D. T. Suzuki

Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (鈴木大拙貞太郎 Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō, October 18, 1870 – July 12, 1966^[1]) was a Japanese author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in spreading interest in both Zen and Shin (and Far Eastern philosophy in general) to the West. Suzuki was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit literature. Suzuki spent several lengthy stretches teaching or lecturing at Western universities, and devoted many years to a professorship at Otani University, a Japanese Buddhist school.

Early life

D. T. Suzuki was born Teitarō Suzuki in Honda-machi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, the fourth son of physician Ryojun Suzuki. (The Buddhist name Daisetz, meaning "Great Simplicity" (The kanji of which can also mean "Greatly Clumsy"), was given to him by his Zen master Soyen Shaku^[2].) Although his birthplace no longer exists, a humble monument marks its location (a tree with a rock at its base). The Samurai class into which Suzuki was born declined with the fall of feudalism, which forced Suzuki's mother, a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist, to raise him in impoverished circumstances after his father died. When he became old enough to reflect on his fate in being born into this situation, he began to look for answers in various forms of religion. His naturally sharp and philosophical intellect found difficulty in accepting some of the cosmologies to which he was exposed.^[3]

Suzuki studied at Tokyo University and simultaneously took up Zen practice at Engakuji in Kamakura studying with Soyen Shaku.^[4] Under Soyen Shaku, Suzuki's studies were essentially internal and non-verbal, including long periods of sitting meditation (zazen). The task involved what Suzuki described as four years of mental, physical, moral, and intellectual struggle.

During training periods at Engaku-ji, Suzuki lived a monk's life. He described this life and his own experience at Kamakura in his book The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk. Suzuki was invited by Soyen Shaku to visit the United States in the 1890s. Suzuki acted as English-language translator for a book written by him (1906). Though Suzuki had by this point translated some ancient Asian texts into English (e.g. Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana), his role in translating and ghost-writing aspects of this book was more the beginning of Suzuki's career as a writer in English.^[5]

Career

While he was young, Suzuki had set about acquiring knowledge of Chinese, Sanskrit, Pali, and several European languages. Soyen Shaku was one of the invited speakers at the World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893. When a German scholar who had set up residence in LaSalle, Illinois, Dr. Paul Carus, approached Soyen Shaku to request his help in translating and preparing Eastern spiritual literature for publication in the West, the latter instead recommended his disciple Suzuki for the job. Suzuki lived at Dr. Carus’s home, the Hegeler Carus Mansion, and worked with him, initially in translating the classic Tao Te Ching from ancient Chinese. In Illinois, Suzuki began his early work Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism.

Carus himself had written a book offering an insight into, and overview of, Buddhism, titled The Gospel of Buddha. Soyen Shaku wrote an introduction for it, and Suzuki translated the book into Japanese. At this time, around the turn of the century, quite a number of Westerners and Asians (Carus, Soen, and Suzuki included) were involved in the worldwide Buddhist revival that had begun slowly in the 1880s.

Besides living in the United States, Suzuki traveled through Europe before taking up a professorship back in Japan. In 1911, Suzuki married Beatrice Erskine Lane, a Radcliffe graduate and Theosophist with multiple contacts with the Bahá'í Faith both in America and in Japan^[6]. Later Suzuki himself joined the Theosophical Society Adyar and was an active Theosophist.^[7] Dedicating themselves to spreading an understanding of Mahayana Buddhism, they lived in a cottage on the Engaku-ji grounds until 1919, then moved to Kyoto, where Suzuki began professorship at Otani University in 1921. While he was in Kyoto, he visited Dr. Hoseki Shinichi Hisamatsu, a famous Zen Buddhist scholar, and discussed Zen Buddhism together at Shunkoin temple in the Myoshinji temple complex.

In the same year he joined Otani University, he and his wife, Beatrice, founded the Eastern Buddhist Society; the Society is focused on Mahayana Buddhism and offers lectures and seminars, and publishes a scholarly journal, The Eastern Buddhist. Suzuki maintained connections in the West and, for instance, delivered a paper at the World Congress of Faiths in 1936, at the University of London (he was an exchange professor during this year).

Besides teaching about Zen practice and the history of Zen (Chinese Chán) Buddhism, Suzuki was an expert scholar on the related philosophy called, in Japanese, Kegon, which he thought of as the intellectual explication of Zen experience.

Still a professor of Buddhist philosophy in the middle decades of the 20th century, Suzuki wrote some of the most celebrated introductions and overall examinations of Buddhism, and particularly of the Zen school. He went on a lecture tour of American universities in 1951, and taught at Columbia University from 1952 to 1957.

Suzuki was especially interested in the formative centuries of this Buddhist tradition, in China. A lot of Suzuki's writings in English concern themselves with translations and discussions of bits of the Chan texts the Biyan Lu (Blue Cliff Record) and the Wumenguan (Gateless Passage), which record the teaching styles and words of the classical Chinese masters. He was also interested in how this tradition, once imported into Japan, had influenced Japanese character and history, and wrote about it in English in Zen and Japanese Culture. Suzuki's reputation was secured in England prior to the U.S.

In addition to his popularly oriented works, Suzuki wrote a translation of the Lankavatara Sutra and a commentary on its Sanskrit terminology. Later in his life he was a visiting professor at Columbia University. He looked in on the efforts of Saburō Hasegawa, Judith Tyberg, Alan Watts and the others who worked in the California Academy of Asian Studies (now known as the California Institute of Integral Studies), in San Francisco in the 1950s.

Suzuki is often linked to the Kyoto School of philosophy, but he is not considered one of its official members. Suzuki took an interest in other traditions besides Zen. His book Zen and Japanese Buddhism delved into the history and scope of interest of all the major Japanese Buddhist sects.

In his later years, he began to explore the Jodo Shinshu faith of his mother's upbringing, and gave guest lectures on Jodo Shinshu Buddhism at the Buddhist Churches of America. D.T. Suzuki also produced an incomplete English translation of the Kyogyoshinsho, the magnum opus of Shinran, founder of the Jodo Shinshu school. However, Suzuki did not attempt to popularize the Shin doctrine in the West, as he believed Zen was better suited to the Western preference for Eastern mysticism, though he is quoted as saying that Jodo Shinshu Buddhism is the "most remarkable development of Mahayana Buddhism ever achieved in East Asia".^[8] Suzuki also took an interest in Christian mysticism and in some of the most significant mystics of the West, for example, Meister Eckhart, whom he compared with the Jodo Shinshu followers called Myokonin. Suzuki was among the first to bring research on the Myokonin to audiences outside Japan as well.

Suzuki's books have been widely read and commented on by many important figures. A notable example is An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, which includes a 30-page commentary by famous analytical psychologist Carl Jung. Other works include Essays in Zen Buddhism (three volumes), Studies in Zen Buddhism, and Manual of Zen Buddhism. Additionally, American philosopher William Barrett has compiled many of Suzuki's articles and essays concerning Zen into a volume entitled Studies in Zen.

Suzuki's Zen master, Soyen Shaku, who also wrote a book published in the United States (English translation by Suzuki), had emphasized the Mahayana Buddhist roots of the Zen tradition. Suzuki's contrasting view was that, in its centuries of development in China, Zen (or Chan) had absorbed much from indigenous Chinese Taoism. Suzuki believed that the Far Eastern peoples had a more sensitive or attuned to nature than either the people of Europe or those of Northern India.

Suzuki subscribed to the idea that religions are each a sort of organism, an organism that is (through time) subject to "irritation" and having a capacity to change or evolve.

It was Suzuki's contention that a Zen satori (awakening) was the goal of the tradition's training, but that what distinguished the tradition as it developed through the centuries in China was a way of life radically different from that of Indian Buddhists. In India, the tradition of the mendicant (holy beggar, bhikku in Pali) prevailed, but in China social circumstances led to the development of a temple and training-center system in which the abbot and the monks all performed mundane tasks. These included food gardening or farming, carpentry, architecture, housekeeping, administration (or community direction), and the practice of folk medicine. Consequently, the enlightenment sought in Zen had to stand up well to the demands and potential frustrations of everyday life.^[9][10]

Interestingly, later in life Suzuki was more inclined to Jodo Shin (True Pure Land) practice on a personal level, seeing in the doctrine of Tariki, or other power as opposed to self power, an abandonment of self that is entirely complementary to Zen practice and yet to his mind even less willful than traditional Zen.

Suzuki received numerous honors, including Japan's national Cultural Medal.

"New Buddhism," Japanese nationalism, and Buddhist modernism

Scholars such as Martin Verhoeven and Robert Sharf, as well as Japanese Zen monk G. Victor Sogen Hori, have argued that the breed of Japanese Zen that was propagated by New Buddhism ideologues, such as Imakita Kosen and Soen Shaku, was not typical of Japanese Zen during their time, nor is it typical of Japanese Zen now. Although greatly altered by the Meiji restoration, Japanese Zen still flourishes as a monastic tradition. The Zen Tradition in Japan, in its customary form, required a great deal of time and discipline from monks that laity would have difficulty finding. Zen monks were often expected to have spent several years in intensive doctrinal study, memorizing sutras and poring over commentaries, before even entering the monastery to undergo koan practice in sanzen with the roshi.^[11] The fact that Suzuki himself was able to do so (as a layman) was largely the invention of New Buddhism.

At the onset of modernization in the Meji period, in 1868, when Japan entered into the international community, Buddhism was briefly persecuted in Japan as "a corrupt, decadent, anti-social, parasitic, and superstitious creed, inimical to Japan's need for scientific and technological advancement."^[12] The Japanese government intended to eradicate the tradition, which was seen as a foreign "other", incapable of fostering the nativist sentiments that would be vital for national, ideological cohesion. In addition to this, industrialization led to the breakdown of the parishioner system that had funded Buddhist monasteries for centuries.^[12] However, a group of modern Buddhist leaders emerged to argue for the Buddhist cause.^[13] These leaders stood in agreement with the government persecution of Buddhism, accepting the notion of a corrupt Buddhist institution in need of revitalization.

This movement, known as shin bukkyo, or "New Buddhism", was led by university-educated intellectuals who had been exposed to a vast body of Western intellectual literature. Advocates of New Buddhism, like Suzuki's teachers Kosen and his successor Soen Shaku, saw this movement as a defense of Buddhism against government persecution, and also saw it as a way to bring their nation into the modern world as a competitive, cultural force.^[14]

Several scholars have identified Suzuki as a Buddhist Modernist. As scholar David McMahan describes it, Buddhist Modernism consists of "forms of Buddhism that have emerged out of an engagement with the dominant cultural and intellectual forces of modernity."^[15] Most scholars agree that the influence of Protestant and Enlightenment values have largely defined some of the more conspicuous attributes of Buddhist Modernism.^[16] McMahan cites "western monotheism; rationalism and scientific naturalism; and Romantic expressivism" as influences.^[17] Buddhist Modernist traditions often consist of a deliberate de-emphasis of the ritual and metaphysical elements of the religion, as these elements are seen as incommensurate with the discourses of modernity. Buddhist Modernist traditions have also been characterized as being "detraditionalized," often being presented in a way that occludes their historical construction. Instead, Buddhist Modernists often employ an essentialized description of their tradition, where key tenets are described as universal and sui generis.

Suzuki's depiction of Zen Buddhism can be classified as Buddhist Modernist in that such traits can be found in it. That he was a university-educated intellectual steeped in knowledge of Western philosophy and literature allowed him to be particularly successful and persuasive in presenting his case to a Western audience. As Suzuki portrayed it, Zen Buddhism was a highly practical religion whose emphasis on direct experience made it particularly comparable to forms of mysticism that scholars such as William James had emphasized as the fountainhead of all religious sentiment.^[18] McMahan states, "In his discussion of humanity and nature, Suzuki takes Zen literature out of its social, ritual, and ethical contexts and reframes it in terms of a language of metaphysics derived from German Romantic idealism, English Romanticism, and American Transcendentalism."^[19] Drawing on these traditions, Suzuki presents a version of Zen that can be described as detraditionalized and essentialized: Zen is the ultimate fact of all philosophy and religion.

Criticism

Despite Suzuki's pioneering efforts, he has been criticized on the grounds that:

1. He was not an ordained Zen monk
2. He was not an academic historian working within a secular academic institution
3. His conceptions of Zen were often overly inclusive and general, and
4. His work merely employed the Zen Buddhist tradition to rewrite nativist Kokugaku ideas characteristic of Shintoist studies, and use these ideas to define Japanese identity as a unique one (cf.nihonjinron).

Robert H Sharf has written "The nihonjinron [cultural exceptionalism] polemic in Suzuki's work—the grotesque caricatures of 'East' versus 'West'—is no doubt the most egregiously inane manifestation of his nationalist leanings"^[20] and that "one is led to suspect that Suzuki's lifelong effort to bring Buddhist enlightenment to the Occident had become inextricably bound to a studied contempt for the West."^[21]

However, some clearly credible Western scholars, such as Heinrich Dumoulin, have acknowledged some degree of debt to Suzuki's published work, and, quite significantly, some of the most important figures of the 20th century have praised him unreservedly (see below — "About D. T. Suzuki") Nevertheless, Suzuki's view of Zen Buddhism is certainly his very own; as philosopher Charles A. Moore said: "Suzuki in his later years was not just a reporter of Zen, not just an expositor, but a significant contributor to the development of Zen and to its enrichment." This is echoed by Nishitani Keiji, who declared: "...in Dr. Suzuki's activities, Buddhism came to possess a forward-moving direction with a frontier spirit... This involved shouldering the task of rethinking, restating and redoing traditional Buddhism to transmit it to Westerners as well as Easterners... To accomplish this task it is necessary to be deeply engrossed in the tradition, and at the same time to grasp the longing and the way of thinking within the hearts of Westerners. From there, new possibilities should open up in the study of the Buddha Dharma which have yet to be found in Buddhist history... Up to now this new Buddhist path has been blazed almost single-handedly by Dr. Suzuki. He did it on behalf of the whole Buddhist world". Carl G. Jung said of him: "Suzuki's works on Zen Buddhism are among the best contributions to the knowledge of living Buddhism… We cannot be sufficiently grateful to the author, first for the fact of his having brought Zen closer to Western understanding, and secondly for the manner in which he has achieved this task."^[22]

See also

• Cambridge Buddhist Association
• Timeline of Zen Buddhism in the United States
• Zen Studies Society
• Masao Abe

Notes

References

• Andreasen, Esben. Popular Buddhism in Japan: Shin Buddhist Religion & Culture (1998) University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-2028-2
• Fields, Rick. How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America (1992) Shambhala Publications. ISBN 0-87773-631-6
• Stirling, Isabel. Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki (2006) Shoemaker & Hoard. ISBN 978-1-59376-110-3

Bibliography

These essays were enormously influential when they came out, making Zen known in the West for the very first time:

• Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series (1927), New York: Grove Press.
• Essays in Zen Buddhism: Second Series (1933), New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc. 1953-1971. Edited by Christmas Humphreys.
• Essays in Zen Buddhism: Third Series (1934), York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc. 1953. Edited by Christmas Humphreys.
• Dr. Suzuki also completed the translation of the Lankavatara Sutra from the original Sanskrit. Boulder, CO: Prajña Press, 1978, ISBN 0-87773-702-9, first published Routledge Kegan Paul, 1932.

Shortly after, a second series followed:

• An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, Kyoto: Eastern Buddhist Soc. 1934. Republished with Foreword by C.G. Jung, London: Rider & Company, 1948.
• The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk, Kyoto: Eastern Buddhist Soc. 1934. New York: University Books, 1959.
• Manual of Zen Buddhism, Kyoto: Eastern Buddhist Soc. 1934. London: Rider & Company, 1950, 1956.A collection of Buddhist sutras, classic texts from the masters, icons & images,including the "Ten Ox-Herding Pictures".

After WWII, a new interpretation:

• The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind,London: Rider & Company, 1949. York Beach, Maine: Red Wheel/Weiser 1972, ISBN 0-87728-182-3.
• Living by Zen. London: Rider & Company, 1949.
• Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist: The Eastern and Western Way, Macmillan, 1957. "A study of the qualities Meister Eckhart shares with Zen and Shin Buddhism". Includes translation of myokonin Saichi's poems.
• Zen and Japanese Culture, New York: Pantheon Books, 1959. A classic.
• Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, Erich Fromm, D. T. Suzuki, and De Martino. Approximately one third of this book is a long discussion by Suzuki that gives a Buddhist analysis of the mind, its levels, and the methodology of extending awareness beyond the merely discursive level of thought. In producing this analysis, Suzuki gives a theoretical explanation for many of the swordsmanship teaching stories in Zen and Japanese Culture that otherwise would seem to involve mental telepathy, extrasensory perception, etc.

Miscellaneous:

• An anthology of his work until mid-1950s: Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki, Doubleday, New York: 1956. Edited by William Barrett.
• Very early work on Western mystic-philosopher.Swedenborg: Buddha of the North, West Chester, Pa: Swedenborg Foundation, 1996. Trans. by Andrew Bernstein of Swedenborugu, 1913.
• Transcription of talks on Shin Buddhism.Buddha of Infinite Light. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1998. Edited by Taitetsu Unno.
• Tribute; anthology of essays by great thinkers.D.T. Suzuki: A Zen Life Remembered. Wheatherhill, 1986. Reprinted by Shambhala Publications.
• See also the works of Alan Watts, Paul Reps et al.

External links

• Biography of D.T. Suzuki at Otani University (archived)
• Eastern Buddhist Society
• Shunkoin Temple
• D.T. Suzuki Documentary
• Biographical Sketch
• "An ambassador of enlightenment: The man who brought Zen to the West", Japan Times, Thursday, Nov. 16, 2006.
• Whose Zen? Zen Nationalism Revisited by Robert H. Sharf
• "The Question of God: Other Voices: D.T. Suzuki", PBS series, WGBH, Boston, September 2004.