Daisetz Suzuki's Knife
example · book: Zen at War (Brian Victoria) ·
retold in 20 talks
Žižek quotes Zen master D.T. Suzuki, who justified killing in war by claiming enlightenment allows one to see the 'dancing knife' as a phenomenon without substantial reality, thus bypassing ethical guilt.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 17
“you should have i'm observing a phenomenon phenomenal multiplicity where my knife is dancing in the air and somehow it gets stuck into your breast.”
“it is as he says a knife in my hand as part of a cosmic dance is moving in space and as part of the same dance, Matthew sorry you are, your body hits my knife and I'm for nothing in it.”
“i'm observing a phenomenal multiplicity where my knife is dancing in the air and somehow it gets stuck into your breast”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 4 jobsuses
compassionate war
×5
inner authenticity is a lie
×2
fundamental lie
×2
the gap between morality and enlightenment
×2
Its cast and sources
populated by
D. T. Suzuki17Brian Victoria11Père Joseph (François Leclerc du Tremblay)7Aldous Huxley9Jonathan Littell4Paul Churchland4Patricia Churchland4Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu3
alongside works
Every retelling 18
Žižek quotes Zen master D.T. Suzuki, who justified killing in war by claiming enlightenment allows one to see the 'dancing knife' as a phenomenon without substantial reality, thus bypassing ethical guilt., illustrating ideology,religion-theology
Suzuki argued that a truly enlightened person stabbing another is not 'doing' anything: the knife moves as part of a cosmic dance and the victim's body 'hits' the knife, the enlightened self is merely a transparent observer., illustrating Buddhism and violence,An-Atman,act without being fully involved
10:11 Debunking new-age spirituality | Slavoj Žižek, Rupert Sheldrake, John Vervaeke and more2023 · 29:04
Suzuki's thought-experiment: a soldier meets his enemy with a knife. Through the 'zero experience' of nirvana he becomes an empty brain whose knife 'dances in the air and gets stuck into your breast', killing without a killer, since there is no substantial self acting., illustrating the zero experience,nirvana
Zen Buddhism popularizer D.T. Suzuki argued that the ideal soldier is one who has accepted Buddhist no-self: then killing is not 'you' acting, it is a knife floating in the air and the enemy's body somehow getting stuck on it in the cosmic dance of phenomena. Nobody is responsible., illustrating Buddhist violence,perversion of noble teaching,ideology and responsibility
D.T. Suzuki justifies killing in war by claiming that through enlightenment, one sees no self; the killer is just a passive observer watching the 'knife dance' and the victim's eye stumbling upon it., illustrating no-self,ideology
The celebrated Zen popularizer Suzuki argued in the 1930s-40s that killing in war is an act of love and that military obedience is the practical shortcut to Satori, showing Eastern spirituality is equally capable of ethical monstrosity., illustrating inner authenticity as no guarantee against monstrosity,spirituality and violence