Chapter 6, Postwar American Buddhism - the Swinging Singles

While China as both hunter and hunted engaged itself in the blood sports of revolution, Zen (Chan) Buddhism's wily Fox Spirit "went to ground".

Zen's premier monastery, Nan Hua Si, led by the Venerable Xu Yin (Empty Cloud), quietly drew on thirteen hundred years' experience of surviving political challenges. It recovered from the ordeals of Japanese invasion in time to brace for what was to be a quarter-century siege of civil war, bullying Communist bureaucrats and brutal Red Guards.

Most of South China's monastic centers, suppressed to skeletal function, entered suspended animation and hibernated through their long, dark winter's discontent as they waited for the clemency of a more enlightened government; but northern religious centers, too close to Beijing's officious notice to elude the war dogs, usually found no underground to run to.

Priests were frequently "re-educated" often with swift, short, and fatal lessons. Shao Lin Ji, along with other ancient monastery complexes, was closed.

Throughout China, those masters of the martial arts who had escaped conscription or imprisonment continued to teach Gong Fu to anyone who brought the proper attitude to the discipline, but such spiritual teachings as there were appeared publicly in the more secular guise of Qi Gong.

Although Buddhism, Daoism, and the Buddhist/Daoist synthesis, Zen, were far too ingrained in the Chinese psyche for marxist ideologues to eradicate, the exportation of Chinese meditation and martial arts' teachings was effectively halted. Hong Kong and Taiwan, more concerned with the immediate life- and-death issues of sovereignty, gave no priority to the international marketing of their ancient religious disciplines.

On the heels of Chinese Communism's civil war victory, came North Korea's 1950 invasion of South Korea. U.S. participation in the defense of South Korea left Americans certain about the evils of Communism, but more confused than ever about Buddhism now that they had encountered it in a friendly nation. The religion didn't seem like the same fanatical and godless cult the Japanese had introduced nearly a decade earlier.

That Buddhism finally began to get the benefit of doubt was no doubt due to the application of the adage, "The friend of my friend is possibly my friend, but the enemy of my enemy is definitely my friend." Chinese Communists were killing American soldiers in Korea; and in the Chinese mainland, Chinese Communists were attacking both Christianity and Buddhism. Common enemies make common allies, and allies are at least temporary friends.

In the U.S., a benign but restrained interest developed in things Oriental.... artwork, literature, philosophy, religion, and physical fitness programs. But in particular, doomsday scenarios of nuclear catastrophe had given the average Joe a survivalist mentality. This, of course, and the rise in street crime made Americans ripe for learning Asian forms of self- defense.

Ironically, it was the importation of Japanese culture which became the legacy of the Korean Conflict.

By the mid-l950s, while Korea was still struggling with the aftermath of war, Japan had long since come to grips with peace; and, since China had already withdrawn from polite society, the field was now open for the divorced pair of Japanese Zen and Japanese Martial Arts to present themselves to their American hosts as legitimate Buddhism and Bushido. The antics of the shameless couple were as shocking to the Japanese as they were exciting to the Americans who separately entertained them.

In the U.S., Zen, cool, refined, intellectual and exotic, helped engender the new postwar attitude - a wave of sang froid to compensate existential angst and postdiluvian Christian righteousness. Beatniks and Dharma Bums. Bongo drums and bhang. Hippies, Peace-niks and Flower Power. Zen was definitely In.

Across the country Zendos ubiquitously appeared, to use the Buddha's Diamond Sutra simile, "as miraculously as mushrooms... or gods..." So did Zen Buddhist converts.

Fortunately for the importing savants, Japanese Zen stands to Buddhism as Protestantism stands to Christianity: austere... straight-lined buildings with no-frills interiors and minimal or no artwork... and, of course, a non-celibate clergy. Chinese Zen stands to Buddhism as Roman Catholicism stands to Christianity: expansive... intricate architecture with ornate decoration and much statuary... and a strictly celibate clergy.

The new American posture, being of the Japanese orientation, was, therefore, easy to maintain. Nobody had to explain all those Buddhist statues with their troublesome swastikas.

Callow American youths declared themselves bodhisattvas, and with zeal conferred by bhang and benzedrine, proceeded to save, if not all sentient beings, then at least the sensual ones. The Doctrine that forbade sentimental attachments to parents and friends did not seem to prohibit lovers. In fact, the permission to marry was often interpreted as a mandate for promiscuity as birth control pills and condoms completed the clerical kit. Scandal followed scandal.

With no established hierarchy to maintain order, anarchy naturally resulted. Personal disagreements led to fragmenting schism. As new groups formed, self-ordination became the order of the day. What was Zen? Whatever anybody wanted it to be.

Persons with bachelor degrees in psychology or English literature seemed automatically to qualify for the honorific title of Roshi. Here and there the title was deserving: Jiyu Kennett, Philip Kapleau, Bernard Glassman, Joko Beck, Robert Aitken - to name a few of the real-mccoy teachers who rose to prominence. Unfortunately, the landscape was dotted with fake mccoys.

The Reverend Alan Watts, a Church of England priest, became Zen's principle exponent even though, by his own admission, he had never so much as attained the altered state of consciousness defined as meditation. Nobody seemed to think it relevant that Zen, which means "meditation", had never been experienced by the person who spoke with such authority about it. (Sadly, Alan Watts would later die an alcoholic's death.)

Wherever it was not anchored by the truly spiritual, Zen drifted off into the wretched currents of Six Worlds' spurious Zen: the Angel Zen of esthetes; the Animal Zen of the timid; the Human Being Zen of the efficient; the Titan Zen of bullies; the Hungry Ghost Zen of dilettantes; the Devil Zen of well- attired poseurs.

There was merit in the approach. Zen remained unmarked by the cachet of fanaticism which Bataan had caused Christian America to stamp on Buddhism. Either Zen was not a true Buddhist Path or else it was too bizarre to take seriously.

The problem for the martial arts was different.

Since Bataan, Christians, who understood the purpose of Christian monastic training - the deliberate quest for humility through the systematic destruction of egoism - a process called "dying to self", were convinced that when Buddhist monastics used the term they were advocating ritual suicide - seppuku or hara-kiri. The Hagakure, which came to the West's attention after World War II, confirmed this view.

For American martial arts' entrepreneurs the problem was simply stated: how to attract Christian clients without offending Christian sensibilities? The solution was simply effected: dump Bushido and with it any suggestion of religious sentiment.

Fortunately, Daoist emblems were untainted. On one hand, nobody had waved a Tai Chi (yin/yang) symbol at the Americans on Bataan or Corregidor; and on the other hand, the Tai Chi symbol was omnipresent in friendly South Korea.

Overnight the intriguing black and white pair of commas was incorporated into the logo of every martial arts studio in Christendom. In applique and embroidery, dragons and tigers, freed from all negative associations, appeared on Tee-shirts and jackets. There even appeared an occasional "laughing Buddha" whose innocence extended to permission to rub his belly for luck, something martial artists, in lieu of spiritual fortitude, were in need of.

Without the moral code of Bushido to conform theory to practice, the martial arts degenerated into mere sport just as Zen had degenerated into New Age fluff.

Imitation showed the extent of flattery's sincerity. Dojo etiquette was de rigueur as travesties of formality obtained. Students eager to kick ass bowed stiffly from the waist to opportunists who called themselves Sensei.

Inevitably, the same lack of hierarchical authority produced fragmentation and schism. Dojos multiplied like amoebas. One produced two: two produced four; four produced sixteen, and so on infinitum. Storefront studios popped up in the shabby malls of every town.

The sport that fed itself upon fad and fear developed an appetite for theatrical heroics.

If we could not produce masters, we could produce movie stars. American born but Hong Kong trained Bruce Lee became, unquestionably, the brightest start in the martial arts' cinematic firmament. A consummate martial artist, Lee brought to his performances an exquisite level of skill and a resonating spiritual charisma. But it was Chuck Norris who would best exemplify the American martial arts fighter. Tough and with the spiritual persona of a rutabaga, Norris led the sport down the only path it could go at the time. Due to the popularity of the Billy Jack films, the Kung Fu television series, and the Karate Kid films, people came to study martial arts under black-belted entrepreneurs, many of whom had managed to attain mastery in the empty halls of Shao Lin Ji.

A rise in street crime brought adults to the dojos or training gymnasiums, but adults soon learned that, given their dismally inadequate physical condition, they ran greater risks of being injured in the dojo than on the street.

In the "me" generation of the 80s, a new trend developed: The martial artist was seen as a buffoon... John Belushi and other comedians lampooned him; and in one of the more important films which referenced the martial arts, Indiana Jones laughed in the face of a threatening Ninja and then matter-of-factly drew his gun and shot him dead. The point was not lost on a generation of sofa spuds. It didn't take years of muscle training to squeeze a trigger.

The dojos contributed to the humor. Many continued to emphasize high-flying kicks and other flashy acrobatic moves that were originally intended to enable foot soldiers to knock horsemen off their mounts. Such moves were regarded as ludicrous in terms of modern self-defense. Nobody in the 1980s expected to be mugged by someone on horseback.

The public perception of the value of the martial arts steadily declined as the return in personal protection no longer seemed worth the investment of time and money and the risk of training injuries. Besides, the average businessman felt strange carrying stardarts in his breast pocket. A more- conventional can of mace, a stun-gun, a hired bodyguard, or a Beretta would protect an individual far better. And so, in the public mind, the martial arts degenerated even further into just another blood sport.

And in the United States as well as Japan, young men and women of stamina and ambition were well advised to take up tennis or golf. More deals were cut at country clubs than at dojos.

And then real Buddhists started arriving from the Orient. Mature, celibate priests began to arrive from China and Viet Nam, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Tibet, priests who understood the commitment to Dharma. Ordinary Buddhist immigrants arrived and became ordinary neighbors who flew the Stars and Stripes on the Fourth of July.

Orientals began to join oriental martial arts' studios and with their influx, the need for organization became both obvious and acute. Responding to this need, the various schools began to organize into regulatory federations which established standards of performance, competitive criteria, and so on. When the martial arts finally submitted to the idea of self-discipline, people stopped laughing. But still, there was a gap in every school's training regimen, a split that lay open like a wound. The martial arts needed the Code of the Warrior; and the Code of the Warrior was pure Zen... of which, during the narcissistic 1980s, there was precious little in the U.S. Zen, too, needed order and stability. Zen, too, needed Wushidao.

And somebody began to wonder if the divorce was final, after all. Whether frivolous Zen could reunite with macho Gong Fu, whether these pseudo-disciplines could mate again and become what they were always intended to be: two halves of the glorious whole: the Buddha Dharma's Gentle Force of Goodness. Power and the Law Power Obeys.

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