SOURCE: “D. T. Suzuki's Place in the History of Human Thought,” in A Zen Life: D. T. Suzuki Remembered, edited by Masao Abe, John Weatherhill, Inc., 1986, pp. 65–80.

[In the following essay, Shimomura discusses the cultural thought patterns that make Zen Buddhist concepts difficult for Westerners, and Suzuki's importance in bridging that understanding.]

I think that one of D. T. Suzuki's great achievements, historically speaking, was the opening up of a path to the essential spirit of Mahayana Buddhist and especially Zen thought for the intellectual world of the West. In Oriental thought, especially in Buddhism, there is something which would have remained completely closed off to those Western scholars who know of no other approach to understand it except through linguistic or philological study. This is because in Oriental thought there is something beyond verbal expression, denying conceptual understanding; moreover, this is precisely the case with its most crucial essence. Therefore, I must say that the way to an understanding of Oriental thought had remained fundamentally closed off to the West. And it must be said that it was D. T. Suzuki, through his own deep Zen Awakening and training, together with his understanding of Western languages and thought, who was first able to open up a path by which Westerners could enter into the thinking of the Orient. Even if someone else had such qualifications it is not likely that they could have gone as far as he did.

D. T. Suzuki's work was not simply a matter of introducing Zen thought to the West. It seems that not enough attention is paid to this. If one does not deeply consider the problem involved in conveying Zen thought in Western terms and the importance of that problem, then one cannot comprehend the greatness of D. T. Suzuki's achievements. It must be understood that this is not merely a matter of the history of Japanese thought, but of world thought. The so-called introduction of Zen thought to the West by D. T. Suzuki actually involved the task of building a bridge to span the gulf between Eastern and Western thought, which are not only different in their traditions but are even mutually conflicting and contradictory.

For there is, in fact, a fundamental difference between East and West concerning the most serious problems of being human, our ultimate problem. For instance, regarding such things as life, death, and God, the viewpoints of East and West fundamentally oppose each other. In the West, death is simply the end of life, so life is always the only problem—how to live well is the only problem. But in the East life-and-death is always the problem; even in our everyday language, “attaining rebirth” (ojo) means death. In the West, God is thought of as absolute Existence, but in the East, God is thought of rather as absolute Nothingness (mu). In the West, religious faith transcends the intellect, but in Buddhism that transcendence takes place through “Satori” or “Awakening”; to that extent, religious transcendence is a matter of a special kind of intellect. There is the question of what the nature of this special kind of intellect is, of course, but it is at any rate still a problem of the intellect [and not faith].

We must consider how it is possible to find a path between such fundamentally opposing thought. There is no common standard between East and West. Usually the generally accepted procedure is to make an interpretation of the Oriental thought based on some specific philosophical system of the West, or to attempt an extremely superficial identification by means of finding some external similarities between the two. By doing this, however, the originality of Zen thought is utterly lost.

D. T. Suzuki did away with such approaches once and for all and instead, emphasized the fundamental difference and distinction. He did away with the Western tendency to give as rational an interpretation as possible, of trying to approximate the Western way of thinking and offer a consistent method. Instead, he put emphasis on the fact that Zen thought is, in opposition to the Western rational way of thinking, an irrational, non-rational way of thinking. This is an important first step in gaining a basic understanding of the true Zen thought of the Orient. To explain Oriental thought on the basis of Western thought or by borrowing Western ideas—that is a Western interpretation. This is possible so long as there is some common ground, but insofar as there is a fundamental difference such an approach will entail distortion and misunderstanding.

First of all it is necessary to break away from the Occidental standpoint in order to understand the originality of Oriental thought. At the same time it is not possible to convey Oriental thought to the West, which is different in nature, simply from the Oriental standpoint. It is necessary to liberate Zen thought from the distinctly Oriental standpoint and to open up for Zen a universal, worldwide basis. Put simply, we must take a philosophical standpoint. Actually, such a problem and process is often encountered in the history of philosophy.

For example, a similar problem can be found in the relation between Greek and Christian thought. When they encountered each other, the Greeks attempted to understand the Christian religion as “the philosophy of Christ.” Philosophy became the avenue of approach. However, Christianity negates and denies philosophy, particularly Greek philosophy which is based on “reason.” Because of this there was a long history of confrontation and discord; not until the thirteenth century was Thomas Aquinas able to establish a system which brought them into harmony. Here Christian philosophy reached a kind of completion. But then, such a meeting and reconciliation can be said to have been easy in comparison with our present case in the Orient. This is because Christianity had been established in the realm of Hellenistic culture. St. Paul, the first Christian systematic thinker, grew up surrounded by Hellenistic culture and was educated in it. Remembering this alone it should be sufficient to understand why I speak of it as being easier than in our case.

East and West, however, are completely separated by their respective geographical, ethnic, and historical traditions. There is a real gap between the two. Western thought, which began in Greece, recognizes the highest manifestation of reason in verbal expression, while we in the Orient recognize the highest wisdom through the negating and transcending of all statements. Just considering this one point, I think the difference between the two and the extreme difficulty of bringing them together in any form becomes sufficiently clear.

Let us consider a bit more concretely how the thought of an incongruous tradition has been understood, with an example from the history of Western thought. In this instance the necessity of a fundamental conversion in the way of thinking can be seen. In Greek thought existence is finite. The Greeks thought of all existence as possessing form, as “Idea.” Everything that had form was finite. For the Greeks everything without exception was finite. Time as well as space, humans of course, and even the gods were finite. Therefore, for the Greeks the infinite did not exist. As that which was not limited and thus without determination, the infinite was less than existence, prior to existence. Such an “infinite” could not be thought of as positive in any way but only as something negative.

In Christianity, however, God as the Creator is infinite Being, absolute Being. The Greek gods were not creators but simply “form-givers.” The Creator creates being out of nothingness, but the Greek gods which form beings merely give order to chaos; for them matter is already there and cannot be created. The redemption of the sinner, which is the core of the Christian faith, being the salvation of one who from the first is not worthy of salvation, is accomplished solely through God's love. Salvation has nothing whatsoever to do with human collaboration, effort, or works. God as Savior is almighty and must be an infinite Being. Such an “infinite Being” which is the basis of Christian thought could not be understood at all according to Greek thought; it is irrational. How can this infinite Being be comprehended?—Western thinkers have struggled for a long time with this.

The first and most basic problem is to realize the fundamental distinction between the finite and the infinite. As long as we try to understand the infinite by means of an analogy with the finite we cannot help turning it into something finite. No matter how we may extend or enlarge that which is finite, it remains finite. The very great is not the infinitely great. That which is without end, the endless (endlos) also is not the infinite. No matter how endless it is, no matter how far you take it, the thing itself is still finite—it does not go beyond being finite even though it is without end.

The truly infinite is not the extension of the finite, it is the negation of the finite (unendlich). When this is realized the first step toward a positive understanding of the infinite can be taken. This realization is that the infinite cannot be understood. Without such a realization the infinite will never be understood, i.e., realizing that the infinite cannot be understood actually becomes the first step toward a positive understanding of the infinite and can serve as a basis. This is extremely paradoxical. However, if this paradox is not broken through it is impossible to understand the infinite.

Westerners must pass through the same kind of paradox to understand Oriental and especially Zen thought. Before anything else we all must realize the existence of a basic difference, or rather opposition, in our respective ways of thinking. It is necessary to clarify how irrational Oriental thought is and how difficult it is to understand by means of Western thought. And then one must grasp that Mind (shin sho) which considers the irrational as rational. D. T. Suzuki's approach, and what most of his efforts were directed toward, was an extolment of this character of the Oriental mind. For this reason, even when he described Zen Mind he did not in the least interpret or explain Zen psychologically; rather he emphasized that such an approach was meaningless. This emphasis on the meaninglessness of the psychological approach opened up a path to a positive understanding of Zen. The presentation of scholars prior to D. T. Suzuki, and even his contemporaries—not just Westerners but Japanese scholars as well—were mistaken or at least not thorough-going in this respect.

To show that Zen thought cannot be understood according to Western rational thought clarifies at the same time the restrictions and limitations of Western thought. With the above-mentioned problem of the infinite, I suggested that realizing the infinite cannot be understood becomes the first step to an understanding of it. That the infinite cannot be understood means that it cannot be understood according to the logic of the finite. What is contradictory in the realm of the finite is not contradictory in the realm of the infinite. That what is contradictory in the realm of the finite is not contradictory in the realm of the infinite, in fact, constitutes nothing other than the essence of the infinite. For example, with finitude it is a contradiction for whole and part to be equal, but it is of the essence of the infinite that whole and part are equal. It is a contradiction for a finite circle to have numerous centers, but that precisely is the essence of an infinite circle. The logic of the finite is not the only logic; there exists a logic of the infinite—this simply cannot be understood without a breaking out of, or a conversion from, the finite way of thinking, by realizing the restricting boundaries of finite logic.

A similar problem can also be said to exist concerning the relation between Western and Eastern thought. And it should be said that with the realization of this basic conflict and distinction, for the first time a path can be blazed between them. For this reason it is not possible to introduce Zen thought to the West simply because one is versed in Western culture and has Zen Awakening. A basic confrontation must be made, and through devoting ourselves to the basic distinctions, for the first time a bridge can be built. This is nothing but a worldwide standpoint transcending both East and West, a philosophical standpoint in its true sense. For this reason D. T. Suzuki's work can be called philosophical and he himself a philosopher.

Philosophy originally arose in Greece and developed in the West, but if it is simply limited to this, it is not true “philosophy.” When we have a universality transcending all particularity, something worldwide transcending East and West, then for the first time we have “philosophy.” So-called Western and Eastern philosophy express nothing more than a difference in the character of philosophical thought; two kinds of philosophy do not exist.

Philosophy was first given form by the Greeks. To that extent it is Greek philosophy. However, because it had a worldwide nature, it was philosophy. Because no other philosophy existed at that time except for Greek philosophy, it was the philosophy (Die Philosophie). However, as soon as a philosophy based on Christian thought emerged, Greek philosophy was no longer “the philosophy” (Die Philosophie). Greek (Augustinian and Thomastic) philosophy had to admit its own limitations. Then Christian philosophy, which transcended and included Greek philosophy, became philosophy. This was, indeed, a development of philosophy. Through its encounter with Christian thought, philosophy turned increasingly inward and deepened. Historically this first took the form of an interpretation of Christian thought according to Greek philosophy. But Christian thought includes something in its essence which cannot be rationalized, something irrational according to Greek thought. If a rationale is forced upon it, the originality of Christian thought will be lost. To establish a true Christian philosophy after the basic distinction between Greek philosophy and Christian thought was realized, a philosophy had to be established which tried to rationalize what had been considered irrational according to Greek philosophy. But for this to be “philosophy” it had to become a universal, worldwide philosophy in which not only Christian but Greek philosophy are included. In later ages this came to be called Christian philosophy, but at that time it was simply “philosophy.” What is limited to so-called Christian philosophy must not be designated the philosophy (Die Philosophie), even if, as a historical fact, Christian philosophy must have represented “philosophy” at that time.

Our problem now is analogous. For us—we who come out of the tradition of Oriental thought—Western philosophy including both Greek and Christian philosophy is not the philosophy (Die Philosophie). If it does not include our Oriental thought as well, it is not our “philosophy.” Following ancient Greek and then medieval and modern Christian-toned European philosophy, the formation of the next stage of philosophy can be said to be our new philosophical task. This is nothing other than “philosophy” being formed as Greek philosophy, then developing into Christian philosophy, and now trying to evolve again anew. But then again, if this is merely our Oriental philosophy, it is not yet “philosophy.” As Christian philosophy was formed through the mediation of Greek philosophy, this next stage of ours must be formed through the mediation of the previous two. This will be our philosophy and yet not simply a philosophy peculiar to the Orient. A particularistic philosophy is not philosophy; it must be a universal philosophy of the whole world (the philosophy, Die Philosophie). As mentioned above, Greek philosophy was not simply the philosophy of Greece; at the time it was philosophy. That it came to be called Greek philosophy meant that it had already ceased being philosophy as such. If our philosophy is to be a philosophy with the Zen thought of the Orient as its core, then it will first become philosophy when it is understood by the world. And it must become world philosophy (Die Philosophie), not just Oriental philosophy.

This is our task, our mission. To do this we must establish a more comprehensive philosophy in which the irrational according to Greek and Christian philosophy becomes rational, just as Christian philosophy had been considered irrational according to Greek philosophy, but then established a comprehensive philosophy which tried to make the irrational elements of Christianity rational. D. T. Suzuki's work must be said to be the basis for such efforts. Needless to say, his work was not limited simply to introducing Zen thought to the West.

From this vantage point, D. T. Suzuki's work was not just a matter concerning the history of Oriental thought but the history of world thought. His task became a matter of giving Zen thought a philosophical form. Of course, he himself never claimed to be a philosopher and he probably never thought of himself as philosophizing Zen thought; but whether he had that intention or not, objectively and historically speaking his work had such a significance. Several years ago I attended a philosophers' conference in England. When the philosophy professors there spoke about Japanese philosophy, D. T. Suzuki's name came up, and I saw firsthand how he was regarded as a leading Japanese philosopher. And he was in close contact with the philosophical efforts of representative philosophers of modern Japan, such as Kitaro Nishida (1870-1945) and Hajime Tanabe (1885-1962). Yet this problem is not a task solely for Japanese philosophers; it really is a task for philosophers all over the world today. The recent so-called “Zen boom” in the West is not merely a passing fad or superficial phenomenon; it is indicative of a deep demand in the modern world. The fact that it has become such a popular phenomenon suggests this. Philosophers such as Heidegger, who genuinely think about the source of traditional philosophy, are aiming at the task mentioned above from the domain of the problem of philosophy itself. While such philosophers cannot of course be said to be intentionally directing themselves toward Zen thought, they are nevertheless heading in that direction.

What I have said above deals with the historical significance of D. T. Suzuki's labor, but what about the significance for the history of our Oriental thought?

A century has already passed since Japan opened its doors to the West after a long period of isolation. The questions what and how much of Japanese thought were accepted by the West during that time are important for measuring the present status of Japanese thought in the world today. Of course, the true value of Japanese thought cannot be determined through what is known or accepted by the West or how it is evaluated. What has true value in itself cannot be dependent upon the West's evaluation. That which has true value, however, must not limit itself to some geographical specificity, but must be capable of being evaluated on a worldwide basis and also able to stand up to such an evaluation. To accomplish this we must take our stand in the common world arena. A path to worldwide understanding must be opened.

Here music and the arts are a most advantageous expedient. Through this avenue of immediate sense experience, music and the arts can have a worldwide immediacy. Actually, for we Japanese as well, the arts were what could be most quickly and widely understood. Perhaps ukiyo-e has served as a forerunner here. As is already well-known, among the French impressionists such pictures were not only understood but actually exerted a great influence on them. The West's evaluation of ukiyo-e even motivated the Japanese themselves to re-evaluate it.

However, ukiyo-e is not really a legitimate and serious form of painting within our art history; rather it is a “light” or “shallow” art, so it would not be acceptable if the true value of our art were to be judged by ukiyo-e. I do not think our legitimate and orthodox paintings can be understood as simply as our ukiyo-e can. Especially Chinese and Japanese traditional, legitimate painting cannot be truly appreciated by the West merely through immediate sense experience because Western paintings are generally realistic whereas Oriental paintings have a metaphysical and symbolic character and a “thought” behind them.

Ukiyo-e does not have such a character; it possesses a much more common or popular entertaining quality, and the colors, lines and composition introduce a wealth of refinement, delicacy and lyricism. While possessing a specifically Japanese quality, it can at the same time be immediately and universally understood. Not only that, ukiyo-e, being evaluated highly as art in this way was largely dependent on historical circumstances, in which it evoked a strong and sympathetic response during the period of “impressionism.” This should be called a historical “encounter,” the good fortune of historical coincidence, because it is questionable whether ukiyo-e would have received the same response had it been introduced to the West earlier or later than it was. Certainly the excellence and originality of ukiyo-e, which is a result of our painting tradition, would not have been possible without this background. In this sense ukiyo-e is a satisfactory embodiment of the character of our art, but no one would agree to our art being evaluated with ukiyo-e as an exemplar nor, I think, would we want that.

And if even the immediacy and sensitivity of our art other than ukiyo-e is not easy to understand, then certainly an understanding of our thought, which is accessible merely through the medium of a language belonging to a completely foreign system, is difficult for the Westerner. And on top of this, our finest thought is inexpressible through language; verbal expression is itself negated. For these reasons an understanding of Oriental thought is extremely difficult. Concerning our philosophical thought, it could even be said that right up until recent years its very existence was unknown to the West.

But do we really have some kind of philosophy for which we can ask and expect Westerners' understanding? Here our concept of “philosophy” becomes the problem. In the strict sense of the term, “philosophy” for us meant that academic study which entered our country beginning at the start of the Meiji era (1868-1912). In fact, for we Japanese “philosophy” meant “Western philosophy.” And the situation has in essence remained unchanged even today. As soon as the philosophical thought fashionable in the West was introduced into Japan, we accepted it as it was, with almost no thought to asking our own philosophical questions. Our philosophical study consisted mainly of learning Western philosophy. Even today in our universities, what is studied and lectured on under the name of “philosophy” is Western philosophy; when Oriental philosophy is meant, a qualifying term is added, such as Chinese philosophy or Indian philosophy.

Further, the Oriental philosophy that is thus studied amounts merely to a historical and philological study of the texts of the past; actual philosophical problems in the authentic sense are not even considered. In this sense it is not yet Oriental philosophy in its authentic sense. Not only that, because “philosophy” originally did not exist in the Orient, in the strict sense our study of Oriental thought is not even a study of the history of Oriental philosophy; so-called Oriental philosophy is nothing but a mere attempt to re-interpret Oriental thought as “philosophy.” Such a situation has been basically limited by the fact that “philosophy” was for us an entirely new and foreign enterprise. Actually “philosophy” arose in Greece and then developed in the Western tradition. What we today call Oriental philosophy is nothing but a re-interpretation of the Oriental thought from this standpoint of Western philosophy.

The problems of “philosophy” are the ultimate problems concerning human beings, the world, and God. In the Orient as well the speculation upon such problems is, of course, not at all lacking; on the contrary, speculation about these problems in the Orient has been even deeper than in the West. Nevertheless, it was not “philosophy.” In the Orient these kinds of problems were always dealt with from the standpoint of religion and ethics, not as an independent, pure academic discipline. As mentioned, the study of “philosophy,” even the concept of it, really did not even exist. The Japanese term tetsugaku was coined in the beginning of the Meiji era as a translation for the Western term “philosophy.” In China also, this Japanese term coined in written characters was introduced and is used there.

Japanese scholars spent the entire Meiji era endeavoring to understand the logic and method of this newly introduced “philosophy.” A philosophy of the Japanese people, i.e., giving philosophical form to the problem of one's own self based on the actual experience of the Japanese, was not something to be expected at once. Therefore, philosophy for us at that time was merely an academic study, not anything more than a kind of critique of the formal, logical conformity in the thought of Western philosophers. The first Japanese person that could be said to have had his own philosophy was, as is common knowledge, Kitaro Nishida; other than him we have had very few “philosophical” thinkers.

However, such a situation, such a process, is not limited to Japan alone; the same thing has also occurred in the West. When the Romans took up Greek philosophy, when Christianity tried to develop its own philosophy, and again in modern times when various peoples tried to develop their own philosophies—all involved a similar process. But these cases are far simpler than ours in the Orient because there is some continuity. In our case not only the historical tradition, but the race, language, customs, religion and ethics are all entirely foreign and without continuity. In the beginning of the Meiji era, “philosophy” was new to Japanese thinkers and they approached it with fresh curiosity and accepted it as one integral part of “Western civilization and enlightenment.” We cannot imagine how difficult it must have been to understand the thought of a completely different linguistic and conceptual system. In comparison with this, natural science, which deals with matter, was relatively easy to comprehend; but the difficulty in the understanding of something of a completely conceptual basis, like philosophy, which has to be grasped solely through the medium of language with all its historical and traditional implications, cannot for a moment be compared, for example, with the translation of A Primer on Anatomy. And further, the two-thousand-year-old philosophical tradition in the West is different from science. The entire Meiji era was spent just trying to understand all this, and the formulation of a positive Japanese philosophy was possible only after mastering it.

Philosophy naturally poses the ultimate problem of man and sets it up according to precise concepts and logic, but it is not just objective knowledge; philosophy is subjective, existential thought through which we can live. We must develop our own philosophy or we have no right to call it “philosophy.” The understanding of Western philosophy has so far remained an objective understanding, not a subjective understanding which is a philosophy of the subjective self. The traditional thought of man, world, and God as it is experienced in the Orient cannot possibly be systematized with the concepts or logic formulated in Western philosophy. This is similar to when Christianity encountered Greek philosophy, and yet our case is even more foreign.

Our philosophical task was first to understand the “philosophy” which had completely eluded our grasp and then make it our own. We also have made modern Western thought more or less our own through “Western civilization and enlightenment,” and yet underneath the surface we possess an ancient cultural tradition rooted in Buddhist and Confucian thought with a profundity and greatness in no way inferior to Greek thought or Christianity. But this originally was not “philosophy.” Creating a philosophy out of these various experiences was our philosophical task. And our new contribution to philosophy, to world philosophy, will be our next philosophical task. Greek philosophy upon encountering Christianity accomplished Aufhebung, a “self-negation-preservation,” and thus philosophy was deepened. In modern times this philosophy, through its encounter with the thought of the Orient, should proceed anew to the next stage.

Through the encounter with Oriental thought, the new problem which we are entrusted with in philosophy is the thought of Nothingness. Up until now this concept has been lacking in Western philosophy. In Greek philosophy the infinite was merely a negative concept and something without limitation; as such it is not anything at all. Likewise, whether in Greek or Christian philosophy—in Western philosophy as a whole—Nothingness was merely nonexistent. On rare occasions mystics have considered it, but only as a fragmentary idea within mysticism. Neither Greek nor Christian philosophy had the logic or methodology to understand Nothingness—absolute Nothingness—positively. This is why the original, next stage of philosophy must be established with motives and questions different from those of Greek and Christian philosophy.

But the difficulty in doing this will be even greater than the evolution from Greek to Christian philosophy. This is because in such thought of Nothingness all concepts, language, and logic are ultimately denied. Generally speaking, religious thought takes the ultimate to be beyond verbal expression. But in Christianity it has been clearly stated that “In the beginning was the Word … the Word of God.” However, in Buddhism the ultimate teaching is always conveyed “wordlessly,” as in “Shakyamuni's twirling a flower and Kashyapa's smiling.” Moreover, in the Orient absolute Nothingness is not merely expounded in religion, but is living in all life and in all thought. The basis of existence is Nothingness. And existence is the manifestation of Nothingness. In Western philosophy God or infinite Being exists; the basis of existence is existence. In the Orient the truly infinite or absolute is absolute Nothingness. Ultimate truth is established where all language and concepts are negated. Thus, if “philosophy” must be conceptual knowledge, and if it must be conceptually and logically expressed, it is only natural that our traditional thought has not developed into philosophy but rather has negated it.

For all that, to try to develop our philosophy from this point of view is to attempt the impossible; so is it meaningless? After all, Buddhism with its principle of Nothingness has produced many, many scrolls of tripitaka, the “Three Baskets” of the Buddhist canon consisting of sutras, regulations and discourses; as a matter of fact, Zen, with its doctrine of “No dependence on words or letters” has left behind a large amount of Zen literature. As is well-known, the paradox that “all people have the Buddha-nature and yet we all must undergo hard practice,” constitutes the fundamental doubt of Buddhists. If the philosophy of Nothingness is our philosophy and if without it we would have none, then should we give up philosophy? If we think it is impossible or meaningless to try and develop the philosophy of Nothingness, that means we recognize only established Western philosophy as legitimate; from that standpoint then, it really would be impossible and meaningless. Is a philosophy which makes the irrational rational and the meaningless meaningful the new philosophy? Nishida initiated this new philosophy and provided a foundation for it. At least he was able to make a start. Whether he intended it or not, his philosophy must be recognized as an epoch in our history of thought.

The fruit of D. T. Suzuki's labors also is of such a range, as is the profound historical significance of his thought. His achievements as a Buddhist scholar also are undoubtedly great, but if we limit his achievements to that he would not necessarily stand out as a singularly unique scholar. D. T. Suzuki's greatest contribution was not just as a Buddhist scholar but as a philosopher who transcended Buddhism. This meant considering Buddhism from a standpoint which transcended Buddhism. It involved thinking about Buddhism in a worldwide, universal manner. On this point his efforts were similar to the philosophical efforts of Kitaro Nishida and Hajime Tanabe. The reason D. T. Suzuki was a world citizen lies not merely in such things as his living abroad for a long time and authoring works in Western languages, or in his being known and respected abroad. It was due to the fact that he opened up Zen thought to the world through those works. Westerners really are indebted mainly to D. T. Suzuki for opening up this path to an understanding of Mahayana Buddhism, and especially Zen which is its essence. What is it that distinguishes his accomplishments as a philosopher—if I may presume to call him that—from those of Nishida and Tanabe? Perhaps it is, put simply, that while the efforts of Nishida and Tanabe were directed toward Zen logic, D. T. Suzuki's efforts were directed toward Zen mind.

This is not something that a philologist could do; it is not even in his repertoire. Needless to say, the mind is something living, not at all abstract, and it absolutely cannot be grasped outside one's own actual experience. It is the same as being able to express or convey the beauty of music only through written words and literature without listening to it for oneself. Zen, particularly, is based entirely on the actual fact of one's actual Awakening. Zen thought, as well, is not based on any intellectual understanding but on one's actual Awakening. Because of this, trying to explain Zen other than as an expression and unfolding of one's own Awakening is utterly meaningless.

D. T. Suzuki's emphasis on elucidating Zen Mind rather than Zen logic was something that had to wait for him to be done, and it was valuable and necessary. Without an elucidation of Zen Mind, Zen would be merely empty paradox, devoid of meaning. “Philosophy” has still been accepted in Japan as something merely formal and abstract, fit only as subject matter for lectures because we lack a philosophical mind which is its basis, or womb, and depend only on logic from beginning to end. For this reason no positive, concrete philosophical accomplishment has come out of Japan.

However, D. T. Suzuki's explication of Zen Mind is not, as already mentioned above, a psychological interpretation of Zen. He was trying to show Zen Mind itself, not give a psychological interpretation of it. And that is a completely different matter. He himself thoroughly abandoned psychological interpretation. Zen is Mind which has eradicated all reason. It is due to the essence of Zen that he elucidated Zen Mind itself and did not merely give a psychological explanation of Zen. Zen Awakening itself has no relation to the psychological approach toward it; the very meaning of process in this context can only be clarified through Zen Awakening. The thorough denial of a psychological interpretation is due to the fact that the Zen Mind itself fundamentally denies any psychological interpretation and any mind which is explained in such a manner. It was because of this that D. T. Suzuki repeatedly emphasized that the Zen koan is only a paradox for rational thought, and is a method of breaking through such rational thought. It is the presentation of consciousness prior to [the breakup into subject and object of reflective] consciousness. This is not merely the unconscious. Unconsciousness is that which has not yet been made conscious. Consciousness prior to consciousness is that consciousness which has negated consciousness. It is consciousness which is no longer conscious. Conscious without being conscious, it is an absolutely negating consciousness. It could also be spoken of as unrestricted consciousness.

It was precisely Nishida's philosophy that dealt with that which was presented by D. T. Suzuki as Zen Mind in terms of Zen logic. I think it can be said that with Suzuki, Nishida, and Tanabe, Japanese philosophy genuinely became Japanese philosophy.

The Zen logic of Nishida's philosophy, likewise is not a logical interpretation of Zen. It is not at all interpreting Zen according to some established logic, such as Hegelian dialectical logic. It is the formation of a logic of Zen Awakening itself, the formation of a logic springing forth from the Zen Awakening. This is a completely new formation of logic. It is formed not by a logic which developed out of previous philosophy, but aims at a logic transcending all logic, and including it as well.

After a preparatory stage of understanding Western philosophy (which entered Japan during the Meiji era) and mastering its methods, the development of a Japanese philosophy must be said to have been initiated by the Zen Mind of D. T. Suzuki and the Zen logic of Nishida and Tanabe. But this Japanese philosophy is based on the Oriental mind and experience, and must still be established as a worldwide philosophy. And if we, who already know about the existence of philosophy from ancient to modern, by confronting and connecting with this philosophy, do not include as much of it as possible, what we develop will not be appropriate for a contemporary philosophy. Our philosophy is not simply Oriental philosophy; it must be a world philosophy which has transcended Oriental philosophy.

Whenever we read D. T. Suzuki's works we should think deeply about where that refreshing source which we constantly perceive comes from. It is not a mere impression. The events he narrates are concerned with ancient thought, and yet one feels a freshness because that thought is alive and that means new. And we, who have been exposed to Western thought and thus are not merely Oriental people, feel something alive and fresh in his writings. This shows that his writings are of a worldwide nature.

Buddhist concepts have already become a dead language. Being understood only as technical terms of the specialist, completely unconnected with our own present thoughts and feelings—they certainly are a dead language. That we can feel a freshness from and sympathize with D. T. Suzuki's narrative is because there they really are no longer Buddhist terms but become, so to speak, an international language. That we now can sympathize with his words and thoughts is because he expressed them in an international language.

We are now modern, and “modern man” has the character of a world citizen. That an interest in Zen now exists in the West means that it is possible for Zen both to gain worldwide understanding, which transcends the Orient, and to possess universality.

Long ago, Xuanzang [Hsüan-tsang] (602-64), a Chinese scholar-monk, traveled to India at the risk of his life to obtain the Dharma. In the twentieth century this Dharma spread to the West through D. T. Suzuki.