shunryu suzuki

Shunryu Suzuki – and the Zen Path

The Zen Path and People

Shunryu Suzuki



Entrance



Hoitsu Suzuki, Shunryu Suzuki's son and the abbot of

Rinsoin in Yaizu Japan, once Shunryu's temple.



Shunryo Suzuki – and The

path of Zen

hunryu Suzuki - dharma name Shōgaku

Shunryū - May 18, 1904 - December 4, 1971. He was a Sōtō Zen roshi -Zen

Master who popularized Zen Buddhism in the United States, particularly around San

Francisco. Born in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan, Suzuki was occasionally mistaken for the

Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki, to which Shunryu would reply, ‘No, he's the big Suzuki, I am the

little Suzuki.’

Shunryu Suzuki was born May 18, 1904. His father, Butsumon Sogaku Suzuki, was almost

fifty at the time and was the head abbot of a small Soto Zen temple. His mother Yone was

the daughter of a priest and had been divorced

from her first husband for being too independent. Shunryu grew up with an older

half-brother from his mother’s first marriage and two younger sisters.

His father’s temple, Shogan-ji, was located near

Hiratsuka, a city on Sagami Bay about fifty miles southwest of Tokyo. The temple income

was small and the family had to be very thrifty.

S



When Suzuki entered school he became aware

that his family was very poor. Suzuki was sensitive and kind but prone to quick bursts of

anger. The other boys ridiculed him for his shaved head and for being the son of a priest.

He preferred staying in the classroom to playing in the schoolyard, and was always at the top of

his class. His teacher told him that he should grow up to be a great man, and to do this he

needed to leave Kanagawa Prefecture and study hard.

In 1916, at the age of 12 year Suzuki decided to

train with a disciple of his father, Gyokujun So-on Suzuki. So-on was Sogaku’s adopted son,

and abbot of Sokagu’s former temple Zoun-in.

His parents initially thought he was too young to live far from home, but eventually allowed it.

Zoun-in is located in a small village called Mori,

Shizuoka in Japan. Suzuki arrived during a 100 day practice period at the temple, and was the

youngest student there. Zoun-in was a larger temple than Shoganji.

At 4 a.m. each morning he would arise for

zazen. Next he would chant sutras and begin cleaning the temple with the others. They would

work throughout the day and then, in the evenings, they all would resume Zazen again.

Suzuki idolized his teacher, who was a strong

disciplinarian. So-on often was rough on Suzuki, but gave him some latitude for being so young.



When Suzuki turned 13, on May 18, 1917, So-

on ordained him as a novice monk (unsui). He was given the Buddhist name Shogaku Shunryu,

yet So-on nicknamed him Crooked Cucumber for his forgetful and unpredictable nature.

Shunryu began again attending upper-

elementary school in Mori, but So-on did not supply proper clothes for him. He was the

subject of ridicule, but in spite of his misfortune he wouldn’t complain. Instead he doubled his

efforts back at the temple.

When Shunryu had first come to Zoun-in, 8 other boys were studying there. By 1918, he

was the only one who stayed with So-on. This

made his life a bit tougher with So-on, who had more time to scrutinize him. During this period

Suzuki wanted to leave Zoun-in but equally did not want to give up.

In 1918 So-on was made head of a second

temple, on the rim of Yaizu, called Rinso-in. Shunryu followed him there and helped whip the

place back in order. Soon, families began sending their sons there and the temple began

to come to life. Suzuki had failed an admissions test at the nearby school, so So-on began

teaching the boys how to read and write Chinese.

So-on soon sent his students to train with a Rinzai master for a while. Here Shunryu studied

a very different kind of Zen, one that promoted



the attainment of satori through the

concentration on koans through zazen. Suzuki had problems sitting with his koan. Meanwhile,

all the other boys passed theirs, and he felt isolated. Just before the ceremony marking their

departure Suzuki went to the Rinzai teacher and blurted out his answer. The master passed

Suzuki, but later Shunryu believed he had done it simply to be kind.

In 1919, at age 15, Suzuki was brought back

home by his parents, who suspected mistreatment by So-on. Shunryu helped out

with the temple while there, and entered middle school. Yet, when summer vacation came, he

was back at Rinso-in and Zoun-in with So-on to

train and help out. He himself didn't want to stop training.

In school Suzuki took English and did quite well

in learning it. A local doctor, Dr. Yoshikawa, even hired him to tutor his two sons in English.

Yoshikawa treated Suzuki well, giving him a wage and occasional advice.

Higher education

In 1924 Shunryu enrolled in a Soto preparatory school in Tokyo not far from Shogan-ji, where

he lived on the school grounds in the dorm. From 1925 to 1926 Suzuki did Zen training with

Dojun Kato in Shizuoka at Kenko-in. He continued his schooling during this period. Here

Shunryu became head monk for a 100 day



retreat, after which he was no longer merely

considered a novice. He had completed his training as a head monk.

In April 1926 Shunryu graduated from

preparatory school and entered Komazawa University, the Soto Zen University in Tokyo.

During this period he continued his connections with So-on in Zoun-in, going back and forth

whenever possible.

Some of his teachers here were discussing how Soto Zen might reach a bigger audience with

students and, while Shunryu could not comprehend how Western cultures could ever

understand Zen, he was intrigued.

On August 26, 1926, So-on gave Dharma

transmission to Suzuki. He was 22 then. Shunryu’s father also retired as abbot at

Shogan-ji this same year, and moved the family onto the grounds of Zoun-in where he served as

inkyo - retired abbot.

Later that year Suzuki spent a short time in the hospital with tuberculosis, but soon recovered.

In 1927 an important chapter in Suzuki’s life was turned. He went to visit a teacher in English

he had at Komazawa named Miss Nona Ransom, a woman who had taught English to such people

as the last emperor of China, Pu-yi, and more

so his wife, the last empress of China, Jigoro Kano (the Founder of Judo) the children of

Chinese president Li Yuanhong, and some



members of the Japanese royal family. She

hired him that day to be a translator and to help with errands. Through this period he realized

she was very ignorant of Japanese culture and the religion of Buddhism. She respected it very

little and saw it as idol worship. But one day, when there were no chores to be done, the two

had a conversation on Buddhism that changed her mind. She even let Suzuki teach her zazen

meditation. This experience is significant in that Suzuki realized that Western ignorance of

Buddhism could be transformed.

On January 22, 1929, So-on retired as abbot of Zoun-in and installed Shunryu as its 28th abbot.

Sogaku would run the temple for Shunryu. In

January 1930 a ceremony called ten’e was held at Zoun-in for Shunryu acknowledging So-on’s

Dharma transmission to him. A way for the Soto heads to grant him permission to teach as a

priest. On April 10, 1930, at age 25, Suzuki graduated from Komazawa Daigakurin with a

major in Zen and Buddhist philosophy, and a minor in English.

Suzuki mentioned to So-on during this period

that he might be interested in going to America to teach Zen Buddhism. So-on was adamantly

opposed to the idea. Suzuki realized that his teacher felt very close to him and that he would

take such a departure as an insult. He did not

mention it to him again.



Upon graduation from Komazawa, So-on wanted Shunryu to continue his training at the well-

known Soto Zen temple in Fukui Prefecture known as Eiheiji. In September 1930 Suzuki

entered the training temple and underwent the Zen initiation known as tangaryo. His mother

and father stayed on at Zoun-in to care for his temple in his absence.

Eiheiji is one of the largest Zen training

facilities in Japan, and the abbot at this time was Gempo Kitano-roshi. Prior to coming to

Japan, Kitano was head of Soto Zen in Korea. He also was one of the founders of Zenshuji, a

Soto Zen temple located in Los Angeles,

California. Suzuki’s father and Kitano had a tense history between them. Sogaku had

trained with Kitano in his early Zen training and felt that he was such a high priest due to

familial status and connections. Shunryu did not see this in Kitano, however. He saw a humble

man who gave clear instruction, and Shunryu realized that his father was very wrong in his

assessment.

Often monks were assigned duties at the monastery to serve certain masters. Shunryu

was assigned to Ian Kishizawa-roshi, a well-known teacher at the time who had previously

studied under two great Japanese teachers: Oka

Sotan and Nishiari Bokusan. He was a renowned scholar on Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō, and was also

an acquaintance of his father from childhood.



Kishizawa was strict but not abusive, treating Suzuki well. Suzuki learned much from him, and

Kishizawa saw a lot of potential in him. Through him Suzuki came to appreciate the importance

of bowing in Zen practice through example. In December Suzuki sat his first true sesshin for 7

days, an ordeal that was challenging initially but proved rewarding toward the end. This

concluded his first practice period at Eiheiji.

In September 1931, after one more practice period and sesshin at Eiheiji, So-on arranged for

Suzuki to train in Yokohama at Sojiji. Sojiji was the other main Soto temple of Japan, and again

Suzuki underwent the harsh tangaryo initiation.

Sojiji was founded by the great Zen master Keizan and had a more relaxed atmosphere

than Eiheiji. At Sojiji Suzuki travelled back to Zoun-in frequently to attend to his temple.

In 1932 So-on came to Sojiji to visit with

Shunryu and after hearing of Suzuki’s contentment at the temple advised him to leave

it. In April of that year Suzuki left Sojiji with some regret and moved back in to Zoun-in,

living with his family there. In May he visited with Ian Kishizawa from Eihiji and, with So-on’s

blessing, asked to continue studies under him. He went to Gyokuden-in for his instruction,

where Kishizawa trained him hard in zazen and

conducted personal interviews with him.



Sometime during this period Suzuki married a

woman who contracted tuberculosis. The date and name of this woman is not known to us, but

the marriage was soon annulled. She went back to live with her family while he focused on his

duties at Zoun-in.

Suzuki reportedly was involved with some anti-war activities during World War II, but according

to David Chadwick, the record is confusing and, at most, his actions were low-key. However,

considering the wholesale enthusiastic support for the war expressed by the entire religious

establishment in Japan at the time, this fact is significant in showing something of the

character of the man.

Shunryo Suzuki, one of the first zen masters to

live and teach in the west, was once asked why he never spoke much about satori, and

enlightenment. The master laughed and answered,

‘The reason I do not talk about satori is because I have never had it.’

Zen in the West is in a very strange context.

The master you are talking about, Shunryo Suzuki, must have felt immense difficulty to

express himself, because Zen has a language of its own. It has a climate different from any

other climate that exists on the earth.

To bring Zen to any country is a difficult task.

One has to be ready to be misunderstood.



Suzuki’s statement seems to be clear, and

anybody who will read it will not have any difficulty to understand it. But whatever he will

understand will be wrong.

The master was asked, ‘Why don’t you speak about satori?’ Satori is the Japanese word for

enlightenment. And he answered the way a Zen master should answer knowing perfectly well he

could not be understood, he is bound to be misunderstood. He said,

‘The reason I do not talk about satori is because

I have never had it.’

The statement is clear and linguistically there is

no problem, there is nothing to be understood in it. Suzuki is saying,

‘I have never talked about it because I have never had it.’

Now I will have to give you the whole

background, the climate in which the meaning of the same sentence turns into exactly its

opposite as you understand it.

Zen has an absolute certainty that no one can have satori or enlightenment. You can have

things. You can have money, you can have power, you can have the whole world, but you

cannot have enlightenment. Enlightenment is

not a thing and it is not possible to possess it. Those who say they have it do not have it —

they do not even understand the ABC of it. One



becomes enlightened — that is what Suzuki is

saying. There is no distinction between I and enlightenment, so how can I have it? The ‘I’

disappears completely into enlightenment just like a dewdrop disappearing in the ocean. Can

the dewdrop say, “I have the ocean”? The dewdrop is the ocean — there is no question of

having it. This is the first thing to be clearly understood.

Suzuki was an enlightened master; that is why

he denied it. If he were not enlightened, but was only a scholar, learned about Zen, he might

have felt very embarrassed to deny it. He might rather have lied, and nobody would have been

able to detect his lie. He could have said,

‘I have it, but the experience is inexpressible; it

was so simple, that’s why I never talk about it.’

But the man really had it. To really have it means you cannot have it; you disappear.

As long as you are, there is no enlightenment.

The moment there is enlightenment, you are not. You disappear just like darkness disappears

when there is light. Darkness cannot possess light; you cannot possess enlightenment.

I do not think that the statement of Suzuki

would have been understood by the people who

asked the question and who received the right answer. It needs a totally different context to

understand.



The Western education is so much of nourishment to the ego. In fact the Western

psychology supports the idea that a person should have a very clear ego — powerful,

aggressive, and ambitious; otherwise, one cannot survive in the struggle of existence. To

survive, first you have to be, and you have to be not only defensive, because the right way of

defense is to offend, to attack. Before anybody else attacks you, you should attack. You should

be first, not the second, because to be defensive is already losing the battle.

And because of the Western psychology, the

whole educational system supports the idea that

a man becomes mature as he attains a more and more crystallized ego. This goes against the

experience of all the buddhas, of all the awakened ones. And none of these

psychologists or educationalists has any glimpse of what awakening is, of what enlightenment is.

Those who have become enlightened are

agreed, without any exception, on the point that the ego has to disappear. It is false, it is created

by society; it is not your original face, it is not you. The false must disappear for the real to be.

So remember these steps: first, the false must

disappear for the real to be, and then the real

has to disappear into the ultimately real. People are living so far away from their ultimate home

— they are not even real, what to say about the



ultimate? For it, they have to first move away

from the ego. They have to experience in meditation their own center.

But this is not the end. Meditation is only a

beginning of the journey. In the end, the seeker is dissolved in the sought, the knower in the

known, the experiencer in the experience. Who is going to have satori? You are absent; you are

non-existent when enlightenment explodes. Your absence is an absolute necessity for

enlightenment to happen.

Suzuki is absolutely right:

‘The reason I do not talk about satori is because

I have never had it.’

I am absolutely certain that those who heard him are bound to have thought that he had had

no experience of satori. That is simply the meaning of what he is saying. Unless there was

somebody who had experienced egolessness, and finally selflessness, Suzuki was without fail,

bound to be misunderstood.

But he was a man of immense daring, of great courage, to introduce Zen to the West. Not

many people were impressed. Many certainly entertained Suzuki’s statements, his anecdotes

from the annals of Zen; they thought them

strange jokes. But there were a few who understood not what the man was saying, but

the man himself. He turned a few people on; he



has the same distinction as Bodhidharma who

planted the seeds of Zen in China. Suzuki can be compared to Bodhidharma. He

planted the seeds in the West, and Zen became, in the Western climate and mind, a new fashion.

Suzuki was very much disturbed by it. He was not introducing a new fashion instead he was

introducing a new revolution and a new style of being. But the West understands things only in

that way — every two or three years a new fashion is needed; people become bored with

the old.

And Suzuki was received with joy, because he had brought something which no Christian or

Jew was even able to comprehend. He attracted

many people of the new generation; a few of them remained true to the master to the very

end. Many traveled to Japan just because of Suzuki. Hundreds of Zen classics were

translated in Western languages because of Suzuki. Now it is possible to talk about Zen and

still be understood, and the whole credit goes to a single man, Shunryo Suzuki.

Always remember that words do not exist

without context. If you forget the context, whatever you will understand is going to be

wrong. If you understand the context, it is impossible to misunderstand.

This has to be remembered while you are studying Zen — the differences of context. It is

said: To arrive at the truth, the German adds,



the Frenchman subtracts, and the Englishman

changes the subject!

I have heard… You can always tell a man’s nationality by introducing him to a beautiful

woman. An Englishman shakes her hand, a Frenchman kisses her hand, an American asks

her for a date, and a Russian wires Moscow for instructions.

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