A POSTSCRIPT TO YESTERDAY'S POSTING

Shoji Yamada, Shots in the Dark: Japan, Zen, and the West, translated from the Japanese by Earl Hartman (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press; Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2009) (From the bookjacket: "In the years after World War II, Westerners and Japanese alike elevated Zen to the quintessence of spirituality in Japan. Pursuing the sources of Zen as a Japanese ideal, Shoji Yamada uncovers the surprising role of two cultural touchstones: Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery and the Ryoanji dry-landscape rock garden. Yamada shows how both became facile conduits for exporting and importing Japanese culture." First published in German in 1948 and translated into English in 1953 and Japanese in 1956, Herrigel's book popularized ideas of Zen both in the West and in Japan. Yamada traces the prewar history of Japanese archery, reveals how Herrigel mistakenly came to understand it as a specifically a Zen practice, and explains why the Japanese themselves embraced his interpretation. Turning to Ryoanji, Yamada argues that this epitome of Zen in fact bears little relation to Buddhism and is best understood in relation to to Chinese myth. For much of its modern history, Ryoanji was a weedy, neglected plot; only after its allegorical role in a 1949 Ozu film was it popularly linked to Zen. Westerners have played a part of redefining Ryoanji, but as in the case of archery, Yamada's interest is primarily in how the Japanese themselves have invested this cultural site with new value through a spurious association with Zen."  Basically, how much true Zen is in Zen and the Art of Archery, or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, or Zen in the Art of Writing, or Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide, or Zen and the Art of Screenwriting: Insights and Interviews, or Zen and the Art of Murder, or Zen and the City of Angels, or Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design, or Zen in the Art of Golf, or Zen in the Art of Climbing Mountains, or Zen and the Art of Street Fighting, or Zen and the Art of Stickfighting, or Zen and the Art of Travel, or Zen and the Art of Gardening, or Zen and the Art of Cooking, or Zen and the Art of Well-Being, or Zen and the Art of Casino Gaming: An Insider's Guide to a Successful Gambling Experience, or Zen and the Art of Poker, or Zen and the Art of Foosball: A Beginner's Guide to Table Soccer, or Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy, or Zen and the Art of the Monologue, or Zen and the Art of Close Encounters: Crazy Wisdom and UFOs, or Zen and the Art of Changing Diapers, or Zen and the Art of Child Maintenance, or Zen and the Art of Fatherhood: Lessons from a Master Dad, or Zen in the Art of Rhetoric, or Zen and the Art of Anything, or Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy, or Zen and the Art of Knitting, or Zen and the Art of Diabetes Maintenance, or Zen and Art of Falling in Love, or Zen in the Art of SAT: How to Think, Focus, and Achieve Your Highest Score, or Zen and the Art of Dodgeball, or Zen and the Art of Faking It, or Zen and the Art of Housekeeping: The Path to Finding Meaning in Your Cleaning, or "Zen and the Psychology of Education," or "Zen and the Art of Management," or Zen in the Art of Supervision," or Zen and the Art of Higher Education Maintenance: Bridging Classic and Romantic Notions of Quality," or "Zen and the Art of Policy Analysis: A Response to Nielsen and Wolf," or "Zen and the Art of Medical Image Registration: Correspondence, Homology, and Quality." Id. at. 10-17. What does this marketing approach--and it is a marketing approach--say about the intended audience, the intended consumer? So, be careful. Most likely many of these New Age Zen-ers are engaged in bullshit calling it "Zen". On a similar note, one should be caution about of books, articles, workshops, educational programs with "mindfulness" in the description. Yes, some of them are serious, but mindfulness means quite different things to different uses, and sometime the use is meaningless, unmindful, or both. "Herrigel's translators and publishers hid every single piece of information related to him and the Nazis. Herrigel had supposedly penetrated into the heart of Zen with its lofty spirituality and had introduced it to  the West, Without a doubt, they did not want anyone to know that he had been a Nazi." "The Zen scholar Brian Victoria . . . harshly criticizes prominent Japanese Zen priest for the way in which they enthusiastically embraced militarism and them covered up that fact after the war. Zen and the war--this is a negative aspect of Japan's history that the Japanese have kept hidden. We have tried hard to keep the war from being reflected in the mirror of Zen and have done our best to not think about it. If others interpret this as suppressing the facts, we have no one to blame but ourselves. This is just as true in Herrigel's case." 'However, no one ordered anyone to conceal anything. Scholem ascribes this phenomenon to the workings of a common, unspoken will to create an image of Herrigel as a spiritual man. What gave birth to this unspoken, shared desire to create a particular image of Herrigel? It was the subconscious intention of those who were searching for the magic mirror." Id. at 102. "In a corner of their hearts, everyone is looking for a magic mirror. If there was a mirror that would reflect the image of them as they fervently wished to be, surely everyone would treasure such a mirror for as long as they lived." Id. at 1.).