Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence — and Zen?

Japan Times

19-07-2025

'Zen has no special doctrine or philosophy, no set of concepts or intellectual formulas, except' — wrote Zen priest Daisetz T Suzuki (1870-1966) in 'Zen and Japanese Culture' (1959) — 'that it tries to release one from the bondage of birth and death, by certain intuitive modes of understanding peculiar to itself.'
This is puzzling. 'Intuitive modes of understanding' escape the ready grasp of minds fed on 'concepts' and 'intellectual formulas.' 'Release from the bondage of birth and death' is equally elusive. It's not the 'Western' intellect's view of things, nor that of most modern Japanese, whose thought processes, regardless of Zen's shaping influence over many centuries on traditional Japanese culture, are more 'Western' than Zen.
In Zen, everything is not. Which seems to mean: nothing is. But doesn't. Because nothing, too, is not. Likewise life, death, self, I, you, subject, object, mind, thought. None of it is. It's all nothing. Which itself is not.
The difficulties of writing about a manner of thought that denies everything language can express are clear enough. Suzuki, whose book (written in English) is a masterpiece of language used to transcend language, devoted much of his long life to introducing Zen to the West — not by making it comprehensible, which would have defeated his purpose; rather by making us comfortable (sort of) with incomprehension.
Suzuki quotes at length numerous ancient sages. Extracting more or less at random:
'I see the emptiness of all things — no objects, no persons.' — Bukko (1226-86)
'I hold a spade in my hands, and yet I hold it not; I walk and yet I ride on the water buffalo.' — Fu Dashi (497-569)
'The uplifted sword has no will of its own, it is all of emptiness. It is like a flash of lightning. The man who is about to be struck down is also of emptiness, and so is the one who wields the sword. ... As each of them is of emptiness and has no 'mind,' the striking man is not a man, the sword in his hands is not a sword, and the 'I' who is about to be struck down is like the splitting of the spring breeze in a flash of lightning.' — Takuan Soho (1573-1645)
Imagine Mahatma Gandhi reading that.
'Mahatma' — literally 'great soul' — is the title affectionately and gratefully conferred upon Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), first by India and then by the world — India which he led to independence, the world whose noblest souls he inspires to this day.
'I did not move a muscle when I first heard that an atom bomb had wiped out Hiroshima,' he told American journalist Margaret Bourke-White. He was affirming, it seems, his unshakable faith in nonviolence. Nonviolence, he said, 'is the only thing the atom bomb cannot destroy. ... Unless the world adopts nonviolence, it will spell certain suicide for mankind.' (All Gandhi quotes, as last month, are from 'The Essential Gandhi: His Life, Work and Ideas,' edited by Louis Fischer.)
Was he a saint? He himself denied it — what saint wouldn't? But if profound religiosity; utter selflessness; boundless love for God and all living creatures; the willing and even joyous endurance of suffering for the good of all, friend and enemy alike (he acknowledged no enemies); and refusal to deploy against his most violent, threatening and dangerous opponents weapons more powerful than love, truth, nonviolence and noncooperation — he claimed there were none more powerful — are measures of sainthood, we must at least accord him a measure of saintliness.
Was he — unconsciously perhaps — a Zen man?
No, is the gut response. Between this apostle of nonviolence and Zen priest Takuan's veneration of the sword there seems no common ground. Suzuki has much to say of swords and swordsmanship. 'Zen,' he writes, 'speaks of the sword of life and the sword of death, and it is the work of a great Zen master to know when and how to wield either of them. Manjusri (the bodhisattva of supreme wisdom) carries a sword in his right hand and a sutra in his left ... but the sword of Manjusri is not to kill any sentient beings, but (to kill) our own greed, anger and folly.'
Maybe so, and yet, undeniably, as we read in the 18th-century 'Hagakure,' which Suzuki quotes with approval, 'The essence of swordsmanship consists in giving yourself up altogether to the business of striking down the opponent. If the enemy, too, is ready to give his life to it, you are then well-matched. The final outcome will depend on faith and fate.'
The 'Hagakure' is a celebration of Bushido, the 'way of the warrior,' written by a samurai named Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659-1719) who, bored and disgusted by the long peace of the Edo Period (1603-1868) in which it was his misfortune to have been born, yearning for bloodier days gone by and, he hoped, to come, wrote, 'The way of the warrior is death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. Every day without fail one should consider oneself as dead.'
Is the way of Gandhi death? Does the Gandhian sword of love, truth, nonviolence and noncooperation speak the same language as the sword of steel, 'sword of life' though Zen calls it?
Certainly Gandhi faced death as boldly as any samurai. The nonviolent, he wrote, 'would offer themselves unarmed as fodder for the aggressor's cannon. ... The unexpected spectacle of endless rows upon rows of men and women simply dying rather than surrender to the will of an aggressor must ultimately melt him and his soldiery.'
The ideal man or woman, he wrote, 'is a devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy, who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who is always contented ... who has dedicated mind and soul to God ... who is versed in action yet remains unaffected by it...'
Arrested frequently by authorities against whom he protested (however nonviolently), he called jail his 'temple' and said one could be happy even there — or rather, 'the follower of dharma (the ultimate reality of Hinduism and Buddhism) trains himself to do without things (or accept privation) with happiness ... for happiness ... is not the opposite of unhappiness. It is superior to that state. The devotee of the (Bhagavad) Gita is neither happy nor unhappy. And when that state is reached, there is no pain, no pleasure, no victory, no defeat, no deprivation, no possession.'
Zen's sword might have repelled him but there was Zen salt in him, and a dialogue, we imagine, between him and Suzuki would have been friendly; no doubt fruitful as well. We'd arrange it if we could.
Gandhi's fate was tragic. Ours is not the world he strove for, and he died staring in the face the overwhelming probability that it would not be.
The spinning of cloth, which he strove to spread among the masses as their liberation from poverty and India's from modern industrial capitalism, which he abhorred, failed to take root.
Nonviolence stronger than the atom bomb? It was not stronger than Hindu-Muslim hatred; there they were, India's two great religions, their devotees slaughtering each other en masse and without mercy before his very eyes even as India celebrated its rebirth as an independent nation.
Brotherhood? The execrated, persecuted 'untouchables' of the Hindu caste system remain execrated and persecuted, despite his exhausting campaigning on their behalf.
Circumstances, the world, human nature, call it what you will, may have defeated him — but victory over himself he did win. Months before he was assassinated by a Muslim zealot, he foresaw his assassination (given the emotional climate it was not difficult). He said, 'If I am to die by the bullet of a madman I must do so smiling. There must be no anger within me. God must be in my heart and on my lips.'
And so it was. His last words, as he breathed his last: 'Oh, God.'
Michael Hoffman is the author of 'Arimasen.'