is impossible to know what survives and will not die, it can be assumed that he believes in an existence that transcends life and death. The world to be reached through ‘emptiness’ or ‘nothingness’ is bound to be highly ambiguous, but he tries to find a kind of esthetic fantasy there; that is to say, there is a special esthetic sense at play here. Jamie Hubbard, one of the editors of Pruning the Bodhi Tree, wrote in the preface to the book that Japanese scholar Hakamaya Noriaki described his ‘Critical Buddhism’ (J. hihan bukkyō 批判仏教) as ‘Topical Buddhism’ (J. basho bukkyō 場所仏教). Pointing out the contrast with Topical Buddhism, Hubbard says the following:

“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”.

(Hubbard and Swanson 1997, p. vii)

The concept of ‘aesthetic mysticism’ mentioned by Hubbard can also be applied to the ‘state of transcending life and death’ mentioned earlier by Kim Taeheup. Considering colonial Korea under the order of totalitarian power, this kind of thinking actually involved the individual’s self-sacrifice for the political or military goals of the Japanese Empire, which in Buddhist circles came to be regarded as ‘self-perfection’. This is how the war in which these individuals participate ends up becoming a ‘sacred war’. Although, in fact, ‘sacred war’ is an intrinsically impossible concept according to the original values of Buddhism, Buddhist leaders at the time still actively promoted this idea. Tikhonov points out that wartime Japanese Buddhism masked the carnage of the battlefield with the rhetoric of ‘Bodhisattva self-sacrifice’, because this rhetoric not only leads to the idea of a selfless Bodhisattva, but also to selfless warriors (Tikhonov 2013, p. 237). In other words, the self-sacrifice of the warrior, like the self-sacrifice of the Bodhisattva, eventually becomes a condition of religious perfection.

4. Buddhist Totalitarianism and the Extinction of the Individual

In the colonial era Korean Buddhist community of the 1940s, there were attempts to directly fuse totalitarianism with Buddhism. There was even a person who claimed that the unique characteristic of Korean Buddhism was its purported totalitarianism. In 1941, Yi Jonguk., who was the General Secretary of the Jogye Order of Joseon Buddhism (K. Joseon Bulgyo Jogyejong jongmu chongjang 朝鮮佛敎曹溪宗宗務總長) at the time, contributed an article titled “Letting Go of One’s Obstinacy, and Towards Totalitarianism” (Gagjaui gojibeul beoligo jeonchejuuilo) in the ‘Buddhist Times’ (Bulgyo Sibo 佛敎時報) (Yi 1941, p. 2). Here, Yi speaks of totalitarianism with the intention of breaking away from individual positions and promoting societal cooperation. Meanwhile, he used the term ‘totalitarianism’ in a very popular sense, and through his comments, we can see that ‘totalitarianism’ had become a part of everyday language. In 1942, Kim Taeheup wrote in his “Totalitarianism and Zen” (Jeonchejuuiwa seon), also published in the ‘Buddhist Times’, that when one person invests his or her life for the whole, that life becomes one with the life of the whole (T. Kim 1942, p. 1). He defines Zen as ‘a method of abandoning oneself and becoming one with the whole. At that time, Yi Jonguk. and Kim Taeheup were Buddhist representatives who strongly supported the position of the Japanese Government-General of Korea.

The person who most strongly advocated for a combination of Korean Buddhism and totalitarianism was Jo Myeonggi (趙明基, 1905–1988). Jo Myeonggi was an elite monk in the Korean Buddhist community who had attended Tōyō Daigaku (東洋大學) in Japan in the 1930s. He published “Korean Buddhism and Totalitarianism” (Joseon bulgyowa jeonchejuji) in the magazine ‘Buddhism’ under the pen name Hyeondang (玄幢) in 1940, where he comments: “Until now, the main topic of discussion in world philosophy has been ‘Idealism or Materialism’, but now the question has become ‘Totalitarianism or Individualism’”. (Jo 1940, p. 28). He also argues that Korean Buddhism can only adapt well to the changing times if it actively accepts the dominant trend in the times, namely ‘totalitarianism’. At the beginning of this article, he says that he will try to match the original characteristic of Korean Buddhism called ‘unity’ (K. tongilseong 統一性) with the principle of ‘totalitarianism’. Of course, his claim that the so-called ‘unity’ is unique to Korean Buddhism is a subjective judgment, but his concept of ‘unity’ is indeed related to ‘totality’.

In his attempts to explain totalitarianism, Jo Myeonggi mainly relies on the Austrian economist, sociologist, and philosopher Othmar Spann (1878–1950). In Japan during the late 1930s, Spann was in the spotlight as a leading totalitarian thinker, and Akizawa Shūji (秋澤修二, 1910–1991) translated part of Spann’s Kämpfende Wissenschaft (‘Militant Science) into The Principle of Totalitarianism (Zentaishugi no genri) published in 1938. In the translator’s preface, Akizawa points out that “Spann’s doctrine of totalitarianism became the powerful theoretical basis for the Nazis” (Spann 1938, p. 3), which highly suggests that he, Akizawa, was clearly aware of where the totalitarian theory he was introducing was reaching.

“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”.

(Jo 1940, p. 27)

The ‘totality’ Jo Myeonggi refers to is not the sum of the parts, but an entity that gives life to the parts. According to him, a ‘segment’ is a part of the whole, like a part of a machine, and it can never escape the entirety of the machine. Even if one part does not work, the whole still moves and maintains life. However, parts only function meaningfully when they belong to the whole. Here, the whole is not a list of individuals or a sum total; it has a life of its own. Jo Myeonggi also places great emphasis on organic unity. A part is merely an ‘expression’ of totality. The concept of ‘expression’ is important here, and the individual is only a limited expression of totality. He naturally acknowledges the existence of an absolute value or power that transcends the individual. His Buddhist totalitarianism, too, is related to this way of thinking.

“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”.

(Jo 1940, p. 29.)

Because Jo Myeonggi grasps totality as one absolute, he boldly transforms the Buddha into an absolute. Through him, Buddhism effectively becomes a monotheistic religion, and expressions that are unimaginable in conventional Buddhism such as the ‘view of the Buddha-as-Divine’ and the theory of ‘absolute monotheism’, appear. Buddha becomes God, and as the ultimate One, he becomes equated to Tathatā or true suchness (K. jinyeo 眞如). At the same time, jinyeo is both the point from which the world is flowing out and the point to where the world returns. For Cho, the relationship between the ‘Absolute Buddha’ and humanity is essentially a different version of the relationship between the emperor and his subjects. In addition, Jo Myeonggi puts emphasis on the claim that the role of humans or/as subjects is self-sacrifice for the whole and obedience to the absolute and he glorifies such personal sacrifice and obedience as Bodhisattva practice.

According to Buddhism’s theory of Dependent Origination, presuming an absolute being or a totality, such as in the case of Jo Myeonggi, can result in doctrinal conflict. However, concepts reminiscent of the absolute or totality have not been completely absent throughout the entire history of Buddhism. In Critical Buddhism, concepts or theories of that kind that have existed within Buddhism are classified as ‘dhātu-vāda theories’ (J. kitai setsu 基体說). Matsumoto Shirō (松本史朗), a pioneer of Critical Buddhism, defines a ‘dhātu-vāda theory’ as “a theory that claims that a single entity (kitai, ~‘dhātu’, substratum) produces pluralistic dharma(s)” (Matsumoto 1990, p. 6). As seen from Jo Myeonggi, the Buddhist community in colonial Korea assumed the Japanese Empire and the Emperor as an absolute entity, so they continuously extracted concepts from within Buddhism that could correspond to that state of affairs. Matsumoto would naturally have chosen for this the term kitai (基体).

The totalitarianism or totality mentioned by Jo Myeonggi was similarly used in the Buddhist world at the time under names such as ‘unity’ (K. tongilseong 統一性), ‘inclusivity’ (K. poyongseong 包容性), and ‘absoluteness’ (K. jeoldaeseong 絶對性). The aforementioned Eda Toshio, who was, as we remember, directly involved in the Buddhist community in colonial Korea, emphasized the following: “The essence of the Japanese spirit is not so much the individual moral spirit as its content, but rather the form of embracing the individual, that is, inclusivity (包容性) and unity (統一性)” (Eda 1940, p. 35). Likewise, the ‘inclusivity’ or ‘unity’ he speaks of is another name for ‘totality’ or ‘absoluteness’. Tikhonov points out that Eda understood in this text that Buddhism retained the most essential character of the Japanese people, and that in the process of Japanization, “it purified itself from all the non-essential elements of Indian and Chinese culture mixed with it, and at last revealed to the world its real meaning and real value” (Tikhonov 2013, p. 237).

The monk Beobun (法雲) put forth the concept of ‘national Buddhism’ in 1944, when the Pacific War was nearing its end, and tried to find it within the Korean Buddhist tradition. He discovers ‘transcendence’ (K. chowolseong 超越性) and ‘infinity’ (K. muhanseong 無限性) as other names for absoluteness:

“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)”.

(Beobun 1944, p. 10)

Beobun analyzes Buddhism with the help of the quite modern concepts of specificity and universality. He interprets these two concepts as transcendence and infinity, respectively. Here, transcendence means that the One is assumed to be the fundamental principle, and infinity means that it is accomplished infinitely in all concrete individuals. He designed a ‘national Buddhism’ (K. gugga Bulgyo 國家佛敎) in which national affairs and Buddhism would coincide. However, it does not stop at the coincidence of the two. In order for Buddhism to be a national religion, Buddhists must personally strive to complete their daily lives to perfection. He emphasizes that Buddhists must have the sense of responsibility that citizens have for national affairs. Or, looking at it differently, he treated national endeavors as Buddhist affairs (K. Bulsa 佛事). This was, in other words, like converting a social obligation into a religious responsibility.

5. Conclusions

During the Japanese Empire’s order of total war, major Buddhist representatives in colonial Korea transformed or distorted Buddhist doctrine and extended the ideology of Japanese imperialism not only to Buddhists but also to the general public. Particularly, although Buddhism traditionally promoted non-killing and non-violence as important values, they actively collaborated in the war waged by the Japanese Empire and rationalized the violence and killing. This trend had previously appeared in the Buddhist world of the Japanese Empire, and because it was combined with Imperialism, it came to be called ‘Imperial-Way Buddhism’. In colonial Korea, the propagators of this ‘Imperial-Way Buddhism’ actively used the doctrines of ‘non-self’ and ‘emptiness’ from among the Buddhist teachings to readjust the relationships between ‘Buddhism and the state’ and ‘individuals and the state’.

The propaganda of ‘Imperial-Way Buddhism’ in colonial Korea constantly secularized Buddhism on the basis of concepts such as that of the ‘non-duality of the real and the conventional’. In fact, this very concept which they used for the purposes of Buddhist instrumentalization was based in turn on the premise of ‘emptiness’, which had emerged in critical opposition to substantialist views. In a way, it can be said that the theory of ‘emptiness’ was used in ways that affirm the reality of the nation. Additionally, they glorified the acts of soldiers such as risking their lives by participating in battle and killing enemies as religious acts on the highest level that transcend life and death. They distorted certain Buddhist doctrines to support the Buddhist cooperation in war and sometimes turned Buddhism as a whole into a philosophy of war. What is worse, among them, figures like Jo Myeonggi, an elite monk, emphasized that Buddhism is a religion which is by nature faithful to totalitarian ideology and they willingly used the expression ‘Buddhist totalitarianism’. After liberation, he rebranded ‘Buddhist totalitarianism’ as ‘Total Unity Buddhism’ (K. chonghwa Bulgyo 總和佛敎) and even claimed that this was a characteristic aspect of Korean Buddhism.

Buddhism, as a religion fundamentally grounded in the value of non-violence, nonetheless has a history marked by instances of collaboration with violence, including participation in war. Numerous cases reveal Buddhist leaders distorting Buddhist doctrines to justify or even glorify acts of violence in alignment with certain powers. This paper examines these complexities. As a religion operating within the realities of the socio-political world, Buddhism faces a profound challenge: how should it respond when state authorities or public demands call for actions that contravene its core principles? In my view, Buddhist communities should prioritize the proactive dissemination and reinforcement of non-violent values to mitigate the emergence of such demands.