bearing witness in nanjing: 70 years after the massacre
Posted on Nov 25th, 2007
by 
jhalifax
jhalifax
dear friends,
i am just settling down after nearly thirty hours of flying....... and trying to comprehend what i have been through this past month. vietnam was powerful enough...... with the people rising from the ashes of war to foster the strongest economy in southeast asia. the journey there was a return for me after seventeen years, to witness so much change, so much resilience. and with tremendous growth, the environmental problems of the past and present are very present. dioxins do not disappear. they have a long life in the soil and flesh and the numbers of those with birth defects is notable. agent orange is something that we laid into the life of vietnam, plus landmines........ and now industry. so pollution is not inconsequential, among other problems. but life in hanoi is bubbling and alive; swimming in the waters of halong bay and phuquoc was healing for me especially, and the time with the mountain people took us deep into our hearts, meeting the children as well as old vietcong who fought to win their war.
i then traveled to nanjing, china, joining my friend kaz tanahashi and other chinese and japanese people, including dear mayumi, for marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre at nanjing. i am too road weary to go into detail, but to say it was like attending a war crimes trial is not an understatement. listening to the testimony of survivors of the massacre tell their stories was near unbearable. watching the japanese people cry in shame was as well heartbreaking. but truly, you must read iris chang's book "the rape of nanjing." it is gripping and terrifying. how could this have happened, a true holocaust in the cruelest manifestation, and so few in the world take note. please read this book. it blew my mind............
i went with kaz to nanjing three times to prepare this gathering. but i had no idea of the magnitude of the atrocities until a few days ago when i heard survivors testify. and to consider that some japanese deny this happened is absurd and disturbing. so this provided a chance for some truth and reconciliation.
kaz asked me to lead the panel on rape as a weapon of war. chinese women scholars presented powerful evidence concerning japanese soldiers torturing and raping chinese women and children and taking girls and women as sex slaves. japanese women spoke of the sexual and moral issues that beleaguer japanese sexist male culture. it was a very heavy and long afternoon. we had already heard testimony of rape and sexual slavery by japanese soldiers of chinese women and children the day before from survivors. and to tell you the truth, i felt for the many japanese men in the audience. the women did not hold back. and i was relieved as a woman to hear such strength from my asian sisters. it was an unbearable five hours of testimony.... a lot to bear witness to and life-changing for me, as i have not known any horror as this.
all the sessions were filmed so i hope to have a copy of this session for the sangha. it speaks volumes as to why i am dedicated to the spirit of zen we carry at upaya..... a practice that does not deny the wounds of war, including the war between the sexes.
i am in palm beach right now, having a soft landing at the kluges till the mind and life meeting begins day after tomorrow. then home to rohatsu. my bones ache. but my heart aches more. the echoes of suffering are everywhere. and these few days of rest are important for me, as i want to give my best during rohatsu, and this includes the aftermath of these days in asia, where the shadow of war is so strong.
i also wondered often if those who come after us will find themselves in baghdad one day, doing what we did this past week......... there can be no reconciliation without truth......
two hands together, roshi
ps: see the flickr site for photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/upaya/
i am just settling down after nearly thirty hours of flying....... and trying to comprehend what i have been through this past month. vietnam was powerful enough...... with the people rising from the ashes of war to foster the strongest economy in southeast asia. the journey there was a return for me after seventeen years, to witness so much change, so much resilience. and with tremendous growth, the environmental problems of the past and present are very present. dioxins do not disappear. they have a long life in the soil and flesh and the numbers of those with birth defects is notable. agent orange is something that we laid into the life of vietnam, plus landmines........ and now industry. so pollution is not inconsequential, among other problems. but life in hanoi is bubbling and alive; swimming in the waters of halong bay and phuquoc was healing for me especially, and the time with the mountain people took us deep into our hearts, meeting the children as well as old vietcong who fought to win their war.
i then traveled to nanjing, china, joining my friend kaz tanahashi and other chinese and japanese people, including dear mayumi, for marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre at nanjing. i am too road weary to go into detail, but to say it was like attending a war crimes trial is not an understatement. listening to the testimony of survivors of the massacre tell their stories was near unbearable. watching the japanese people cry in shame was as well heartbreaking. but truly, you must read iris chang's book "the rape of nanjing." it is gripping and terrifying. how could this have happened, a true holocaust in the cruelest manifestation, and so few in the world take note. please read this book. it blew my mind............
i went with kaz to nanjing three times to prepare this gathering. but i had no idea of the magnitude of the atrocities until a few days ago when i heard survivors testify. and to consider that some japanese deny this happened is absurd and disturbing. so this provided a chance for some truth and reconciliation.
kaz asked me to lead the panel on rape as a weapon of war. chinese women scholars presented powerful evidence concerning japanese soldiers torturing and raping chinese women and children and taking girls and women as sex slaves. japanese women spoke of the sexual and moral issues that beleaguer japanese sexist male culture. it was a very heavy and long afternoon. we had already heard testimony of rape and sexual slavery by japanese soldiers of chinese women and children the day before from survivors. and to tell you the truth, i felt for the many japanese men in the audience. the women did not hold back. and i was relieved as a woman to hear such strength from my asian sisters. it was an unbearable five hours of testimony.... a lot to bear witness to and life-changing for me, as i have not known any horror as this.
all the sessions were filmed so i hope to have a copy of this session for the sangha. it speaks volumes as to why i am dedicated to the spirit of zen we carry at upaya..... a practice that does not deny the wounds of war, including the war between the sexes.
i am in palm beach right now, having a soft landing at the kluges till the mind and life meeting begins day after tomorrow. then home to rohatsu. my bones ache. but my heart aches more. the echoes of suffering are everywhere. and these few days of rest are important for me, as i want to give my best during rohatsu, and this includes the aftermath of these days in asia, where the shadow of war is so strong.
i also wondered often if those who come after us will find themselves in baghdad one day, doing what we did this past week......... there can be no reconciliation without truth......
two hands together, roshi
ps: see the flickr site for photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/upaya/
Access: Public
china
July 2008 
the photos bring it home, thank you Roshi.
This is moving as well as stilling. My day came to a halt at this news. Remembering the Town Meeting we held at ZMM at the start of the first Gulf War, when Kaz orchestrated a performance work, culminating in a burst of red across a piece made while intentional phrases were said in unison. The witness given that evening by a few consciencious objectors, one, a woman trained in interogation, was prophetic, or history-aware. That same year Taxi Kitagawa, who was interned in a California camp as a child, took his first step back into the States since his family fled to Canada after their release, by going to ZMM. It was my honor to accompany him one hosan on his pilgramage of forgiveness, first to Hyde Park, to stand over the desk on which FDR signed the injuction that sent the Americans of Japanese decent into prisoncamps, next to the Chaple at West Point, where we cried, and were not alone in our crying in that space, that day.
A few years later I spent some time with Fr. Michael Lapsley, a member of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Committee. A teacher of forgiveness, his hands and an eye were lost to a parcelbomb in the thick of the transitioning from apartide. Celebrating Mass, he would raise his stainless steel hooks, holding the chalis, holding the Eucharist, saying, “…in memory…” . There can, indeed, be no reconciliation without truth. Fr. Lapsley had developed a workshop on memory and it's role in healing.
I will look for Iris Chang's, The Rape of Nanjing.
Not far from Nanjing is Ningbo where John C.H. Wu, the scholar/philosopher who turned Merton on to the East, was born. The last time I passed through the World Trade Center I was with Wu's granddaughter, Raisa. We were taking the Path train to go sit with Bob Kennedy at Morning Star Zendo. Without fail it is my life in the Dharma that turns my attention to our greatest tradegies and greatest hopes. I would that the pain be kept at some distance but see that temptation as the source of futility. Only the deep breath in shows ways beyond our catastrophy.
There I was with tears welling at your flicker photos while my wife in the next room laughed on the phone with an old friend from the mountain range at the headwaters of the Mekong.
…together,
Jikishin
Thank You, Roshi Joan.
You never cease to amaze me
you two are very kind. i don't really have much to say about what i do. one just does it…….