Tricycle | Awake in the World

In the summer of 1998, Tricycle covered Brian Victoria’s Zen at War, an indictment of the Japanese Zen community’s complicity in Japanese imperialism during the 1930s and 1940s. Among those he harshly criticized was D. T. Suzuki, arguably the most influential figure in bringing Zen Buddhism to the West. Scholar and Shin Buddhist priest Kemmyo Taira Sato, writing for the Eastern Buddhist, a journal founded by Suzuki in 1929, recently offered a belated though well-considered rebuttal to Victoria’s accusations.

You will find Sato's article here, courtesy of The Eastern Buddhist.

Snyder and Foster's article is here.

Read John Baran's review of Brian Victoria’s Zen at War from Tricycle's Summer 1998 issue here.

To read a related article about Yasutani Roshi from Tricycle's Fall 1999 issue visit "The Hardest Koan."

ABOUT THE EASTERN BUDDHIST
The Eastern Buddhist carries articles on all aspects of Buddhism as well as English translations of classical Buddhist texts and works by modern Buddhist thinkers. This unique journal was begun in 1921 under the editorship of D. T. Suzuki. Although its publication was interrupted by World War Two, The Eastern Buddhist (New Series) was revived in 1965. After Suzuki's death in 1966, the journal was continued under the editorship of Nishitani Keiji (1900-1990), Abe Masao (1915-2006), and other scholars. From 1998 to 2005 Nagao Gadjin (1907-2005) served as the editor.