Background
Suzuki, Daisetsu Teitaro was born in 1870 in Kanazawa, Japan. Son of of a physician.
Suzuki, Daisetsu Teitaro was born in 1870 in Kanazawa, Japan. Son of of a physician.
Studied philosophy and religion at Tokio Imperial U., 1891-1894. Studied Buddhism, 1894-1896, under Shaku Soyen, who was a Buddhist del.
Director American Mahâ-Bodhi Society Contributor to Open Court and the Monist, chiefly concerning Chinese philosophy.
Contributor to Open Court and the Monist, chiefly concerning Chinese philosophy. Also contributor to Buddhist religious periodicals in England, Belgium, India and Japan. Author: Outlines of Mahâyâna Buddhism, 1907.Translator: Acvaghosa’s Awakening of Faith in the Mahâyâna, 1900. Kan Ying Pien (a Taoist book). Yin Chih Wen (same), 1906.Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot (by Right Review Shaku), 1907.
Although Zen is only one of the many sects of Buddhism, in the West it is almost a byword for Buddhism in general. This is the result of Suzuki s effort to teach Buddhism to the West through Zen, which is philosophically great interest. At the foundation of Suzuki’s activities in propagating Buddhism, which continued until he was 96 years old. was his original interpretation of BuddhismSince the birth of Buddhism in the fifth century BC there have been several radical theoretical leaps.
Mahayana Buddhism came into existence in the first century BC and the sects of SinoJapanese Mahayana, Zen, Pure-Land and Shin Buddhism in the sixth, twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD respectively. Each leap was the
original creation of an individual, and Suzuki is another such.
From a philosophical point of view, at the core of Mahayana Buddhism is the question of the relation between the subject and objects. Through its long history the Mahayana has maintained the philosophical bent which is evident in its asking such a question.
Suzuki made this inclination clear in terms of contemporary thought with unprecedented subtlety. However, he does not elucidate the meaning of Buddhism, particularly the Mahayana tradition, by borrowing Western philosophical terminology. Rather, Suzuki’s originality lies in his finding in Buddhism answers to universal philosophical questions.
Such an explanation of Mahayana thought as stated below is only possible under the influence of Suzuki.
The intuition running through the history of Mahayana Buddhism is the oneness of the contradictory. An aspect of this intuition is that the knower and the known are one. This amounts to knowing without an object.
The meaning of the subject has changed, as has that of the object. The self as the subject that knows the object and the object known are both illusions. The world that appears after one abandons illusion is called Emptiness.
Suzuki was well aware that the fundamental intuition stated above has a bearing on the basic problems of philosophy.
The existence of other minds, the nature of time and space and the relation of good and evil, for example, are questions the meaning of which will change fundamentally in the light of this intuition. Taking innumerable examples from Shin-Buddhism, which he regarded as the zenith of the Mahayana tradition, from Chinese and Japanese Zen. etc., Suzuki describes how this transformation takes place. At the same time he calls attention to Chinese and Japanese artistic activities in general, seeing them as the expression of Mahayana, particularly Zen, thought.
There is a reason for this emphasis on art. Scepticism about language is fundamental to Mahayana, especially to Zen, as is emphasized by Suzuki. For, by employing language solely as a means for description, we tend to reinforce the differentiation between the subject and its object.
One of the most powerful Zen masters, Congshen of Zhao-Zhou (778-897) who greatly influenced Suzuki, once said, when asked about the essence of Buddhism: The cedar tree in the courtyard’. Zen does not reject language. On the contrary. Zen tries to use language as a living force.
But for one who is used to thinking of
language as exclusively descriptive, Zen seems to be forbidding. It is art, especially visual art, that gives us a glimpse of Mahayana.
Suzuki constantly tries to make us aware of the limitations of syllogistic thinking which, according to him, is based on the subject-object distinction. He was a prolific writer with a distinctive style, and his style reflects his vision of logic in which syllogism is merely a part.
Suzuki in his later years expressed this logic thus: ‘Non-A is not A, therefore A.’.