Zen in the Art of Shooting Yourself

To gain a better insight into the paradoxical relationship between the way of the warrior and his responsibility for waging peace and war simultaneously, I have recently reread Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, a German professor of Philosophy.

Here's an excerpt I found most intersting:

"The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art..."

This idea, "something of a quite different order" which finds similar expression in such texts as The Art of War, and the Tao Te Ching, would seem to render the idea of "reading the enemy as the enemy" impossible. If the target is oneself--if there is no fundamental difference--then killing can be a suicidal gesture.

Even according with Western mental health theory, deploying force often sustains more concentrated trauma to the perpetrator than the victim (assuming the victim survives, of course). This has been elegantly demonstrated in Spielberg's Munich and Henckel's The Lives of Others and dare I say in the real-life Sonderkommando at Auschwitz, Gen. Wesley Clark, Robert Oppenheimer, Maj. Claude Eatherley (commander of the spotter plane over Hiroshima), and possibly John McCain, to name but a few.

According to this vector, difference is erased between subject and object as a consequence of the act of violence... As my favorite teacher, Jacques Derrida, used to say: there is no différance = a French neologism on différer which puns on "to differ" and "to defer," i.e., closure in finding meaning is always deferred because things (especially signifiers/words) are never as they seem.

Yet, Derrida cautions that we still live in a world which demands provisional action and responsibility. As such, we continue to act "under erasure" which means we're all just shooting in the dark... but the shooting is sometimes, however rarely, consistent with the ethics of protecting the body and the body politic.

How do we decide when, where, and if, to act?

I would say it is here that the discussion often gets messy and, instead, I would like to demand intelligent specificity from my life.

However, speaking from experience and as I mature, I see that it is exactly topics like this which I revisit year-after-year... and more often than not, I simply cannot believe that "I actually said that"--but here goes, under erasure (how convenient):

This year, I will be traveling to Japan under a fellowship to study the beautiful but deadly Martial Arts of Kenjutsu. To prep, I have been examining Bushido, the traditional code of the warrior.

Please don't mistake this for a romanticization of the Samurai ala Zwick's culturally naive and condescendingly PC The Last Samurai (though I find some guilty pleasure in that film, I have to admit). But even though the Samurai messengers were feudal, womanizing warlords, their essential founders' message contains much wisdom.

The Bushido code is typified by these virtues:

• Rectitude (義 gi)
  
• Courage (勇 yuu)
  
• Benevolence (仁 jin)
  
• Respect (礼 rei)
  
• Honesty (誠 makoto or 信 shin)
  
• Honour (誉 yo)
  
• Loyalty (忠 chuu)
  
• Filial piety (孝 kō)
  
• Wisdom (智 chi)
  
• Care for the aged (悌 tei)
  

Each of these virtues demands a lifetime of study, but, in brief, you may notice that nowhere in this code is any specific exhortation to violence. Instead, we are given the moral framework for a life, not death.

However, in Bushido, if any of these virtues are directly threatened by an honorable adversary (i.e., one of equivalent or superior skill than you posses) or oneself, the warrior is obliged to do battle with the opponent (not "enemy") and/or herself; hence, the very important tradition of Sepuku which can be performed non-lethally by westerners as the Buddha recommends: "show endless patience to your self, but show no patience to your delusions." Literally kill your delusions for they are sometimes more skilled in deception than you are.

Your delusions truly are master terrorists and there can be no negotiation. They must be held to account, rapidly.

The delusions are:

• desirous attachment
  
• anger
  
• jealousy
  
• pride
  
• miserliness
  
• ignorance
  

Without constant vigilance, "moral bankruptcy" is inevitable if we posses these qualities overmuch. Note that if our "leaders" were to divorce themselves from these delusions, almost all wars after WWII would be nearly impossible to initiate.

And make no mistake, much of the Allies' intentions to enter and prosecute WWII, were fueled by these delusions. I would also say that their purposeful failure to target Auschwitz is in fact proof that, at best, "ignorance" was at play... and, at worst, "desirous attachment" to anti-semitism and economic expediency was the order of the day.

It is indeed very hard to get around the moral imperative to make war on genocide--and rightly so. But I would suggest that these clear-cut examples are far fewer than most of the conflict-zones currently under Western eyes.

So how does one "do" or "make" war as an individual?

Here, I believe we should return to the Gandhiesque approach as a default. Note that in the Buddhist, Sikh, Taoist, and even Sufist traditions, the sword is not a phallic symbol, but, instead, actually symbolizes "Shakti," the eternal feminine power. And like all things feminine, the sword is not a sword. It is also not a sloppy apologetic metaphor. Rather, it morphs fluidly into whatever weapon one yields according to one's talents.

There is no doubt in my mind that the peaceful placard is one of the finest weapons in the protester's arsenal. The proof is in how much true attention it has received during the 20th Century (e.g., India, South Africa, American Civil Rights, et al). It makes a difference or a différance, as you like. In this respect, the peaceful protestor acts honorably with the pure and brave heart of a warrior.

However, a nagging question remains: when I return from Japan, I will be far more skilled in the art of physical combat than I am currently. In fact, it may become my most precise skill.

What to do with it?

Obviously, this skill is in the mind as much as the body... and yet, I am troubled by the fact that if we were ever to encounter such a clear example of massive delusional forces, such as those which existed in WWII, would it be my wise honor and duty to actually fight? And what does it mean "to actually fight" in someone else's house, as it were? This opens up larger questions about the ethics of "collective security" and "peacekeeping operations," doesn't it?

I pray we will never, ever find a clear-cut context... but Rwanda, Darfur and a dozen other examples are not promising signs for the end of these questions.

On the other hand--and here we really get into metaphysics or "higher" consciousness--when is doing nothing exactly the appropriate thing to do? When does the system demand mindful observation rather than intervention, even if every cell in our mistrained body-mind is telling us to fight righteously on behalf of the oppressed?