ABSTRACT
The word ‘Zen’ is in common usage in the West, and Zen itself is pursued as a way of life at various centres both in Europe and America. Before the turn of the present century, both the word and the practice were effectively unknown outside the Far East, and the change is due to a considerable extent to the work of one man, Dr D.T.Suzuki, a Rinzai Zen scholar of great distinction. It was via Suzuki's works, chiefly the three volumes of Essays in Zen Buddhism published in the 1920s and 1930s, that the western world gained its first understanding of Zen. Suzuki buttressed this achievement by means of many further works, numbering some thirty books in English and over ninety in Japanese (still mostly untranslated) together with many articles in journals. He complemented the Essays by a range of more introductory works, translations of important sutras from the Sanskrit, works comparing elements of eastern and western thought, and to an increasing degree toward the end of his life, detailed studies of the Shin sect of Pure Land Buddhism. His English works owe their success not only to their authority and erudition, but also the high quality of his English style. Suzuki is one of those non-native writers of English, like Conrad or Santayana, whose command of the language shames many of its native users. The lucidity of Suzuki's English works makes their difficult subject- matter as accessible as it can be. Many have followed the pathway Suzuki opened, and western literature on Zen has proliferated since his time, but Suzuki will always have the distinction of having been the initiator of this process, and his place in the history of twentieth- century thought is secure.
