Essays in Zen Buddhism (Set of Three Volumes)

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Vol-I: 9789387496620
Vol-II: 9789387496637
Vol-III: 9789387496644

Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. By making us drink right from the fountain of life, it liberates us from all the yokes under which we finite beings are usually suffering in this world. We can say that Zen liberates all the energies properly and naturally Stored in each of us, which are in ordinary circumstances cramped and distorted so that they find no adequate channel for activity.

This volume being first in the series, is a collection of the essays originally published in The Eastern Buddhism, except one on the 'History of Zen Buddhism' which was written specially for the volume; but all of them have been thoroughly revised and in some parts entirely rewritten and new chapters added.

Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki was a well known Buddhist scholar, known for his important publications on Zen Buddhism. He was a professor at Otani University, Japan and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963.

THE I HE most fruitful growth of Buddhism in the Far East has resulted in the development of Zen and Shin. Zen attained its maturity in China and Shin in Japan. The vigour and vitality which Buddhism still has after more than two thousand years of history will be realized when one comes in contact with these two branches of Buddhism. The one appeals to the inmost religious consciousness of mankind, while the other touches the intellectual and practical aspects of the Oriental mind, which is more intuitive than discursive, more mystical than logical. If Zen is the ultra 'self-power' wing of Buddhism, Shin represents the other extreme wing known as the 'other-power', and these two extremes are synthesized in the enlightened Buddha-consciousness.

Since the publication of my short note on Zen Buddhism in the Journal of the Pali Text Society, 1907, nothing of importance has been published in English on the subject except Professor Kwaiten Nukariya's Religion of the Samurai, 1913. In fact, even in Japanese or Chinese, this branch of Buddhism has received very slight attention from modern writers of Buddhism. This is due to the peculiar difficulties which accompany the study of it. The 'Goroku' (sayings) is the only literary form in which Zen expresses itself; and to understand it requires some special practical training in Zen, for mere knowledge of the Chinese, classical and historical, is far from being enough; even with the masterly understanding of the philosophy of general Buddhism, Zen is found quite hard to fathom. Some of such scholars sometimes try to explain the truth and development of Zen, but they sadly fail to do justice to the subject.

ZEN in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. By making us drink right from the fountain of life, it liberates us from all the yokes under which we finite beings are usually suffering in this world. We can say that Zen liberates all the energies properly and naturally stored in each of us, which are in ordinary circumstances cramped and distorted so that they find no adequate channel for activity.

**Contents and Sample Pages**