Martin Heidegger: Nuremberg Zen -_
Disavailing Zen Stories
Being.
. 'Recently, the efforts undertaken to protect
. Heidegger against this charge [anti-Semitism]
. have been refuted through the publication of a
. previously unknown letter, written by Heidegger
. in 1929, that is, before the Nazis came to power,
. which clearly shows his anti-Semitism in his
. pointed rejection of the "'Jewification' of the
. German spirit [Verjudung des deutschen Geistes]."
. [p.111] ... '
.
. ' ... Heidegger's original approach to Being
. was as being is manifest in the "here and now" --
. Dasein, being (sein) here (da). This introduces a
. positivistic, Hegelian ("the real is rational")
. aspect to any possible moral guidance from this
. system. The here and now in 1933 meant Adolf
. Hitler. The truth and greatness of National
. Socialism was an authentic "uncovering" of Being.
. When this didn't seem to work out, Being
. "withdrew" itself, according to Heidegger. '
| '"The Führer himself and alone is today and in
| the future German reality and its law." [from the
| Rectoral Address, p.65]'
From "On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy" by Tom Rockmore
____ Preface: Zen Founder _________________________________
Zen is the snake that bites its own tail. If you embrace the void and
acausality, you will find yourself later in the midst of catastrophic
emptiness saying "how'd that happen?".
Under Prajnatara (Perfect Wisdom Shining Star) of India, there was a
disciple named Bodhidharma (Buddha Law). Under these grandiose names,
they studied the Buddha's teachings, after Buddhism had traveled East
to China. The Buddha foretold that Buddhism would fall into a Hellish
path in India, after the Buddha's highest teachings had moved on.
Bodhidharma was a native of Conjeeveram, near Madras in India. He
traveled from India and arrived at Ching-Ling (now Nanking), or
perhaps at Guangzhou (Canton), perhaps both. There, Bodhidharma met
with the Emperor's emissary (some say Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty,
see footnote), where they discussed the Sutras.
As Bodhidharma (also called Da Mo, or Ta Mo in China, and Daruma in
Japan) believed in dhyana or meditation upon the nothingness at the
heart of life, and as the Lotus Sutra had been translated into
Chinese by Kumarajiva who traveled from India a century earlier and
had served the Liang Dynasty well, the lesser and distorted teaching
of dhyana/ch'an/zen was rejected by practitioners of the highest
teaching, and Bodhidharma was banished from Imperial territory.
As an icchantika, or incorrigible disbeliever in the Lotus Sutra, he
could not be allowed to spread his teachings in the Emperor's domain
(they wished to live happily, you see). But by banishing him, they
did not act as bodhisattvas, to thoroughly correct his errors and not
let him slip away to corrupt others, and thusly fall into the hell of
incessant sufferings (Aviichi Hell) for countless lifetimes. Out of
this single uncompassionate act, much of the suffering of the world
has come.
After he was banished, Bodhidharma went to the Shaolin Monastery at
Loyang, West of Kaifeng in the Henan (Honan) Province of Western
China, where the Huang He (Yangtze or Yellow River) tumbles out of the
break between Zhongtiao Shan (2367m) on the North and Quanbao Shan
(2094m) on the South, to flood the rest of China. At the Shaolin
Monastery, he widely disseminated his distorted views of Buddhism,
corrupting first the Shaolin Monks and ultimately the rest of the
world.
Bodhidharma's school was known as Dhyana (from the Mahayana source),
or as Ch'an in China, and eventually as Zen in Japan. It comes to
flower in many different forms, in many different places down through
the ages.
Bodhidharma's very existence is denied by the Zen community,
rendering the life of their founder as itself a void. This allows no
one to be responsible, and the Zen community to walk away from the
train wreck. So let's assume that the history is true, and hold
Bodhidharma and Zen accountable, just this once. There was surely a
founder who brought Dhyana from India, however many names he is
called.
Footnotes on Wu-Ti:
Concerning Emperor Wu: from "The Selection of the Time - Nichiren,
disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha", Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p.
544:
. 'Those concerned about their next life would
. do better to be common people in this, the Latter
. Day of the Law, than be mighty rulers during the
. two thousand years of the Former and Middle Days
. of the Law. Why won't people believe this? Rather
. than be the chief priest of the Tendai school, it
. is better to be a leper who chants Nam-myoho-
. renge-kyo! As Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty said
. in his vow, "I would rather be Devadatta and sink
. into the hell of incessant suffering than be the
. non-Buddhist sage Udraka Ramaputra."'
This reference is to a document in which Emperor Wu (464--549), the
first ruler of the Liang dynasty, pledged not to follow the way of
Taoism. It actually says that he would rather sink into the evil paths
for a long period of time for going against Buddhism (yet nevertheless
forming a bond with it) than be reborn in heaven by embracing the non-
Buddhist teachings. This story appears in The Annotations on "Great
Concentration and Insight." Udraka Ramaputra was a hermit and master
of yogic meditation, the second teacher under whom Shakyamuni
practiced. He is said to have been reborn in the highest of the four
realms in the world of formlessness.
From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
. Wu-Ti: Born 464 , China. Died 549 , China
.
. Pinyin Wudi (posthumous name, or shih), personal
. name (hsing-ming) Hsiao Yen , temple name (miao-
. hao) (nan-liang) Kao-tsu founder and first emperor
. of the Southern Liang dynasty (502–557), which
. briefly held sway over South China. A great patron
. of Buddhism , he helped establish that religion in
. the south of China.
.
. Wu-ti was a relative of the emperor of the
. Southern Ch'i dynasty (479–502), one of the
. numerous dynasties that existed in South China in
. the turbulent period between the Han (206 BC–AD
. 220) and T'ang (618–907) dynasties. He led a
. successful revolt against the Southern Ch'i after
. his elder brother was put to death by the emperor.
. He proclaimed himself first emperor of the Liang
. dynasty in 502, and his reign proved to be longer
. and more stable than that of any other southern
. emperor in this period.
.
. A devout believer, Wu-ti diligently promoted
. Buddhism, preparing the first Chinese Tripitaka,
. or collection of all Buddhist scripts. In 527 and
. again in 529 he renounced the world and entered a
. monastery. He was persuaded to reassume office
. only with great difficulty. In 549 the capital was
. captured by a “barbarian” general, and Wu-ti died
. of starvation in a monastery.
____ Preface: Types of Zen _______________________________
There is a hierarchy of Zen, in power and toxicity. The lesser forms
of Zen pave the way in societies and cultures for the more powerful
forms. Once a society or culture is corrupted, in even the tiniest
way, by any form of Zen, the tendency will be to move inevitably
towards greater corruption by the more powerful and toxic variants. In
this way, Zen undermines everything that can be undermined in the
world, leaving only that which is incorruptible (the correct practice
of the Lotus Sutra). The hierarchy of Zen is as follows, in general
terms:
Physical Zen: All of the martial arts are based on Zen, starting
. with Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Karate, Aikido, JiuJitsu,
. Judo, Kendo, Bushido, Ninjitsu, etc. Tai Chi came from
. Shaolin Qigong, which also led to Acupuncture,
. Acupressure and Falun Gong. As the chaos in society
. grows, people need to feel they can protect themselves and
. their loved ones, and in this way they are corrupted further.
Christian Zen, Jewish Zen, Hindu Zen, Islamic Zen: These are
. basically mixtures, wherein the monotheist believer in a
. deity, feels they can practice Zen meditation without a
. problem, since it is not theistic. While this reasoning is true,
. it ignores the absolutely overwhelming corruption produced
. by Zen, which will ultimately undermine their belief system
. and every facet of their life, by bringing all of the negatives
. in the Zen adherent's's daily life and environment to the
. forefront, with increasing amplification and psychotic
. effect.
Nuremberg Zen: The widespread belief by a population, that
. the purpose of the Buddha's advent in the world was to
. teach Zen: that Zen is Buddhism. This is, of course, an
. absolutely distorted view of the Buddha's life and teachings.
. Shakyamuni made it transparently clear, at the very end of
. his life in the Nirvana Sutra, wherein he states that the Lotus
. Sutra is his highest teaching in the past, present and future,
. and is the purpose of his advent on this Earth, and that his
. followers should honestly discard provisional teachings
. (teachings other than the Lotus Sutra).
.
. Nuremberg Zen was promulgated first by D.T. Suzuki's
. work with Paul Carus, then by Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the
. Art of Archery (and the many who copies: Zen in the Art
. of Marketing, Sales, Bakery, etc.) and finally by Alan Watts,
. the Norman Vincent Peale of Zen. Nuremberg Zen creates
. the environment of chaos and widespread misery that are
. the preconditions for the spread of more toxic forms of
. Zen.
Stanford Zen: This is the Lay organization of Zen. It was
. developed in conjunction with the activities of Frederic
. Spiegelberg, a Lutheran who taught theology at the
. University of Dresden, and fleeing the effects of Nuremberg
. Zen in Germany, came to teach at Stanford, and founded
. the American Academy of Asian Studies with Alan Watts
. and others, which became the California Institute of Integral
. Studies, after it spawned Esalen with Richard Price and
. Michael Murphy. Esalen was the proving ground for the
. Large Group Awareness Therapy organizations, of which
. Werner Erhard's EST was most prominent. EST morphed
. into a business school executive training seminar
. organization called the Landmark Forum, or Landmark
. Education, which has now become the de facto Lay
. organization for Zen, projecting itself onto Wall Street and
. the Fortune 500.
Green Dragon Zen: In this category I place Soto, which is the
. parent of the Green Dragon Society, Rinzai, Fuke, Northern
. and Southern Chinese Ch'an sects, Vietnamese and Korean
. sects, and all the variant sects which practice the most toxic
. forms of Zen: those which actually use the Lotus Sutra as a
. means to promulgate their distorted views of Buddhism.
. This is the greatest slander of the Lotus Sutra which is
. possible. I lump them all under the Green Dragon banner
. (I'm sure they do not appreciate this, but that is not a
. concern), because Green Dragon has had a tradition of
. secret propagation, and penetration of new areas with the
. most aggressive intent to build a lasting foothold in every
. society it touches. All of the other sects in any locale, will
. orient themselves to the Green Dragon.
Nuremberg Zen, Physical Zen and the monotheist Zen mixtures will all
eventually pave the way for Stanford Zen and the Green Dragon, if they
are not themselves undercut by the king of sutras, the Lotus Sutra.
(Zen believers cannot resist the allure of greater power. When they
try the Lotus Sutra and find that it fills the void inside, they will
find they like it.)
Finally, there is the enabling group for all of the worst religious
and social movements in history:
Fellowship of Evil Friends: This loosely collected group of
. Occultists,Theology professors and educators, is at the
. branching point for most of corrupt religious movements
. of the world. This grandfather of this group is the occultist
. Meister Eckart, and it includes: Dietrich Eckart (Thule
. Society), Paul Carus (Open Court Publishing), Frederic
. Spiegelberg (Stanford, AAAS), Michael Murphy (Esalen),
. and a host of powerful media people, pundits, gurus and
. self-help authors. They are all quite happy to connect you
. up with some form of evil, but step back from
. commitment themselves, always stopping at the door, as
. you foolishly, trustingly pass through. In this way they
. catalyze the evil transformation, but survive its effects to
. spread further evil, later on.
____ Preface: Powers of Zen ______________________________
Variations upon Zen which have evolved into new strains and then major
branches of Zen, have increased their toxic power by piling slander
upon slander over hundreds of years. The greatest slanders are
attached to the most powerfully evil forms of Zen, which are those
that have attacked the Lotus Sutra directly or the votaries (devotees)
of the Lotus Sutra, the Sangha, directly. One can think of this with
the mathematical analogy of a powers of a variable, that Zen becomes
exponentially more powerful and evil as slanders are piled upon
slanders ...
[Zen] Bodhidharma discards the Lotus Sutra, seeking wisdom that is
from transmissions outside the sutras, transmitted from person to
person (ishin denshin). The families of Chinese Zen under
Bodhidharma's influence include: Dhyana, Ch'an, Western Ch'an, Qigong,
Tai-Chi, Acupuncture, and the Chinese and Korean Martial Arts up to
1200 CE.
[Zen Squared] Dogen uses the Lotus Sutra as a means to teach and
propagate Zen. The families of Japanese Zen under Dogen's influence
are: Soto Zen, Rinzai Zen, Green Dragon Zen, Bushido and the Japanese
Martial Arts up to 1500 CE.
[Zen Cubed] Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa Shogunate use various
Samurai and Daimyo tactics, which are based on Zen, to subjugate and
crush Nichiren Buddhism of the Lotus Sutra in the 1500s and 1600s. The
families of Japanese Zen under the Tokugawa influence are: Soto Zen,
Rinzai Zen, Green Dragon Zen, Bushido and the Japanese Martial Arts up
to 1867 CE.
[Zen Squared Squared] After the Meiji regime's overthrow of the
Tokugawa Shogunate, the militarization and buildup of Japanese society
into an armed camp, forces all of Buddhism under Shinto, and Zen
becomes Imperial Way Zen. This ultimately leads to the crushing of the
Lay organization of Nikko's School of Nichiren Buddhism, the Soka
Kyoiku Gakkai and the imprisonment of their leaders during the war,
and the death of their President Tsunesaburo Makiguchi. The families
of Imperial Way Zen are: Soto Zen, Rinzai Zen, Green Dragon Zen,
Bushido and the Japanese Martial Arts up to 1945 CE.
[Zen to the 5th] American Lay Zen from George Leonard's [Esalen]
influence: the Large Group Awareness Therapy or Training sessions,
Werner Erhard's EST, Landmark Forum, Landmark Education Seminars.
____ Preface: Zen Offends the Law ________________________
There is a principle which is central to the Buddhism of the Lotus
Sutra: Oneness of Person and Law, known as Nimpo-ikka in Japanese.
It is eternally true that the Law and the Buddha are fused, to make
life as we know it.
Since, according to Nichiren in the Ongi Kuden (The Oral Teachings, or
class notes from his lectures on the Lotus Sutra, taken by Nikko), one
meaning of "Myoho" is that delusion and enlightenment are fused (this
is also explained in the essential teachings of the Lotus Sutra, in
the Juryo or Life Span chapter) ...
This means that even for deluded mortals, there is always a condition
of oneness of person and Law.
The implication of this, is that wherever there is a slander of the
Law, then nearby and coincident with it, there is a slander of
humanity, by the principle of the simultaneity of cause and effect.
Hence, wherever Zen is propagated widely, there will be in each and
every instance, Toxic Zen Stories to tell.
What follows is one of these ...
____ Introduction ________________________________________
A frequent visitor to Landsberg Prison where Hitler was writing Mein
Kampf with the help of Rudolf Hess, was General Karl Haushofer, a
university professor and director of the Munich Institute of
Geopolitics.
Haushofer, Hitler, and Hess had long conversations together. Hess also
kept records of these conversations. Hitler's demands for German
"Living Space" in the east at the expense of the Slavic nations were
based on the geopolitical theories of the learned professor.
Haushofer was also inclined toward the esoteric. as military attache
in Japan, he had studied Zen-Buddhism. He had also gone through
initiations at the hands of Tibetan Lamas. He became Hitler's second
"esoteric mentor", replacing Dietrich Eckart.
Eckart was an occultist and magician leader of the Thule Society who
was certainly the earliest corrupting influence on Hitler's psyche.
But after Eckart's death and meeting Haushofer, Adolph took a hard
right turn to become the first Nazi.
In "The Morning of the Magicians" (1960; 279) by Louis Pauwels and
Jacques Bergier they write:
. 'Occultism teaches that, after concluding a
. pact with hidden forces, the members of the group
. cannot evoke these forces save through the
. intermediary of a magician who, in turn, can do
. nothing without a medium. It would seem therefore
. that Hitler must have been the medium, and
. Haushofer the magician. Rudolf Hess had been
. Haushofer's assistant when the latter was a
. professor at the University of Munich.'
.
. 'It was he who had brought Haushofer and
. Hitler together. His flight to England during the
. war was the result of Haushofer having told him
. that he had seen him in a dream flying to England
. in an airplane. In one of the rare moments of
. lucidity which his inexplicable malady allowed him
. the prisoner Hess, the last survivor of the Thule
. Group, is said to have stated formally that
. Haushofer was the magician, the secret Master.
. (see Jack Fishman: The Seven Men of Spandau.)'
Thusly, Nazism is an offshoot of Zen, mixed with occultism and
Tibetan Buddhism and some other things. Clearly, however, the
influence of the Void is predominant: the thought that life is just
there for whatever possibility you want to pursue, no-holds-barred,
and without concern for the results in the lives of others. Nazism is
basically Zen.
____ Toxic Zen Story ______________________________
Martin Heidegger's philosophy is tainted, and corrupted by something.
And not just by his association with the Nazis, either.
In "Reflections on the Career of Martin Heidegger, Shepherd of Being",
by Jeremiah Reedy:
. 'An American philosopher, William Barrett,
. wrote that "a German friend of Heidegger told me
. that one day when he visited Heidegger he found
. him reading one of Suzuki's books [on Zen
| Buddhism]: 'If I understand this man correctly,'
| Heidegger remarked, 'this is what I have been
| trying to say in all my writings.'" '
This is after the fact, of course, but it serves as verification. He
didn't become enamored of Suzuki until the fifties. He got his Zen the
Nazi way, by falling in love with Adolph Hitler, like so many did. A
fascinating picture of Heidegger, with his little Hitler mustache is
found at: http://www.friesian.com/images/heideger.jpg
On the website (http://www.friesian.com/poly-2.htm: The Proceedings of
the Friesian School) in a book review of "Martin Heidegger, An
Introduction to Metaphysics", Anchor Books, 1961.
. '4. Heidegger is much like Nietzsche, except
. that Nietzsche's emphasis on the will and on the
. individual strikes Heidegger as too "subjective"
. [now called "metaphysical humanism" by
. deconstructionists like Jacques Derrida, who has
. said that he has not said anything that was not
. already in Heidegger]. For Heidegger, value comes
. from cosmic dispensations of Being into the
. Dasein, or manner of existence, experienced by
. us. '
.
. '5. But, Heidegger cannot be defended as
. Nietzsche can, for he actually joined the Nazi
. Party, never repented of it, and always despised
. liberal democracy and modern, commercial society.
. Heidegger's defenders (e.g. Richard Rorty) must
. instead claim that his philosophy has nothing to
. do with his politics. That doesn't work, since
. Heidegger actually says that man is "terrible"
. (Gk. deinós) because new "uncoverings" of Being
. involve a violent "shattering" of "justice" (Gk.
. díkê). Since that is precisely what the Nazis
. were doing, and Heidegger could look out his
. window and see Brown Shirts "shattering justice"
. by beating and murdering Jews and others, it is
. not surprising that he found what he was looking
. for in them. '
Actually, Heidegger did mention, JUST AFTER THE WAR, that Nazism was
wrong and a mistake. Creating distance at a point of safety, and
walking away from the train wreck you helped engineer is so completely
Suzuki-Zen, and foreshadows his deep appreciation of D.T..
In an exchange with Ted Keller on Relativism and Marxism, by Kelley
Ross:
. 'Hitler was no philosopher and gave no
. intellectual respectability to Fascism. That it
. got from philosophers like Nietzsche and Martin
. Heidegger. Heidegger, indeed, is the perfect
. relativistic philosopher of Fascism, as he
. recognized and honestly acted upon himself. The
. self-deception or bad faith of the
. deconstructionists and "post-modernists" who
. constitute the vanguard of contemporary
. relativism is that they do not or can not
. translate their obvious intellectual dependence
. on Heidegger into an acknowledgement of the
. totalitarian nature of their own project. If
. truth, indeed, is just a matter of POWER, as
. Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Foucault can all
. agree, then actual power is actually self-
. justifying, and no mere intellectual objections
. to it, whether in the name of truth or justice,
. have any meaning. The mere powerless individual,
. who to Socrates or Kant may actually be alone in
. seeing the Truth, becomes a mere meaningless
. "abstraction" to all sub-Hegelian theories. '
.
. 'Another aspect of his comes from the Japanese
. connection: the aestheticism and anti-
. intellectualism of D.T. Suzuki's Zen Buddhism
. was, at the time, perfectly conformable to the
. ideology of Japan's German allies. Thus, Eugen
. Herrigel, the author of the classic Zen in the
. Art of Archery, returned to Germany to find
. spiritual fulfillment in National Socialism. '
.
. 'All the fascist-leaning right-wingers I've
. known have been equally absolutistic. If you or
. someone you're aware of has given persuasive
. arguments in defense of the thesis that
. relativism and fascism are compatible I'd
. appreciate it if you'd let me know where I might
. find them. (Ted Keller) '
.
. ' ..... I would be interested in the degree of
. intellectual sophistication in the "fascist-
. leaning right-wingers" you have known. The Fascism
. of Mussolini or Franco was absolutist in the sense
. that it came to terms with Catholicism and other
. conservative tendencies in Italy and Spain. But
. the 20th Century would not have been the century
. of Terror that it has been if Mussolini and Franco
. were the worst that we had to contend with. To
. break through the inhibitions of traditional
. morality and begin slaughtering millions: only
. Hitler and communists like Lenin, Stalin, etc. had
. the amoral gusto to do that--to "shatter," using
. Heidegger's term, the silly scruples of bourgeois
. morality (a terminology that both Hitler and Lenin
. could use) into the mass murder of class and/or
. race enemies.
. (Kelley Ross)'
But a review on the book "On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy" by Tom
Rockmore, also at the Friesian website (http://www.friesian.com/
rockmore.htm), the issue of the moral relativism of Heidegger and his
peculiar hubris is studied at length:
. 'The controversy about Martin Heidegger's
. membership in the German Nazi Party ultimately
. reveals one very important thing: The very
. principles that attracted Heidegger to Hitler and
. the Nazis are also the principles that attract
. Heidegger's defenders to him. That most of
. Heidegger's defenders are leftists and
. "progressives" (like Richard Rorty) simply
. reveals a characteristic of the history of the
. 20th Century: that the Left (socialists,
. communists, American style "liberals") has far
. more in common with the far Right (fascism,
. populism) than anyone on the Left has ever wanted
. to admit -- except perhaps for Susan Sontag's
. classic, politically incorrect statement that
. "Communism is fascism with a human face" --
. though one must then explain Alexander Dubcek's
. claim that the revolution in Czechoslovakia in
. 1968 was to produce "Communism with a human
. face"; presumably he didn't think that it already
. had one. Since Dubcek had to live under communism
. and Sontag didn't, we can count on him to have
. gotten it more right. Sontag, however, who also
. said that Americans could learn more about the
. Soviet Union reading Readers' Digest than The
. Nation, got it far more right than most of her
. intellectual peers (Rockmore: "Sartre holds that
. Marxism is unsurpassable as the philosophy of our
. time," p.147). '
It is fascinating how a bright person can subjugate their will and
their mind to another. But then, that's Zen in a nutshell.
. ' ..... There is finally no significant
. distinction between Heidegger's call for
. submission to the whim of the Führer and Lukács's
. similar betrayal of reason in the service of
. Stalinism. As concerns their voluntary
. subordination of philosophical criticism to
. political totalitarianism, both thinkers are
. outstanding examples of the betrayal of reason in
. our time. [p.66]'
Heidegger's path is laid out, by the circumstances present in his
views on life, and his conception of being:
. '...it must be noted that Heidegger's theory
. has no intrinsic resources to prevent him from
. accepting either National Socialism or another
. similar theory. [p.72]'
.
. 'Whereas I regard Heidegger's philosophy as
. ingredient in his politics, Heidegger's defenders
. are concerned to exonerate his thought from any
. significant role in his actions. [p.75]'
.
. '-- Heidegger turned to Nazism on the basis of
. his philosophical position. -- Heidegger's theory
. of Being, or fundamental ontology, includes a
. political dimension that can only lead to Nazism
. or something like Nazism -- in short, a
. totalitarian political movement. -- Heidegger
. shared with National Socialism a common goal of
. the realization of the essence of the German
. Volk. [p.123]'
Heidegger did have obstacles to overcome, in never quite finding his
audience:
. ' ..... The picture that emerges of Heidegger
. is mainly of someone whose enthusiasm for Naziism
. was dampened only by the lack of interest of the
. Nazis for him. When he became the Rector of
. Freiburg University in 1933, Heidegger delivered
. an address in which he basically announced that he
. had the right understanding of the meaning the
. National Socialism, which had been confused by
. "political science" and should turn to philosophy
. (i.e. to him). This should have made him the
. Philosopher King, or at least Herr Hitler's
. official philosopher, the way Hegel had in effect
. become the official philosopher of Prussianism.
. Nothing of the sort happened, and not many Nazis
. liked his attitude. '
.
. 'Heidegger goes on to observe that his address
. was understood neither by those to whom it was
. addressed nor by the Nazi party. He reports that
. Otto Wacker, the Staatsminister für Unterricht
. und Kultur in Baden, complained that the talk
. advanced a form of private National Socialism,
. not based on a concept of race, and that the
. rejection of "political science" was
. unacceptable. [p.110]'
.
. 'In sum, Heidegger is unhappy that the
. National Socialists are unaware of his own
. ontological difference. What is surprising is
. that Heidegger should be either surprised or
. dismayed to learn that the Nazis were less than
. fully absorbed, were in fact uninterested in his
. own approach to Being, in the same way that they
. were also uninterested in the effort of
. Rosenberg, the well-known Nazi "philosopher," to
. bring about a profound spiritual renewal.
. Heidegger's objection reveals, then, an
. astonishing lack of awareness of the nature of
. Nazism. [p.193]'
And this is perhaps because it is a mutual confusion, in that he does
not perceive the Nazi movement's basic intent, either:
. ' ..... The problem with the Nazis, according
. to Heidegger, was not that they terrorized and
. murdered people, and started World War II, but
. that they had the wrong attitude towards
. metaphysics. Whether they would have still been
. murderers if they had the right metaphysics is a
. good question. One of the most disturbing things
. about Heidegger's thought is that the murders --
. or even the public thuggery that he could have
. seen in the earliest days of the Third Reich --
. don't really seem to have disturbed him all that
. much. It was not the murders or the public mayhem
. that discredited "existing" Naziism but simply the
. wrong attitude towards philosophy, i.e. Heidegger
. himself. The most damning accusation, however, is
. just that Naziism was a form of liberalism! '
.
. 'We are already familiar with Heidegger's
. frequent assertions, common in claims of
. orthodoxy, with respect to the views of Kant,
. Nietzsche, and Jünger, that only he, Heidegger,
. has understood them. Here [in the Introduction to
. Metaphysics], he makes a similar claim with
. respect to Nazism. For Heidegger evidently
. thought of himself as the only "orthodox" Nazi,
. as the only one able to understand the essence of
. National Socialism... To the best of my knowledge
. there is nothing in the public record to suggest
. that Heidegger was at all sensitive to the human
. suffering wreaked by Nazism, in fact sensitive to
. human beings in more than an abstract sense.
. [p.240]'
And that lack of perception, is because the perceiving component would
require something that is completely masked in Heidegger - compassion:
. ' ..... This absence of ethics means that lack
. of concern about the murders and thuggery of the
. Nazis should really not surprise us. '
.
. 'A point made by Jaspers, the former
. psychiatrist, whose testimony proved most
. damaging in the deliberations of the [de-
. Nazification] committee, is relevant here. "He
. [i.e., Heidegger] does not perceive the depths of
. his earlier mistake, which is why there is no
. real change in him but rather a game of
. distortions and erasures." [p.86]'
Heidegger also spurned the more strident Nuremberg elements of the
Nazi party. From "Martin Heidegger: A Political Life", by Hugo Ott,
1993, p. 268:
. 'Heidegger's former student and friend, Karl
. Löwith met him while at a conference in Rome in
. 1936. Löwith, a Jew by birth, had gone into exile
. after 1933. On the occasion of their meeting,
. Löwith asked Heidegger how he could sit at the
. same table "with an individual like Julius
. Streicher." Streicher, the notorious editor of
. Der Stürmer, was admitted as a member of the
. board of the Nietzsche Archive. Heidegger was a
. fellow board member. Löwith, in his memoirs,
. reports that Heidegger's response to his question
. about Streicher was to "dismiss the rantings of
. the Gauletier of Franconia as political
. pornography." He insisted, however, on
. dissociating the Führer, Adolf Hitler, from
. Streicher. '
As usual, those that lack the ability to see things clearly as they
happen, also revise their history, getting back to Rockmore's work:
. '... he now believes that Nazism did not fail
. him but that Hitler and other Nazis failed Nazism.
. He seems never to have regretted his adherence to
. National Socialism for the purpose of realizing
. the essence of the German people, or to further
. the understanding of Being, ends that he still
. accepts as valid. [p.94]'
And that includes never admitting to a resonance with the racist
component of Nazism:
. '..... The flagship of Nazi racism, of
. course, was their animus for the Jews, which led
. to the attempt to exterminate them during World
. War II. Heidegger's obscurantism and inconsistency
. have served to protect him from accusations that
. he was actually an anti-Semitic fellow traveler
. with the Nazis, even from Jews, like Hannah
. Arendt, who reestablished friendly relations with
. him after the War. But Heidegger, to an extent,
. did actually subscribe to and practice anti-
. Semitism, as we see here: '
.
. 'Recently, the efforts undertaken to protect
. Heidegger against this charge [anti-Semitism]
. have been refuted through the publication of a
. previously unknown letter, written by Heidegger
. in 1929, that is, before the Nazis came to power,
. which clearly shows his anti-Semitism in his
. pointed rejection of the "'Jewification' of the
. German spirit [Verjudung des deutschen Geistes]."
. [p.111]'
.
. 'Whether a full blown racism or not,
. Heidegger's attitude reflects the conflict
. between German nationalism and the tolerance of
. the Jews that would be characteristic of a
. liberal society. That conflict goes all the way
. back to people like Fries. Peter Gay [Weimar
. Culture, Outsider as Insider, 1968] already
. noted, before Heidegger's Naziism had become much
. of an issue, that Heidegger removed the
. dedication of Being and Time, which was to the
. "inconveniently Jewish" Edmund Husserl. There are
. various stories of Heidegger stiffing his Jewish
. graduate students, not signing their
. dissertations, but he also seems inconsistent in
. this, since he was very enthusiastic about some
. Jewish students, like Hannah Arendt, and did
. decline to take some Nazi anti-Jewish measures.
. What this looks like is that Heidegger actually
. had no real positive dislike of Jews but that he
. was, fitfully, willing to apply the logic of his
. own glorification of the German Volk, or to
. conform, occasionally, to the political direction
. of the Führer. This reveals him as a morally weak
. person (the Aristotelian moral category is
. incontinence) whose own beliefs directed him
. towards evil. Since the anti-Semitism was more or
. less incidental to this, it could be dismissed
. and forgotten when, after the War, it had become
. a personal and professional liability. '
Where it all comes from, is his embrace of acausality, where acts do
not lead to consequences since only the "Now" exists for Heidegger,
and is empty. Acts, instead, serve only to uncover Being.
What is truly revealed, is the condition of life produced by evil
cause, and the inescapable result of that condition.
. ' ..... Heidegger's original approach to Being
. was as being is manifest in the "here and now" --
. Dasein, being (sein) here (da). This introduces a
. positivistic, Hegelian ("the real is rational")
. aspect to any possible moral guidance from this
. system. The here and now in 1933 meant Adolf
. Hitler. The truth and greatness of National
. Socialism was an authentic "uncovering" of Being.
. When this didn't seem to work out, Being
. "withdrew" itself, according to Heidegger. '
| '"The Führer himself and alone is today and in
| the future German reality and its law." [from the
| Rectoral Address, p.65]'
This inability to see the humanity in life, and in others, as you
reveal your Being, is the determined path to the arrogant evil of
absolute power:
. ' ..... If Hitler wasn't bad enough, the
. "withdrawl" of Being leaves the Nietzschean "might
. makes right" ethic of the Will to Power. Heidegger
. now argues that the suggestion that God is dead
. and the reduction of value to will, or nihilism,
. can be understood only in terms of the will to
. power, in his view the central concept of
. Nietzsche's philosophy. [p.93]'
.
. 'The "uncovering" of Being is a violent,
. irrational, revolutionary process. As this
. appealed to the irrationalism of fascists in the
. 30's, it appealed to the nihilists and
. irrationalists of the left from the 50's to the
. present. It is intensely romanticist in both
. groups. '
This is so reminiscent of Suzuki's words on the Zen warrior:
| 'Zen has no special doctrine or philosophy, no
| set of concepts or intellectual formulas, except
| that it tries to release one from the bondage of
| birth and death, by means of certain intuitive
| modes of understanding peculiar to itself It is,
| therefore, extremely flexible in adapting itself
| to almost any philosophy and moral doctrine as
| long as its intuitive teaching is not interfered
| with. It may be found wedded to anarchism or
| fascism, communism or democracy, atheism or
| idealism, or any political or economic dogmatism.
| It is, however, generally animated with a certain
| revolutionary spirit, and when things come to a
| deadlock-as they do when we are overloaded with
| conventionalism, formalism, and other cognate
| isms - Zen asserts itself and proves to be a
| destructive force.'
These two are clearly the same thought. Leading to the same end, as
the review on Rockmore's book continues:
. ' ..... In sum, Heidegger's pursuit of Being,
. as he understood it, led to Nazism, and could in
. fact only lead either to this or another form of
. antidemocratic, authoritarian political practice.
. [p.72]'
.
. And to confirm his mistrust of the basic will of
. the people...
| ' ..... At present [the Der Spiegel interview,
| 1966], he is unconvinced that democracy is adequate
| as a political system in a technological age.
| Heidegger here draws the political consequence of
| his later conception of Being as the real
| historical agent. [p.205]'
. 'This is one of the most revealing admissions
. ever by Heidegger. His illiberal, authoritarian
. principles simply never changed. The only reason
. that there is no Führer in 1966 is that Being has
. "withdrawn" itself. '
The withdrawal, was not (according to Heidegger) because the Nazi evil
was driven out of the world by force of arms, fueled by humanity's
repulsion against Hitler's thoughts, words and deeds. And by
extension, the thoughts, words and deeds of Martin Heidegger, the most
"orthodox" of the Nazi philosophers, as viewed by his own words: and
who is equivalent in moral bankruptcy to the Nazis, but without the
implicit mental excuse of the brownshirts with diminished capacity to
reason.
____ Epilog _______________________________________
The Buddha's highest teachings were the purpose of the Buddha's advent
on this earth.
The Buddha did not appear on this earth to drain people's compassion
with discussions of the emptiness and meaninglessness of life which is
just a void.
The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people to live in
such a narrow and momentary way, that there would be no context for
self-examination and conscience.
The Buddha did not appear on this earth to possess people's minds with
such illogic as to befuddle their ability to choose correctly between
what is good and what is evil.
The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people how to commit
atrocities and genocide, in the exploration of their "infinite
possibilities", or "new states of being".
The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people how to maim
and kill with their hands efficiently, quietly, loudly, with increased
terror inflicted, or to maximize their subjugation to control the
public sentiments for political ends.
These are all profoundly evil distortions of the Buddha's true
teachings, which introduce infinities in the variables holding good
and evil, removing all shades of gray in the propositional calculus of
value.
Simply stated, the Buddha made his advent on this earth with the
purpose of teaching the compassionate way of the bodhisattva, which is
at the heart of the true entity of all phenomena, which is the eternal
Buddha at one with the eternal Law. Which is how to navigate the sea
of sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. He originally set
out on his path, because of his observation of the sufferings of
common people and wanting to understand the source of those sufferings
(enlightened wisdom) and how to transform those sufferings into
unshakable happiness (enlightened action).
When you embrace the void and acausality, your initial intention to
explore Being and essence doesn't matter ... the result is always the
same: chaos and misery, and utter ruination and emptiness to you,
your family, and your country.
But things don't have to be that way ...
___________________________________________________
Nichiren Daishonin writes (Encouragement to a Sick Person, WND p. 78):
. "During the Former and Middle Days of the Law, the
. five impurities began to appear, and in the Latter
. Day, they are rampant. They give rise to the great
. waves of a gale, which not only beat against the
. shore, but strike each other. The impurity of
. thought has been such that, as the Former and
. Middle Days of the Law gradually passed, people
. transmitted insignificant erroneous teachings
. while destroying the unfathomable correct
. teaching. It therefore appears that more people
. have fallen into the evil paths because of errors
. with respect to Buddhism than because of secular
. misdeeds."
Because Bodhidharma discarded the Buddha's highest teaching (the Lotus
Sutra), and due to his lazy nature turned to shortcuts to
enlightenment, he came to the distorted view that life is acausal and
empty, that the true entity is the void.
This erroneous view really comes from a misunderstanding of the Sutra
of Immeasurable Meanings, where the True Entity is described by
negation (the only way it can be): "... neither square, nor round,
neither short, nor long, ..."
The description of the True Entity is logically voidal, but the True
Entity itself is not. Bodhidharma was simply confused, due to the
slander of negligence (laziness), and false confidence. The truth of
life is that at the heart of the True Entity is the compassion of a
bodhisattva for others.
Non-substantiality does not mean empty. Life has value. Humans are
respectworthy. There is a purpose to everything. And every cause has
an effect, so we are responsible for our thoughts, words and deeds.
Zen is acausal. Zen is the greatest poison, which compares to the even
greater medicine of the Lotus Sutra.
Suffice it to say: the purpose of Zen in the world is to corrupt and
undermine everything that is not based upon the truth and the true
teaching. All religions, disciplines, institutions and organizations
which are undermined by Zen will eventually fall after glaring
revelation of their worst defects, sooner rather than later.
If there is some good in your family, locality, society and culture,
or country that you would like to retain, then cease the Zen, and
begin to apply the medicine of the Lotus Sutra to heal the Zen wound
in your life.
"Zen is the work of devilish minds." - Nichiren
-Chas.
. a prescription for the poisoned ones:
.
. The only antidote for the toxic effects of Zen in your life ...
.
. be that from Zen meditation, or the variant forms: physical
. Zen in the martial arts, Qigong, Acupuncture, Falun Gong,
. Copenhagen Convention of Quantum Mechanics, EST,
. Landmark Education, Nazism, Bushido, the Jesuits,
. Al Qaeda, or merely from having the distorted view that life
. is acausal, and that the true entity of all phenomena
. is the void ...
.
. with the effects of the loss of loved ones, detachment,
. isolation or various forms of emptiness in your life ...
.
. is the Lotus Sutra: chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo
. at least 3 times, twice a day, for the rest of your life,
. in at least a whisper ...
.
. and if you can, chant abundantly in a resonant voice !!!
.
. Nichiren Daishonin's Gosho and the
. SGI Dictionary of Buddhism are located at:
.
http://www.sgilibrary.org/writings.php
http://www.sgilibrary.org/dict.html
.
. The full 28 Chapters of the Lotus Sutra (and many other
. wonderful things) are online at the SGI website:
.
http://sgi-usa.org/buddhism/library/Buddhism/LotusSutra/
.
. To find an SGI Community Center:
.
http://www.sgi-usa.org/sgilocations/
__________________________________
LS Chap. 2
Now before this great assembly
I must clear away all doubts and perplexities.
There is no discrepancy in the words of the Buddhas,
there is only the one vehicle, not two.
For numberless kalpas in the past
countless Buddhas who have now entered extinction,
a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, million types
in numbers incapable of calculation-
such World-Honored Ones,
using different types of causes, similes, and parables,
the power of countless expedient means,
have expounded the characteristics of teachings.
These World-Honored Ones
have all preached the doctrine of the single vehicle,
converting countless living beings
and causing them to enter the Buddha way.
And these great sage lords,
knowing what is desired deep in the minds
of the heavenly and human beings and the other living things
throughout all the worlds,
have employed still other expedient means
to help illuminate the highest truth.
This anthology: