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Above and beyond his scholarship, however, Suzuki touched in some special way everyone who met him. He embodied the satori--awakening--that he had experienced while still a young man studying with his own Zen master; his simplicity in the midst of complexity and his utter lack of intellectual snobbery combined to create an extraordinary impression of warmth, yet quiet authority. And indeed, he touched the lives of many--from theologians and philosophers to psychologists, poets, musicians, and artists the world over; thinkers as diverse as Thomas Merton, Paul Tillich, Carl Jung, Erich Fromm, Dr. Hu Shi, Allen Ginsberg, and Bernard Leach--to name a few.
A Zen Life: D. T. Suzuki Remembered is a heartfelt tribute to this man. A very personal collection of essays, it provides an intimate view of what Suzuki meant to those who knew him. In the present volume Masao Abe, in collaboration with photographer Francis Haar, brings together some of the many accolades paid to Dr. Suzuki after his death in 1966. Several contributions were written especially for this volume, or appear here for the first time in English; these include the reminiscences of Mihoko Okamura, Suzuki's assistant and traveling companion for many years, as well as autobiographical essays of great interest by Suzuki. Most important, all the pieces, old and new, are now available in this volume for the broader reading public Suzuki deserves.
In all the contributions one thing shines through--the sheer presence of D. T. Suzuki. Francis Haar's sensitive photographic portraits, counterpoised to the text, make this book one to treasure if you are already acquainted with Suzuki's life and work and a wonderful place to start, if you are not.
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (1870–1966) was a Japanese-born scholar and translator who over the course of the twentieth century came to be regarded as one of the leading authorities on Zen Buddhism. He was the author of more than a hundred works on the subject in both Japanese and English and was instrumental in bringing the teachings of Zen and other forms of Buddhism to the attention of the Western world. His many books in English include An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, Essays in Zen Buddhism, Living by Zen, Zen and Japanese Culture, Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist, and Shin Buddhism.
Richard M. Jaffe is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University and the author of Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in Modern Japanese Buddhism.
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