Essays in Zen Buddhism

by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

ESSAYS IN ZEN BUDDHISM

ESSAYS
IN ZEN BUDDHISM

BY
DAISETZ TEITARO SUZUKI
Professor of Zen Buddhism at Otani Buddhist College, Kyoto

(FIRST SERIES)

LONDON
LUZAC AND COMPANY
46 Great Russell Street
Published for The Eastern Buddhist Society, Kyoto, Japan
1927

ALL RIGHTS OF REPRINTING AND TRANSLATION RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR

Made in Great Britain and printed at The Vincent Works, Oxford

PREFACE

THE 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 realised 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 synthesised in the enlightened Buddha-consciousness.