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.[36]
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 kōan practice in sanzen with a Zen master.[45] The fact that Suzuki himself was able to do so (as a layman) was largely the invention of New Buddhism.
During the Meiji restoration the Nihonjinron philosophy took prevalence. It emphasizes the uniqueness of the Japanese people. This uniqueness has been attributed to many different factors. Suzuki attributed it to Zen. In his view, Zen embodies the ultimate essence of all philosophy and religion. He pictured Zen as a unique expression of Asian spirituality, which was considered to be superior to the western ways of thinking.[36]
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.[46]
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.[47]
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.[48]
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.[49]
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: Third Series (1934), York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc. 1953. Edited by Christmas Humphreys.
Suzuki translated the Lankavatara Sutra from the original Sanskrit. Boulder, CO: Prajña Press, 1978, ISBN0877737029, 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."[50]
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".[50]
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."[50]
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: Swedenborg Foundation, 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.
↑ D. T. Suzuki Museum, Retrieved 17 February 2012; Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, D.Litt., "Manual of Zen Buddhism", Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc. set in PDF, 2005, Retrieved 17 February 2012; A Zen Life: The D.T.Suzuki Documentary Project, Retrieved 17 February 2012
↑ D.T. Suzuki Buddha of Infinite Light: The Teachings of Shin Buddhism: the Japanese Way of Wisdom and Compassion Boulder: Shambhala; New Ed edition. 2002 ISBN1570624569
↑ D.T. Suzuki Studies in Zen, pp. 155–156. New York:Delta. 1955
↑ D.T. Suzuki Zen and Japanese Culture. New York: Bollingen/Princeton University Press, 1970 ISBN0691098492
↑ Dobbins, James C.. "Chapter 14. D. T. Suzuki and the Ōtani School of Seishinshugi". Adding Flesh to Bones: Kiyozawa Manshi’s Seishinshugi in Modern Japanese Buddhist Thought, edited by Mark L. Blum, Michael Conway and Richard K. Payne, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2022, pp. 317-348. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824892081-019
↑ Dobbins, James. 2016. “D.T. Suzuki in Transition 1949-53.” In 公益財団法人松ケ岡文庫研究年報 = The annual report of researches of the Public Interest Matsugaoka Bunko Foundation 30: 47-61.
↑ Dobbins, James C. (ed.) et al; Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume II Pure Land, pp. xxiv. University of California Press.
↑ Koltermann, Till Philip (2009), Der Untergang des Dritten Reiches im Spiegel der deutsch-japanischen Kulturbegegnung 1933–1945, Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 87–89
Andreasen, Esben (1998). Popular Buddhism in Japan: Shin Buddhist Religion & Culture. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN0824820282.
Fields, Rick (1992). How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America. Shambhala Publications. ISBN0877736316.
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, ISBN978-0941532907
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, ISBN978-0520237988
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