Historically, violence has been a characteristic pedagogical tool of Zen monastic masters, used not only as pedagogy but rationalized as necessary to imparting enlightenment to the monk-novice. The inevitability that violent actions in monastic transactions will occur and should be highlighted is commonly assumed in Zen literature, which regularly presents them within koans. Intertwining such violent anecdotes within koans may shield the acts from criticism, but at the same time can make it impossible to use the koans intelligently when so many are based on violence.
Koans do not arise without a context, namely, the Zen Buddhist monastery, with its master and novices. The method of the koan is to present a Zen master offering to a novice (sāmaṇera) or monk a snippet of story, dialogue, or narrated incident, or even a phrase that is a conundrum to be reflected upon, intended to provoke particular thoughts, conclusions, responses, or actions.
In the typical koan, the master is presented making a statement to the novice that is received thoughtlessly or solicits an inadequate or wrong answer. Sometimes the novice more boldly responds with a further question, points out a contradiction in the master’s words, or expresses incredulity or sarcasm. The master’s response is often a slap to the face, a shove backwards, or a blow from the master’s stick.
The violent response of the master is not just an anomaly. Koans including such violence are ubiquitous in Zen anthologies and collections, such as in Gateless Gate, Zen Flesh Zen Bones, Iron Flute, and Blyth’s Zen Classics. Fewer such koans appear in the celebrated 101 Zen Stories and the Blue Cliff Records.
D. T. Suzuki (1870-1965), the Japanese scholar of Zen Buddhism, sees the use of violence by Zen masters as necessary and salutary, as in the story of the master Joshu and the disciple Hakuin, wherein the master is constantly slapping, pushing, name-calling, and humiliating Hakuin, until the mental breakthrough emerges and the violence is justified. In his book An Introduction to Zen Buddhism Suzuki concludes: “Each slap dealt by Joshu stripped Hakuin of his illusions and insincerities.” In Suzuki’s book Zen and Japanese Culture, the author writes: “When Rinzai was asked [by a novice in the monastery during the master’s talk] what the essence of Buddhist teaching was, he came right down from his seat and, taking hold of the questioner by the front of his robe, slapped bis face, and let him go. The questioner stood there, stupefied. The bystanders remarked, ‘Why don’t you bow?’ This woke him from his reverie; and when he was about to make a bow to the master, he had his satori.”
Suzuki elaborates a justification for violence in his book The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk:
“In the beginning of Zen history, there was no specified method of studying Zen. Those who wished to understand it came to the master, but the latter had no stereotyped instruction to give, for this was impossible in the nature of things. He simply expressed in his own way either by gestures or in words his disapproval of whatever view his disciples might present to him, until he was fully satisfied with them. His dealing with his disciples was quite unique in the annals of spiritual exercises. He struck them with a stick, slapped them in the face, kicked them down to the ground; he gave an incoherent ejaculation, he laughed at them, made sometimes scornful, sometimes satirical, sometimes even abusive remarks, which will surely stagger those who are not used to the ways of a Zen master. This was not due to the irascible character of particular masters; it rather came out of the peculiar nature of the Zen experience, which, with all the means verbal and gesticulatory at his command, the master endeavors to communicate to his truth-seeking disciples.”
No less than psychologist Carl Jung contributed the Foreword to the 1934 Western translation of Suzuki’s Introduction book. But nowhere does Jung refer to the violence of Zen Masters. Jung notes the efficacy of koans, and the difficulty of attaining satori, but he is conspicouslly silent on violece, as if wrestling with this historical dimension and how it affects the Zen experience as a whole. The entire violence experience suggests the needfor an abandonment (if not reform) of monasticism, an investigation on whether this violence is an aspect of history, culture, collectivity, patriarchy, or authority,not a matter of pedagogy.
An early speculation on Zen violence is that of Thomas Merton (1915-1968), the Catholic monk and hermit who had developed a strong interest in Asian thought during his most mature writing. In his book Mystics and Zen Masters, Merton notes that:
“Undoubtedly, one of the most essential elements of the Zen training is encountered in interviews with the Roshi. These are deliberately humiliating and frustrating, for the spiritual master is determined to waste no time tolerating the illusions and spiritual self-gratifications that may be cherished by his disciples. If necessary, he will still resort (as did famous Zen masters in the past) to slapping, kicking, and other forms of physical violence. It may also be mentioned that in the Zendo there is always one monk on guard with a stick, with which he does not hesitate to strike the shoulders of anyone who is not manifestly awake.
Far from fearing to create tension, the Zen masters deliberately make severe demands upon their disciples, and it is understood that one cannot really attain to enlightenment unless one is pressed to the limit. One might almost say that one of the purposes of the Zen training is to push the monk by force into a kind of dark night, and to bring him as quickly and efficaciously as possible into a quandary where, forced to face and to reject his most cherished illusions, driven almost to despair, he abandons all false hopes and makes a breakthrough into a complete humility, detachment, and spiritual poverty.
“Unfortunately, however, experience in the monastic life everywhere teaches that this severe training may, in fact, simply make the monk tough, callous, stubborn, perhaps even incurably proud, rather than purifying his heart. This would of course be especially true in a case where the spiritual master, instead of being a genuinely spiritual and holy man, is only a self-opinionated bully with a taste for pushing people around. All methods have their risks!”
Ostensibly, Merton strives to reconcile himself to the vicarious use of violence displayed in the texts of Suzuki, whom Merton followed closely and met personally. Further, Merton wanted to compare and contrast monasticism West and East, specifically their institutional styles, and how eventually they would be compared to eremitism. But clearly he was disappointed in the Zen monastic scenario, as he was in the Western one, and even a cursory reading reveals his skepticism. After all, Merton was the author of THE Wisdom of the Desert, his own collection of “koans,” and he maintained a strong interest in hermits.
How to disentangle institutional Zen from this violence? Is it a cultural phenomenon, as observers of hikikomori have tried to discern, wherein the retreat from society is the psychological response (and actual physical result) of childhood bullying and oppresive social and economic structures that cause trauma? Is historical Zen monasticism characterized by patriarchal authoritarianism? Is it not but exactly what eremitism rebelled against, as in the universal case of the hermits of Western antiquity? The Western monastic system, both Orthodox and Catholic, was founded on authority and pedagogical methods not unlike Zen monasteries, and perhaps represent the same phenomenon. We must look for authentic Zen, as in the West, to the wise sages and to the hermits.