D.T. Suzuki on What Freedom Really Means and How Zen Can Help Us Cultivate Our Character

 

A while back I came across this  article on the Brain Pickings blog,  by the phenomenal young renaissance lady, Maria Popova.  (“Brain Pickings” uses the subtitle/explanation:  “An inventory of the meaningful life.”) Popova truly exemplifies the “artist as a young woman,” in full, full bloom. If you haven’t yet checked out her Brain Pickings blog, please give it a click. You’ll be glad you did.

In the meantime, here’s how she introduces Zen and one of our Pater Familias, D.T. Suzuki:  (With a great photo, which I found, of Suzuki with the  iconic activist monk, Thomas Merton. )

Suzuki begins at the beginning, laying out the promise of Zen in our everyday lives:Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one’s own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. By making us drink right from the fountain of life, it liberates us from all the yokes under which we finite beings are usually suffering in this world.[…]This body of ours is something like an electric battery in which a mysterious power latently lies. When this power is not properly brought into operation, it either grows mouldy and withers away or is warped and expresses itself abnormally. It is the object of Zen, therefore, to save us from going crazy or being crippled. This is what I mean by freedom, giving free play to all the creative and benevolent impulses inherently lying in our hearts. Generally, we are blind to this fact, that we are in possession of all the necessary faculties that will make us happy and loving towards one another. All the struggles that we see around us come from this ignorance… When the cloud of ignorance disappears… we see for the first time into the nature of our own being.

via D.T. Suzuki on What Freedom Really Means and How Zen Can Help Us Cultivate Our Character | Brain Pickings.

This entry was posted in Zen. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply