Zen Master sez: Kill Without Compassion or Mercy? 

I know you're not generally a fan of Thich Nhat Hanh, but watching that video I was reminded of this quote from him "We may think of peace as the absence of war, that if the great powers would reduce their weapons arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we will see our own minds - our own prejudices, fears, and ignorance."

Well Brad, you’re definitely no goofball! Without doubt you are one of the more saner voices on Zen (or Buddhism in general) out there. Your videos not only provide Zen teaching, history, and information on current events, but also tips and motivation for daily practice. And the fact that you offer it for free speaks volumes to your credibility. So a very sincere thank you!! And I agree, your books truly are fantastic!!

Gudo Nishijima is not the only one who's teachings sometimes fell on deaf ears: Matthew 7:26 - "But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand."

Great video Brad! I think you did a great job walking that fine line.

Brad, you're no goofball. I like watching your videos despite not particularly caring about zen or buddhism myself, because you are thoughtful and intelligent, yet humble and quick to admit when you aren't expert in something, and generally well-reasoned and well-intentioned.

That guy is in it to satisfy his ego. You are humble and authentic.

"Makes me feel like I wanna rethink the whole damn thing" -sounds like an opportunity to me. Also, You didn't stop studying and you didn't stop practicing after you left Mr. Nishijima, so it seems like his dhamma-game-plan worked on your part.

I think this video really exemplifies what I like about Brad among other Zen masters, and exactly what I mean when I say Brad is more "real" than a lot of them (which is easy to misunderstand). Brad's not here to show off with a fancy robe promising a high without drugs, he's just here to tell it like it is. Ironically, the dude sitting in his pajamas with an unshaven face is telling more truth than the supposed "Zen master" wearing a robe and juzu. Brad is, ironically, an avatar of not being attached to symbols, or avatars, he's just a dude with a message. Not turning himself into a billboard of peace and tranquility just makes his message all the more pure.

This reminds me of Robert Aitken taking Takuan to task for his advice to the samurai. Perhaps the Israeli is speaking metaphorically here. If you're in the unfortunate position of having to fight a war, use the force necessary to accomplish your mission without letting your anger lead you into a bloodbath.

9:55 almost spit up my food laughing LOL

"The Japanese Art Of War'' by Thomas Cleary describes the shift in Zen when the Samurai class got ahold of it. They're a warrior class and created a martial arts aspect to the practice.

Can you imagine how much of a badass super soldier Buddha could have been, if only he had put his mind to it....

Great video, echoes some of the thoughts I'd had on the matter and clarified the connection with Nishijima. Great Zappa reference at the end there too.

Thank you for this video. Wow, this "zen master" looks like a total nightmare. A deeply lost man.

He reminds me of Marshall Applewhite... is it just me?

My faith in Zen, let alone Buddhism, is shaky enough without this crap. I need something to hold onto, but not sure there ever will be.

Shocking! Good you have done this talk to expose the guy. Must be hard to have him associated with your teacher. Scary!

haha your parody of his video was perfect, Brad. 😂 Good video. I can absolutely understand your feeling here.

Awesome to hear you play some Zappa! One of my favorite musicians.

I am glad, I am not the only one who wants to gag sometimes

"Mindfullness at w4r", new bussiness coming!

Brad I love the edits in your video. I like the little reaction in the beginning too, you should consider doing more like it if you feel you want to. But yeah, people like this make me sick and make Buddhism look bad.

I think I’m going to believe it’s the best case scenario rather than a gross misunderstanding of the dharma or a twist of it to suit his own beliefs. Has anyone asked him directly for clarification?

"What does that make me? You be the judge." I condemn and love you in the same proportions. The former with a tongue in cheek, the latter not. 🙏❤

Maybe he is talking to the young people that follows him and now they are at war. The ones that are not professional soldiers but compassionate people and risk their life thinking to much. And about Nishijima... it's a pity he failed on so many aspects, when one misses the point he goes astray 🤷‍♀

What the Hebrew Master is saying is very consistent with the Zen tradition in Japan, which has always been aligned with the military class. Soldiers have been seeking advice from monks for hundreds of years. On how to deal with fear, stress, guilt, and most importantly, how to be effective on the battlefield.

Could some zen people interview him. I am sure he speaks and understand English

I felt strange when you were quoting his biography, because Seung Sahn is my favorite zen teacher and Nishijima is the second one. So it's an unpleasant coincidence if the man who supports bloodshed is associated with them in some way.

Your videos are good Brad (including this one). Don't worry. :)

Omg, saw this on the jimmy Dore show, I was hoping you would comment on this!

Feel for you on this one, Brad. FWIW I think you're honest and authentic

But A good chance to sit with anger and drop the storyline of good and bad!🙏

Agreed man, especially with Z (the dog). Loved the candy cane touch 😂. But for the sake of completeness, may be reasonable to mention the long history of Zen doing shit like that. Brian Victoria has written a couple of books about "Zen at war". Thank God for the non candy cane and blood Zen masters. Dogen didn't allow weapons in the temple and Nishijima might gag at this too. I do like Ikkyu Sojun wooden sword tho.. 😉

Despite his mild rebukes of Zen at War (Brian Victoria's book), Guido Nishijima couldn't deny a militaristic side to Zen. A Rinzai sect, Myoshinji, made this statment: ''It is truly regrettable our sect was unable to maintain a resolute anti-war stance and ended cooperating with the war effort...'' This Zen-Zionist perhaps uses the role of previous Zen monks in Japan as a support for his militaristic stance.

This guy is nuts.

Aren't we on everyone's side? We are all integrated, a part of and in some ways all of, the great field of consciousness that underlies all reality. So from my perspective, I love myself, I am one with all of everything, thus I love everything. I am on the side of the Israelis, I am on the side of the Palestinians, I bemoan ignorant actions on both sides and celebrate wise actions on both sides.

This is who Mark Whalberg got his education from for the “SNIPER” movie!!

💯

This guy saw an opportunity to make money and receive attention. He seems to be enjoying it. In a small upstate NY town, I started a small (very small) sitting group as a way to sit with other people. I do not want to be in the same vein as this narcissistic, greedy person. He apparently didn’t get Dogen’s message from Nishijima’s translation of Shobogenzo. He WAS a student for a short time but not anymore.

Sounds like somebody learned Zen from the Imperial Japanese Army...

‏in his book it's said that he studied under nishijima for 10 years Befor he get's his transmission

Yay! Zappa!

Thou art a good guitarist and singer. I gotta get yuhr albums. Thou art not pretentious. Thou art obviously not an ego maniac nor desire groupies nor applause therefore thou art an appropriate and by the way a wonderful teacher. Thou tendest to call a spade a spade the love who is Savior. who is creator hast given thee discernment and courage to speak what's sometimes hard truth. Hopefully thou wilt keep walking beside us instead of exalting thyself as SO many on so many spiritual roàds do. True humility helps self esteem. It's a virtue. Let us all dear freind. remember. THE HUMILITY OF HEAVEN

Dude, you could totally take him with the power of the KandyKane, super soldier or not. Sweep the leg 😁

Wage peace, not war. And, I watch tubes very selectively, but definitely yours to get a good dose of goofiness 😊

oh no 😯 zen devils! 👹👹👹

Absolutely will still support you ! Pass the barf bowl please. It seems obvious to me that this man is no ‘spiritual’ master. Just one more poseur on the pile.

How to give zen a bad name.

You can be goofy sometimes but I don’t consider you a goofball. Good talk!

Since the war began, I try to follow social media accounts of people on both sides. To get a "balanced" picture. Even though i know this is impossible. I'm not there, and as most of us, i'm just listening and watching things online. There's suffering everywhere. There's immense suffering on both sides and in the world in general right now. If what the media says and what israeli accounts I follow (i'm also following palestinian accounts to try and get a "balanced" view) is true, the attacks were just horrible in terms of violence (as they also seem to be now from the other side. please don't read things i'm not saying). It is after that, and when it was decided that the army should get in and basically destroy the attackers, that Nissim made the video. As far as I understand, to reduce the suffering of the soldiers. As strange as it seems. I've been having discussions about it and someone even told me that a zen master should just sit there and talk like a zen master from a movie, you know, all peace and love and say "No war" with flowers and butteflies or something. Which we all know would help reducing the suffering of the fighters being sent to war. Not. It's easy to say "no war" when we're not in it. Thing is, when war *is* happening, and when one *does seem to need* to attack in order to protect its civilians from heartless killings, what to do ? And i'm not talking about this conflict. But in general. I personnaly don't know what would i do if something similar was happening where i live. It's a very complex issue, morally, karmically and so on. As far as I see it, he was advising the soldiers to keep their mind clear, so they don't panic and don't start shooting everywhere. I want to think that this would help preventing killing civilians on the other side. But ugly it is. It's a war. And as he says in the video, when they come back, it will be the time to cry and take it all out and let the heart cry for this human tragedy. But in the battlefield, not a good idea, if one wants to come back alive, a clear mind and a calm heart is needed in that moment i guess. As soon as the video circulated on social media with strange titles like : "israeli zen master advocates killing children and civilians" "israeli zen master asks israeli soldiers to have no mercy and no compassion" I just couldn't believe my eyes and I rushed on his Facebook page to understand what the f* was going on. He had already put a post, saying that he'd been contacted by many Buddhist teachers around the globe asking him if the video was true etc. and how could a Buddhist teacher say such things. He went on writing that his video was purposely mistranslated by a pro terror group and that he would of course never advocate killing children and civilians. Also, that both his teachers participated in the war, in Korea and Japan, yet they were men with an immense love and compassion that believed that our true essence is Buddha. I don't know what else to say. Maybe he was wrong about making the video. I try to be open to that scenario. But somehow I believe he was speaking as a citizen in need to protect from very violent attacks and as a zen teacher trying to reduce suffering. I believe he's trying to reduce suffering on both sides. Even if that sounds strange. I'll try to explain. I think he's trying his best so that the Israeli soldiers don't hold hatred in their heart. So that they don't become dark. Cause them becoming dark and full of hatred against Palestinians would just perpetuate the cycle of violence. While if they manage to stay "cool headed", they might as well see the bigger picture and work for peace too. I tend to think the "most charitable" explanation you are talking about in your video (12:22) was the intention. That is, to avoid creating even more darkness in the hearts. Finally, i must say i also find it strange that you put as title and thumbnail of your video the only sentence you know he didn't say. I guess it's a way so that people are attracted and watch your video and listen to what you wanna share. Which i understand. Still, i think it perpetuates the cycle of lying about something he didn't say. People seeing the "no mercy no compassion" everywhere now. Even here. May peace prevail for all human beings and beyond. __/\__

Had Dogen Sangha international persisted as an organization, would it have been any use in response to such nonsense as this? Or are such counterfactuals not worth considering?

Nut case.

I think Gudo Nishijima is like a pizza delivery driver, they just deliver the pizza and what people do with it is none of their business. How someone chooses to misuse the Dharma or any other principled teaching or way of life doesn't carry over to the ones that practice its principles . Thanks for another good video.

It's been compromised like everything else...

Sometimes I think Slavoj Žižek is right about "Buddhism"

1) Victoria didn't lie about Sawaki. Victoria just forgot to talk about Sawaki's later reflections. For a time Sawaki preached like Soen Shaku or this Israeli. Why didn't you simply link to him? His name is Nissim Amon, he fought in the Lebanon War for the Israelian army. And the problem of that Israeli is not that he told soldiers how to not get into PTSD, the problem is that he directed it only to Israelian soldiers and not to the Palestinians, as they would be well advised to do their job in a similar way (and become "super soldiers" instead of ineffective ones). If you tell a cook not to cook, he would not do his job. So it simply does not make any sense to tell a soldier to not shoot or kill when exactly this becomes his job. But how to do it in the best way? That's why samurai were taught in this fashion. 2) I don't see how Nishijima could not have revoked a dharma transmission because I was told earlier on your channel that his dharma heirs are usually not correctly registered at Sotoshu, so there isn't even a bureaucratic process involved. Even Joko Beck did it with Ezra Bayda et al., although probably out of a hurt ego. 3) Dogen might very well have had a big mouth about others, but we know now that his "shinjin datsuraku" might have been a big misunderstanding of his teacher so that Dogen himself would be one of those distorting their teacher's heritage.

Genocide is clear cut. Anyway that's a pretty decent takedown of the psycho Zen guy. You should make a short of your candycane pisstake 🤓

Buddhism, in my understanding, does not teach bringing harm to or the killing of other beings in any way.

there may not have been an official way for Nishijima Roshi to rescind his transmission but he could have made a public statement saying it was a mistake. A touch of ego, perchance? Does not make him sound good!

I kinda viewed it as a guy who's trying to capitalize on the current conflict to sell his "group" - I won't use the C word either lol.

Does dharma transmission mean that a person will never do bad thing? Never loose their way? Never be mistaken? Of course not. That dude in the video lost his footing, his attitude is shadowed by what he's coming through.

goofball zen

goofball

Truly despicable

Why do you consider it wrong to use zazen as a performance enhancer? Baseball player Sadaharu Oh used it purposefully to advance in sports, and author Robert Greene use it to write more truthful books. I get why it would be problematic to only focus on that stuff, but why not embrace the performance enhancing aspects of zazen when it, you know, actually works?

Someone needs to shut this guy down

No wonder why you don't want to teach anyone...or even give dharma transmission.... It's a tough decision to make.....

Agree that video was more than disgusting. A pep talk for the people who killed over 15k civilians. Don't let it get ya in the feels, supersoldiers!

Def a goofball (like most of us) but at least youre not a charlatan

That looks like a parody video.

I don't know whether you are a goofball or not...to me you are not...and even though both your names can be associated because of Nishijima Roshi, you are so far from being like that , like that so called "master" in that upsetting video...this just shows the difference between what you do, which is real and good and beautiful...and what others who called themselves 'masters' do, which just contributes to more war and more anger and more suffering...

Kill with passion or you are just a machine.

Tdevil can cite scripture for his own purpose, an evil soul producing holy witness. A goodly apple rotten at the core......

So, as Israeli, though I don't know Nissim personally, there are almost zero degrees of separation between us, I will say his video is dumb AF in every language. That said, probably very few Americans can truly relate to the dilemma of how to "find peace in times of war". Surprise, though - the truth is anyone with two feet on the ground knows this - you can't! You can't find peace in times of war. But you can do your best to maintain your sanity. You can do your best to nurture yourself and the people around you. And yes, even soldiers do want peace. Still, we understand the necessity of self defense. I think it's very wise what nearly every ancient sage in India taught - in order to practice Buddhism/Yoga/etc, you must live in a peaceful country. So if Nissim is trying to do that in Israel - he's "spinning his wheels" of dharma. War requires being super-tuned in to survival. That's quite different from meditation practice. Meditation and all spiritual practice has a bit of a nihilistic aspect. Lack of concern for the self. Well, that doesn't work well in battle and it is quite sociopathic. That's what I'd say about Nissim from watching the video: he's a sociopath! The soldiers will do more damage wasting their time watching this video than they will blasting "bundles" of bullets.

If you want some blasphemy in here, I’m pretty sure the Buddha and every other religious founder was a “want to be a spiritual leader” type.

Ven. Brad, This is me here, Nissim. A friend sent me a link to your video. You could just ask me, as Jundo did, if it is true that I said these things. ZENWell, I didn't. Some pro Hamas deliberately translated me wrong. I never said to be without compassion or mercy in the battlefield. I said to the soldiers to be without feeling sorry for themselves and without self-pity. They completely twisted my words. Nishijima gave me the same diploma as you, with the sticks, 6 bales, golden robe and the whole ceremony. Don’t you trust him? You also have my email, please write to me next time before shaming me publicly.

Probably best not to to get involved with those Abrahamic based faiths anyway.

The 70s TV show KUNG FU ...the only authority I will ever accept are the teachings of Zen Master Po. Grasshopper-Qui Chain Cane taught me everything I need to know about ZEN WARFARE... Now days, I often walk around my town dressed in rags smacking people with my bamboo flute! I truely believe I am a super warrior! Hoivay! 🪖 🥋🥷😆