![]() He is, moreover, more than a scholar he is a Buddhist. Not only has he studied original works in Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese and Japanese, but he has an up-to-date knowledge of Western thought in German and French as well as in the English which he speaks and writes so fluently. He is, moreover, as a chronological bibliography of books on Zen in English clearly shows, the pioneer teacher of the subject outside Japan, for except for Kaiten Nukariya's Religion of the Samurai (Luzac and Co., 1913) nothing was known of Zen as a living experience, save to the readers of The Eastern Buddhist (1921-1939), until the publication of Essays in Zen Buddhism (Volume I) in 1927.ĭr. His major works in English on the subject of Buddhism number a dozen or more, and of his works in Japanese as yet unknown to the West there are at least eighteen. He is probably now the greatest living authority on Buddhist philosophy, and is certainly the greatest authority on Zen Buddhism. THE BUDDHIST STATUES AND PICTURES IN A ZEN MONASTERYīuddhas Bodhisattvas Arhats Protecting Gods Historical Figures EDITOR'S FOREWORD TO SECOND EDITIONĭaisetz Teitaro Suzuki, D.Litt., Professor of Buddhist Philosophy in the Otani University, Kyoto, was born in 1870.Daito Kokushi's Admonition and Last Poem.Gensha on the Three Invalids (from the Hekiganshu or Pi-yen Chi).Obaku's (Huang-po) Sermon from "Treatise on the Essentials of the Transmission of Mind".The Third Patriarch on "Believing in Mind".Bodhidharma on the Twofold Entrance to the Tao.The Ryogonkyo, or Surangama Sutra (résumé).The Lankavatara Sutra, or Ryogakyo (extracts).The Kongokyo, or Vajracchedika (the first half and extracts from the second half). ![]() The Kwannongyo, or "Samantamukha Parivarta" (complete).The Prajnaparamita-hridaya-sutra, or Shingyo (complete).Prayer on the Occasion of Feeding the Hungry Ghosts.So there is neither I nor thou.MANUAL OF ZEN BUDDHISM By DAISETZ TEITARO SUZUKI Professor of Buddhist Philosophy in the Otani University, Kyoto They cannot exist separately they are part of one phenomenon. If thou disappears, I disappears if I disappears, thou disappears. But the other can disappear only if you also disappear.” I and thou exist as two aspects of the same coin. The Zen people will agree with Jean-Paul Sartre when he says, “The other is hell.” The Zen people will also say, “Yes, the other is hell, the other has to disappear. And in duality there is always tension, in duality there is always conflict. There is no Devil now, and no God – that is part of duality, the same duality. In this state you are neither happy nor unhappy because those are all parts of the dual world: happy–unhappy, man–woman, beautiful–ugly, good–bad are all gone. In this state you are neither man nor woman. Now there is neither bondage nor liberation because there is nobody to be bound or to be liberated. Now there is neither knowledge nor ignorance because there is no knower. Now there can be no pain because there is nobody to feel pain. ![]() Now there can be no misery because there is nobody to be miserable. When the hands are empty, nothing is left – you have arrived. You go on peeling, layer upon layer go on peeling and finally nothing is left. Zen people say that man is like an onion. The pure man means one who has been trying the path of via purgativa who has been simply emptying himself of all that is foreign, and who goes on eliminating all that is not his essential self. The pure man means the man of meditation. This is what Hakim Sanai says: The pure man unites two in one… The observer and the observed. One is there, but as if all is absent, not present. One is there, but there is nobody to declare it. One is there, but utterly quiet and calm. But you cannot even call it one, because there is nobody to call it one. Then there are not two: neither the knower nor the known – no subject, no object. Krishnamurti’s famous statement, “The observer is the observed.” It is the very essence of meditation. In this state, the observer becomes the observed there is no distinction between the observer and the observed. One has moved beyond duality, beyond multiplicity. And when you have arrived to that utter emptiness, that is the goal. Go on denying, go on negating, go on eliminating until nothing remains. The Upanishads say “ Neti, neti” – this is not that, that too is not that neither this, nor that. This is via purgativa, go on eliminating. Nothing remains to be known – then one is pure. When on the mirror there is nothing, then the mirror is pure: no reflection, no dust, no content in the consciousness. Only when nothing remains is there purity. Nirvana means “putting out a candle” – the ego just disappears as if you have put out a candle nothing remains. It is utter emptiness, a state of no-self, anatta, hence he has called it nirvana. He says in the ultimate experience nothing is found only nothing is found. That’s why Buddha says that there is no soul.
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