D. T. Suzuki: a recommended documentary on YouTube

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Although one will occasionally hear carping from a few latter-day detractors (rule of thumb: always ignore the querulous), the majority of serious and objective critics of D. T. Suzuki and his intensive work in making Zen accessible to the West cannot fail to admit his seminal importance. There were others who labored to the same end early in the last century, meeting with some success (Sokei-an Sasaki comes to mind), but Suzuki was really in a class by himself — and remains so in our time. Readers can still study his writings today in the confidence that they will learn a great deal from him, as from a master, and then perhaps go on to seek to put the prajñā (wisdom) he taught into practice.

One online site puts it very well (one can read the entire fine article by clicking here):

It would be difficult to name any world religious or cultural figure of the twentieth century who did more to transform modern civilization than Zen Buddhist scholar Daisetsu Teitaro (D. T.) Suzuki (1870–1966). While we might look to such luminaries as the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, or Mother Teresa and note the profound changes their lives brought to postwar global consciousness, the influence they exercised was of a different species than Suzuki’s. D. T. Suzuki did not just hold up a “spiritual” mirror to the modern West to reveal its moral contradictions, nor did he engage in activism of any kind. He was, rather, in his unofficial capacity as Zen’s “apostle to the West,” a spirit-minded scholar who consciously wove his life’s work into the fabric of history, helping a modern global society reconsider its assumptions, aspirations, and mode of operating. As a mentor to such international culture producers as Carl Jung, Alan Watts, Thomas Merton, Allen Ginsberg, Martin Heidegger, John Cage, and Gary Snyder—to name but a few—Suzuki worked effectively across cultural, social, and generational boundaries to help articulate a new historical consciousness whose full effects have yet to be realized. While he may not have occupied as strong a position in the hearts and minds of the masses as other modern spiritual leaders, Suzuki was indeed unique in his contributions to the world’s religious culture.

As an ambassador of global spirituality, Suzuki’s historical timing was impeccable—and by this I do not refer merely to his entrance upon the postwar American cultural stage in the 1950s but also to his less conspicuous part in the germinal exchange of intellectual culture in the late nineteenth century, when his translation of Abbot Shaku Sōen’s address, “The Law of Cause and Effect as Taught by Buddha,” was read to the delegates of the World Parliament of Religions at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. As a twenty-year-old lay disciple of the Zen Engakuji Temple in Kamakura Japan, Suzuki’s proficiency in English landed him the job of translating the abbot’s speech; the abbot himself had been invited to represent Japanese Buddhism at this first-ever gathering of world religious dignitaries. The successful communication of Buddhist concepts to a “scientific-minded” Western audience at the Chicago Parliament was the starting point of a fascinating and fruitful dialogue between Zen and the Western world. Suzuki’s role in this dialogue made him a living icon of the most transformational century in human history. Throughout his career, which covered more than two-thirds of the twentieth century, Suzuki was the unchallenged spokesman for Zen and, by extension, for Buddhism in general. By further extension, Suzuki became the spokesman for East Asian culture in its totality, a task he accepted with a dual sense of responsibility and delight.

The video below (running one hour and seventeen minutes) is an excellent documentary on Suzuki, his work, and his influence. In it, one will see a number of familiar Western personages — Merton, Watts, Jung, Snyder, Cage, Campbell, Fromm, etc. — all of whom interacted with, and were influenced by, Suzuki. I recommend the film; it’s time well spent. Afterward, you might even feel inspired to order some of Suzuki’s highly engaging and readable books.