Shosan Suzuki

Background

Shosan Suzuki was born on February 5, 1579 Aichi, Japan.

Career

He participated in the Battle of Sekigahara and the Battle of Osaka before renouncing life as a warrior and becoming a Zen Buddhist monk in 1621.

Shōsan traveled throughout Japan seeking out Zen masters and trained in several hermitages and temples, most notably at Myōshin-ji in Kyoto training under Gudō Toshoku (1577–1661). In 1636 Shōsan created a Zen booklet entitled Fumoto no Kusawake (or, Parting the Grasses at the Foot of the Mountain).

Shōsan trained under a Zen master, who allowed Shōsan to keep his original name. Shōsan never actually received inka but was one of many in the Tokugawa period to claim jigo-jishō or "self-enlightenment without a teacher".

He was a Zen Master who amassed a large following. In 1642, Shōsan, along with his brother, built 32 Buddhist temples in Japan. One was a Pure Land Buddhist temple in which he honoured the shōguns Tokugawa Ieyasu and Tokugawa Hidetada. Shōsan went on to write several treatises before his death in 1655 at 76 years old.

Religion

He became Buddhist priest in 1620 and lived at the Onshinji Temple in Mikava. He travelled in Amakusa, Kyushu, and other places.

His Kana Zoshi (stories for the masses) contain Buddhist ideas. In one of the stories titled Ninin Bikuni ( Two Nuns), the wife of a warrior killed in battle goes on a pilgrimage. She sees a skeleton dancing in a hermitage and the corpse of the wife of the keeper of an inn, where she stays undergo ghostly changes. Such sights convinces her of the ephemerality of life. She becomes a nun in a mountain temple.

Views

Suzuki Shōsan developed his own style of Zen, Niō Zen, or Guardian King Zen. Shosan's dedication to bringing Buddhism to people from all segments of society intensified as he grew older. He believed that the virtue of Buddhism depended on its usefulness to one's country and people in the real world. Shosan taught that true enlightenment comes during one's daily tasks. Whether one is "tilling fields, or selling wares, or even confronting an enemy in the heat of battle, direct enlightenment will occur at key moment's of one's day to day life".

Shosan saw true enlightenment in an untraditional way by discarding the belief that enlightenment can only occur in matters of direct recluse or the renouncement, and therefore true Buddhism has nothing to do with "gentle piety or theory, even though most monks were taught to practice in this manner".

References

• Warrior of Zen: The Diamond-Hard Wisdom Mind of Suzuki Shosan Suzuki Shosan is among the most dramatic personalities on the history of Zen. A samurai who served under the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu in the seventeenth century, he became a Zen monk at age 41 and evolved a highly original teaching style imbued with the warrior spirit.
  1994
• Death Was His Koan: Samurai Zen of Suzuki Shosan Biography and views of Shosan (1579-1655), a samurai turned Zen Buddhist monk, by a noted scholar.
  1986