D. T. Suzuki
D. T. Suzuki | |
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National Medal of Culture |
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at Kyoto University |
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Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (鈴木 大拙 貞太郎, Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō, 18 October 1870 – 12 July 1966
He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963.[3]
Biography
Early life
D. T. Suzuki was born Teitarō Suzuki in Honda-machi,
Study
Suzuki studied at
Suzuki lived and studied several years with the scholar
Carus himself had written a book offering an insight into, and overview of, Buddhism, titled The Gospel of Buddha. Soyen Shaku wrote the introduction, and Suzuki translated the book into Japanese. At this time, around the turn of the century, quite a number of Westerners and Asians (Carus, Soyen, and Suzuki included) were involved in the worldwide Buddhist revival that had begun slowly in the 1880s.
Marriage
In 1911, Suzuki married
Career
Professor of Buddhist philosophies
Besides living in the United States, Suzuki traveled through Europe before taking up a professorship back in Japan. In 1909, Suzuki became an
In 1921, the year he joined Ōtani University, he and his wife founded the Eastern Buddhist Society.
Besides teaching about Zen practice and the history of Zen (Chan) Buddhism, Suzuki was an expert scholar on the related philosophy called, in Japanese,
Suzuki received numerous honors, including Japan's
Studies
A professor of Buddhist philosophy in the middle decades of the 20th century, Suzuki wrote 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
In addition to his popularly oriented works, Suzuki wrote a translation of the Lankavatara Sutra and a commentary on its Sanskrit terminology. 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. In his later years, he began to explore the Jōdo Shinshū faith of his mother's upbringing, and gave guest lectures on Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism at the Buddhist Churches of America.
Suzuki produced an incomplete English translation of the
Other works include Essays in Zen Buddhism (three volumes), Studies in Zen Buddhism, and Manual of Zen Buddhism. American philosopher William Barrett compiled many of Suzuki's articles and essays concerning Zen into a 1956 anthology entitled Zen Buddhism.
Scholarly opinions
It was Suzuki's contention that a Zen "
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.
Zen training
While studying at Tokyo University Suzuki took up Zen practice at
Under Rōshi Soyen, the first master to teach zen Buddhism in America, Suzuki's studies were essentially internal and non-verbal, including long periods of sitting meditation. 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 characterized the facets of the training as: a life of humility; a life of labor; a life of service; a life of prayer and gratitude; and a life of meditation.[18]
Suzuki was invited by Shaku to visit the United States in the 1890s, and Suzuki acted as English-language translator for a book by Shaku (1906). Though Suzuki had by this point translated some ancient Asian texts into English (e.g.
Later in life, Suzuki was, on a personal level, more inclined to
Spread of Zen in the West
Zen-messenger
Suzuki spread Zen in the West. 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.
Buddhist modernism
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.[20] It is this idea of a common essence that made Suzuki's ideas recognizable to a Western audience, who could identify with the Western esotericism concealed in it, disguised as eastern metaphysics.[21] Suzuki presents a version of Zen that can be described as detraditionalized and essentialized. This resemblance is not coincidental, since Suzuki was also influenced by Western esotericism,[11] and even joined the Theosophical Society.[10]
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."[22]
Most scholars agree that the influence of Protestant and Enlightenment values have largely defined some of the more conspicuous attributes of Buddhist modernism.[23] McMahan cites
western monotheism; rationalism and scientific naturalism; and Romantic expressivism" as influences.[24]
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. It was this form of Zen that has been popularized in the West:
The popular "lay" image of Zen, notably the notion that Zen refers not to a specific school of Buddhism but rather to a mystical or spiritual gnosis that transcends sectarian boundaries, is largely a twentieth-century construct. Beginning with the persecution of Buddhism in the early Meiji (haibutsu kishaku) Zen apologists have been forced to respond to secular and empiricist critiques of religion in general, and to Japanese nativist critiques of Buddhism as a "foreign funerary cult" in particular. In response, partisans of Zen drew upon Western philosophical and theological strategies in their attempt to adapt their faith to the modern age.[25]
Criticism
Suzuki has been criticized for his essentialist approach. As early as 1951, Hu Shih[26][27] criticized Suzuki for presenting an idealist picture of Zen.[28]
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.[29]
Suzuki's approach has been marked as "incomprehensible":
... D. T. Suzuki, whose most cherished methodology seems to have been to describe some aspect of Zen as beyond ordinary explanation, then offer a suitably incomprehensible story or two by way of illustration. Obviously, Suzuki's approach captured the imaginations of generations of readers. However, while this approach substantiated Suzuki's authority as one with insider access to the profound truths of the tradition, another result was to increase the confusion in reader's minds. To question such accounts was to admit one did not "get it", to distance oneself even further from the goal of achieving what Suzuki termed the "Zen enlightenment experience".[30]
Involvement with Japanese nationalism
According to Sharf and Victoria, Suzuki was associated with Japanese nationalism and its propagation via the appraisal of Japanese Zen.[31] He has been criticised for defending the Japanese war effort,[32] though Suzuki's thoughts on these have also been placed in the context of western supremacy in the first half of the 20th century, and the reaction against this supremacy in Asian countries.[21]{
View on Nazism and anti-Semitism
Victoria writes,"D. T. Suzuki left a record of his early view of the Nazi movement that was included in a series of articles published in the Japanese Buddhist newspaper, Chūgai Nippō, on 3, 4, 6, 11 and 13 October 1936." In this Suzuki expresses his agreement with Hitler's policies as explained to him by a relative living in Germany.
"While they don't know much about politics, they have never enjoyed greater peace of mind than they have now. For this alone, they want to cheer Hitler on. This is what my relative told me. It is quite understandable, and I am in agreement with him." He also expresses agreement with Hitler's expulsion of the Jews from Germany.
"Changing the topic to Hitler's expulsion of the Jews, it appears that in this, too, there are a lot of reasons for his actions. While it is a very cruel policy, when looked at from the point of view of the current and future happiness of the entire German people, it may be that, for a time, some sort of extreme action is necessary in order to preserve the nation."
Suzuki expressed sympathy with individual Jews. "As regards individuals, this is truly a regrettable situation."[33]
Suzuki was a friend of Karlfried Graf von Dürckheim. Dürckheim, also a noted expounder of Japanese Zen philosophy in the West, was a committed Nazi and worked for the German Foreign Office in Tokyo during the war.[35] He helped his friend Suzuki introduce Zen Buddhism to the West.
Yet perhaps this information, by itself, comprises no appropriate nuance when considering Suzuki's attitudes, and may be counterpoised by the quotation from Kemmyō Taira Satō given in the section below ("Japanese nationalism").
New Buddhism
At the onset of modernization in the
As a response to the modernisation of Japan and the persecution of Buddhism, the shin bukkyo, or "New Buddhism", came into existence. It 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 Soyen 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.[38]
Scholars such as Robert Sharf, as well as Japanese Zen monk G. Victor Sogen Hori,[39] have argued that the breed of Japanese Zen that was propagated by New Buddhism ideologues, such as Imakita Kosen and Soyen Shaku, was not typical of Japanese Zen during their time, nor is it typical of Japanese Zen now. Its importance lies especially within western Zen:
Suffice it to say that, just as the writings of Suzuki and Hisamatsu are not representative of traditional (i.e., pre-Meiji) Zen exegetics, the style of Zen training most familiar to Western Zen practitioners can be traced to relatively recent and sociologically marginal Japanese lay movements which have neither the sanction nor the respect of the modern Rinzai or Sōtō monastic orthodoxies. Indeed, the one feature shared by virtually all of the figures responsible for the Western interest in Zen is their relatively marginal status within the Japanese Zen establishment. While Suzuki, Nishida, and their intellectual heirs may have shaped the manner in which Westerners have come to think of Zen, the influence of these Japanese intellectuals on the established Zen sects in Japan has been negligible. At this point, it is necessary to affirm that Japanese Zen monasticism is indeed still alive, despite the shrill invectives of some expatriate Zen missionaries who insist that authentic Zen can no longer be found in Japan.[31]
The traditional form of Zen has been greatly altered by the Meiji restoration, but 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
The fact that Suzuki himself was able to do so (as a layman) was largely the invention of New Buddhism.Japanese nationalism
During the
Sharf criticizes this uniqueness theory, as propagated by Suzuki:
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.[41]
Sharf also doubts the motivations of Suzuki:
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.[42]
Kemmyō Taira Satō does not agree with this critical assessment of Suzuki:
In cases where Suzuki directly expresses his position on the contemporary political situation—whether in his articles, public talks, or letters to friends (in which he would have had no reason to misrepresent his views)—he is clear and explicit in his distrust of and opposition to State Shinto, rightwing thought, and the other forces that were pushing Japan toward militarism and war, even as he expressed interest in decidedly non-rightist ideologies like socialism. In this Suzuki's standpoint was consistent from the late nineteenth century through to the postwar years. These materials reveal in Suzuki an intellectual independence, a healthy scepticism of political ideology and government propaganda, and a sound appreciation for human rights.[43]
Praise of Suzuki's work
Suzuki's books have been widely read and commented on. One example is An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, which includes a 30-page commentary by analytical psychologist Carl Jung, who wrote of Suzuki:
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.[44]
But Jung was also critical, warning against an uncritical borrowing from Asian spirituality.
Bibliography
These essays made 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.
- Suzuki translated the ISBN 0877737029, 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. Suzuki calls this an "outline of Zen teaching."[45]
- The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk, Kyoto: Eastern Buddhist Soc. 1934. New York: University Books, 1959. This work covers a "description of the Meditation Hall and its life".[45]
- Manual of Zen Buddhism, Kyoto: Eastern Buddhist Soc. 1935. London: Rider & Company, 1950, 1956. New York: Random House, 1960 and subsequent editions. A collection of Buddhist sutras, classic texts from the masters, icons and images, including the "Ten Ox-Herding Pictures". Suzuki writes that this work is to "inform the reader of the various literary materials relating to the monastic life...what the Zen monk reads before the Buddha in his daily service, where his thoughts move in his leisure hours, and what objects of worship he has in the different quarters of his institution."[45]
After World War II, a new interpretation:
- The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind, London: Rider & Company, 1949. York Beach, Maine: ISBN 0877281823.
- 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 the mid-1950s: Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki, Doubleday, New York: 1956. Edited by William Barrett.
- Very early work on a Western mystic-philosopher. Swedenborg: Buddha of the North, West Chester, Pa: SwedenborgFoundation, 1996. Trans. by Andrew Bernstein of Swedenborugu, 1913.
- A Miscellany on the Shin Teaching of Buddhism; Kyōto, Shinshū Ōtaniha, 1949.
- Shin Buddhism; New York, Harper & Row, 1970.
- Gutoku Shaku Shinran, The Kyōgyōshinshō, The Collection of Passages Expounding the True Teaching, Living, Faith, and Realizing of the Pure Land, translated by Daisetz Teitarō Suzuki (ed. by The Eastern Buddhist Society); Kyōto, Shinshū Ōtaniha, 1973.
- Collected Writings on Shin Buddhism (ed. by The Eastern Buddhist Society); Kyōto, Shinshū Ōtaniha, 1973.
- 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.
See also
References
- ^ Stirling 2006, pg. 125
- ^ D. T. Suzuki Museum, accessed 2012.2.17; Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, D.Litt., "Manual of Zen Buddhism", Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc. set in PDF, 2005, accessed 2012.2.17; A Zen Life: The D.T.Suzuki Documentary Project, accessed 2012 February 17
- ^ Nomination Database
- ^ a b Fields 1992, pg. 138.
- ^ D. T. Suzuki "Introduction: Early Memories" in The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk. New York: University Books. 1965
- ^ a b Suzuki, D.T. (1972) Shin Buddhism. New York: Harper & Row, p 93 (bio)
- ^ Sharf, Robert (2005).Suzuki, D. T., in The Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., edited by Lindsay Jones, New York: Macmillan, vol. 13, pp. 8884–8887
- ^ Tweed 2005.
- ^ Algeo 2005
- ^ a b Algeo 2007
- ^ a b Tweed 2005
- ^ the Eastern Buddhist Society
- ^ The Eastern Buddhist Archived 18 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 1570624569
- ^ D.T. Suzuki Studies in Zen, pp. 155–156. New York:Delta. 1955
- ISBN 0691098492
- ^ Andreasen 1998, p. 56
- ^ D.T. Suzuki The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk. New York: University Books. 1965.
- ^ Fields 1992 Chapter Ten
- ^ William James "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (New York: Collier Books, 1981)
- ^ a b McMahan 2008.
- ^ McMahan 2008:6
- ^ See Tomoko Masuzawa "The Invention of World Religions" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), amongst others
- ^ McMahan 2008:10
- ^ Sharf 1995:44
- ^ McRae 2001, pp. 71–74.
- ^ Faure 1996, pp. 89–99.
- ^ Hu Shih 1953
- ^ McMahan 2008:125
- ^ McRae 2003:74
- ^ a b c Sharf 1993
- ^ a b Victoria 2006.
- ^ a b Lecture: Universität Hamburg 14.05.2012
- ^ Abstract, lecture at the Universität Hamburg 14.05.2012
- ^ Koltermann, Till Philip (2009), Der Untergang des Dritten Reiches im Spiegel der deutsch-japanischen Kulturbegegnung 1933–1945, Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 87–89
- ^ Sharf 1993, p. 3.
- ^ a b Sharf 1993, p. 4.
- ^ Sharf 1993, p. 7.
- ^ Hori 2005.
- ^ See Giei Sato, Unsui: a Diary of Zen Monastic Life (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1973), amongst others
- ^ Sharf 1995.
- ^ Sharf 1993.
- ^ Sato 2008, p. 118.
- ISBN 0802130550
- ^ a b c Suzuki, D. T. (1978). Manual of Zen Buddhism. Random House. p. 11.
Sources
- Abe, Masao, ed. (1995), A Zen Life: D.T. Suzuki Remembered, Weatherhill, ISBN 0834802139
- Algeo, Adele S. (July 2005), "Beatrice Lane Suzuki and Theosophy in Japan", Theosophical History, XI
- Algeo, Adele S. (January–February 2007), "Beatrice Lane Suzuki: An American Theosophist in Japan", Quest, 95 (1): 13–17, archived from the original on 5 March 2016, retrieved 14 December 2011
- Andreasen, Esben (1998). Popular Buddhism in Japan: Shin Buddhist Religion & Culture. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0824820282.
- Fields, Rick (1992). How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America. Shambhala Publications. ISBN 0877736316.
- Faure, Bernard (1996), Chan Insights and Oversights: An Epistemological Critique of the Chan Tradition, Princeton University Press
- Hori, Victor Sogen (2005), "Introduction" (PDF), in Dumoulin, Heinrich (ed.), Zen Buddhism: A History. Volume 2: Japan, World Wisdom Books, pp. xiii–xxi, ISBN 978-0941532907
- Hu Shih (January 1953), "Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism in China. Its History and Method", Philosophy East and West, 3 (1): 3–24, JSTOR 1397361
- McMahan, David (2008), The Making of Buddhist Modernism, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- McRae, John (2001), Religion as Revolution in Chinese Historiography: Hu Shih (1891–1962) on Shen-hui (684–758). In: Cahiers d'Extreme-Asie 12: 59–102
- McRae, John (2003), Seeing Through Zen. Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism, The University Press Group Ltd, ISBN 978-0520237988
- Sato, Kemmyō Taira (2008), "D. T. Suzuki and the Question of War." (PDF), The Eastern Buddhist, 39 (1): 61–120, archived from the original (PDF) on 25 October 2014
- Sharf, Robert H. (August 1993), "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism", History of Religions, 33 (1): 1–43, S2CID 161535877
- Sharf, Robert H. (1995), Whose Zen? Zen Nationalism Revisited (PDF)
- Stirling, Isabel (2006). Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki. Shoemaker & Hoard. ISBN 978-1593761103.
- Tweed, Thomas A. (2005), "American Occultism and Japanese Buddhism. Albert J. Edmunds, D. T. Suzuki, and Translocative History" (PDF), Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 32 (2): 249–281, archived from the original (PDF) on 22 May 2012, retrieved 14 December 2011
- Victoria, Brian Daizen (2006), Zen at war (Second ed.), Lanham e.a.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
- Victoria, Brian Daizen (2010). "The "Negative Side" of D. T. Suzuki's Relationship to War" (PDF). The Eastern Buddhist. 41 (2): 97–138. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 November 2014.
External links
- Biography of D.T. Suzuki at Otani University at the Wayback Machine (archived 4 February 2005)
- Eastern Buddhist Society
- Shunkoin Temple Archived 17 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- Matsugaoka Bunko Dr. Suzuki's Zen institute
- D.T. Suzuki Documentary
- D. T. Suzuki Museum
- Biographical Sketch
- "An ambassador of enlightenment: The man who brought Zen to the West", The Japan Times, Thursday, 16 Nov 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.
- Japanese Spirituality (『日本的霊性』1944), translated by Norman Waddell(1972)
- Works by or about D. T. Suzuki at Internet Archive
- Works by D. T. Suzuki at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)