Suzuki’s Claims on Zen

Zen and Everyday Experience

Zen, as presented by D.T. Suzuki, although sometimes mistaken for Ch’an, does not indicate meditation but rather an emptiness from which life swells or some kind of experience leading to enlightenment. When practiced as a way of life, Zen provides excellence through the experience of enlightenment. The presentation of Zen is unique in comparison to other religions, philosophies, or sciences; it is much larger, as are its outcomes, which include liberty and precise understanding of reality. The most natural aspect of Zen is that its truth is compared to the truth of reality. Suzuki further emphasizes his point that Zen just as life deals with the daily experience. Zen presents itself as intuition rather than as a form of knowledge. Despite the many explanations he offers concerning Zen, his work has been criticized by some scholars. This essay will analyze the truthfulness of Suzuki’s claim that Zen deals with everyday experience. The critique part will be done partly through the lens of Hui-neng’s doctrine of sudden abrupt enlightenment. Although Suzuki’s presentation of Zen as life has some truth that can be applied in daily life, it is not sufficient in itself since other aspects of life are usually learned abruptly.

Personal Experience and Zen

As earlier stated, D.T Suzuki believes that Zen comprises of personal experience. He asserts that ideas cannot be intelligible to people without a backing of experience. Zen is viewed as ordinary mindedness and not something that is beyond human life experience. For example in daily life if a person feels like sleeping they sleep; if they feel hungry, they eat and so on. When a child is born, it has no experience of life on earth. It is until they start using their common senses of touch hearing, tasting, smelling and seeing that they get ideas and become aware of various aspects of their life. The baby may then start forming ideas in their mind and hence gain insight and enlightenment. The only people who can understand Zen are those who have had experienced it through Zazen. Otherwise other people see it as being absurd or mystical just like a blind person find colors to be mystical. This can be observed when individuals in the Asian cultures who believe in the Zen are compared to those in the Western cultures who do not. The Asians practice Zen in their daily practice and as they claim to find spiritual peace in it. In contrast, the westerners do not even bother practicing it.

Zen and Time

D. T. Suzuki is right in his thought about Zen as being a component of personal experience as indicated in his view that life delineates itself in the canvas of time. He clearly states that time never repeats itself just as any action after it has been done. Once an action is performed it can to be revised and time that is wasted can never be recovered. Zen offers people a chance to mediate their actions before doing it. Zen in the context of time compares to the lighting. It occurs in an instant. In daily practice, D.T Suzuki asserts that Zen has to be caught at the point in which an action is ongoing. It cannot be done before the work or later on after the action. This aspect of Zen can be incorporated in life as it helps in analyzing once actions when it is being performed. It can help a person gain enlightenment and help them not to make several mistakes which can be regretted later.

The Essence of Experience

The essence of time in life experience is well captured in the sentence-“If you want to see directly into it, but when you try to think about it, it is altogether missed” - which Rytan was kept by his master. To understand life experiences people ought not to think too much about them but rather to experience them as they are because in think one will lose focus on what he is experiencing and will, therefore, understand nothing. This can be applied in daily life. If for instance, a teacher is teaching on a topic that his student is unfamiliar with the only way for the student to understand it is to listen keenly at that point. Otherwise, if the student keeps thinking about the topic, they lose the concentration and fail to hear to what they are being taught. At the end of the class, the student will not have any knowledge about the topic.

Life as a Struggle

The other truth in Suzuki’s interpretation of Zen as involving everyday experience concerns his belief that life is a struggle. People always do various things to make life more bearable for them. For instance, people have to work hard in school and at work so that they can make their life better. People struggle to avoid death by taking good care of themselves and even when death has been conquered they still have to go through the pain of loneliness that is brought about by the death of loved ones. People may momentarily deny the fact that life is a struggle by indulging in few moments of pleasure by doing such things as clubbing or drinking. However such moments of unconscious does not deny the facts about life. Since life is a struggle, Zen offers its followers a way of gaining spiritual peace. People can train their mind to get to the point of perfect void known as dhyana this is when a satori is attained. When a person gets to dhyana, they are at the midway. As Suzuki states; “To go beyond the dualism of being and non-being and again to love the track of the middle-way - this is the unconscious”. Zen enables people to get to a mod-point where they can find spiritual peace because according to it Zen aims to find non-duality of truth.

Hui-neng’s Doctrine of Sudden Enlightenment

Hui-neng’s school of Zen offers a different thought by holding that satori can be achieved abruptly (tun). The sudden abrupt experience by Hui-neng indicates some contradictions in Suzuki interpretation of Zen as entailing life experience. This doctrine state that the ignorant can become wise abruptly wise, they gain understanding if they become open to receiving the truth. Hui- need further explains that the abrupt experience of Satori opens in a moment (ekamuhurtena) which is an entirely new vista that allows the whole existence to be appraised from a new angle. Unlike in Suzuki’s line of thought, the transformation from mayoi to satori happens abruptly and not gradually. It is also a discrete experience and not a continuous as Suzuki teaches. Hui-neng also states that the abrupt experience is not only psychological but is also transferred by word of mouth. This school of thought can also be applied in life meaning that it holds some truth in it. However, it also does not provide a satisfactory approach to life as will be explained in the next paragraph.

The Abrupt Experience in Life

The abrupt experience can be applied in the life. For instance, a person who smokes a lot of cigarettes can have an experience in which they go to the doctor and are told they are developing lung cancer as a result of smoking. The news is maybe so shocking to the point that they stop smoking for the sake of their life. The person can start viewing life differently based on that abrupt experience. However, Hui-neng’s doctrine applies in life aspects that require time to be mastered such as learning how to manufacture a car. This is a gradual process that cannot be learned abruptly but only gradually as stated by Suzuki.

Limits of Experience and Knowledge

The other critique about Suzuki’s presentation of Zen as life lies on the belief that life only relies on experience. Suzuki believed that knowledge could not reveal something that was real. He stated that it is significant for people to realize the limiting factors about life and words. This belief is inconsistent with life experience because people can learn without necessarily having to experience something. For example, a person can learn and understand about the way in which the sun rotates around the universe without having any experience with it. By Suzuki rejecting knowledge gained without experience, he leaves out some significant components of life which are not intuitively learned through experience. Furthermore Zen leaves out an important aspect of life about God who can penetrate nature.

Conclusion

It is apparent that D.T Suzuki’s school of thought about Zen as providing enlightenment in daily life experiences has some truth in it. Suzuki’s doctrine can be applied in everyday mental thinking such as eating when one is hungry. By using an illustration of time, Suzuki indicates how life experience can only be learned at the moment of an action which is also true as previously discussed. Also, daily experiences are viewed as a life struggle but which is sometimes denied when people indulge in the experience that satisfies their sense. Zen enables people to gain a satori. Despite such truths, Hui-neng’s doctrine of abrupt enlightenment which differs significantly from Zen can also be used in explaining the daily experience. One should, therefore, use both Zen and Hui-neng theory in understanding aspects of everyday life.

Bibliography

Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. 1961. Essays in Zen Buddhism (First series). New York: Grove Weidenfeld.

Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro, and William Barrett. 1996. Zen Buddhism: selected writings of D.T. Suzuki. New York: Doubleday. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10130918.

Gregory, Peter N. 1991. Sudden and gradual: approaches to enlightenment in Chinese thought. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

Yu s. c., (1969). A critical examination of Suzuki’s understanding of Ch’an (Zen). Retrieved 2017, April 18 from https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/10641/1/fulltext.pdf