This is a newly edited and supplemented excerpt from the book " Hitler - Buddha - Krishna - An Unholy Alliance from the Third Reich to today "
by Victor & Victoria Trimondi
© Victor & Victoria Trimondi
Translated from German by Google Translate
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The second great "patriarch" of German Zen was, next to Eugen Herrigel, Count Karlfried Dürckheim (1896-1988). Dürckheim is celebrated by its followers (and far beyond) as a gifted bridge builder between East and West. He is considered one of the most important Western meditation teachers and therapists. He is said to have attracted countless "truth seekers" of all ages and of every class. His house in Todtmoos-Rütte (Black Forest) became a center for representatives of all faiths. Many experienced the count as an integrative figure, who had penetrated into the innermost core of religions and there, the essence of spirituality herausgeschält.
Karlfried Graf von Dürckheim-Monmartin was born in 1896 in Munich. After passing the emergency exam, the 18-year-old took part in the First World War as a Fahnenjunker of the royal Bavarian Leibregiment. He was confronted with death several times during this time and later interpreted this as an initiation experience. The constant presence of the expectation of death leads to a greater affirmation of life. "It is well known," wrote Dürckheim in the wake of the First World War, "that there is nowhere as exuberant merriment as occasionally among soldiers at the front. [...] And so the soldier at the front with the Live death, so that he no longer scares him, even more, accompanied him like a faithful companion, as in "a bad intoxication" a multi-headed squirrel family to the track. (2) During the First World War, he experiences "a pleasure of deliberately throwing himself into the deadly danger." (3)
From 1919, the conservative set Graf engaged in various anti-revolutionary activities. He cooperated with the "Freikorps", who wanted to liberate Munich from the "Reds". He was imprisoned by them, but lost his life thanks to the intercession of a former servant who had joined the insurgents. He then worked journalistically, his specialty was anti-Bolshevist articles. Already from this time dates the first reading of Buddhist scriptures, "where the doctrine of Buddha's inherent nature immediately became evident." (4) While reading a stanza from the Tao Te King, he had his first enlightenment experience ( Satori): "The curtain ripped, and I woke up I had. It experienced." (5)
I found myself in the workshop of the painter Willi Geiger in Munich. My future wife, Madame von Hattinberg, was sitting on the table, and next to her was a book...I can still see it now. I opened this book and read out loud the eleventh verse of the Tao-Te-Ching of Lao Tzu. Suddenly it happened! I was listening and lightning went through me. The veil was torn asunder, I was awake! I had just experienced 'It'. Everything existed and nothing existed. Another Reality had broken through this world. I myself existed and did not exist...I had experienced that which is spoken of in all centuries: individuals, in whatever stage of their lives, have had an experience which struck them with the force of lightning and linked them once and for all to the circuits of True Life.
-- Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, by Wikipedia
He studied psychology, received his doctorate and was habilitated on February 17, 1930. In 1931 he received a professorship at the Pedagogical Academy Wroclaw. A year later he went to Berlin as a professor.
Among his ancestors count several Jewish bankers, including the famous Mayer Amschel Rothschild. Accordingly, non-Aryan blood flowed in his veins. This fact should have brought him into conflict with the Nazi regime, which excludes all "non-Aryans" from government service in 1933, according to the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service." But the opposite was true: Dürckheim provided his services to the Nazi system with enthusiasm and verve and in 1933 joined the SA. In a publication on the importance of the university it says from the same year: The aim of research is the "education to the political man" and the "foundation of all education is the training of the military," as in the life of the bishop, in military sports and the SA. In the official organ of the NS-Lehrerbund (Gau Schleswig Holstein) he wrote: "The basic gift of the National Socialist revolution: this all professions and stands comprehensive experience of the common essence, the common destiny, the common hope, the common leader, .... ], that is the living reason of all unification movements and aspirations. " (6)
"The basic gift of the Nazi revolution is for all occupations and levels across the experience of our common nature, a common destiny, the common hope of the common leader....which is the living foundation of all movements and aspirations."[15]
-- Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, by Wikipedia
In 1935, during a Wagner performance (The Meistersinger) Hitler presented. In the same year Dürckheim arranged a meeting between Hitler and the English Lord Beaverbrook, the owner of the Evening Standard. (7)
For the Nazis, co-operation with the loyal and urbane count was well-priced, especially because they could use him abroad and his Jewish grandmother had to give it the appearance of the regime's liberality. Dürckheim has been a member of the "Büro Ribbentrop" since 1935 and according to a decree of Rudolf Hess he is targeted to support the "foreign German" parked. He fulfills this task in the spirit of his superiors. Accordingly, in a speech from that time, imperialistic tones resonated: "Overseas Germanism today is experiencing to a greater extent than any other German ethnic group in the world that the birth of National Socialist Germany was also the birth of the German people." (8) In his diary he attacked emigrants, whom he met on his way to South Africa and wanted to flee the Nazi system: "So - ha! There is hatred in there and feeling of liberation." Again a poison stove against Germany outside. " (9) It is written in the same diary: "My fight. This gives the attitude for the day."(10)
Germany can now learn a lot from fascist Japan
In 1938 Ribbentrop sent him to Japan. His mission must have been of the highest diplomatic importance to the Nazi regime, for it is highly probable that Dürckheim is preparing for the "Tripartite Pact" (1940), in which Germany, Italy and Japan receive mutual military support for a "reorganization into Europe and East Asia". This is evident from the fact that he was ordered back to Berlin in 1939 for reporting. In his own words, he was released with a new mandate to maintain contact with Japanese scientists during the war.
After the war, however, Dürckheim refused any participation in the expansion of the political axis Berlin-Tokyo. On the contrary, the Nazis had deported him to the Far East, because he had become unbearable for their system because of his Jewish ancestors and forced him to write a scientific paper entitled "Exploring the spiritual foundations of Japanese education". (11) Considering how politically and militarily important Japan was for the Nazi regime at this time, Dürckheim's mission is unlikely to be considered a "deportation post".
On a closer look, the research commission of the count proves to be a central project of Nazi cultural policy. (12) Even before the First World War, General Karl Haushofer and later again and again had insisted on turning his gaze to the Far East in order to learn from Japanese educational methods. The "National Education of Japan" was a frequent topic in the lectures of the German Japanese Society in the 1930s. In 1934, the chairman of the East Asian Society Kurt Meissner made a presentation in which he highlighted the exemplary nature of the Japanese in matters of education. In a summary of his remarks it says: "The speaker recalls a second Hitler's word, the demand of faith in invincibility: This belief is most prevalent in Japan. The little children are educated in this spirit already by the school through picture books. This is followed by national celebrations at school, purposeful history lessons with hero worship, military instruction and drill exercises at school, references to Shinto shrines [....] novels of knights and heroes in newspapers, film and theater. "(13)
In 1935, the president of the DJG (German Japanese Society) Admiral a. D. Paul Behnke to the Reich Minister of Science, Education and Education Rust with a request for support of Japanese and Japanese knowledge. His letter begins with the sentence: "Germany can now learn a lot from Japan and should study the most diverse areas of Japanese state, national and spiritual life, also for its own benefit." (14) In an activity report from the year 1940 Walter Hautz, who held on behalf of the DJG Japan lectures: "Repeatedly, I was also asked to speak with the Wehrmacht, and found here always very special sympathy in Officer's Corps, whose representatives everywhere the value of remarks on the emphasized the attitude of the Japanese as well as the attitude of our leaders " (15)
Considering the great interest of the Nazi ideologues in the Bushido-inspired education system of Japanese militarism, Dürckheim's work was at the highest level, and it is not out of the question that he was initiated into Zen for its methods of developing a heroic warrior spirit he then wanted to import to Germany, since as early as 1938 he sought the "encounter with Zen Buddhism and its most important representatives." (16) Without exception, these were, as we know from Brian Victoria, sworn to Tenno fascism. In 1941, the count began with an introduction to the "art of archery" and was inspired by the fact that his teacher _____"
Later Japanese professor Hashimoto Fumio, who was then a translator for Dürckheim, described the count's stay as follows: "When Dürckheim first arrived in Japan, he was surrounded by Shintoists, Buddhist scholars, military and right-wing thinkers, each of whom tried to convince him of their importance. "(18) Among the military were such leading figures as the Imperial Navy Vice-Admiral Teramoto Takeharu and the Imperial Army General Araki Sadao, who was sentenced to life imprisonment after the war as an A-class war criminal has been. "The count had difficulty finding out who was right for him, and I volunteered as a consultant. In addition, he was sent a large number of written material, and my job was to sift through it and check its suitability. [...] In the end, it was traditional Japanese archery and Zen that most interested the count. He set up an archery arrangement in his garden and practiced eagerly every day. In addition, he went to Shinkôji Temple [...] and spent several days practicing Zen there. His teacher in Zazen was the Temple Abbot, Master Yasutani. I accompanied the count and practiced with joy."(19)
1942 Dürckheim published by the publishing house Sansyuysha (Tokyo) a Nazi propaganda publication in Japanese entitled New Germany - German Spirit, whose edition (3000 pieces) was out of print within two months. The chapter headings leave no doubt as to the Nazi spirit that pervades this booklet: "Folklore and Weltanschauung ~ German Spirit and Western Spirit ~ Traits of the German Spirit ~ The Heart of German Technology ~ Culture and Cultural Policy in the National Socialist Sense ~ Authority and Freedom ~ Beauty and People ~ Science and the State ~ The National Socialist Image of Man ~ The Völkisch Foundations of Intercultural Understanding"(20) The Count was also a propagandist of the Nazi regime in Japan, and on April 20, Hitler's birthday, he made a speech at the Kumamoto German-Japanese Cultural Institute, whose diary says," Two Hours Lecture on the German spirit, on the birthday of the leader, that's nice! "(21) In addition to Zen meditation, archery and metaphysics, he foamed at the enthusiasm of war: "Japan owned by the whole of Southeast Asia! That's just huge. [....] We rejoice in the blows they have inflicted on our enemies."(22) In 1944, he was carried away to war by a glowing eulogy, invoking "the fascist as well as the National Socialist leader principle" and the role of the two "leader peoples." "Germany and Italy building the new [fascist] order. "(23)
A contemporary witness, Dietrich Seckel - lecturer for German language and culture at Japanese universities from 1937-1947 -- experienced the count as a fanatical "top Nazi": "Dürckheim also went to the monasteries and practiced meditation there." -- So Seckel -- "But this deepening into the Zen Buddhist Japan was in part very exaggerated, especially when you saw him doing Nazi propaganda at the same time [...] I once saw him at a reception in the German Embassy. There he explained the German Reich idea to a famous Japanese economics professor, a distinguished old gentleman in a brown silk kimono, by placing his index finger on his chest. This poor professor slowly backed away until he came to a wall and could not go further back. It was pathetic how Dürckheim tried to indoctrinate him. Count Dürckheim felt above all as a helper and friend of German teachers. He met us with everything he could offer us. He gave lectures everywhere and uninterrupted, translated into Japanese. The German texts were then distributed to all Germans in Japan. Almost every day one received a lecture by Graf Dürckheim. It was terrible. He was, so to speak, a noble intellectual of high intellectual standard, who went through the country preaching Nazism and the idea of the Reich."(24)
On April 20, 1944, the second-class War Merit Cross was awarded to the "politically no longer portable". At the end of the war, the Americans locked him in a detention center for 16 months. The time Dürckheim used for Zen exercises. He did not call the war elusive, which hit him and his family in Germany hard, as the senseless act of a delusional policy, but interpreted it as an "initiation event" that prepared a spiritual rebirth: "The immeasurable suffering that is today in Germany, will bring the German people one step higher and give even more to themselves, and give them deeper attitudes to life." -- he wrote to a friend in the last days of the war. (25) Dürckheim legitimizes the war as a "transformational experience".
Later, he set up a school for "initiate therapy" with Maria Hippius. Both developed a wide-ranging activity that took them to many countries and brought them together with many VIPs from the international spiritual milieu. In Todtmoos-Rütte (Black Forest), a center was created in which the findings of the couple to their students was passed. The honored "Old Master of Zen", Karlfried Graf Dürckheim died there in 1988 at the age of 90 years.
Dürckheim's Japanese Zen master Yasutani Haku'un (1885-1973)
The main spiritual reference for Dürckheim during his stay in Japan was Zen Master Yasutani Haku'un. Brian Daizen A. Victoria, who has studied extensively with this representative of the Soto School, comes to the crushing verdict that Haku'un was a "fanatical militarist", an "ethnic chauvinist", a "sexist" and an "anti-Semite" be. (26) Under the "Great Path of the Non-Self" ( muga) he understood the complete abandonment of life and limb for the sovereign of a country. (27) The Buddhist prohibition of the killing of living beings had no principled meaning for him - on the contrary: "On this point, the following question arises: What should be the attitude of Buddha students as Mahayana Bodhisattvas in relation to the first provision, the it forbids to take life? For example, what should be done in the case to ward off various evil influences for the benefit of society, it is necessary to take the lives of birds, fish, insects, etc., or in a wider context, to condemn extremely evil and brutal persons to death, or engage in a total war for the nation. Those who understand the spirit of Mahayana regulations should be able to answer the question immediately. This is to say: Of course, one should kill, kill as many as possible. You should fight hard, kill everyone in the enemy army. [...] Neglecting a bad man to be killed, or destroying a hostile army that should be destroyed, means deceiving [Buddhist] compassion and respectful obedience, it means breaking the rule that forbids it To take life. This is the special characteristic of the Mahayana rules. "(28) Such rabulistic reversals, that in certain cases the refusal to kill is identical to killing, are also familiar from Tibetan Buddhism. For Haku'un, killing meant executing the orders of Shinto fascism, to answer the question immediately.
Although no Jews lived in Japan until the end of the Second World War, Haku'un adopted the Nazi idea of the Jewish world conspiracy: "We must be aware of the existence of the demonic teachings," he wrote in 1943, "who claim to be in the World of phenomena, there is equality, and thereby disrupt public order in society and destroy control. [...] As a result, they [the Jews] have developed an insidious plan to bring the whole world under their control and dominion. This is the real reason for the great upheavals we are experiencing in our time. " (29)
We must be aware of the existence of the demonic teachings of the Jews who assert things like [the existence of] equality in the phenomenal world, thereby disturbing public order in our nation's society and destroying [governmental] control. Not only this, these demonic conspirators hold the deep-rooted delusion and blind belief that, as far as the essential nature of human beings is concerned, there is, by nature, differentiation between superior and inferior. They are caught up in the delusion that they alone have been chosen by God and are [therefore] an exceptionally superior people. The result of all this is a treacherous design to usurp [control of] and dominate the entire world, thus provoking the great upheavals of today. It must be said that this is an extreme example of the evil resulting from superstitious belief and deep-rooted delusion.88
-- A Zen Nazi in Wartime Japan: Count Dürckheim and his Sources—D.T. Suzuki, Yasutani Haku’un and Eugen Herrigel, by Brian Victoria
It is unlikely that Haku'un knew that his pupil Dürckheim was a quarter Jew.
Brian Daizen A. Victoria concludes in his assessment of Dürckheim's master: "It is also notable that Yasutani went further than the Japanese government of his day, assuring that his feelings of emperorship, his pro-war stance, his Sexist and anti-Semitic attitudes are no less than the 'true Buddha Dharma'. In doing so, it can be said without exaggeration that Yasutani, consciously or unconsciously, had subjected himself so completely to the state that he had indeed reached a state of selflessness. He not only gave the emperor what was due to the emperor, but also offered the entire Buddhist faith. Not content with that, he called on the entire Japanese nation to do the same." (30)
Just like the Count of Germany, convinced by Nazi ideology, Yasutani Haku'un was revered as a highly respected Zen master after the war. In the book The Three Pillars of Zen, Philip Kapleau describes his impression of him with the clichés with which the youth of the West perceived the authoritative and reactionary gurus from the East: "Yasutani Rôshi is as simple and unaffected as his modest temple. His two daily meals contain neither meat nor fish, nor eggs, nor alcohol. You can often see him trotting in shabby robes and canvas shoes on his way to a zazen meeting in Tokyo or even standing in the crowded second class of inner-city trains, his textbooks hanging in a cloth bag over his shoulder. In his perfect simplicity, indifference to all manner of finery, wealth and fame, he follows in the footsteps of a long line of eminent Zen masters.
The life lie of a Zen teacher: "I was not a Nazi -- but not an anti-Nazi"
It is not our concern to present and question Dürckheim's Zen therapy. What we are primarily interested in here is the way in which the count has processed his Nazi past philosophically, mentally, and intellectually.
This question seems to us justified because Dürckheim himself has placed the two metaphors "experience and change" at the center of his practical philosophy and therapy. What does he mean by that? "There is real change wherever man experiences the experience of a supernatural being, turning the meaning of life 180 degrees and moving the axis of life from the center of natural human existence to a supernatural center of meaning." (31)
Does not such a radical turnabout demand the answer to the question: what was wrong with one's own life? Concretely referring to Dürckheim: What was wrong with his National Socialist commitment? Does he have a fascism critique developed out of Zen Buddhism that would have to precede a "genuine change" from the fanatical Zen fascist to the peaceful Eastern wisdom teacher? Or is such a question useless, since Zen and Nazi ideology do not need to contradict each other, as Suzuki meant?
First of all, Dürckheim's analysis of his Nazi past in his writings and utterances proves to be extremely thin and calculating. We have not been able to discover a more comprehensive document, but only a few pithy sentences -- such as when the very old [man] says: "I was not a Nazi, but also no anti-Nazi!" (32) This is -- in view of his Vita -- a lie. It becomes embarrassing when in his autobiographical book Mein Weg zur initiatische Therapie, the fact that he carried Jewish blood was used to portray himself as racially discriminated and as a victim of the Nazi regime. This bigoted attitude is even more repulsive when one learns that the "quarter-Jewish" Nazi diplomat sometimes got carried away by anti-Semitic statements. It is also unbelievable when Dürckheim declared fascism to be the "highest expression of materialism" after the war, because as early as 1934 he pointed out that it was just the concentration on the "inner man" that opposed National Socialism against the other materialistic citizen parties make it so attractive. (33)
The count has also concealed the "Zen Samurai Bushido debate", as it has been practiced in Germany since the mid-30s until the end of the war, and which was able to gain influence on the self-understanding of the SS. He was very well informed, as he himself participated in it. On 15 July 1939 appeared in the third number of the journal Berlin-Rome-Tokyo there, as with us, the stranger fights and unfolds his own, and in spite of all differences in the contents of his faith and the forms which he produces, is related to himself in the iron will. The war, the great teacher of the people, has this will of Japan increased to the highest. In the farmhouses and factories a sign hangs with the words: Everyone behaves as if he were on the battlefield."(34)
Dürckheim is fascinated by how the system in Japan manages to link modern institutions and religious attitudes: "The work service, which is linked to old Japanese institutions, is spreading, the apprentice training of companies is developing new forms, the old-school sports exercises are gaining in importance, the Wehrmacht, the standard bearer of the samurai spirit, is gaining increasing influence, and the millennia-old national religion of the Japanese has proven its popular-education powers. The cult of the state, which is rooted in religious roots, permeates everyday life, and speakers pervade and inflame the country the heart of the people to the service of the gods of the nation, the religious sects reflect on their national duty, and by the hundreds of thousands the workers from the factories are moving into the purification of the spirit, the Shujo-Dan."(35)
Three months later, he reiterated his idée fixe of the "educational nature of war": "The longer the war lasts, the harder its repercussions in the country become tangible, the more it acts as an educator of the people to themselves, he is the sage of all the necessities that must be taken into account by Japan in its interior, if in the great wrestling of today it should only come out victorious externally, but also internally." (36)
From what has been said, it becomes all too clear what Dürckheim's Nazi mission "Exploration of the Spiritual Foundations of Japanese Education" was all about: the count should have the total militarization of Japanese education and its spiritual underpinnings through Zen philosophy, especially through Bushido inspect and represent the spirit. The Nazi regime had less of a scientific interest in such research, but a primary interest in cultural policy. There was a search for orientation models for the construction of a pedagogy in which the values of the warrior caste stood in the foreground together with the subordination under the "leader". Japan proved to be a treasure house in this regard.
Also to the fact that in Japan all Zen schools were enthusiastically subordinate to the fascist Tenno system and supported this in every respect, Dürckheim will never speak later. On the other hand, he immersed himself in this fascist-zenist milieu. His most faithful companion at the time was a Mr. Yanasiga, the secretary of Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, of whose writings it was disclosed in Japan that they had "greatly influenced the military spirit of National Socialist Germany." (37)
For these and other reasons, it becomes clear that Dürckheim's own "transformation" to a "supernatural center of meaning" has not taken place as a departure from fascism. The satori (enlightenment), which he experienced in 1938 at his tea ceremony, left his Nazi attitude completely untouched, on the contrary -- it furthered his enthusiasm for the "samurai spirit" of the Japanese army. Thus, the dramaturgically high antagonism between his biographer Gerhard Wehr "between folk ideals and the spiritual life" in the Vita of the Count is another life lie. (38) In truth, this inner dramaturgy never existed All of Dürckheim's Zen initiations took place before 1945 and did not influence his then positive attitude towards National Socialism.
It is obvious that the pupils of the count also cover up his Nazi enthusiasm. In the short biographies they disseminate, Dürckheim's brown past is glossed over, as in the following, which can be regarded as an example for many similar ones: "He perceives National Socialism as something that was once there", a given life situation in which he does not have the Nazi stuff, so he's about to be dismissed from the service, and as a high-ranking employee, as he puts it in a later interview, he does not allow himself to be kicked out so easily the opportunity to go to Japan where, between 1938 and 1948, he was given the opportunity to establish contact with Zen Buddhism.
"The purpose of all soldier training is Hara!"
The most famous book of the count is Hara -- The center of the earth (first edition: 1954) "Hara" means belly. In Japanese culture, concentration on the belly is a world setting. According to the count, the Japanese must be considered balanced, centered, grounded, and consolidated, because he has shifted the "center of gravity" of his being into his hara. In In European culture, the heart is often regarded as the center of the human being, but the focus on the heart means something "quite personal", encourages the restriction to the "small ego", leads to "arrest" and ultimately to "restlessness". Man finds his "peace" only after he discovered and developed his "Hara". This connects him with the "unity of the original life", the "undivided fullness of being" and with the "great nature". (40) According to this doctrine, man first has to descend into his abdomen, in order to be able to "ascend" again. Resting in the Hara is, so to speak, the starting point for all further spiritual developments.
We do not want to open a debate here about whether the middle of the human being, in the "belly" or in the "heart" is to be found. What interests us is the question of whether there is a connection between the Hara philosophy and the military fascism of Japan. The information about this is given by a Japanese general, whom Dürckheim has asked about the significance of Hara for the education of soldiers. The high military was surprised at first. Then he answered: "The purpose of all military training isHara! "(41) This is unmistakable: Hara basically means" training as a soldier ", it is - the count -" the expression of soldierly virtue in all conditions - especially in the face of death. "(42) These virtues are" I overcome "and the" hard way of purification ".
The fact that the "Hara" is particularly well suited for the army, is also evident from the following sentence of the count: "In Hara can otherwise endure unbearable physical pain, offenses are quickly caught, careless reactions easily avoided, but where necessary, too without regard to an anxious ego struck. [!] In Hara the wrong sensibility passes away, also for the other one, an inner power arises, which enables the human being, without fear also dangerous things to come on itself. " (43)
Such a pedagogy, which the To create immunity to pain, which strike vigorously without regard to themselves and others and the fearless to expose the danger - includes a code of conduct, as it was maintained in the SS. These are probably some of the insights left over from Dürckheim's unpublished Nazi research report on Japanese education, which were then incorporated into his post-war book. Bearing in mind that at the end of the Second World War, Japanese teenagers aged 13 to 16 were trained as kamikaze aviators and sent to death with a "non-pathetic matter of course" and without "false sensitivity," the earl's Hara philosophy takes on a bitter aftertaste ,
The bitterness increases when Dürckheim describes how closely the development of the Hara can be connected with the political exercise of power of dictators: "The magical power of spiritual healers and great Rethors, the 'superior' power of the dictators, the staying power and the superiority a leading politician can not be understood without their hara. " (44) Although the count limits, the power can also be abused by an ego "in selfish arbitrariness". (45) But even at this point he is not ready to name the name Adolf Hitler.
The Italian fascist Julius Evola - father of Dürckheim's "initiatischer Therapie"
Dürckheim tries throughout his work - at least at first glance - to teach a path of pure inwardness and body reference, a way of attentive perception, the love of the little things, the self-awareness, the elimination of shadow forces and blockages, bioenergetics, the handling of the subtle body, the meditation in the style of Zen, the maturing, the spiritual-spiritual re-emergence, the healing, the philosophy of wholeness, the awakening of the "inner master" - as if his doctrine had only something in common with human existence and nothing but to create history and society. The "transformations" that the individual traverses seem to affect only one's own "self." To this "self"(the state of enlightenment) is to refer exclusively to the work on the person. The isolated life of the individual becomes an intiatorial event, and the "initiative therapy" developed by him helps to recognize this. Is this isolation of the "experience of being" from all social environments really Dürckheim's view?
In this context, it is noteworthy that the foundations of "initiatory therapy" are not from Zen Buddhism, but from the Italian alto-fascist Baron Julius Evola. This one had in the journal Antaeus(July 1965) published an essay titled "On the Initiative," which became programmatically important for Dürckheim. According to Evola, the criteria of initiation are the conscious confrontation with a death experience during his lifetime, "overcoming man," the transition from everyday being to another, which he calls "transcendental realism." It is produced "by the objective power of the rite of initiation [...], and this power is seen spiritually as objective and impersonal, as detached from all morality, not as a technical accomplishment in the material sphere." (46) The Italian therefore demands that that any real initiation must go beyond the range of self-discovery and require a "top-down" impact. This vertical coupling to a higher power, beyond "all valid moral and cultural values" brings into play forces that Evola does not mention in his essay, but which are recognizable in the context of his fascist warrior philosophy, which we still have to present.
Count Dürckheim is so electrified by the baron's statements that he decides to visit him in Rome. "The encounter with Evola was important to me, he was already a great ghost." (47) This homage to the grand seigneur of Italian fascism is also understandable because at the end of his essay Evola comes to speak of Zen, which represents the intiator in the purest form, "above all because he essentially brusque and direct methods the intiative opening of consciousness (satori). " (48) A comparison between Evola and Dürckheim reveals far more parallels than differences. The already mentioned notion that for the "great liberation" a "
Evola, as we shall show, was endowed with a keen sense of occult power structures. In the book On the Initiate , which bears the same title as the above-mentioned essay, he has attributed to Eugen Herrigel and Mircea Eliade also Count Dürckheim those spirits, "which are connected to a tradition-bound esotericism, namely in accordance with Far Eastern initiate circles . " (50) That's why Dürckheim's "Initiative Therapy", which likes to present itself as an "existential psychology", as a path to "inwardness", is by no means understood as limited to the individual. It is essentially a comprehensive occult doctrine of Zenism. Accordingly, the count and his students repeatedly point out between the lines that he understood himself and like-minded people, such as the Jesuit father and Zen connoisseur Enomiya Lasalle, as a kind of "seismograph for the Zeitgeist". Dürckheim confessed to himself and other chosen ones - in line with the patriarchal tradition of Zen - mysterious microcosmic qualities through which historical processes could be condensed and dismissed. "I hold Father Lasalle" - says the count - "for one of the most important minds of our time, because he lives what he proclaims, his presence in this world is of particular importance." (51)
Karlfried Dürckheim meets Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, in Germany
From his pupils Dürckheim was celebrated as the creator of the "new man". Thus, the Munich therapist Norbert J. Mayer ended his eulogy on the Count's 90th birthday with the following sentences: "What you, Karlfried, have created with Mary for the development of the new humanity, as Mary calls it, is a link in the golden chain of the transpersonal growth of man [...] Da - at the apex and at the end of the 20th century - you set your mark as a seer, recognizing this golden bond, we are the witnesses and our task is to carry it on. "(52) Such a view of world history makes the Zen Count - as Evola does right to a tradition-bound esoteric, who metapolitically represents the interests "Far Eastern initiatischer circles" here in the west.
Even though Dürckheim made a great effort with age, cultivating a Christian image and now speaking more of "Christ experience" than of "Zener experience", he nevertheless came back with a commission from Japan and this was: the worldwide spread of Zen Buddhism, taking into account national characteristics. At least that's what Japanese master Yuho Seki said to his German student Dürckheim: "Zen came originally from India, it came from India to China, a Chinese Zen was born in China, then Zen came from China to Japan, and a Japanese one came into being Zen: Today Zen comes to Germany, to Europe, and it is up to you to create a German, a European Zen. " (53) The symbolist Alfons Rosenberg did not want to give the count's Christlike attitudes any real credibility: "It reveals that Count Dürckheim's extremely successful, the Zen mentality, is clothed in a thin mantle of Christian phraseology, in the silence, the security, the inner Introducing freedom and security-demanding Europe. " (54)
Anyone who comes to Germany and wants to work there "spiritually" must not skip Auschwitz and the Nazi period, especially if he himself, like Dürckheim, participated in the power of the horror regime. The shadows of the past could otherwise reappear all too easily. For example, a major Dürckheim student, the aforementioned Munich-based therapist Norbert J. Mayer, has plunged into dangerous "brown waters". In the 1990s he organized shamanistic sessions in which the Germanic god Wotan / Odin and the savage army of the Berserkers were summoned. Chapter four of a book on which Mayer collaborated reads: "Wotan's Warrior and the Heroic Mystic - Berserker Rage and the Rituals of War."
Ethos and feeling - these are the two elements of the condition humaine to which Zen Buddhism has no humanistically satisfying answer. Ethical issues do not concern the core of this religion, which is a technique of the mind, a technique whose main purpose is the absolute mastery, indeed suppression, of all emotions. That can be a spiritual one Dulling, even leading to an automation and therefore promote structures that seeks at the political level repeatedly contact with fascist currents. That's why a debate on "Zen and Fascism" must not only be historically conducted, and it does not stop there when Zen disciples distance themselves from the fascist past of their "patriarchs" and masters. Rather, it requires a core discussion that, if it is to have a reformatory character, firmly integrates Zen into a human political value system. In fact, Dürckheim proclaimed such a way outward. However, a closer look at his life and his philosophy shows that
See also:
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki - No fear of contact with fascism
Eugen Herrigel - author of the book Zen and Archery - a convinced Nazi
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Notes:
(1) Karlfried Dürckheim - Experience and Change - Bern et al. 1982, 29
(2) After the squirrel slaughter Dürckheim felt "horror and horror" - a sense of horror, of which never in connection with the Nazi crimes in which he was involved ideologically.
(3) Karlfried Dürckheim - Experience and Change - Bern et al. 1982, 29
(4) Ibid: 37
(5) Ibid: 36
(6) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Change - Freiburg et al. 1996, 75
(7) The Evening Standard was very critical of developments in Germany. Hitler tried to convince Beaverbrook of his "Europe Vision": "The Lord was thrilled." - said Dürckheim - "He said: 'I never again write a bad essay about Hitler! That's great the concept that he has of Europe!' [....] After eight days Lord Beaverbrook was of course back on the old line. " (Karlfried Dürckheim - The way is the goal - Göttingen 1995, 39/40)
(8) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Change - Freiburg et al 1996, 76
(9) Ibid .: 77
(10) Ibid .: 78
(11) Karlfried Dürckheim - Experience and Change - Bern et al. 1982, 42
(12) This mission was related to the "Agreement on Cultural Cooperation between the German Reich and Japan" concluded on 25 November 1938. It mentions 12 points: 1. - The establishment of cultural working committees. 2. - The preservation of an extension of the cultural institutions. 3. - The recommendation of teachers. 4. - The relief for official study trips. - 5. - Exchange of students and professors. 6. - The promotion of friendly relations between the youth organizations both countries. 7. - Honored treatment of the schools. 8. - Exchange of books and magazines. 9. - Exchange in the fields of art. 10. - Exchange in the field of film. 11. - Exchange in the field of radio. 12. - Exchange in the field of sport and public health.
(13) In: Günther Haasch (ed.) - The German-Japanese Societies from 1888 to 1996 - Berlin 1996, 228
(14) Ibid .: 322
(15) Ibid .: 233
(16) Manfred Bergler - The anthropology of Count Karlfried von Dürckheim in the context of the reception history of Zen Buddhism in Germany - A contribution to the encounter between Christianity and Buddhism - Fürth 1981, 106
(17) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Transformation - Freiburg et al. 1996, 111
(18) Brian Daizen Victoria - Zen War Stories - New York 2004, chapter 5
(19) Brian Daizen Victoria - Zen War Stories - New York 2004, chapter 5
(20) Back translation from Japanese. Karlfried von Dürckheim-Montmartin - New Germany - German Spirit - Tokyo 1942
(21) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Transformation - Freiburg et al. 1996, 114
(22) Ibid .: 116
(23) Ibid .: 118/119
(24) Franziska Ehmke and Peter Pantzer - Contemporary History - Everyday Life of Germans in Japan 1923-147 - Munich 2000, 51
(25) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Change - Freiburg et al. 1996, 120
(26) Brian Daizen Victoria - Zen War Stories - New York 2004, chapter 5
(27) Brian Daizen Victoria - Zen War Stories - New York 2004, chapter 5
(28) Brian Daizen Victoria - Zen War Stories - New York 2004, chapter 5
(29) Brian Daizen A. Victoria - Zen, Nationalism and War, an Eerie Alliance - Berlin 1999, 164
(30) Brian Daizen Victoria - Zen War Stories - New York 2004, chapter 5
(30a) Philip Kapleau (ed.): The three pillars of Zen. Teaching - Exercise - Enlightenment - Munich 1992, 56
(31) Karlfried Dürckheim - Experience and Change - Bern et al. 1982, 83
(32) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Transformation - Freiburg et al. 1996, 66
(33) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Change - Freiburg et al. 1996, 81
(34) Berlin - Rome - Tokyo - Issue 3, July 15, 1939, 23
(35) Ibid .: Issue 3, July 15, 1939, 23
(36) Ibid .: Issue 6, Oct. 15, 1939, 28. Also in this issue, he again speaks of the samurai cult in fascist Japan: "The Wehrmacht, the true bearer of the Samurai tradition, is gaining ever-increasing importance as well for the spiritual guidance of the people. " (Ibid)
(37) In: Brian Daizen A. Victoria - Zen, Nationalism and War, an Eerie Alliance - Berlin 1999, 160
(38) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Transformation - Freiburg et al. 1996, 110
(39) Karlfried Graf Dürckheim - in: http://www.martinweyers.com/sukhavati/duerckheim.htm
(40) Karlfried Dürckheim - Hara - The Earth's Center of Man - Bern, Munich, Vienna 1991, 92 ff.
(41) Ibid .: 30
(42) Ibid .: 30
(43) Ibid .: 176
(44) Ibid .: 62
(45) Ibid .: 63
(46) Julius Evola - "On the Initiates" - in Antaios ed. V. Mircea Eliade and Ernst Jünger, Vol. VI, No. 2, Stuttgart July 1964, 193/194
(47) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Change - Freiburg et al. 1996, 180
(48) Julius Evola - "On the Initiates" - in Antaios ed. V. Mircea Eliade and Ernst Jünger, Vol. VI, No. 2, Stuttgart July 1964, 152
(49) Julius Evola - About the Initiates - Sinzheim 1998, 53
(50) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Change - Freiburg et al. 1996, 180
(51) In: Gerhard Wehr - Karlfried Graf Dürkheim - Life in the Sign of Change - Freiburg et al. 1996, 158
(52) Ibid .: 229
(53) Ibid .: 159
(54) Ibid .: 195
(55) See the book by Ralph Metzner - The Well of Remembrance Rediscovering the Earth Wisdom Myths of Northern Europe - with contributions by Bärbel Kreidt, Norbert Mayer and Christian Rätsch.