This state of bondage, itself illusory, can be seen through by “a sudden revulsion, turning, or re-turning of the ālaya vijñāna back into its original state of purity [alaya-jnana]….The mind returns to [or is recognized as] its original condition of non-attachment, non-discrimination, and non-duality [pure alaya-jnana]”—in other words, by recognizing the ever-present state of nonduality, or the union of Emptiness and Form.3 Although most Yogacharins insisted that the end state of Emptiness of Madhyamaka is the same as in Yogachara, there is an unmistakably more positive tone to the Yogachara—certainly in the concept of the nature of Mind, but also in how nonduality is conceived. For Madhyamaka, nonduality is virtually an utter blank, at least to the mind’s conceptions, although that blankness is actually seeing Reality exactly as it is, in its Suchness or Thusness, without names, concepts, categories, or prejudices. While Yogachara wouldn’t specifically disagree, it more positively sees Emptiness and nonduality as “the absence of duality between perceiving subject and the perceived object,” which allows for the grand radiance, or luminosity, of Emptiness to be better recognized in the very midst of manifestation. Again, it’s not phenomena that are illusory or suffering inducing, but seeing phenomena as objects, as items set apart from awareness or the subject and existing as independent entities out there. Once they are separated from us, then we can either desire them or fear them, both eventually causing suffering, alienation, and bondage.
Now this slightly more positive view of Emptiness, not to mention its connection to ordinary awareness (as Zen would put it, following the Lankavatara Sutra, “The ordinary mind, just that is the Tao [or ‘the way of Truth’]),” acted to unify Emptiness and Form in an even stronger way than Madhyamaka’s revolutionary nonduality. When Emptiness and Form are truly seen to be one, then Form itself is seen as the radiance and luminosity of Emptiness, and all of reality becomes a rainbow of luminous transparency, whole and complete, free and full, a realm of joy and celebration. The union of Emptiness and Form becomes the union of Emptiness and Luminosity, and playing with radiant luminosity—in the form of our own immediate Presence and brilliant Clarity—becomes a direct, daily occurrence.
All of this had a direct hand in the creation of Tantra (and its close cousin, Vajrayana Buddhism), the real flowering of the Third Great Turning. (As already noted, a few Buddhists, in fact, count Tantra/Vajrayana as a Fourth Turning, although this is not as well known. But if we do so, then of course this volume would be talking about the possibility of a Fifth Turning. But since this is less well known, we’ll stick with the standard Three Turnings as presented here, and then go to discuss a possible Fourth Turning.)
Tantra was especially developed at the great Nalanda University in India from the eighth to the eleventh centuries CE. For Tantra, what Early Buddhism (and most other religions) considered sins, poisons, or defilements were actually—precisely because of the union of Emptiness and Form—the seeds of great transcendental wisdom. The poison of anger, for example, instead of being denied, uprooted, or repressed, as in so many other spiritual approaches, is rather entered directly with nondual Awareness, whereupon it discloses its core wisdom, that of pure brilliant clarity. Passion, when entered and embraced with nondual Awareness, transmutes into universal compassion. And so on.
Thus, in Tantric initiations, it was common to use the “Five M’s”—five items that most religions considered totally sinful (such as alcohol, meat, and sex)—and directly introduce them in the initiation ceremony in order to emphasize that all things, without exception, are ornaments of, and fully one with, Spirit itself.4 This nondual realization applies as well to all of our own “sinful” qualities—all of our feelings, thoughts, and actions, no matter how apparently negative, are at heart nothing other than Godhead or nondual Spirit, and are to be seen and experienced exactly as such.
Where the First Turning was the way of renunciation, denying negative states as part of despised samsara, and the Second Turning was the way of transformation, working on a negative state with wisdom until it converted to a positive transcendental state, the Third Turning and its Tantric correlate was the way not of renunciation or transformation but of transmutation—of looking directly into a negative state of Form in order to directly recognize its already present state of Emptiness or Primordial Wisdom. The motto here is “Bring everything to the Path.” Nothing, absolutely nothing, is taboo; food, alcohol, sex, money—all are to be deeply befriended and lovingly embraced (within, of course, sane limits) as being ornaments of Spirit itself, direct manifestations of the ultimate Divine. There is only Spirit. There is only Tathagatagarbha (womb of Suchness). There is only Svabhavikakaya (Integral Body of Buddha). And all of this is because the sacred and the profane, the infinite and the finite, nirvana and samsara, Emptiness and Form, are not two different, separate, and fragmented realms, but co-arising, mutually existing, complementary aspects of one Whole Reality, equally to be embraced and cherished.
Looking at the nonduality of Emptiness and Form, we can say that Enlightenment “transcends and includes” the entire manifest world. With Emptiness, the entire world is transcended, is let go of, is seen through as a shimmering transparency, is understood to have no separate-self existence at all, is seen as a seamless (not featureless) Whole—and thus we are radically free from the torment and torture of identifying with partial, finite objects and things and events (including a small, finite, fragmented, skin-encapsulated ego), all of which are typically and normally seen as separate and “other.” As the Upanishads put it, “Wherever there is other, there is fear.”5 Samsara is being caught in the hell of others (as Sartre might say). It is identifying with various ornaments of the Divine but without an awareness of the Divine itself—being in a genuine heaven but without a genuine Spirit (Emptiness) anywhere to be found. But recognize Emptiness, and then one’s identity with any particular, separate, isolated thing or event evaporates instantly, leaving an identity, not with the small, separate-self sense, but with the entire world of Form. Since Reality is the union of Emptiness and Form, to discover Emptiness is to be free of any specific or isolated Form, and instead to become one with ALL Form, a radical Fullness that is the Form side of the radical Freedom of Emptiness—with infinite and finite, nirvana and samsara, Emptiness and Form, Freedom and Fullness, all nondual. You no longer look at a mountain, you are the mountain. You no longer hear the rain, you are the rain. You no longer see the clouds float by, you are the clouds floating by. There is no “other” here, because there is no longer anything outside of you that could hurt, harm, or torture you, or that you could crave, lust after, or hungrily grasp. There is simply the entire timeless Now, the ever-present Present, containing the entire manifest world, and you ARE all that. To quote the Upanishads again, Tat Tvam asi—“Thou art That”—where “That” is the divine Wholeness of the entire universe. In Emptiness, radical Freedom; in Form, radical Fullness—and both are “not-two.”
Now, when it comes to the manifest world, where evolution is so prominently on display, Emptiness itself does not evolve. It has no moving parts, and thus nothing to evolve; it is the absence of absence of absence (if anything), and thus, again, nothing concrete to actually evolve. It is not apart from samsara or Form; it is the emptiness (or transparency or “wetness”) of all samsara and Form. A sage who, two thousand years ago, directly realized Emptiness would discover and “possess” the same, identical Freedom as a sage who experienced Emptiness today, even though the world has evolved considerably in the meantime. But when it comes to Form, to the world of Form—well, that is exactly where evolution has occurred. And the world of Form has indeed evolved over the last two thousand years, becoming (as all evolution does) more and more conscious, more complex, more caring, more loving, more creative, and more self-organized, containing higher and higher Wholes (as we will see in more detail).
And thus, more truths have emerged. Two thousand years ago, humanity thought the earth was flat; slavery was taken to be part of the natural, normal state of nature; women were largely treated as second-class citizens, if citizens at all; there was no understanding of, say, brain neurochemistry and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, GABA, acetylcholine, nor medical advances that have added an average of forty years to the typical lifespan. Likewise, new psychological and sociological truths have emerged and evolved, advancing considerably our understanding of what it means to be human. The world of Form, in short, has become considerably more complex and Full, and although an experience of Enlightenment—of the unity of Emptiness and Form—is no Freer today than it was two thousand years ago (Emptiness is the same, then and now), it is most definitely Fuller (Form has most definitely increased, grown, and evolved). Evolution itself operates by transcending and including, transcending and including, transcending and including—and thus a human being today transcends and includes most of the fundamental emergent phenomena going all the way back to the Big Bang. Humans today literally contain quarks, atoms, molecules, cells, a photosynthetic Kreb’s cycle, organ systems, neural nets, a reptilian brain stem, a mammalian limbic system, a primate cortex, and—as its own “transcending” addition—a complex neocortex (which contains more possible neural connections than there are stars in the known universe). All of this is “transcended and included” in a human being.
Likewise, across the board with goodness, truth, and beauty. The world today has access to all of the great premodern Wisdom Traditions (and their meditative access to ultimate Truth and Enlightened Awareness) plus all of modernity’s staggering advances in the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, hygiene—stretching from a cure for polio, to putting a human on the moon, to the invention of radio, television, and computers that now contain more information than the sum total of all human brains) plus all of postmodernity’s sophisticated understanding about the contextual and constructed nature of relative truths, and the central role of perspective in all relative ideas. Shouldn’t the world’s Great Wisdom Traditions keep up with the modern and postmodern additions to our knowledge and understanding? After all, what is it that is evolving in all of this? Why, of course, Spirit! Evolution is simply Spirit-in-action: Brahman, Tao, Buddha-nature, Godhead, Allah, YHWH, the Great Perfection, Ati, the Ground of all Being, One without a Second. Whitehead, we noted, divided Spirit into two dimensions: the “Primordial Nature of God” (timeless and unchanging; for us, Emptiness) and the “Consequent Nature of God” (the sum total of all evolution to date; Form). And while the Primordial Nature of God has not changed one iota from the Big Bang and before, the Consequent Nature of God has grown magnificently and substantially. There are commonly understood truths now that would have simply staggered the premodern mind, from the nature of brain activity (a brain that, as noted, has more neural synaptic connections than there are known stars in the entire universe) to the extraordinary unfoldings of a self-organizing and self-transcending evolution, to the nature of the Big Bang itself in its first nanoseconds. Not to mention the Singularity that is in all likelihood bearing down on us now in technology and will change the world more than any other single change in human history.
Buddhism is a unique spiritual system in many ways, while also sharing some fundamental similarities with the other Great Wisdom Traditions of humankind. But perhaps one its most unique features is its understanding, in some schools, that its own system is evolving or developing. This is generally expressed in the notion of the Three Great Turnings of Buddhism, the three major stages of unfolding that Buddhism has undergone, according to Buddhism itself. The First Turning of the Wheel is Early Buddhism, now generally believed to be represented by the Theravada school and thought to contain the historical Gautama Buddha’s original teachings, which developed in the great Axial period around the sixth century BCE. The Second Turning of the Wheel, represented by the Madhyamaka school, was founded by the genius philosopher-sage Nagarjuna around the second century CE. The Third and final (to date) Great Turning of the Wheel, represented by the Yogachara school, originated in the second century CE but had its period of greatest productivity in the fourth century CE with the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu. All Three Turnings had profound impacts on every school of Buddhism that came after them.
The Madhyamaka school, although critical of Early Buddhism in many ways, nonetheless transcends and includes many of its foundational teachings, while criticizing those notions it finds partial, limited, or incomplete. And many Yogachara schools attempted to integrate and synthesize all Three Turnings. This was an ongoing, cumulative, synthesizing unfolding, as if Buddhism was plugged into the great evolution of Spirit itself.
In other words, many adherents of Buddhism had a view that Buddhism itself was unfolding, with each new turning adding something new and important to the overall Buddhist teaching itself. My point can now be put simply: many contemporary Buddhist teachers, agreeing with psychologists and sociologists that the world itself, at least in several important ways, is undergoing a global transformation, believe that this transformation will affect also Buddhism, adding to it yet newer and more significant truths, and resulting in yet another unfolding, a Fourth Great Turning, of Buddhism itself. (Some people view the rise of Tantric Buddhism, or occasionally Vajrayana Buddhism, as a Fourth Turning, and from that perspective, we are speaking of a possible Fifth Turning. But generally we will remain with the more common Three Turnings and take it from there.) This Fourth Turning retains all the previous great truths of Buddhism but also adds newer findings from fields as diverse as evolutionary biology and developmental psychology—but only to the extent that they are in fundamental agreement with the foundational tenets of Buddhism itself, simply extending them to some degree, as it were. Known by various names—from evolutionary Buddhism to Integral Buddhism—the Fourth Turning, like all the previous turnings, transcends yet includes its predecessors, adding new material while retaining all the essentials. And what is so remarkable about this development is that it is completely in keeping with this general understanding of itself that Buddhism has grasped—namely, that Buddhadharma (“Buddhist Truth”) is itself unfolding, growing, and evolving, responding to new circumstances and discoveries as it does so. Even the Dalai Lama has said, for example, that Buddhism must keep pace with modern science or it will grow old and obsolete.
A brief glance at Buddhist history will show what is involved. Original Buddhism was founded on such notions as the difference between samsara (the source of suffering) and nirvana (the source of Enlightenment or Awakening); the three marks of samsaric existence; that is dukkha (suffering), anicca (impermanence), and anatta (no-self); and the Four Noble Truths: (1) life as lived in samsara is suffering, (2) the cause of this suffering is craving or grasping, (3) to end craving or grasping is to end suffering, and (4) there is a way to end grasping, namely, the eightfold way—right view, right intention, right speech, right actions, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right unitive awareness.
The ultimate goal of Early Buddhism was to escape samsara—the manifest realm of life, death, rebirth, old age, suffering, and sickness—entirely, by following the eightfold way and attaining nirvana. “Nirvana” means, essentially, formless extinction. The prefix “nir-” means “without,” and “vana” means everything from desire to grasping to lust to craving itself. The overall meaning is “blown out” or “extinguished”—as if a lit candle were handed to you, and you leaned over and blew out the flame. What is extinguished or “blown out”? All the typical marks of samsara itself—including suffering, the angst that comes from craving for permanence, the separate-self sense, or self-contraction (often called “ego”), and its inherent fear, anxiety, and depression. The state of nirvana is sometimes said to be a state similar to deep dreamless sleep, in which, of course, there is no ego, no suffering, no hankering for permanence, no space, no time, no separation—if anything, there is simply the boundless peace or vast equanimity of being liberated from the torture of samsara and its suffering-inducing ways. According to some schools, there is even an end limit, or “extreme” form of nirvana, called nirodh—complete cessation—where neither consciousness nor objects arise at all, and that might be thought of as an infinite formlessness of pure freedom. Be that as it may, the goal is clear: get out of samsara and into nirvana.
According to Buddhist history, Gautama Siddhartha (“Buddha” is not a name but a title, and means “Awakened,” and was added to his name after his Enlightenment) was raised as a prince, with all the princely affluence of palace life, and with a father who protected him closely, so that he wouldn’t be exposed to the typical horrors of everyday life in India at that time. But then one day, Gautama escaped from the palace walls and, in wandering around the surrounding city, saw three sights that severely disturbed him—a very sick person, an old and decrepit person, and a dead person. “These are something my palatial life cannot protect me from,” he thought, and he promptly left the palace and began a six-year search, studying under various holy men, looking for an answer to life’s problems that he had witnessed wandering in his city. But after six years, nothing proved satisfactory, and, exhausted and frustrated, he sat down under the Bodhi tree and vowed not to arise until he had discovered the answer.
Early one morning, glancing at the starry heavens, Gautama had a profound experience. “Aha! I’ve found you! Never again will I be deceived!” he exclaimed, as much with utter joy as complete exhaustion. What did he find? Whatever it was, it converted him from “ignorance” to “Enlightenment.” Different responses as to what he saw and understood have been given by various schools, all of them believable. One was the “twelvefold chain of dependent origination,” a profound understanding of the completely interwoven nature of all reality and the inexorable role of causality in tying them all together—all of which conspire to inevitably cause suffering when driven by grasping. Another was the three marks of existence itself (impermanence, suffering, and selflessness) and the eightfold way to end their hold on the human being. According to Zen, Gautama had a profound satori, a deep awakening experience, awakening to his own true Buddha-nature and his fundamental oneness with the entire Ground of Being (or Dharmakaya), ending his separate-self sense, and with it, suffering. Whatever exactly it was, it did indeed soon become formalized in the three marks of existence, the twelvefold chain, and the eightfold way. Gautama Siddhartha had sat down under the Bodhi tree an ordinary individual and got up from it an Enlightened or Awakened being, a Buddha. When Buddha was asked if he was a God or supernatural being, he replied, “No.” “What was he?” “Awakened,” is all that he replied.
Such was the basic form of Buddhism as practiced for almost eight hundred years—until, that is, Nagarjuna, who began paying attention to this strange duality between samsara and nirvana. For Nagarjuna, this duality tore Reality in half and didn’t produce liberation but subtle illusion. For him, there is no ontological difference between samsara and nirvana. The difference is merely epistemological. That is, Reality looked at through concepts and categories appears as samsara, while the very same Reality looked at free of concepts and categories is nirvana. Samsara and nirvana are thus not-two, or “nondual.” And this caused a major revolution in Buddhist thought and practice.
Gautama Buddha had discovered the “emptiness,” or ultimately illusory nature of, the separate-self sense; but he had not discovered the emptiness—the shunyata—of all of what is usually called “reality” (including not only all subjects, or selves, but all objects, or “dharmas”). Buddhism had just taken its second major Turn in its illustrious history, adding a novel and profound element to its already accepted discoveries.
Nagarjuna relies on the “Two Truths” doctrine—there is relative, or conventional, truth, and there is absolute, or ultimate Truth. Relative truth can be categorized and characterized, and is the basis of disciplines such as science, history, law, and so on. That a molecule of water consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom is a relative truth, for example. But ultimate Truth cannot be categorized at all (including that statement). Any category or quality or characteristic makes sense only in terms of its opposite, but ultimate Reality has no opposite. Based on what is known as the “Four Inexpressibles,” you can’t, according to Nagarjuna, say that ultimate Reality is Being, or not-Being, or both, or neither. You cannot say it is Self (atman), or no-self (anatman or anatta), or both, or neither. You can’t say it’s implicate, or explicate, or both, or neither. You can’t say that it’s immanent in Gaia, or that it transcends Gaia, or both, or neither. You can’t say it’s a timeless Now, or a temporal everlastingness, or both, or neither. And so on for any category or quality. The reason is, as we were saying, that any concept you come up with makes sense only in terms of its opposite (liberated versus bound, infinite versus finite, something versus nothing, implicate versus explicate, pleasure versus pain, free versus limited, temporal versus timeless, good versus evil, true versus false, and so on), yet ultimate Reality has no opposite. As the Upanishads put it, “Brahman [ultimate Reality] is one without a second” and “free of the pairs”—the pairs of opposites, that is—and thus can’t be categorized at all (including that statement, which would also be formally denied). Nagarjuna says, “It is neither void, nor not void, nor both, nor neither, but in order to point it out, it is called the Void.” The Void, shunyata, or Emptiness. It’s a radical “neti, neti”—“not this, not that”—except “neti, neti” is also denied as a characteristic.
Now what this does mean is that Emptiness, or ultimate Reality, is not separate from anything that is arising. (Technically, even that statement would be denied; but we are now talking metaphorically to get across the general gist of Emptiness—because the main point is that although it cannot be said, it can be shown, or directly realized. More on this as we continue.) Not being separate from anything (“not having a second”), it is the Emptiness of everything that is arising. Emptiness isn’t a realm separate from other realms, it is the Emptiness, or Transparency, of all realms. Looked at free from conceptualization or categorization, everything that is arising is Emptiness, or Emptiness is the Reality of each and every thing in the manifest and unmanifest world—it is their very Suchness, their Thusness, their Isness. Looked at through concepts and categories, the universe appears as samsara—as built of radically separate and isolated things and events—and grasping after those things and attachment to them causes suffering because, ultimately, everything eventually falls apart, and thus whatever you’re attached to will sooner or later cause suffering as it falls apart. But looked at with prajna (or jnana)—nonconceptual choiceless awareness—the world of samsara is actually self-liberated nirvana. (In the word jnana, the root “jna,” by the way, in English is “kno,” as in “knowledge,” or “gno,” as in “gnosis.”) Jnana is a nondual, unqualifiable knowledge or timeless Present awareness, the realization of which brings Enlightenment or Awakening. Awakening to what? The radical Freedom or infinite Liberation or radical Luminosity-Love of pure Emptiness, though those terms, again, are at best metaphors.
Since there is no radical separation between samsara and nirvana (samsara and nirvana being “not-two,” or as the Heart Sutra summarizes nonduality, “That which is Emptiness is not other than Form; that which is Form is not other than Emptiness”), liberating Emptiness can be found anywhere in the world of Form—any and all Form is one with Emptiness. It is not a particular state of mind or state of consciousness but the very fabric or “isness” of consciousness itself.
A commonly used metaphor to explain the relationship of Emptiness to Form is the ocean and its waves. Typical, limited, bounded states of consciousness—from looking at a mountain, to experiencing happiness, to feeling fear, to watching a bird in flight, to listening to Mozart’s music—are all partial states and thus separate from each other; they all have a beginning (or are “born”), and they all have an ending (or “die”). They are like the individual waves in the ocean; each starts, has a certain size (from “small,” to “medium,” to “huge”), and eventually ends, and, of course, they are all different from each other.
But Emptiness—the Reality of each moment, its sheer transparent being, its simple “Suchness” or “Thusness” or “Isness”—is like the wetness of the ocean. And no wave is wetter than another. One wave can certainly be bigger than another, but it is not wetter. All waves are equally wet; all waves are equally Emptiness, or equally Spirit, or equally Godhead or Brahman or Tao. And that means that the very nature of this and every moment, just as it is, is pure Spirit—Spirit is not hard to reach but is impossible to avoid! And one wave can last longer than another wave, but it is still not wetter; it has no more Suchness or Thusness than the smallest wave in the entire ocean. And that means that whatever state of mind you have, right here, right now, is equally Enlightened; you can no more attain Enlightenment than you can attain your feet (or a wave can become wet). Enlightenment, and the “Big Mind/Big Heart” that reveals it, is absolutely ever-present Presence; all you have to do is recognize it (about which, more later).
But this being so, one no longer has to retreat to a monastery—away from the world, away from Form, away from samsara—in order to find Liberation. Samsara and nirvana have been joined, united, brought together into a single or nondual Reality. The goal is no longer to become the isolated saint or arhat—looking to get off of samsara entirely—but the socially and environmentally engaged “bodhisattva”—which literally means “being of Enlightened mind”—whose vow is not to get off samsara and retreat into an isolated nirvana, but a promise to fully embrace samsara and vow to gain Enlightenment as quickly as possible so as to help all sentient beings recognize their own deepest spiritual reality or Buddha-nature, and hence Enlightenment.
In one sweep, the two halves of the universe, so to speak—samsara and nirvana, Form and Emptiness—were joined into one, whole, seamless (not featureless) Reality, and Buddhist practitioners were set free to embrace the entire manifest realm of samsara and Form, not to avoid it. The vow of the bodhisattva likewise became paradoxical, reflecting both members of the pairs of opposites, not just one: no longer “There are no others to save (because samsara is illusory),” which is the arhat’s chant, but “There are no others to save, therefore I vow to save them all!”—which reflects the truth of a samsara and nirvana paradoxically joined, no longer torn in two.
The Madhyamaka notion of Emptiness henceforth became the foundation of virtually every Mahayana and Vajrayana school of Buddhism, becoming, as the title of T. R. V. Murti’s book has it, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (although “philosophy” is perhaps not the best word for a system whose goal is to recognize that which transcends thought entirely).1
One of the most demanding challenges for the historian of any country is to explain the underlying processes of history and national character, what the British historian A. J. P. Taylor referred to as “the profound forces,” that impel a nation along one course rather than another.1 Modern Japan’s history has been particularly difficult to explain and understand. Japan’s international behavior has fluctuated widely and wildly—from isolation to enthusiastic borrowing from foreign cultures, from emperor worship to democracy, from militarism to pacifism. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, when its leaders abruptly ended national isolation and undertook the reorganization of their institutions after the model of the West, Japan has been marked by its pendulum-like swings in national policy. None has been more dramatic than the 180-degree turn from a brutal imperialism to withdrawal from international politics and a sustained drive for commercial prowess after World War II.
Japan’s role as a merchant nation brought astonishing results. Staying on the sidelines of the Cold War, it recovered rapidly from wartime devastation to become the world’s second-ranked economic power. Through its widely envied choice of avoiding the military spending and involvements that encumbered other nations, Japan was able to make the long-term investments in science, education, and technology that would speed its advancement. Japan’s financial markets garnered massive wealth and influence. Its mastery of the skills of organizing a modern industrial society provoked universal admiration as foreign observers grasped for superlatives to describe its achievement. In 1979, a Harvard sociologist ranked Japan simply “number one” in the world. Two years later, a popular French writer regarded it as “a model to all the world.”2
After 1990, however, the nation again surprised the world. Japan abruptly entered into a puzzling period of paralysis; its economic ascent stalled and its government ceased to function as effectively as it once had. Foreign observers were at a loss to explain Japan’s failure to take steps to revive its moribund economy. U.S. policymakers spared no opportunity to advise their slumping ally on the reforms required. The “Japanese economic miracle” was soon eclipsed by the rise of the neighboring colossus. The 1990s became Japan’s “lost decade,” and China’s emergence as an economic giant dimmed the memories of Japan’s achievement.
In retrospect, this period of stagnation may well be seen as a transition time. Early in the new century there are many indications that Japan is on the verge of another sea change in its international orientation. The belligerence of North Korea, the growing rivalry with a newly powerful China, and the uncertainties of an age of terrorism all have awakened Japanese security consciousness. A new generation of Japanese leaders is impatient with the low political profile that came with Japan’s role as a merchant nation. Japan is moving from a period of single-minded pursuit of economic power to a more orthodox international role in which it will be deeply engaged in political-military affairs. After more than half a century of national pacifism and isolationism, the nation is preparing to become a major player in the strategic struggles of the twenty-first century.
These recurrent wide swings in national policy raise persistent questions about the motivations of the Japanese in their national life. What are the common threads that bind together the divergent strategies of modern Japan? Japan’s national purpose and the perceived traits of its national character are subjects of scrutiny among its neighbors and can be sources of distrust. Japan’s imperialist depredations are still fresh in the minds of Chinese and Koreans. Memories of their bitter experience as victims of Japanese expansion are stoked by their rising nationalism. Signs that Japan might be abandoning its postwar pacifism are disturbing and cause for outcry.
For Americans, in contrast, the apparent readiness of Japan to adopt a more active security role is a welcome change and the fulfillment of a goal long pursued. The alliance with Japan, now extending more than half a century, has often frustrated U.S. leaders because it seemed to provide Japan with unfair economic advantage: While the United States provided security guarantees for Japan, Japan pursued economic growth, often in competition with U.S. interests. Preoccupied with the war on terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and at the same time aiming to maintain an effective balance with China, a rising power, the United States now seeks to rework the alliance with Japan to meet new conditions. Drawing Japan into a more active role in its global strategy is a major objective of U.S. policy.
Despite more than a century of alliance experience, American understanding of Japanese character, motivation, and purpose remains shaky. Japanese patterns of behavior have been a source of frequent puzzlement for Americans, whose history has been tightly intertwined with Japan but whose social values and national experience are utterly different. As Henry Kissinger pointed out, Japan’s unique civilization presents the United States with an ally possessing “intangibles of culture that America is ill-prepared to understand fully.”3 What are the driving forces that influence how Japan will act in the international system? Are there recurrent patterns in Japan’s modern experience that will help to explain how its leaders may respond to the emerging environment of world politics? These questions are relevant not only in looking back at Japan’s remarkable history but also in observing contemporary Japan and pondering its future at a critical time of change and uncertainty in Asia and the world. U.S. policymakers have been wrong about—or surprised by—Japan’s behavior many times in the past. As Japan returns to great-power politics and the alliance enters a new and problematic phase, a clear understanding of Japanese character and purpose and its new role takes on renewed importance.
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“The Jewel of Abundance will inspire, challenge, and motivate readers to discover and express their innate potential to experience excellence in all aspects of life. Having known Ellen Grace O’Brian for almost four decades, I am pleased to affirm her good character and total commitment to living the principles she so clearly explains.”
— Roy Eugene Davis, founder and director of Center for Spiritual Awareness and author of Paramahansa Yogananda as I Knew Him
“The Jewel of Abundance lays out a well-defined perspective on prosperity, wealth, and abundance. It presents a balanced view that takes into account common human needs and shows us simple ways to find happiness and satisfaction that lie beyond the accumulation of material objects. Ellen Grace O’Brian carefully and simply presents ancient wisdom so that one can easily begin to make the necessary changes to one’s lifestyle. One does not have to be a saint to follow the path of righteousness; one simply has to learn the ways of dharma, kama, and artha and apply them to one’s daily life. The Jewel of Abundance is a very valuable book containing gems of wisdom. It can help the world change its course from the present crisis of materialism to a sustainable lifestyle.”
— Ela Gandhi, peace activist and founder of the Gandhi Development Trust
Gradually, bit by bit, India’s vast and venerable storehouse of knowledge has filtered into the West, informing disciplines from philosophy to psychology to medicine, and transforming how we understand religion and express our spirituality. Each new translation of a sacred or philosophical text, each new guru, each new scholarly article, each new pilgrim to swamis and yoga masters in India, and of course each new interpretive book, like this one, adds to the wealth of Indic resources for novice seekers and veteran yogis alike. The ongoing transmission of Vedic knowledge, now more than two hundred years in the making, penetrates our culture more widely and deeply every day. But while large numbers of Westerners are now familiar with concepts like karma and mind-body technologies like meditation and postural yoga, much of the Vedic treasure trove remains untapped or underappreciated. The four purusharthas — the proper aims of life or objects of pursuit — are among those neglected precepts. With this wise and practical book, Ellen Grace O’Brian admirably fills the gap.
Two of the purusharthas, dharma and moksha, are actually quite well known among yogis, meditators, and students of Eastern philosophy. This is because the purveyors of yogic knowledge have discussed those concepts at length in speech and writing and also because no precise equivalents exist in Western philosophical and religious systems. As a result, with varying degrees of depth and seriousness, seekers have delved into the understanding of dharma, a complex term that boils down to action that supports individual spiritual development and the well-being of the larger community; and of moksha, the liberation of the soul in yogic union with the divine. The other two purusharthas, kama (pleasure) and artha (prosperity, the focus of this book), have received far less attention.
The Indian teachers who journeyed West did not exactly neglect the human drive for material comfort and worldly enjoyment. They did not discourage anyone from enjoying life’s safe, simple pleasures, and as leaders of organizations, they were fully aware of the positive uses of money; they had to pay bills, after all, and raise money to finance their work. More important, their success in reaching Western seekers depended on their ability to adapt and articulate age-old wisdom to the people who came to them for guidance. Paramahansa Yogananda and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (to cite the twentieth century’s best-known gurus in the West) emphasized that the yogic teachings they espoused had value not only for the rare ascetics but for people with jobs and families. They taught that material comfort is compatible with spiritual development and can actually support it by freeing one’s time and energy for spiritual pursuits. They also taught that the reverse is true: Yogic methods that expand consciousness and open the heart can enhance the kind of thinking, acting, and relating that supports material success.
Yogacharya O’Brian is in that lineage, both literally (Yogananda was the guru of her guru, Roy Eugene Davis) and because her perspective accords with the inner/outer, spiritual/material complementarity advocated by the yogic missionaries. Her interpretation of artha, the aim of life addressed in this book, is consistent with that of the gurus who directed their teachings to householders.
This book is commendable for many reasons, among them its unfailingly practical orientation and its lucid explanation of yogic concepts that are often rendered in obtuse prose. Also, O’Brian understands that the purusharthas are connected, intertwined, and mutually reinforcing. As with the legs of a table, when you move one, the others also move. Hence, when pursued correctly, growth in one of the four aims of life enhances growth in the others. In the case of artha, properly obtained prosperity enhances pleasure, the fulfillment of dharma, and progress toward moksha — and, similarly, growth in any of the other three can enhance one’s chances of becoming more prosperous.
Equally admirable is the author’s treatment of prosperity as something more than financial success and material comfort. In her view, spiritual abundance is part and parcel of the proper definition of artha. She recognizes that abundance acquired in the absence of spiritual growth is relatively empty and unfulfilling — and, she contends, ambitious seekers of wealth are advised not to ignore their inner lives, for doing so can actually be detrimental to their material goals.
If you think this sounds as though Yogacharya O’Brian is echoing the many voices that have, for years, urged Americans to find a balance between work and home, or career advancement and personal happiness, you are only partially correct. Her yogic perspective extends beyond ordinary happiness and mental health, pointing the reader to the highest levels of human development and encouraging action that serves the larger society as well as personal goals — not in addition to material success but as integral to the very definition of prosperity.
By presenting this elevated vision of life balance and human aspiration, The Jewel of Abundance is a useful antidote to the hyper-materialism that poisons modern life. And for those who seek the fulfillment of both their souls and their material desires, the book is a wellspring of inspiration and intelligent guidance.
— Philip Goldberg, author of The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru and American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West
We are born to thrive. If we look, we can see this — everything in nature, including us, is geared toward the growth and fulfillment of its purpose. The sapling Red Delicious apple tree in the garden stretches toward the sun, and given the right conditions, it blossoms and bears sweet fruit. How we delight to witness that same impetus of blossoming growth in a baby! We applaud as she first lifts her head, then rocks on all fours and crawls forth to pursue adventure and taste the world. What next? She stands up, speaks, falls down, gets up, and runs off to school with the innate imperative to thrive that is her birthright.
The inclination to thrive, prosper, and fulfill our potential is the natural impulse of our divine capacity as spiritual beings. The same energy that gives birth to stars in the cosmos inspires music, literature, architecture, medicine, dance, technology — any and all forms of creative expression and manifestation. That energy is unlimited; it pervades all of nature, relentlessly encouraging all of life to realize its full potential: Thrive! it implores. It whispers in our dreams and stirs our imagination with its evolutionary call: Prosper! Live your full life; do what you came here to do. Follow the impulse to prosper and become all that you truly are in your fullness.
As a child, do you remember being asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Even as a young girl in the 1950s and 1960s, when career options were more restricted for women, I thought about what I might do when I got older. I dreamed of who I might become. But like many young people even today, I didn’t have a context for my dreams. I was not aware of a structure other than cultural expectations that could illumine the path ahead. Over the years, I’ve heard many spiritual seekers share a similar story. They often say something like, “Wouldn’t it be great if life came with an instruction manual?”
That seemingly missing instruction manual can be found in ancient Vedic how-to-live teachings for seekers of all ages. One of the most important instructions we find there is what is called purushartha — the four universal goals of human life. This sublime and practical guidance is one of the precious jewels of Sanatana Dharma. Also known as the Eternal Way, Sanatana Dharma is the traditional name for the Vedic philosophical principles and spiritual practices that became known as Hinduism. Based on our individual connection to cosmic order, this comprehensive approach to spiritually conscious living is for all people and for all time.
The literal meaning of the Sanskrit term purushartha is “for the purpose of the soul.”1 That’s it! What we do in life — our dreams, our aims, our goals, and our accomplishments — are to serve the soul, to support our spiritual destiny.
Pursuit of the four aims of life contributes to living with balance, integrity, and joy. When rightly understood and used as a guidepost, the four goals help us develop on all levels. We become both spiritually aware and worldly wise.
The first goal is dharma, which encompasses realizing our higher purpose and fulfilling our destiny in this lifetime. The word dharma is rich with meaning: the way of righteousness, purpose, duty, support, law, or a goal of life. Dharma is the fundamental law of life, the underlying cosmic order. Literally, it means “what holds together.” Consider this “holding together” as the connection between divine order and our individual lives and destiny. Our lives are intertwined with the cosmic order. An intelligent, enlivening power is nurturing our universe and we can learn to cooperate with it.2 Each of us has a purpose, a place, a duty, and a divine destiny.
The overarching dharma or universal purpose of life is to awaken to our essential spiritual nature. Waking up spiritually is Self-realization and God-realization — realizing the truth of our being and having knowledge and direct insight into Ultimate Reality. When we wake up, we can live in harmony with divine order, actualize our innate potential, and make a positive contribution to life. Beyond all else we are inspired to do, it is this highest priority that promises lasting fulfillment. Dharma is our north star. But dharma does not shine alone — its brilliance is set off by the three other life goals that surround it.
The second goal, artha, or prosperity, is the primary focus of this book. The aim of artha is to prosper in every way — to develop the consciousness and the skills to attract whatever is needed to fulfill our dharma or higher purpose. In this context, prosperity is understood as a spiritual goal — not for its own sake, but for the sake of the soul. It provides the means to live fully and freely. When prosperity is equated with material wealth attained for its own sake, the word prosperity loses its deep meaning. True prosperity is experienced in a spiritual context. Because this truth is frequently missed, the words prosperity and wealth are often narrowly defined or understood at the level of material accomplishment alone. But as you work through the teachings of this book with me, you’ll see that these words can rightly be applied and understood in the highest way as spiritual goals. And that makes all the difference.
The third goal is kama, which is pleasure or enjoyment. This, too, is for the sake of the soul. Our inclination to seek pleasure springs from the simple joy of being alive and is linked to our higher quest for ananda, the soul’s bliss. It doesn’t take that long to realize that playing with pleasure is playing with fire; pleasure and pain are linked. To effectively embrace pleasure as one of life’s essential goals without getting burned by it, we need to understand it. And we can. This requires discerning what enhances our joy and what depletes it. Ultimately, this life aim points us in the direction of the soul’s bliss, where our search for unending joy can be realized. Life is meant to be lived fully and enjoyed.
The fourth goal is moksha. Moksha is the absolute freedom that blossoms from enlightenment. It is the liberation of consciousness from the errors of perception that cause identification with our small, personal self. It is the realization of our true, divine Self that makes it possible to live spontaneously, freely, and joyfully in the world. The first three aims are oriented toward this one. Live with purpose. Prosper. Enjoy life. Set your sights on freedom. Living with higher purpose, doing what is ours to do, thriving, enjoying life — all are meant to point us in the direction of ultimate fulfillment and freedom. Jesus highlighted this so well with the question, “What does it profit us to gain the entire world if we lose our soul?” Or, as Paramahansa Yogananda encouraged, “Why not live in the highest way?”3
Artha and kama, the goals to thrive and enjoy life, are supported, clarified, and constrained by dharma — purpose and duty — and moksha — the liberation of consciousness. Seen in this way, we live both a full and a balanced life. Too much spiritual striving, as if fulfillment is found at the end, neglects the aim of kama — to live joyfully now. Without the illumination of higher purpose, unbounded pursuit of either pleasure or wealth ultimately leads to a life of distraction and pain.
These four universal life goals offer a context for our life, the guiding light we yearn for. Our desire for a meaningful life is even greater than our desire for happiness. It’s universal. No matter what our culture, ethnicity, gender, religion, spiritual path, or the particular time we live in — we are here to awaken and fulfill our potential. It’s the soul’s journey from the darkness of ignorance to the light of Self-realization, from confusion about who we are and what our purpose is to clarity and self-actualization.
Once we recognize the primary dharmic goal to awaken, we can see that our life is perfectly arranged to support us in doing just that. Not only that, we discover lasting fulfillment along the way as conscious partners in a world awakening to its potential. From the dark ages to the technological advances of today, we are ready for the greatest evolutionary jump the world has ever known — the awakening of our hearts and our minds to the unity of all life. Awakening, prospering, and fulfilling our potential is inextricably tied to the well-being of all. What we do matters. We are powerful agents, not only of personal prosperity, but of essential social change and planetary healing, so that all may prosper.
How do we do it? We wake up. We realize who we are as spiritual beings in a spiritual universe, joyously and inescapably connected in the one divine Ultimate Reality expressing itself as all that is. We grow up. We free ourselves from the shackles of blame and welcome responsibility for our life. We mature beyond the adolescent egocentric level of consciousness that fosters greed, the disease at the root of both personal and planetary malaise. And we show up. We discover how to prosper — how to realize our potential and bring forth our profound offering to life.
Gradually, bit by bit, India’s vast and venerable storehouse of knowledge has filtered into the West, informing disciplines from philosophy to psychology to medicine, and transforming how we understand religion and express our spirituality. Each new translation of a sacred or philosophical text, each new guru, each new scholarly article, each new pilgrim to swamis and yoga masters in India, and of course each new interpretive book, like this one, adds to the wealth of Indic resources for novice seekers and veteran yogis alike. The ongoing transmission of Vedic knowledge, now more than two hundred years in the making, penetrates our culture more widely and deeply every day. But while large numbers of Westerners are now familiar with concepts like karma and mind-body technologies like meditation and postural yoga, much of the Vedic treasure trove remains untapped or underappreciated. The four purusharthas — the proper aims of life or objects of pursuit — are among those neglected precepts. With this wise and practical book, Ellen Grace O’Brian admirably fills the gap.
Two of the purusharthas, dharma and moksha, are actually quite well known among yogis, meditators, and students of Eastern philosophy. This is because the purveyors of yogic knowledge have discussed those concepts at length in speech and writing and also because no precise equivalents exist in Western philosophical and religious systems. As a result, with varying degrees of depth and seriousness, seekers have delved into the understanding of dharma, a complex term that boils down to action that supports individual spiritual development and the well-being of the larger community; and of moksha, the liberation of the soul in yogic union with the divine. The other two purusharthas, kama (pleasure) and artha (prosperity, the focus of this book), have received far less attention.
The Indian teachers who journeyed West did not exactly neglect the human drive for material comfort and worldly enjoyment. They did not discourage anyone from enjoying life’s safe, simple pleasures, and as leaders of organizations, they were fully aware of the positive uses of money; they had to pay bills, after all, and raise money to finance their work. More important, their success in reaching Western seekers depended on their ability to adapt and articulate age-old wisdom to the people who came to them for guidance. Paramahansa Yogananda and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (to cite the twentieth century’s best-known gurus in the West) emphasized that the yogic teachings they espoused had value not only for the rare ascetics but for people with jobs and families. They taught that material comfort is compatible with spiritual development and can actually support it by freeing one’s time and energy for spiritual pursuits. They also taught that the reverse is true: Yogic methods that expand consciousness and open the heart can enhance the kind of thinking, acting, and relating that supports material success.
Yogacharya O’Brian is in that lineage, both literally (Yogananda was the guru of her guru, Roy Eugene Davis) and because her perspective accords with the inner/outer, spiritual/material complementarity advocated by the yogic missionaries. Her interpretation of artha, the aim of life addressed in this book, is consistent with that of the gurus who directed their teachings to householders.
This book is commendable for many reasons, among them its unfailingly practical orientation and its lucid explanation of yogic concepts that are often rendered in obtuse prose. Also, O’Brian understands that the purusharthas are connected, intertwined, and mutually reinforcing. As with the legs of a table, when you move one, the others also move. Hence, when pursued correctly, growth in one of the four aims of life enhances growth in the others. In the case of artha, properly obtained prosperity enhances pleasure, the fulfillment of dharma, and progress toward moksha — and, similarly, growth in any of the other three can enhance one’s chances of becoming more prosperous.
Equally admirable is the author’s treatment of prosperity as something more than financial success and material comfort. In her view, spiritual abundance is part and parcel of the proper definition of artha. She recognizes that abundance acquired in the absence of spiritual growth is relatively empty and unfulfilling — and, she contends, ambitious seekers of wealth are advised not to ignore their inner lives, for doing so can actually be detrimental to their material goals.
If you think this sounds as though Yogacharya O’Brian is echoing the many voices that have, for years, urged Americans to find a balance between work and home, or career advancement and personal happiness, you are only partially correct. Her yogic perspective extends beyond ordinary happiness and mental health, pointing the reader to the highest levels of human development and encouraging action that serves the larger society as well as personal goals — not in addition to material success but as integral to the very definition of prosperity.
By presenting this elevated vision of life balance and human aspiration, The Jewel of Abundance is a useful antidote to the hyper-materialism that poisons modern life. And for those who seek the fulfillment of both their souls and their material desires, the book is a wellspring of inspiration and intelligent guidance.
— Philip Goldberg, author of The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru and American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West
We know what fear and hatred and bigotry would do. The question of our time is, what would love do? My book A POLITICS OF LOVE is a handbook for a new American revolution.
I believe that @MarWilliamson is a fresh, dynamic presence on the political stage and represents our deepest yearnings for a leader with authenticity, integrity, responsibility and the highest calling to serve. ❤️
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The Monk and the Philosopher: East Meets West in a Father-Son Dialogue
The most groundbreaking meeting of Eastern philosophy and Western culture to date.In this father-son dialgue, Revel and Ricard explore the most fundamental questions of human existence and the ways in which they are embraced by Eastern and Western thought. In this meeting of the minds, they touch upon philosophy, spirituality, science, politics, psychology and ethics. They raise the enduring questions: does life have meaning? Why is there suffering, war and hatred? Revel's perspective as an internationally renowned philosopher and Ricard's as a distinguished molecular-geneticist-turned-Buddhist-monk results in a brilliant, accessible and accessible conversation-the most eloquent meeting yet of Eastern & Western thought.
I wanted an introduction to Buddhism, this book is a back and forth between a father and his son and they are both so intelligent. It took me a while to read because I learned about so many things, also about the situation in tibet. It's really all the questions you can imagine asking next to a great, concise and very explained answer. It makes you want to be a better and more altruistic person.
つ星のうち5.0
A Warm and Insightful Dialogue
2010年7月19日 - (Amazon.com)
This dialogue between Matthieu Ricard and his father Jean-Francois Revel is similar to Ricard's other East/West philosophical dialogue (The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet), but with more depth, rigor and intimacy - thus real communication and exchange. Ricard and Revel are both well qualified for this exchange in two important respects - first is their philosophical/intellectual and experiential qualification. Revel is a respected thinker and author of both classical and post-modern Western philosophy. Ricard was raised in this mold (in France), but went on to embrace Tibetan Buddhism after completing his PhD in molecular biology to live with and translate for some of the greatest Tibetan Lamas of the 20th century (from 1972 to present). As a result he is perhaps the most qualified and
This dialogue between Matthieu Ricard and his father Jean-Francois Revel is similar to Ricard's other East/West philosophical dialogue (The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet), but with more depth, rigor and intimacy - thus real communication and exchange. Ricard and Revel are both well qualified for this exchange in two important respects - first is their philosophical/intellectual and experiential qualification. Revel is a respected thinker and author of both classical and post-modern Western philosophy. Ricard was raised in this mold (in France), but went on to embrace Tibetan Buddhism after completing his PhD in molecular biology to live with and translate for some of the greatest Tibetan Lamas of the 20th century (from 1972 to present). As a result he is perhaps the most qualified and able representative of the Buddhist tradition in a Western context.
The second qualification these two share is the love, respect and comfortable rapport of being intimately bonded as father and son. Revel's role here is primarily as the scholar interlocutor with a list of predetermined points designed to draw out Ricard's understanding of Buddhism. He is the clear thinking Western materialist and skeptic. Often he relates his son's responses to European philosophy and psychology from ancient Greek to the modern sciences, and appears genuinely surprised and delighted to learn of Asia/Buddhism's theoretical contributions (to human thought) long before Europe's. He is also quick to point out when Buddhism is merely covering old ground that European philosophy has mined extensively as well. Yet he consistently does this with passion and heart. It is especially touching to see his genuine appreciation of his son's deep and clear understanding.
For me this dialogue is very relevant (as a Westerner with longstanding involvement in Tibetan Buddhism). These materialistic questions are just the kind that I come up with on my own, or field from friends and family (and are probably similar to the ones Ricard would pose to his teachers in his role as the Western 'devils advocate'). The fact that Ricard is so well informed (and steeped in Buddhist culture) makes his responses especially instructive and reliable. (At times the two tread on very subtle ground, and Ricard's lifetime of learning and personal experience help keep it clear and on point.)
As in The Quantum and The Lotus there is a decided advantage for the Buddhist side, as Ricard concedes no ground, while his father's more open and dualistic point of view is gradually and steadily worn down by the gentle yet relentless presentation of the Buddha's Middle Way (yet in the end Revel too concedes little ground). My only criticism is that Ricard sometimes is too safe by presenting only the 'party line', with very little personal flavor. He also glosses over some of the Tibetan cultural traits which have contributed to their current situation (loss of national sovereignty and promotion of an easily misunderstood religious tradition steeped in magic and mystery). The result is that this book stays on safe and sometimes superficial ground.
Generally though this makes for a great intellectual beginner's book to Buddhism, the essence of the path and not the form of the traditions, as well as a comparative overview of it's universal message (vis-a-vis Western science, philosophy and religion). What makes this book unique and valuable is the combination of the range of inquiry, depth of clarity and genuine warmth of the dialogue.
One can look at the guru of a fanatical new religion or cult* as either everything or nothing. The everything would acknowledge the guru’s creation of his group and its belief system, as well as his sustained control over it—in which case the bizarre behavior of Aum Shinrikyō could be understood as little more than a reflection of Shōkō Asahara’s own bizarre ideas and emotions. The nothing would suggest that the guru is simply a creation of the hungers of his disciples, that he has no existence apart from his disciples, that any culture can produce psychological types like him, that without disciples, there is no guru. Both views have elements of truth, but the deeper truth lies in combining them, in seizing upon the paradox.
Gurus and disciples are inevitably products of a particular historical moment. They represent a specific time and place, even as they draw upon ancient psychological and theological themes. As our contemporaries, they are, like the rest of us, psychologically unmoored, adrift from and often confused about older value systems and traditions. That unmoored state has great importance. Here I would stress only that a guru’s complete structural and psychological separateness from a traditional cultural institution—in Asahara’s case an established religion—permits him to improvise wildly in both his theology and his personal behavior, to become a “floating guru.” Disciples in turn are open to any strange direction he may lead them and contribute their own unmoored fantasies without the restraining force that a religious or institutional hierarchy might provide.
The guru narrative is always elusive. The guru appears to us full-blown, catches our attention because of what he, with disciples, has done—all the more so when that is associated with any kind of violence, no less mass murder. We then look back on the guru’s life history to try to understand his part in this culminating act. But while we should learn all we can about him, we are mistaken if we believe that his childhood—or his past in general—will provide a full explanation of that act.
No adult is a mere product of childhood. There is always a forward momentum to the self that does not follow simple cause and effect. Each self becomes a constellation or a collage that is ever in motion, a “self-system” or “self-process.” There are, of course, powerful early influences on that self, but outcomes depend upon evolving combinations of experience and motivation that are never entirely predictable. This is especially clear with exceptional people: one would be hard put to explain the extraordinary actions of either a Picasso or a Hitler on the basis of childhood experience alone. With anyone, we can at best connect that childhood to later inclinations, attitudes, or passions, finding certain continuities of talent, destructiveness, or both. But precisely the quality that claims our interest here—what we usually call charisma—tends to leap out of the life narrative and create a special realm of its own.
The British psychoanalyst Anthony Storr offers a useful description of a guru type: a spiritual teacher whose insight is based on personal revelation, often taking the form of a vision understood to come directly from a deity. The revelation, which has transformed his life, generally follows upon a period of distress or illness in his thirties or forties. There is suddenly a sense of certainty, of having found “the truth,” creating a general aura around him that “he knows.” The emerging guru can then promise, as Asahara did, “new ways of self-development, new paths to salvation, always generalizing from [his] own experience.”
But the guru, in turn, needs disciples not only to become and remain a guru but to hold himself together psychologically. For the guru self often teeters on the edge of fragmentation, paranoia, and overall psychological breakdown. We will observe a particularly bizarre and violent version of this in Asahara, and in the manner in which he disintegrated when his closest disciples turned against him. Disciples are crucial to all dimensions of a guru’s psychological struggles in ways that are seldom fully grasped.
What has also been insufficiently recognized is the life-death dimension that pervades the guru-disciple tie, a dimension I have stressed throughout my work. Moving away from the classical Freudian model of instinct, mostly sexual, and defense, mostly repression, I emphasize our struggles with the continuity of life and our ways of symbolizing life and death. At an immediate level these include experiences of vitality as opposed to numbing and inner deadness. But I also include an ultimate level of universal need for human connectedness, for a sense of being part of a great chain of being that long preceded, and will continue endlessly after, one’s own limited life span. This sense of immortality encompasses feelings of living on in our children and their children, in our influences on other human beings, in our “works,” in a particular set of spiritual or religious beliefs, in what we perceive as eternal nature, or in the oneness of transcendent experiences.
In the cult, the guru becomes a crucible for life-power. That life-power is experienced as a surge of vitality, or what was constantly spoken of in Aum as “energy.” One’s previously deadened life now has vigor and purpose, even if the vigor and purpose are borrowed from the guru. That life-power becomes bound up with larger spiritual forces, that is, with a fierce sense of death-defying immortality. This aspect was the most compelling feature of Asahara’s hold on his disciples. The charisma that a guru like him is always said to possess is usually described with phrases like “magnetic attractiveness” or a “naked capacity of mustering assent.” But at the heart of charisma is the leader’s ability to instill and sustain feelings of vitality and immortality, feelings that reach into the core of each disciple’s often wounded, always questing self, while propelling that self beyond itself. Such feelings can be as fragile as they are psychologically explosive.
In this book Asahara, the guru, will be everywhere, most of all inhabiting, even in the wake of Aum’s violence, the minds of the disciples I interviewed. At the same time he will be nowhere, his guruism a phantom force, wavering between hyperreality and nothingness.
Shōkō Asahara’s childhood brings to mind Erasmus’s aphorism “In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.” But this particular one-eyed child was apparently an odd and uneasy king. Born in 1955 into the impoverished family of a tatami craftsman in a provincial area of Kyūshū, the southernmost of Japan’s main islands, he was the sixth of seven children and the fourth of five boys. Chizuo Matsumoto (Asahara’s birth name), afflicted with congenital glaucoma, was without sight in one eye and had severely impaired vision in the other. Because he did have some vision he was eligible to attend an ordinary school, but his parents chose to send him to a special school for the blind. It had the advantage of providing free tuition and board, and a completely sightless older brother was already enrolled there.
Having some vision while his fellow students had none, and being bigger and stronger than most of them, he could be a dominating, manipulative, bullying, and sometimes violent figure in the school, where he would remain until he was twenty years old. He would, for instance, force his roommates to strike one another in a contest he called “pro wrestling,” and when he found their efforts unsatisfactory he would himself demonstrate how it should be done. He could be rebellious to the point of threatening teachers but, if challenged, would back down and deny any provocation. He always had a few completely blind followers toward whom he could at times exhibit great kindness, and his teachers observed that he was also capable of tenderness toward his older brother and a younger brother who later became a student at the school. But he was generally coercive, gave evidence of resentment over having been forced to attend this special school, and was prone to quick changes in attitude and demands.
In his early ventures into proto-guruism, this one-eyed “king” did not command wide allegiance. He unsuccessfully ran for class head on several occasions, and each failure left him dejected. Once, after being voted down by fellow students despite an attempt to bribe them with sweets, he accused a teacher of influencing the election by saying bad things about him, but the teacher pointed out to him that the other students were simply afraid of him.
While his actual background was humble enough, there were rumors of a further taint—that his family came from the outcast group known by the euphemism burakumin (literally “village people”) or that they were Korean, also a victimized group in Japan. These rumors, though false, suggest something of others’ attitudes toward him. Yet later he would sometimes himself imply that he was burakumin, in order to identify himself with a despised and victimized group and so to claim extraordinary triumph over adversity.
Most accounts of Asahara’s early years emphasize his preoccupation with money. He would charge other students for favors his partial sight allowed him to accomplish and insist upon being treated by them when he took them to food shops or restaurants. He is said to have accumulated a considerable sum of money this way by the time of his graduation. But whatever the complexities of his school life, he apparently obtained rather good grades as a student and achieved a black-belt ranking in judo.
One aspect of Asahara’s childhood is not frequently mentioned. He was attracted to drama of all kinds. From an early age, he loved to watch melodramas on television; later he acted in various school plays and as a high school senior wrote a play of his own about Prince Genji, a great romantic figure, taking the exalted leading role for himself. His stated ambition was to become prime minister of Japan. (One teacher remembered him avidly absorbing a biography of Kakuei Tanaka, the new prime minister in 1972.) He even reportedly said in those years that he wished to be “the head of a robot kingdom” (although in the context of the popular science-fiction culture of his adolescence, this fantasy might not have been as strange as it may now sound). His teachers generally came to think of him as someone who wished to “extend his own image into someone strong or heroic.” A former classmate made the interesting observation that as the school for the blind was a closed society, so in Aum Asahara would try “to create the same kind of closed society in which he could be the head.”
None of this can account for what he did later. Moreover, retrospective reconstructions always run the risk of evoking the past selectively in the light of subsequent behavior, particularly when that behavior is extreme. But every guru begins somewhere. Asahara’s childhood undoubtedly contributed to his sense of alienation, of otherness, to his generalized hatred of the world, to his tendency toward paranoia, to what was to become a habit of violence, to his cultivation of the art of performance, and to his aspirations toward the heroic and transcendent. Overall, he developed in childhood an inclination toward controlling and manipulating other people, and perhaps the beginnings of an identity as a “blind seer.”
A Guru's Journey -- A special report.; The Seer Among the Blind: Japanese Sect Leader's Rise
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF WITH SHERYL WUDUNNMARCH 26, 1995
As a boy attending a school for the blind, Shoko Asahara was weak-sighted but had better vision than his classmates. So he emerged as a king of the school, the one who would lead his buddies off campus when they wanted a restaurant meal.
In exchange, they would pay for the meal.
Mr. Asahara, now 40, has come a long way since then: He rides a Rolls-Royce instead of a bicycle, and he has built a multinational religious sect, a business empire worth tens of millions of dollars and a stockpile of chemicals sufficient to create enough nerve gas to kill perhaps millions of people. The chemicals have been found during police searches since the gas attack on the Tokyo subway system last Monday, in which 10 people died and 5,500 were injured.
The image of the teen-age Shoko Asahara as the manipulative guru of a boarding school -- where he is the one people must depend on, where he interprets the surrounding world, where he makes the money -- seems to hold true today. By some accounts, the communes of Mr. Asahara's religious sect, Aum Shinrikyo, are attempts to recreate the culture of his childhood school for the blind.
International concern about terrorism has traditionally focused on political groups with machine guns, plastic explosives and the backing of a pariah government. But Mr. Asahara shows that it is also possible for a bizarre religious figure with no governmental support to acquire in a few years the capability to engage in something closer to war than terrorism.
Japanese newspapers have estimated that Aum's chemical stockpile could create enough nerve gas to kill 4.2 million to 10 million people, though how they did their reckoning is not clear.
There is no evidence that this was Mr. Asahara's intention, and he has denied it vigorously. But by some estimates he could have created 50 tons of the nerve gas sarin and then achieved the kind of urban Armageddon that he has been predicting.
"As we move toward the year 2000, there will be a series of events of inexpressible ferocity and terror," reads one of Aum's booklets, picked up from its Tokyo offices a few days ago. "The lands of Japan will be transformed into a nuclear wasteland. Between 1996 and January 1998, America and its allies will attack Japan, and only 10 percent of the population of the major cities will survive."
In his writings and speeches, Mr. Asahara seems to reserve a special animus for the United States Government, and he has accused American military planes of dropping sarin on Aum's communes. But Aum is also bitterly hostile to Japan's Government. Last June the group set up a shadow government with a "Ministry of Finance," "Ministry of Education" and "Ministry of Construction." It is said to have planned to become an independent nation by 1997.
Intelligent, soft-spoken, married with six children, Mr. Asahara is a far more complex figure than the cardboard image of a cult leader would suggest. He may wear a long beard, shocking pink robes and a beatific smile, but what is striking about his sect is that it is not a one-man show. He has attracted a core of bright young university graduates and trained scientists to help him in his missions, whether those be attracting recruits or synthesizing chemicals.
Mr. Asahara denies any involvement in the subway attack on Monday. The police have not made public any evidence that he was responsible, but the police raids and discovery of chemical ingredients of nerve gas suggest that Aum is a prime suspect.
In any case, for a spiritual leader, Mr. Asahara has shown a remarkable fascination with the temporal and the chemical. And his speeches have often mentioned such nerve gases as sarin, which the police say was used in the subway attack.
"It has become clear now that my first death will be caused by something like a poison gas such as sarin," Mr. Asahara said a year ago, without explaining what he meant by his "first death." At that time, almost nobody in Japan had heard of sarin. The Beginnings A Younger Son Of a Poor Family
Mr. Asahara was born Chizuo Matsumoto in a village in the southern island of Kyushu. The son of a tatami-mat maker, he grew up as the sixth of seven children in a tiny house.
One of his older brothers had almost no vision and attended a school for the blind. His parents apparently decided to send Mr. Asahara, who had weak but adequate vision, and his younger brother, who had normal eyesight, to the same school for economic reasons: The children would receive a Government subsidy and free meals.
Shoko Egawa, author of a critical biography of Mr. Asahara, suggests that he was obsessed in school with acquiring money and power. Mr. Asahara had saved $30,000 by the time he graduated from high school, and he also ran unsuccessfully for student body president in elementary, junior high and senior high schools.
Mr. Asahara did show the first signs of his later mastery of physical fitness and body control, earning a black belt in judo while still in school.
Although he spoke of attending medical school, Mr. Asahara reportedly failed exams and never attended college. Instead he moved to a Tokyo suburb to work as an acupuncturist. It was at this time, in 1978, that he met a college student, Tomoko Ishii, and married her.
Mrs. Asahara is said to have become a senior executive in Aum Shinrikyo, and one of their children, an 11-year-old girl, is also said to be prominent in the sect. But very little is known of his family life.
Mr. Asahara has been accused by former sect members of making occasional sexual advances against female recruits.
"At about midnight one evening, I was called to go to the room of the Venerated Teacher," recalled a woman who later left the sect. She wrote her account in a pamphlet prepared by a lawyers' group critical of Aum.
"There were just the two of us in the room, and he asked me if I had had any experience with men," the woman wrote. "And he asked me how many men I knew, and then he asked me to take off my clothes. I didn't think he could do anything wrong, and I was nervous and didn't want to resist, so I did as he said."
The woman said that Mr. Asahara told her not to tell anyone about the liaison. Shift to Religion From Fake Drugs To Marketing Yoga
In the early 1980's Mr. Asahara opened up a shop selling Chinese medicine. He is said to have made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling potions like tangerine peel in alcohol, and in 1982 he was arrested and fined for selling fake drugs.
Mr. Asahara became interested in yoga, and scholars say he became an excellent yoga practitioner, with very good control over his breathing technique. In 1984 he launched a company called Aum -- the name apparently is based on a Sanskrit word -- that ran a yoga school and sold health drinks.
An expert in marketing, Mr. Asahara traveled to India and Nepal to study Hinduism and Buddhism, and he came back with photos of himself with senior Tibetan lamas, including the Dalai Lama. He used these photos to portray himself as an internationally respected religious authority, and his yoga school became extremely successful.
In 1987, with just 10 followers, Mr. Asahara founded Aum Shinrikyo as a religious sect. It emphasized some Tibetan Buddhist teachings and yoga practices, including meditation and breathing control. But one of the central points of Tibetan Buddhism is compassion -- some Tibetans have trouble digging foundations for buildings, for fear that they will inadvertently slice apart a worm -- and compassion did not play a big role in Aum's theology
Of Japan's 185,000 religious organizations, most are Buddhist or Shinto shrines, but since the 1970's there has also been a growing number of sects like Aum Shinrikyo. Young people turned off by Japan's materialism and searching for something to believe in found a home in such groups.
Susuma Oda, a professor of psychopathology at the University of Tsukuba, suggests that one attraction of cults is that they offer young Japanese their first real father figure, because their own fathers were never home when they were growing up but instead were always at the office. Professor Oda also says that religious sects in Japan are to some extent the equivalent of the drug culture in America, offering people relief from stress and the opportunity to develop creative powers.
In its pamphlets, Aum says that it can help people develop supernatural powers. It shows photographs of Mr. Asahara and others "levitating" in a yoga position, a few inches off the ground, but videotapes of the group indicate that this is achieved by bouncing energetically on the floor.
Aum also emphasizes the use of computers and scientific experimentation, and it offers recruits special headgear of batteries and electrodes so that they can supposedly align their brain waves with Mr. Asuhara's. At each step of the way, followers are asked to donate large sums of money.
Perhaps because of the emphasis on science, Mr. Asahara was able recruit bright but discontented university students from such top institutions as Tokyo University. Many were trained in the sciences.
"There are many sophisticated people among the members," said Yoshiro Ito, a lawyer who has represented parents trying to recover their children from the sect. "They come from elite families."
As a result, Aum is not a one-man operation. Mr. Asahara's deputies are subordinate but still powerful, and there is no doubt about their intellectual prowess.
Aum's chief spokesman, for example, is a 35-year-old lawyer named Yoshinobu Aoyama, a graduate of prestigious Kyoto University. He passed the national exam for lawyers as a college junior, becoming the youngest person in his class to do so.
Mr. Aoyama took yoga classes from Mr. Asahara and then in 1989 renounced his wife and daughter and became a monk in Aum. Secrets of Success A Mix of Charm And Intimidation
Some scholars say Mr. Asahara was a third-rate theologian but a first-rate salesman and expert in mind control. Professor Oda says Mr. Asahara used methods like sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation and food deprivation, and perhaps drugs as well. There have been persistent reports of Aum using drugs, probably primarily as hallucinogens to evoke the supernatural.
Practices in Aum emphasized control over natural impulses and the body. One man who said he was abducted into Aum, in part by his daughters, told the newspaper Asahi that he was given an infusion drip of some unknown medication for three months. The man said he was told to drink the equivalent of two and a half gallons of hot water a day and throw it up, apparently to purge his system. He was also forced to undergo a weekly bowel-cleansing procedure.
The man was finally allowed to leave only when he pretended that he had been converted and was prepared to turn over his money to the sect, Asahi reported.
Despite such experiences, it is clear that most members join Aum voluntarily and apparently believe in the sect with passion. Many find it fulfilling and liberating, and they are appalled by the critical news coverage.
When the police raided Aum's training compound in the village of Kamiku Isshiki a few days ago, they found 50 people in an advanced state of malnutrition and dehydration, some barely conscious. The police were horrified and arrested four doctors who were present on charges of imprisoning the others.
But instead of thanking the police for rescuing them, the malnourished followers have remained in the chapel and refused medical attention.
Aum demanded that followers live in communes and cut off relations with their families, and this led to clashes and lawsuits with family members. There have also been repeated cases in which Aum has been accused of harassing, attacking, kidnapping or even killing its opponents.
Earlier this year, according to Japanese newspaper reports, a woman trying to drop out of Aum was told she would be allowed to do so only if she signed over her property to the sect. She agreed, but her brother strongly opposed the idea. On Feb. 28, the deadline that Aum had set for the property transfer, he was kidnapped off the street.
The police subsequently located the rented van used in the kidnapping and found blood matching the brother's, as well as the fingerprint of a senior Aum member. The brother has not been found.
Mr. Asahara has denied any involvement in the kidnappings or killings. But the fact that many doubt his denials may offer him some protection, by making journalists afraid to write critical articles.
Japanese journalists say that there was some reluctance to write about Aum, because some reporters who had done so received threatening letters at their homes. Telephone taps have been found at the homes of some critics of Aum, although the group denies placing the taps.
Mr. Asahara increasingly has come to emphasize a Manichean vision of the world, in which good and evil are in a constant battle. He sometimes seems to see himself cast as the force that will rise up and destroy the evil --represented by the United States and Japanese Governments -- in order to save the world.
Many of Mr. Asahara's teachings are drawn from Buddhism and the occult, but he also emphasizes a Hindu god, Lord Shiva, whose role in Hinduism may bear an eerie connection to Aum's present interest in poison gases. Shiva is a god of destruction and creation, and his job is to destroy so that life can be renewed.
"Maybe he thinks of himself as a living Shiva," said Shinichi Nakazawa, a professor of religious studies who has met Mr. Asahara several times. "Shiva, you know, has two faces -- one is peaceful and one is destructive."
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
Introduction
I am an old man now. I was born in 1935 in a small village in northeastern Tibet. For reasons beyond my control, I have lived most of my adult life as a stateless refugee in India, which has been my second home for over fifty years. I often joke that I am India’s longest-staying guest. In common with other people of my age, I have witnessed many of the dramatic events that have shaped the world we live in. Since the late 1960s, I have also traveled a great deal, and had the honor to meet people from many different backgrounds: not just presidents and prime ministers, kings and queens, and leaders from all the world’s great religious traditions, but also a great number of ordinary people from all walks of life.
Looking back over the past decades, I find many reasons to rejoice. Through advances in medical science, deadly diseases have been eradicated. Millions of people have been lifted from poverty and have gained access to modern education and health care. We have a universal declaration of human rights, and awareness of the importance of such rights has grown tremendously. As a result, the ideals of freedom and democracy have spread around the world, and there is increasing recognition of the oneness of humanity. There is also growing awareness of the importance of a healthy environment. In very many ways, the last half-century or so has been one of progress and positive change.
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
At the same time, despite tremendous advances in so many fields, there is still great suffering, and humanity continues to face enormous difficulties and problems. While in the more affluent parts of the world people enjoy lifestyles of high consumption, there remain countless millions whose basic needs are not met. With the end of the Cold War, the threat of global nuclear destruction has receded, but many continue to endure the sufferings and tragedy of armed conflict. In many areas, too, people are having to deal with environmental problems and, with these, threats to their livelihood and worse. At the same time, many others are struggling to get by in the face of inequality, corruption, and injustice.
These problems are not limited to the developing world. In the richer countries, too, there are many difficulties, including widespread social problems: alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, family breakdown. People are worried about their children, about their education and what the world holds in store for them. Now, too, we have to recognize the possibility that human activity is damaging our planet beyond a point of no return, a threat which creates further fear. And all the pressures of modern life bring with them stress, anxiety, depression, and, increasingly, loneliness. As a result, everywhere I go, people are complaining. Even I find myself complaining from time to time!
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
It is clear that something is seriously lacking in the way we humans are going about things. But what is it that we lack? The fundamental problem, I believe, is that at every level we are giving too much attention to the external, material aspects of life while neglecting moral ethics and inner values.
By inner values I mean the qualities that we all appreciate in others, and toward which we all have a natural instinct, bequeathed by our biological nature as animals that survive and thrive only in an environment of concern, affection, and warmheartedness — or in a single word, compassion. The essence of compassion is a desire to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being. This is the spiritual principle from which all other positive inner values emerge. We all appreciate in others the inner qualities of kindness, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, and generosity, and in the same way we are all averse to displays of greed, malice, hatred, and bigotry. So actively promoting the positive inner qualities of the human heart that arise from our core disposition toward compassion, and learning to combat our more destructive propensities, will be appreciated by all. And the first beneficiaries of such a strengthening of our inner values will, no doubt, be ourselves. Our inner lives are something we ignore at our own peril, and many of the greatest problems we face in today’s world are the result of such neglect.
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
Not long ago I visited Orissa, a region in eastern India. The poverty in this part of the country, especially among tribal people, has recently led to growing conflict and insurgency. I met with a member of parliament from the region and discussed these issues. From him I gathered that there are a number of legal mechanisms and well-funded government projects already in place aimed at protecting the rights of tribal people and even giving them material assistance. The problem, he said, was that because of corruption these programs were not benefiting those they were intended to help. When such projects are subverted by dishonesty, inefficiency, and irresponsibility on the part of those charged with implementing them, they become worthless.
This example shows very clearly that even when a system is sound, its effectiveness depends on the way it is used. Ultimately, any system, any set of laws or procedures, can only be as effective as the individuals responsible for its implementation. If, owing to failures of personal integrity, a good system is misused, it can easily become a source of harm rather than a source of benefit. This is a general truth which applies to all fields of human activity, even religion. Though religion certainly has the potential to help people lead meaningful and happy lives, it too, when misused, can become a source of conflict and division. Similarly, in the fields of commerce and finance, the systems themselves may be sound, but if the people using them are unscrupulous and driven by self-serving greed, the benefits of those systems will be undermined. Unfortunately, we see this happening in many kinds of human activities: even in international sports, where corruption threatens the very notion of fair play.
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
Of course, many discerning people are aware of these problems and are working sincerely to redress them from within their own areas of expertise. Politicians, civil servants, lawyers, educators, environmentalists, activists, and so on — people from all sides are already engaged in this effort. This is very good so far as it goes, but the fact is, we will never solve our problems simply by instituting new laws and regulations. Ultimately, the source of our problems lies at the level of the individual. If people lack moral values and integrity, no system of laws and regulations will be adequate. So long as people give priority to material values, then injustice, corruption, inequity, intolerance, and greed — all the outward manifestations of neglect of inner values — will persist.
So what are we to do? Where are we to turn for help? Science, for all the benefits it has brought to our external world, has not yet provided scientific grounding for the development of the foundations of personal integrity — the basic inner human values that we appreciate in others and would do well to promote in ourselves. Perhaps then we should seek inner values from religion, as people have done for millennia? Certainly religion has helped millions of people in the past, helps millions today, and will continue to help millions in the future. But for all its benefits in offering moral guidance and meaning in life, in today’s secular world religion alone is no longer adequate as a basis for ethics. One reason for this is that many people in the world no longer follow any particular religion. Another reason is that, as the peoples of the world become ever more closely interconnected in an age of globalization and in multicultural societies, ethics based on any one religion would only appeal to some of us; it would not be meaningful for all. In the past, when peoples lived in relative isolation from one another — as we Tibetans lived quite happily for many centuries behind our wall of mountains — the fact that groups pursued their own religiously based approaches to ethics posed no difficulties. Today, however, any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate. What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics.
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
This statement may seem strange coming from someone who from a very early age has lived as a monk in robes. Yet I see no contradiction here. My faith enjoins me to strive for the welfare and benefit of all sentient beings, and reaching out beyond my own tradition, to those of other religions and those of none, is entirely in keeping with this.
I am confident that it is both possible and worthwhile to attempt a new secular approach to universal ethics. My confidence comes from my conviction that all of us, all human beings, are basically inclined or disposed toward what we perceive to be good. Whatever we do, we do because we think it will be of some benefit. At the same time, we all appreciate the kindness of others. We are all, by nature, oriented toward the basic human values of love and compassion. We all prefer the love of others to their hatred. We all prefer others’ generosity to their meanness. And who among us does not prefer tolerance, respect, and forgiveness of our failings to bigotry, disrespect, and resentment?
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
In view of this, I am of the firm opinion that we have within our grasp a way, and a means, to ground inner values without contradicting any religion and yet, crucially, without depending on religion. The development and practice of this new vision of ethics is what I propose to elaborate in the course of this book. It is my hope that doing so will help to promote understanding of the need for ethical awareness and inner values in this age of excessive materialism.
At the outset I should make it clear that my intention is not to dictate moral values. Doing that would be of no benefit. To try to impose moral principles from outside, to impose them, as it were, by command, can never be effective. Instead, I call for each of us to come to our own understanding of the importance of inner values. For it is these inner values which are the source of both an ethically harmonious world and the individual peace of mind, confidence, and happiness we all seek. Of course, all the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness, can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Acclaim for
THE POWER OF NOW
“I heartily recommend this profoundly inspiring book to all seekers today.”
— Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within
“This seems to be the ‘right book’ for many people at this point in time. The writing is clear as a bell; the words ring true. Truly an exceptional book that promises to make a real difference in people’s lives.”
— Tom Oakley, Banyen Books, Vancouver, British Columbia
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Acclaim for
THE POWER OF NOW
“The Power of Now was introduced to me by a customer. I read only one page and agreed that it rang true. It is a jewel of clarity and insight. The book has become a word-of-mouth bestseller here at East West.”
— Norman Snitkin, comanager, East West Bookshop, Seattle
“Tolle has succeeded on two fronts: synthesizing the teachings of masters such as Jesus and the Buddha into an easily accessible guide to achieving spiritual consciousness and making a strong case that the inability of humans to free themselves from dominance by the mind and live in the present is the root cause for misery in the world. . . . He makes enlightenment seem attainable and necessary for both individual peace and the health of the planet.”
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Acclaim for
THE POWER OF NOW
“I have no hesitation in recommending Eckhart Tolle’s wonderful book. Everyone I know who has picked up a copy has ended up taking it home. The Power of Now sells on its own merit and by word of mouth.”
— Stephen Gawtry, Manager, Watkins Books Ltd., London
“Fresh, revealing, current, new inspiration. Out of the many spiritual books that cross my desk this one stands out from the flock. . . . If you are considering getting back in touch with your soul, this book is a great companion.”
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Acclaim for
THE POWER OF NOW
“With intense and compelling clarity, Tolle’s guidance holds the promise of leading us to our own best and highest place within, to resonate with and reflect the energy of true transformation.”
— Spirit of Change magazine
“With Eckhart Tolle’s growing presence on bestseller shelves usually reserved for much lighter-weight fare, it will be interesting to see what time has in store for this unusual modern mystic.”
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO
THE PAPERBACK EDITION
Six years after it was first published, The Power of Now continues to play its part in the urgent task of the transformation of human consciousness. Although I was privileged to give birth to it, I feel that the book has taken on a life and momentum of its own. It has reached several million readers worldwide, many of whom have written to me to tell of the life-changing effect it has had on them. Due to the extremely high volume of correspondence I receive, I am regretfully no longer able to send personal replies, but I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to all those who have written to me to share their experiences. I am moved and deeply touched by many of those accounts, and they leave no doubt in my mind that an unprecedented shift in consciousness is indeed happening on our planet.
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Nobody could have predicted the rapid growth of the book when Namaste Publishing in Vancouver published the first edition of three thousand copies in 1997. During its first year of publication, the book found its readers almost exclusively through word of mouth. That was the time when I would personally deliver a few copies every week to some small bookstores in Vancouver, something I found enormously satisfying, knowing that every book that I handed over had the potential of changing someone’s life. Friends helped by placing copies of the book in spiritual bookstores farther afield: Calgary, Seattle, California, London. Stephen Gawtry, the manager of Watkins, the world’s oldest metaphysical bookstore in London, England, wrote at the time, “I foresee great things for this book.” He was right: by the second year The Power of Now had developed into an “underground bestseller,” as one reviewer later called it. Then, after the book received a number of favorable reviews in various journals and magazines, its growth accelerated and finally became explosive when Oprah Winfrey, who had been deeply affected by the book, proceeded to tell the world about it. Five years after it was first published, it reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and it is now available in thirty languages. It has been very well received and become a bestseller even in India, a country considered by many to be the birthplace of humanity’s quest for spiritual enlightenment.
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Most of the thousands of letters and emails that have been sent to me from all over the world are from ordinary men and women, but there are also letters from Buddhist monks and Christian nuns, from people in prison or facing a life-threatening illness or imminent death. Psychotherapists have written to say that they recommend the book to their patients or incorporate the teachings in their practice. Many of those letters and emails mention a lessening or even a complete disappearance of suffering and problem-making in people’s lives as a result of reading The Power of Now and putting the teachings into practice in everyday life. There is frequent mention of the amazing and beneficial effects of inner body awareness, the sense of freedom that comes from letting go of self-identification with one’s personal history and life-situation, and a newfound inner peace that arises as one learns to relinquish mental/emotional resistance to the “suchness” of the present moment. Many people have read the book more than once, and they comment that the text loses none of its freshness upon subsequent readings, indeed that the book’s transformative power remains not only undiminished, but actually becomes intensified.
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
The more the dysfunction of the human mind plays itself out on the world stage, clearly visible to everyone in the daily television news reports, the greater the number of people who realize the urgent need for a radical change in human consciousness if humanity is not to destroy both itself and the planet. This need, as well as readiness in millions of people for the arising of a new consciousness, is the context within which the “success” of The Power of Now must be seen and understood.
This does not mean, of course, that everyone responds favorably to the book. In many people, as well as in most of the political and economic structures and the greater part of the media, the old consciousness is still deeply entrenched. Anyone who is still totally identified with the voice in their head — the stream of involuntary and incessant thinking — will inevitably fail to see what The Power of Now is all about. Some enthusiastic readers gave a copy of the book to a friend or relative and were surprised and disappointed when the recipient found it quite meaningless and could not get beyond the first few pages. “Mumbo jumbo” was all that Time magazine could see in a book that countless people around the globe found life-changing. Furthermore, any teaching that puts the spotlight of attention on the workings of the ego will necessarily provoke egoic reaction, resistance, and attack.
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
However, despite a certain amount of misunderstanding and critical dissent, the response to the book around the globe has been overwhelmingly positive. I feel confident that in the years to come millions more will be drawn to it, and that The Power of Now will continue to make a vital contribution to the arising of a new consciousness and a more enlightened humanity.
America is in the midst of a cultural-political civil war—a fight over our very identity as a people.
冒頭からこういう言葉が出てくる
まさに内戦真っ最中
For decades, this conflict has been fought quietly in city halls, classrooms, school boards, courtrooms, town squares, and state houses across the country. However, the election of President Trump has clarified the battle lines in this struggle and elevated these individual fights into a united national conflict.
アメリカのあらゆる場所で戦いが行なわれてきて、二つの陣営の戦いへとなってきたのが鮮明になってきた「into a united national conflict.」
On one side of this conflict is a factional anti-Trump coalition—a strange amalgam of radicals, liberals, globalists, establishment elites from both parties, and blatantly anti-American groups loosely held together by their hostility to and disdain for the president. On the other side is Trump’s America—the millions of hardworking people who are united by respect for our foundational freedoms, traditional values, and history of limited commonsense governance.
a factional anti-Trump coalition—a strange amalgam of radicals, liberals, globalists, establishment elites from both parties, and blatantly anti-American groups loosely held together by their hostility to and disdain for the president.
奇妙な人達の集り、面白い形容
by their hostility to and disdain for the president
On the other side is Trump’s America—the millions of hardworking people who are united by respect for our foundational freedoms, traditional values, and history of limited commonsense governance.
Before the president rallied Trump’s America and gave us a national voice, the various groups that would eventually form the anti-Trump coalition were winning on their own. For decades, they have meticulously undermined our traditions through politics and courts, entertainment and news media, and liberal schools and curriculum to quietly impose new worldviews on everyday Americans that are counter to our historic principles.
Under President Trump, America is experiencing a great comeback. After nearly a decade of recession and tepid job creation, our economy is booming. In addition, ISIS has been effectively destroyed, illegal immigration is down, our military is being rebuilt, and our veterans are getting the health care and support they deserve. The administration is achieving success across a variety of sectors daily.
Perhaps more important than these successes, however, is the reinvigoration of America’s patriotic sense of self, which the rise of Donald Trump has awakened. Our country is being reconnected to our founding principles, the values that made America the greatest country in the world, and in doing so, is coming to understand just how destructive the last few decades of elite leadership have been to our freedom, prosperity, and safety.
At the center of the fight I’m describing is ultimately one question: Is America an exceptional country? Or more specifically, is America’s historic prosperity and power due to our nation’s unique founding principles, and is it our duty as a people to uphold those ideals?
My daughter, Jackie Cushman, touched on this notion in a column she wrote in July 2009.1 She observed that in 2008, President Obama promised us “change we could believe in,” and it turned out he wanted to change what we believed.
President Obama promised us “change we could believe in,”
オバマはわれわれが期待している変化を約束した
he wanted to change what we believed.
われわれが信じていることを変えようとした
Jackie’s insight points out one of the few common-yet-tenuous threads that bind the members of the anti-Trump coalition together. In various ways, they all want to redefine America, and they would all be happier if the members of Trump’s America were once again ignored and forgotten.
they all want to redefine America
反トランプ陣営はアメリカを再定義しようとした、つまり、変えようということでしょうか
The Senkaku Paradox: Risking Great Power War Over Small Stakes (English Edition)
But over what issues might war against Russia or China erupt? And if war were to occur, how might it be contained before it took the world to the brink of thermonuclear catastrophe? These are the concrete questions, set within the broader context of hegemonic change and great power competition, that this book attempts to answer.
Specifically, I examine how a localized crisis started or stoked by Moscow or Beijing could expand and escalate. It is my contention that, especially in this period of history, such conflicts pose the greatest risk to great power stability and world peace. The signature case, which I have adopted for the title of the book, concerns the uninhabited and disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, claimed by both Japan and China. But the general problem has many possible manifestations.
That one of these potential adversaries would launch a bolt-from-the blue, all-out attack against a U.S. ally seems much less likely than such limited aggression. It is hard to imagine a major Chinese invasion of the main islands of Japan or the metropolitan area of Seoul in South Korea, for example. And for all of Vladimir Putin’s recent adventurism, the forcible annexation of an entire NATO country, even a small Baltic state, strikes most as implausible. Such attacks, even if initially successful, would and should risk massive responses by the United States and its allies.3 President Donald Trump’s tepid support for NATO, and for U.S. alliances in general, may muddy the deterrence waters somewhat. But even under his presidency, U.S. alliance commitments remain formally in place and American troops remain forward deployed from Korea and Japan to the Baltics and Poland. It would amount to a huge roll of the dice for an aggressor to seek to conquer any one of these states. To be sure, U.S. defense policy should continue to display resoluteness and create capacities of the type needed to deter such large-scale attacks, not just wishfully assume them away. But on balance, deterrence failure on such a massive scale seems very unlikely. Strong American-led alliances, conventional and nuclear deterrence, and economic interdependence all militate strongly against any conscious decision by an adversary to initiate large-scale war.
However, smaller tests of U.S. and allied resolve by Beijing or Moscow and more patient, incremental challenges to the existing global order that do not threaten the lives or main territorial possessions of America’s friends and allies are much easier to imagine in the modern world, as I argue in more detail in chapter 2.4 With China and Russia both flexing their muscles near countries that the United States is sworn to protect, and both seeking to challenge and to modify the U.S.-led regional and global security orders that prevail today, the risks are real. The possibility exists that Washington could be forced to choose between risking war and appeasing Chinese or Russian aggression in ways that could ultimately lead to much graver threats to international peace.5
Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power (英語) ハードカバー – 2019/3/4
Sheila A. Smith (著)
MORE THAN SEVENTY YEARS after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese people remain deeply skeptical of the benefits of military power. When Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima in May 2016, he spoke of the horror of the use of force in the nuclear age: “Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself. Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not so distant past.” The Japanese people welcomed his visit and overwhelmingly approved of his message. As more nations gave into the temptation of acquiring nuclear weapons, Japan steadfastly resisted and became a staunch advocate of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.1
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Generations of postwar Japanese leaders have grappled with how to ensure their nation’s defenses in the nuclear age while limiting the power of its military. The Japanese constitution remains as it was written in 1947, with Article Nine committing the Japanese people to eschew the “use of force to settle international disputes.” Prime Minister Abe Shinzō reciprocated Obama’s visit to Hiroshima in December 2016 by visiting the site of the Japanese attack on the United States. At Pearl Harbor, Abe repeated a commitment that Japanese leaders have made for three-quarters of a century: “We must never repeat the horrors of war again. This is the solemn vow we, the people of Japan, have taken. Since the war, we have created a free and democratic country that values the rule of law, and have resolutely upheld our vow never again to wage war. We, the people of Japan, will continue to uphold this unwavering principle while harboring quiet pride in the path we have walked as a peace-loving nation over these seventy years since the war ended.”2
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
As both Abe and Obama noted in their long-awaited visits to these war memorials, the relationship between the United States and Japan has been transformed, from adversaries in war to strategic allies in the postwar period. The security treaty that codifies this alliance provides for U.S. defense assistance to Japan and for Japanese provision of bases and facilities for the United States. Allying with the world’s strongest military power has provided strategic protection for Japan, deterring its nuclear neighbors with America’s nuclear umbrella. In return, Japanese citizens host over 50,000 U.S. military personnel in their country, as well as the only U.S. aircraft carrier home ported abroad. The U.S. and Japanese militaries operate together not only in and around the Japanese islands but have also worked in coalition with other armed forces across maritime Asia to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Japan’s strategy of possessing limited military power and relying on its alliance with the United States has served it well, and yet in today’s Asia, Tokyo’s approach to military power is being tested. Northeast Asia has become a far more contested region as Chinese military power increases and as North Korea seeks to become a nuclear state. Japan’s Self-Defense Force (SDF) now regularly runs up against the expanding armed forces of its neighbors. China’s growing military has led to serious clashes with Japan. Chinese maritime and air patrols operate with increasing frequency and regularity in proximity to Japan, and Beijing has challenged Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu in China), sending its coast guard and naval vessels to the East China Sea to assert its claims. The failure of diplomacy to resolve these tensions has at times all but broken communication between Tokyo and Beijing, and rising contact between Japanese and Chinese militaries has intensified concern that a miscalculation or unintended incident could easily bring the two Asian nations into conflict. The lack of agreement between Japan and China on their maritime boundary also exacerbates this risk. Tokyo has consulted with Washington on how to de-escalate tensions during these moments of crisis with Beijing. Japanese officials worry about “gray zone” contingencies—clashes below the actual use of armed forces but which could easily escalate to a military conflict.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Japan’s military is being tested not only by China, however. Other neighbors challenge Japan’s defenses. In the north, Russia continues to assert its military presence in and around Japanese air and waters.3 North Korea’s growing missile arsenal has raised serious questions about Japan’s ability to cope with a ballistic missile attack. In the face of these threats, the U.S. president has restated the U.S. commitment to Japan’s defenses several times. President Obama announced on a visit to Tokyo in 2014 that Article Five protections in the U.S.-Japan security treaty would extend to the Senkakus if force were used against Japan. When President Donald Trump met with Prime Minister Abe in Washington in February 2017, he restated this policy. Days later, when North Korea tested its missiles in the direction of Japanese territory, President Trump stood beside Prime Minister Abe at Mar-a-Lago to provide assurances that the United States would be “behind Japan, 100%” in dealing with Pyongyang’s threat. Part reassurance to the Japanese people, and part deterrence against China and North Korea, these declarations of American intentions reflect a growing worry about military activity around Japan.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
And yet for all of these assurances, the political mood in the United States has unsettled the Japanese. Just months earlier during the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Trump had suggested that Japan should defend itself against North Korea. A survey from Pew Research Center in spring 2017 showed only 24 percent of the Japanese have confidence in Trump’s foreign policy.4 Serious trade tensions also simmer just below the surface of the U.S.-Japan relationship. As Japan faces increasing pressure on its defenses, the reliability of the United States seems less certain.
Japanese thinking about their military is changing as the possibility of a military conflict in Northeast Asia becomes more easily imagined. However, Japan’s leaders are unlikely to use armed force before relying on diplomacy to resolve their grievances. Since the end of the Cold War, Japanese security choices have continued to be defined by the political tug of war over how to interpret Article Nine and how to meet alliance demands from Washington. Japan has relaxed its restraints on its military, and the SDF today plays a far more visible role in national policy. The SDF has been deployed abroad repeatedly and has extensive experience in U.S.- and UN-led military coalitions. Like Japan’s civilian leaders, SDF commanders now work alongside a variety of partners in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in maritime security cooperation.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Article Nine still organizes debate in Japan over its military, but it does not limit the size or the lethality of Japan’s armed forces. Threat perception, long dormant as a factor in Japanese military planning, now assumes a larger role in shaping decisions about Japan’s defense needs. The experiences of Japan’s SDF in recent years suggest it must prepare to be tested. Should armed conflict erupt in Northeast Asia, Japan’s choices with regard to the use of force will have tremendous consequences for the region. While Japan’s military has never engaged in combat, changes have been made to clarify when and how Tokyo’s leaders will order their armed forces to defend Japan. Japan’s leaders have become far more comfortable using the military as an instrument of statecraft.5
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Article Nine and Japan’s Defenses
The uniqueness of Japan’s constitution has drawn the world’s attention and is the focus of considerable scholarly inquiry.6 However, it remains a politically charged issue within Japan. Drafted under occupation, Article Nine was designed to demilitarize Japan. Imperial Japan’s devastating defeat in World War II led to an occupation headed by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur ordered the drafting of a new constitution. In a note to aides, he offered three principles to guide their efforts. The institutions that had led Japan’s modernization—the emperor, the military, and the aristocracy—would be reformed. The emperor would no longer exercise supreme authority in governing his nation, and Japan’s aristocrats would no longer inherit power. Japan’s citizens would choose their leaders and, through them, their national priorities.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
The “no war” clause offered a legacy of contention, one that remains today within Japan as well as beyond. MacArthur’s initial vision was the complete pacification of Japan, a revolutionary aim for a culture that had prided itself on its martial spirit. MacArthur’s vision for reforming Japan went hand in hand with similar U.S. ambitions to transform the world order. Tying Japan to the emerging architecture of collective security seemed just as important as democratizing political power. In his note, MacArthur wrote, “War as a sovereign right to the nation is abolished, Japan renounces it as an instrumentality for settling its disputes and even for preserving its own security. It relies upon the higher ideals which are now stirring the world for its defense and its protection. No Japanese Army, Navy or Air Force will ever be authorized and no rights of belligerency will ever be conferred upon any Japanese force [emphasis added].”7 Thus, in the immediate aftermath of World War II’s devastation, the American idealism that informed the occupation’s reformers saw this new constitution as complementing the construction of a new global order, organized around the United Nations, which promised collective security and the peaceful settlement of disputes. The world changed quickly as the postwar peace brought conflict and a Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. U.S. policy toward Japan shifted abruptly too, in what the Japanese refer to as the “reverse course.” Before the occupation was over, Americans were urging Japan to rearm, as war broke out on the Korean Peninsula.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
The Japanese government insisted on interpreting Japan’s new constitution to allow for self-defense. Even as the document was being drafted in 1946, Japanese leaders sought to temper General MacArthur’s zeal for pacifying their nation.8 The Committee to Consider the Problem of the Constitution, tasked with working with the occupation authorities on the draft, sought to tone down MacArthur’s language. Once the draft of the new constitution went to the Japanese House of Representatives, the chair of its Committee on the Bill for Revising the Imperial Constitution, Ashida Hitoshi, reportedly tweaked it even further to open the way to allowing Japan to acquire military force for self-defense. The final version of Article Nine, Japan’s renunciation of war, reads as follows:
“
Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Like MacArthur, Japan’s drafters referenced the larger global effort to avoid indiscriminate use of force, yet they argued that the use of force for self-defense was legitimate under the charter of the newly created United Nations, which endowed all nations with the right to defend themselves. Japanese leaders ever since have interpreted Article Nine as allowing for military power sufficient to defend their nation. But they have done so cautiously and often in the face of deep domestic criticism.
Japan’s early debates in the Diet focused largely on this interpretation over the purpose of military power. In 1954, the SDF was established alongside the Defense Agency—a civilian bureaucracy that would manage military planning. Rather than debating Japan’s external security challenges, Diet debates focused on how to limit the growth of the SDF and curtail the political influence of the military over policy. Periodically, Japanese cabinets would be weakened by controversies over the behavior of the SDF, with opposition critics charging the ruling party with failing to exercise sufficient control over the military institution.9 From 1955, the LDP dominated Japanese politics and governed Japan as the majority party or in coalition, however, giving the conservatives the ability to define their country’s postwar defense choices. Nonetheless, tension between progressives and conservatives over the legitimacy of the SDF continued for decades.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
The language of Article Nine mattered in these legislative tangles. While few argued that Japan should be able to use force to settle its international disputes, the ambiguous second paragraph invited contention. For opposition critics, Article Nine banned armed force of any kind. They blamed Washington for urging Japan to rearm and accused government officials of concluding “secret agreements” with the United States that violated the spirit of the constitution and, even worse, would draw Japan into war. Japan’s conservatives continued to interpret it as Ashida had intended. Yet more recently, even conservatives take issue with the ambiguity, suggesting it is disingenuous and misleading. In 2017, a new approach was put forward by Prime Minister Abe: to add a third paragraph to Article Nine stating that Japan’s SDF is constitutional.10 Rather than addressing the core proscription on the use of force, Abe argues for ending domestic squabbling over the legitimacy of Japan’s military.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
In practice, Japanese government interpretation of Article Nine has always been elastic. The most consequential debates about the constitution’s influence over how to arm Japan and how to use force to defend it took place decades ago. At that time, questions such as whether it would be legitimate for Japan to maintain nuclear weapons or launch a preemptive strike if its security were threatened were directly addressed. Indeed, early postwar political leaders were unabashed in their concern with how to defend their country in the nuclear era. Hence the Japanese government has never argued that Article Nine would prevent the nuclear option or the acquisition of the ability to strike offensively with armed force should Japan’s security be threatened.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Japan has been surrounded by countries with considerable military forces. The former Soviet Union, while not identified as a direct threat to Japan, had considerable military might positioned close by and maintained a substantial nuclear arsenal. The successful acquisition of nuclear weapons by China in the mid-1960s also raised a new source of concern for Japan. But it has really been in the wake of the Cold War that Tokyo has felt that it is increasingly facing adversaries who might use force against Japan. Thus, it remains difficult to know if the normative constraints of Article Nine defeated the impulse to respond to threat of the use of force by others. In theory, at least, Japan’s leaders have not excluded any type of military capability. Instead, they have wielded Article Nine as a statement of Japanese intentions.
日中の対立は不可避なのか。靖国問題、東シナ海の海洋権益の問題、中国製冷凍餃子中毒事件などの食の安全の問題、尖閣問題などをめぐって緊張が高まる日中関係について、米国知日派の研究者が日本側の動向を中心に冷静に分析し提言する。Sheila A. Smith, Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (Columbia UP, 2015) を全訳する。
I began to consider the idea of writing a book on Japan’s relations with China in the early 2000s while at the East-West Center in Hawaii. Tensions between Japan and China had erupted over the visits by Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichirō to the controversial war memorial, Yasukuni Shrine, and policymakers in Washington were becoming increasingly concerned about the inability of Tokyo and Beijing to put their history behind them. An East-West Center alumnus, Otsuka Takao, president of the Hotel Grand Palace in Kudanshita, offered me the perfect setting for my frequent research trips to Tokyo with my boisterous young son. The hotel was located next to the Yasukuni Shrine, and we often walked among the beautiful gingko trees and towering torii gates in the early hours of the morning when jetlag made sleep impossible. Aged Shinto priests rustled in their robes from building to building, and I could not help but wonder how this rather anachronistic site had become a focal point in the diplomacy of Asia’s two largest nations.
Differences over twentieth-century history were not the only cause of Sino-Japanese tensions. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, new difficulties arose. Trade tensions over the import of shiitake mushrooms and tatami mats began to complicate economic relations. Violence against Japanese at the Asian Cup games in Beijing in 2004 shocked many in Japan. When demonstrators in cities around China protested the revision of Japanese textbooks in March 2005, Japanese businesses also were damaged, further souring public opinion about China. In the corridors of Asian summit meetings, Chinese and Japanese leaders exchanged chilly stares and refused to speak. In 2006, in the midst of this “deep freeze” in diplomatic relations, Prime Minister Koizumi, dressed in full formal wear, paid an official visit to the Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, the day of the Japanese commemoration of the end of the war. A few weeks later, he resigned after five years as Japan’s prime minister.
For a while, Koizumi was blamed for the downturn in Tokyo’s relations with Beijing, and his successors seemed to make progress in changing the tenor of the relationship. Other factors continued to plague diplomatic ties, however. Public attitudes toward China were hardening. China’s economy grew, and the economic interdependence that had anchored Japan’s relationship with China created unforeseen frictions. The new UN Convention on the Law of the Sea raised questions about maritime claims, and the East China Sea became more and more populated with survey ships and new, more modern, naval vessels. Even regarding the deeply sensitive issue of historical memory, the Koizumi era was not the first entanglement of China policy with Japanese domestic politics and popular sentiment, and it would not be the last. In Japan, this intimate contact with a changing China was unnerving to many and called into question the premises of Japan’s postwar identity.
I am an old man now. I was born in 1935 in a small village in northeastern Tibet. For reasons beyond my control, I have lived most of my adult life as a stateless refugee in India, which has been my second home for over fifty years. I often joke that I am India’s longest-staying guest. In common with other people of my age, I have witnessed many of the dramatic events that have shaped the world we live in. Since the late 1960s, I have also traveled a great deal, and had the honor to meet people from many different backgrounds: not just presidents and prime ministers, kings and queens, and leaders from all the world’s great religious traditions, but also a great number of ordinary people from all walks of life.
Looking back over the past decades, I find many reasons to rejoice. Through advances in medical science, deadly diseases have been eradicated. Millions of people have been lifted from poverty and have gained access to modern education and health care. We have a universal declaration of human rights, and awareness of the importance of such rights has grown tremendously. As a result, the ideals of freedom and democracy have spread around the world, and there is increasing recognition of the oneness of humanity. There is also growing awareness of the importance of a healthy environment. In very many ways, the last half-century or so has been one of progress and positive change.
At the same time, despite tremendous advances in so many fields, there is still great suffering, and humanity continues to face enormous difficulties and problems. While in the more affluent parts of the world people enjoy lifestyles of high consumption, there remain countless millions whose basic needs are not met. With the end of the Cold War, the threat of global nuclear destruction has receded, but many continue to endure the sufferings and tragedy of armed conflict. In many areas, too, people are having to deal with environmental problems and, with these, threats to their livelihood and worse. At the same time, many others are struggling to get by in the face of inequality, corruption, and injustice.
These problems are not limited to the developing world. In the richer countries, too, there are many difficulties, including widespread social problems: alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, family breakdown. People are worried about their children, about their education and what the world holds in store for them. Now, too, we have to recognize the possibility that human activity is damaging our planet beyond a point of no return, a threat which creates further fear. And all the pressures of modern life bring with them stress, anxiety, depression, and, increasingly, loneliness. As a result, everywhere I go, people are complaining. Even I find myself complaining from time to time!
It is clear that something is seriously lacking in the way we humans are going about things. But what is it that we lack? The fundamental problem, I believe, is that at every level we are giving too much attention to the external, material aspects of life while neglecting moral ethics and inner values.
By inner values I mean the qualities that we all appreciate in others, and toward which we all have a natural instinct, bequeathed by our biological nature as animals that survive and thrive only in an environment of concern, affection, and warmheartedness — or in a single word, compassion. The essence of compassion is a desire to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being. This is the spiritual principle from which all other positive inner values emerge. We all appreciate in others the inner qualities of kindness, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, and generosity, and in the same way we are all averse to displays of greed, malice, hatred, and bigotry. So actively promoting the positive inner qualities of the human heart that arise from our core disposition toward compassion, and learning to combat our more destructive propensities, will be appreciated by all. And the first beneficiaries of such a strengthening of our inner values will, no doubt, be ourselves. Our inner lives are something we ignore at our own peril, and many of the greatest problems we face in today’s world are the result of such neglect.
Not long ago I visited Orissa, a region in eastern India. The poverty in this part of the country, especially among tribal people, has recently led to growing conflict and insurgency. I met with a member of parliament from the region and discussed these issues. From him I gathered that there are a number of legal mechanisms and well-funded government projects already in place aimed at protecting the rights of tribal people and even giving them material assistance. The problem, he said, was that because of corruption these programs were not benefiting those they were intended to help. When such projects are subverted by dishonesty, inefficiency, and irresponsibility on the part of those charged with implementing them, they become worthless.
This example shows very clearly that even when a system is sound, its effectiveness depends on the way it is used. Ultimately, any system, any set of laws or procedures, can only be as effective as the individuals responsible for its implementation. If, owing to failures of personal integrity, a good system is misused, it can easily become a source of harm rather than a source of benefit. This is a general truth which applies to all fields of human activity, even religion. Though religion certainly has the potential to help people lead meaningful and happy lives, it too, when misused, can become a source of conflict and division. Similarly, in the fields of commerce and finance, the systems themselves may be sound, but if the people using them are unscrupulous and driven by self-serving greed, the benefits of those systems will be undermined. Unfortunately, we see this happening in many kinds of human activities: even in international sports, where corruption threatens the very notion of fair play.
The first characteristic of Aum was totalized guruism,
which became paranoid guruism and megalomanic guruism.
Instead of awakening the potential of his disciples,
Shoko Asahara himself became his cult's only source of
"energy" or infinite life-power and its only source of
the new self that each Aum disciple was expected to
acquire ( as epitomized by the religious name every
disciple took as a renunciant ).
For disciples there was no deity beyond the guru, no
ethicalcode beyond his demands and imposed ordeals, or
mahamudras. When the guru invoked a higher deity it was
only in order to incorporate the god's omnipotence into
his own. Guru and disciples were both energized and
entrapped by their claim to ultimate existential truth
and virtue.
This megalomanic guruism, the claim to possess and control
immediate and distant reality, was not only wild fantasy
but a form of desymbolization--a loss, that is, of the
symbolizing function that characterizes the healthy human
mind.
The guru took on a stance beyond metaphor. He could no
longer, in the words of Martin Buber,"imagine the real."
The Hindu scholar Wendy Doniger points out that most
mythology consists of concrete narration in the service
of metaphor, of descriptions of behavior meant to suggest,
rather than express, primal human emotions and dilemmas.
In reading mytholgical stories, we seek to reconnect
their concrete details to the symbolized, metaphorical
world in which we exist psychologically. A megalomanic
guru like Asahara does the reverse: he embraces the very
concreteness of mythic narratrves so as to circumvent
the metaphor and symbolization so crucial to the functioning
human imagination.
The first characteristic of Aum was totalized guruism,
which became paranoid guruism and megalomanic guruism.
Instead of awakening the
(文字略)
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19/06/16(日) 13:05:51
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This megalomanic guruism, the claim to possess and control
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In reading mytholgical stories, we seek to reconnect
their concrete details to the symbolized, metaphorical
world in which we exist psychologically. A megalomanic
guru like Asahara does th
(文字略)
The first shots had been fired in 1863, when the British had selled the southern port of Kagoshima, and in 1864, when a combined foreign fleet bombarded Japanese forces at Shimonoseki.
All subsequent history was in some way a repetition of those dramatic encounters on the eve of the Meiji Restration.
のちのすべての歴史は、明治維新前夜のこれらの劇的な衝突を、なんらかの形で反復しているのだという。
Japans war with Russia, her first defeat of the Chinese, and her later interventions in Manchuria and China had to be seen in the light of a grand purpose--to expel the barbarians--according to Hayashi.
It is not true that there is nothing new under the sun. To be sure, the oldest human emotions continue to haunt us. But they do so in new settings with new technology, and that changes everything.
On March 20, 1995, Aum Shinrikyō, a fanatical Japanese religious cult, released sarin, a deadly nerve gas, on five subway trains during Tokyo’s early-morning rush hour. A male cult member boarded each of the trains carrying two or three small plastic bags covered with newspaper and, at an agreed-upon time, removed the newspaper and punctured the bags with a sharpened umbrella tip. On the trains, in the stations where they stopped, and at the station exits, people coughed, choked, experienced convulsions, and collapsed. Eleven were killed and up to five thousand injured. Had Aum succeeded in producing a purer form of the gas, the deaths could have been in the thousands or hundreds of thousands. For sarin, produced originally by the Nazis, is among the most lethal of chemical weapons. Those releasing it on the trains understood themselves to be acting on behalf of their guru and his vast plan for human salvation.
Aum and its leader, Shōkō Asahara, were possessed by visions of the end of the world that are probably as old as death itself. Asahara also held in common with many present-day Christian prophets of biblical world-ending events a belief that Armageddon would be connected to those most secular of “end-time” agents, nuclear warheads or chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
But his cult went a step further. It undertook serious efforts to acquire and produce these weapons as part of a self-assigned project of making Armageddon happen. For the first time in history, end-time religious fanaticism allied itself with weapons capable of destroying the world and a group embarked on the mad project of doing just that. Fortunately, much went wrong. After all, it is not so easy to destroy the world. But we have a lot to learn from the attempt.
The impulses that drove Asahara and Aum are by no means unique to him and his group. Rather, Aum was part of a loosely connected, still-developing global subculture of apocalyptic violence—of violence conceived in sweeping terms as a purification and renewal of humankind through the total or near-total destruction of the planet. One can observe these inclinations in varied groups on every continent. Their specific transformative projects may be conceived as religious or political, the violence to be employed either externally directed or suicidal or both at once. One can find certain psychological parallels to Aum Shinrikyō in, for instance, the Jewish fundamentalists who encouraged the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in Palestinian Hamas suicide bombers, and in Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists who act violently on behalf of claims to ancient sacred places on the Indian subcontinent. But my exploration of Aum led me particularly to the apocalyptic inclinations of American groups like the Charles Manson Family, Heaven’s Gate, and Peoples Temple, as well as the Oklahoma City bombers, Aryan supremacists, and paramilitary survivalists on the radical right. Just as we now take for granted the interconnectedness of the global economic system, so must we learn to do the same for the growing global system of apocalyptic violence. Outbreaks anywhere reverberate everywhere.
Increasingly widespread among ordinary people is the feeling of things going so wrong that only extreme measures can restore virtue and righteousness to society. When the world comes to be experienced as both hateful and dead or dying, a visionary guru can seize on such feelings while promising to replace them with equally absolute love and life-power. Nor are any of us completely free of those inner struggles. The sentiments that created Aum Shinrikyō are part of the spiritual and psychological ambience each of us inhabits day by day.
Apocalyptic violence has been building worldwide over the last half of the twentieth century. Having studied some of the most destructive events of this era, I found much of what Aum did familiar, echoing the totalistic belief systems and end-of-the-world aspirations I had encountered in other versions of the fundamentalist self. I came to see these, in turn, as uneasy reactions to the openness and potential confusions of the “protean” self that history has bequeathed us. I had been concerned with these matters since the mid-1950s, when I first studied “thought reform” (or “brainwashing”) in Communist China and then among American cultic religious groups. I came to recognize the power of a totalized environment for mobilizing individual passions in the creation of fierce, often deeply satisfying expressions of collective energy.
どの本を読むのか細心の注意を払って選ばなければならない。
書物は「心の薬」、エジプトの王様は書斎の表札にそう掲げていた
The books we read should be chosen with great care, that they may be, as an Egyptian king wrote over his library,’The medicines of the soul.”
私はいつも怯えた人生を過ごしてきた。起こるかもしれないこと、起きなかった可能性があることに怯えていたんだ。50年間、私はそうやって怯えてきた。毎朝3時に目を覚ましていたんだ。でも、がんと診断されて以来、私はぐっすりと眠れている。気づいたのは恐れが最も悪いことなんだ。恐れこそが本当の敵なんだ。だから、立ち上がって本当の世界から出ていくんだ。そして、恐れを思いっきり蹴り飛ばすんだよ。／I have spent my whole life scared, frightened of things that could happen, might happen, might not happen, 50-years I spent like that. Finding myself awake at three in the morning. But you know what? Ever since my diagnosis, I sleep just fine. What I came to realize is that fear, that’s the worst of it. That’s the real enemy. So, get up, get out in the real world and you kick that bastard as hard you can right in the teeth.
人とずっと共に生きる森づくり
more treesは、森林保全団体の一つ。急速な環境破壊に対して危機感を抱いた音楽家・坂本龍一さんらにより、「森と人がずっと共に生きる社会」の実現を目指して設立されました。日本は、国土に対して約７割の面積を森林が占める、世界有数の森林大国です。その一方、木材の輸入大国であることもまた事実です。現在の木材自給率は、35%程度。様々な要因から林業の採算性が悪化した結果、事業として成り立たなくなり、放棄される森林も増加しているのです。 日本の森が抱えるそうした課題の解決策として、同団体が取り組んでいることの一つが森づくり。林業従事者や地域の専門家と協働しながら、間伐や下草刈り、そして伐採跡地への植林など、森の健やかさを取り戻すための活動です。「more treesの森」は、日本全国に11か所。冒頭の宮崎県諸塚村も、その一つなのです。
