D.T. Suzuki

, self-rendered in 1894 as "Daisetz", was a Japanese-American Buddhist monk, essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, translator, and writer. He was a scholar and author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in spreading interest in both Zen and Shin (and Far Eastern philosophy in general) to the West. Suzuki was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit literature. Suzuki spent several lengthy stretches teaching or lecturing at Western universities, and devoted many years to a professorship at Ōtani University, a Japanese Buddhist school.

He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963.

Biography

Early life

D. T. Suzuki was born Teitarō Suzuki in Honda-machi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, the fourth son of physician Ryojun Suzuki. The Buddhist name ''Daisetsu'', meaning "Great Humility", the kanji of which can also mean "Greatly Clumsy", was given to him by his Zen master Soen (or Soyen) Shaku.Fields 1992, pg. 138. Although his birthplace no longer exists, a humble monument marks its location (a tree with a rock at its base). The samurai class into which Suzuki was born declined with the fall of feudalism, which forced Suzuki's mother, a Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist, to raise him in impoverished circumstances after his father died. When he became old enough to reflect on his fate in being born into this situation, he began to look for answers in various forms of religion. His naturally sharp and philosophical intellect found difficulty in accepting some of the cosmologies to which he was exposed.

Study

Suzuki studied at Waseda University and University of Tokyo.Suzuki, D.T. (1972) ''Shin Buddhism''. New York: Harper & Row, p 93 (bio) Suzuki set about acquiring knowledge of Chinese, Sanskrit, Pali, and several European languages. During his student years at Tokyo University, Suzuki took up Zen practice at Engaku-ji in Kamakura.

Suzuki lived and studied several years with the scholar Paul Carus. Suzuki was introduced to Carus by Soyen Shaku (or Soen Shaku), who met him at the World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893. Carus, who had set up residence in LaSalle, Illinois, approached Soyen Shaku to request his help in translating and preparing Eastern spiritual literature for publication in the West. Soyen Shaku instead recommended his student Suzuki for the job. Suzuki lived at Dr. Carus's home, the Hegeler Carus Mansion, and worked with him, initially in translating the classic ''Tao Te Ching'' from ancient Chinese. In Illinois, Suzuki began his early work ''Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism''.

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 Beatrice Erskine Lane, a Radcliffe graduate and theosophist with multiple contacts with the Baháʼí Faith both in America and in Japan. Later Suzuki himself joined the Theosophical Society Adyar and was an active theosophist.

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 assistant professor at Gakushuin University and at the Tokyo University. Suzuki and his wife dedicated themselves to spreading an understanding of Mahayana Buddhism. Until 1919 they lived in a cottage on the Engaku-ji grounds, then moved to Kyoto, where Suzuki began professorship at Ōtani University in 1921. While he was in Kyoto, he visited Dr. Hoseki Shin'ichi Hisamatsu, a Zen Buddhist scholar, and they discussed Zen Buddhism together at Shunkō-in temple in the Myōshin-ji temple complex.

In 1921, the year he joined Ōtani University, he and his wife founded the Eastern Buddhist Society. The Society is focused on Mahayana Buddhism and offers lectures and seminars, and publishes a scholarly journal, ''The Eastern Buddhist''. Suzuki maintained connections in the West and, for instance, delivered a paper at the World Congress of Faiths in 1936, at the University of London (he was an exchange professor during this year).

Besides teaching about Zen practice and the history of Zen (Chan) Buddhism, Suzuki was an expert scholar on the related philosophy called, in Japanese, Kegon, which he thought of as the intellectual explication of Zen experience.

Suzuki received numerous honors, including Japan's National Medal of Culture.

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 '' Biyan Lu'' (Blue Cliff Record) and the '' Wumenguan'' (Mumonkan/Gateless Passage), which record the teaching styles and words of the classical Chinese masters. He was also interested in how this tradition, once imported into Japan, had influenced Japanese character and history, and wrote about it in English in ''Zen and Japanese Culture''. Suzuki's reputation was secured in England prior to the U.S.

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 Kyogyoshinsho, the ''magnum opus'' of Shinran, founder of the Jōdo Shinshū school. However, Suzuki did not attempt to popularize the Shin doctrine in the West, as he believed Zen was better suited to the Western preference for Eastern mysticism, though he is quoted as saying that Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism is the "most remarkable development of Mahayana Buddhism ever achieved in East Asia". Suzuki also took an interest in Christian mysticism and in some of the most significant mystics of the West, for example, Meister Eckhart

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