( Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki was a key figure in the introd...)
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki was a key figure in the introduction of Buddhism to the non-Asian world. Many outside of Japan encountered Buddhism for the first time through his writings and teaching, and for nearly a century his work and legacy have contributed to the ongoing religious and cultural interchange between Japan and the rest of the world, particularly the United States and Europe. Selected Works of D. T. Suzuki gathers the full range of Suzukis writings?both classic essays and lesser-known but equally significant articles. This first volume in the series presents a collection of Suzukis writings on Zen Buddhist thought and practice. In an effort to ensure the continued relevance of Zen, Suzuki drew on his years of study and practice, placing the tradition into conversation with key trends in nineteenth- and twentieth-century thought. Richard M. Jaffes in-depth introduction situates Suzukis approach to Zen in the context of modern developments in religious thought, practice, and scholarship. The romanization of Buddhist names and technical terms has been updated, and Chinese and Japanese characters, which were removed from many post?World War II editions of Suzukis work, have been reinstated. This will be a valuable edition of Suzukis writings for contemporary scholars and students of Buddhism.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520269195/?tag=2022091-20
( Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki was a key figure in the introd...)
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki was a key figure in the introduction of Buddhism to the non-Asian world. Many outside Japan encountered Buddhism for the first time through his writings and teaching, and for nearly a century his work and legacy have contributed to the ongoing religious and cultural interchange between Japan and the rest of the world, particularly the United States and Europe. This second volume of Selected Works of D. T. Suzuki brings together Suzukis writings on Pure Land Buddhism. At the center of the Pure Land tradition is the Buddha Amida and his miraculous realm known as paradise or ?the land of bliss, where sentient beings should aspire to be born in their next life and where liberation and enlightenment are assured. Suzuki, by highlighting certain themes in Pure Land Buddhism and deemphasizing others, shifted its focus from a future, otherworldly goal to religious experience in the present, wherein one realizes the nonduality between the Buddha and oneself and between paradise and this world. An introduction by James C. Dobbins analyzes Suzukis cogent, distinctive, and thought-provoking interpretations, which helped stimulate new understandings of Pure Land Buddhism quite different from traditional doctrine.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520268938/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8472451577/?tag=2022091-20
Suzuki was born on October 18, 1870 Teitarō Suzuki in Honda-machi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, the fourth son of physician Ryojun Suzuki. His ancestors as well as his father, grandfather, and great grandfather were physicians of the samurai class.
Upon graduation from secondary school he became an English teacher in Takojima, a fishing village on the Noto peninsula, and later at Mikawa, a town near Kanazawa. From 1888 to 1889 he studied at Ishikawa College. Relocating in Tokyo, he occasionally studied at Imperial University (1891 - 1892) but gradually grew more interested in undergoing the discipline of a novitiate at the Engakuji Rinzai Zen monastery in Kamakura (1892 - 1897) where his master gave him his Buddhist name, Daisetz, meaning "great humility. "
Suzuki exhibited a strong linguistic ability and as early as 1893 translated into English the speech of Shaku Soyen, the successor of his first Zen master, Imagita Kosen, entitled "The Law of Cause and Effect, as Taught by Buddha" for the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago. In Chicago Shaku Soyen met Paul Carus and recommended Suzuki as a translator in Carus' firm, Open Court Publishing Company of La Salle, Illinois. From 1897 to 1909 Suzuki lived in the United States and translated Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, and Japanese texts for Open Court. In 1907 he published Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism, which began his interpretation of the variety of Buddhist traditions as if they were one and essentially Rinzai Zen. In 1911 he married a college teacher interested in Oriental religion, Beatrice Lane, who died in 1938. During his stay in the United States he travelled to Europe and there translated the writings of the Swedish thinker Emanuel Swedenborg into Japanese. Suzuki returned to Japan in 1909 as lecturer of English at Imperial University and professor of English at Gakushu-in (Peers' School). In 1921 he left these posts to become professor of English and Buddhist philosophy at Otani University, Kyoto, where he received an honorary D. Litt. In the same year he founded the journal The Eastern Buddhist. While at Otani University he became known in the West through a variety of publications, including the three volume Essays in Zen Buddhism (1927 - 1934) and The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk (1934), but especially his translation of the Lankavatara Sutra (1932) and his book Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture (1938). He remained at Otani University until he began an active retirement in 1940. During World War II he was under suspicion of the Japanese government for his opposition to militarism, but in 1949 he was made a member of the Japanese Academy and decorated by the emperor with the Cultural Medal. Following the war 20 of his works on Zen and Buddhism were published in England and the United States, consisting of monographs and collections of essays. He travelled and lectured at universities in the United States and Europe during the 19506 and died in Kamakura on July 12, 1966, leaving numerous unpublished manuscripts. Suzuki's writings were not descriptive studies of Buddhism or Zen. He was a constructive thinker who wrote out of his own experience and who treated Buddhism as if it had an unchanging essence which was mystical and irrational or transrational. He intended to introduce Zen to the West as a nonhistorical paradox beyond all categories of rational thought. Though his writings often include metaphysical discussions, Suzuki denied all theoretical moorings. Since Zen has historically emphasized technique more than philosophy (zen means "meditation"), Suzuki's emphasis was not unfounded. He spoke of his own enlightenment, satori, as the end of the separateness of the self and objects of thought. It was precipitated by breaking through the well-known Zen problem without rational solution, or koan, his master had given him, Mu. But enlightenment, he continually emphasized, did not end with a meditational breaking through the limitations of thought. It required a return to the world with a radically new understanding of it: "When I came out of that state . .. I said, 'I see. This is it. "' To make Zen comprehensible, Suzuki adopted categories of American psychology of religion. He borrowed the four characteristics of mystical experience of William James and then set forth eight characteristics of satori: irrationality, intuitive insight, authoritativeness, affirmation, a sense of the beyond, a feeling of exaltation, momentariness, and an impersonal tone. Attaching primary importance to the last, he spoke of it as that characteristic which distinguishes satori from Christian mysticism, whose mystics emphasize "the personal and frequently sexual feelings. " Using the term "unconscious" to describe the potential enlightenment within all beings, called the "Buddha-nature, " Suzuki opened the door for the use of Zen by modern depth psychology. On the basis of Suzuki's interpretation Carl Jung presented the experience of Zen as the liberation of the unconscious.
( Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki was a key figure in the introd...)
( Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki was a key figure in the introd...)
Suzuki was associated with Japanese nationalism and its propagation via the appraisal of Japanese Zen. He has been criticised for defending the Japanese war-efforts, 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.
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.
