Goddam Commie Reds-Under-the-Bed Zen!

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Let me get this right out of the way first - Nishijima Roshi was not a Marxist!

However, like a lot of intelligent, inquiring and philosophically-minded people of his generation (and subsequent generations, even in countries where Marx's writings were effectively banned or got you investigated or blacklisted, as in the USA), he had read Marx and was familiar with his ideas and theories. In his main work Das Kapital, Marx adapted the idealistic dialectical modality of his teacher Hegel and used it to examine and lay bare the workings and inherent material and social conflicts of the capitalist mode of production and capitalist society. Nishijima Roshi mentions this all in his intro to Shobogenzo. This is relevant to Shobogenzo as Master Dogen also presents a sort of radical dialectical view, as laid out in Shobogenzo Genjo-Koan...

 

Basically, he [Master Dogen] looks at a problem from two sides, and then tries to synthesize the two viewpoints into a middle way. This method has similarities with dialectic method in western philosophy, particularly as used by Hegel and Marx. Hegel's dialectic, however, is based on belief in spirit, and Marx's dialectic is based on belief in matter. Master Dogen, through the Buddhist dialectic, wants to lead us away from thoughts based on belief in spirit and matter...  

 

Marx's view of capitalist society is sometimes classified as a 'conflict theory', as he presents the inherent class inequalities of capitalist society as resulting in systemic tensions and inevitable class conflicts ("The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles"). Nishijima Roshi saw a similar conflict defining the history of human societies and culture, but his view was that of the ideological struggle between a materialist view of the world and an idealistic view of the world - the former based on interpreting the world through the body and the senses, and the latter based on ideas and ideals.

Where Marx saw the resolution of social conflict through the creation of a classless society, Nishijima Roshi understood Master Dogen as resolving the historic materialist/ idealist ideological conflict through his revelation of our freedom to act in the present moment, where we are not confined to either our bodily perceptions nor our thinking mind:

 

...Master Dogen recognized the existence of something which is different from thought; that is, reality in action. Action is completely different from intellectual thought [idealism] and completely different from the perceptions of our senses [materialism]. So Master Dogen's method of thinking is based on action, and because of that, it has some unique characteristics.

 

We establish our freedom in this regard in practicing zazen, a very simple action which clarifies our nature of being free to act in the present moment regardless of what we're thinking or feeling.

If Nishijima was any sort of 'ist' he was a Buddhist and a humanist. He saw the latter as meaning that the main human concern should be with human freedom and the betterment of our societies. The goal of Buddhism was to result in more humanist societies, he considered.

He once said the interesting line 'Buddhism is a sort of practical humanism'. 

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