HG scored this book at a flea market. Daisetz Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture – a classic printed in hundreds of languages. Bollingen Foundation, known for publishing books of significant impact since 1940, published this edition in 1959. This title has shown value in the market since its first printing in 1938.
In this 1959 edition the author explains the revision of his classic. He begs the reader’s indulgence for adding twenty years, 1938-1959, of thoughts on Zen in three new chapters. In 1939 Eastern Buddhist Society of Otani Buddhist University at Kyoto first titled the book Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture. Suzuki explained that instead of rewriting the book he felt it important to include new chapters integral to the understanding of Zen: Swordsmanship, The Art of Tea, and The Haiku. In those twenty years he became enamored with the relationship between those three topics and Zen. He placed the new chapters in the section titled the “Japanese Love of Nature.”
Suzuki said, “The artist’s work is of free creation from intuitions directly…unhampered by senses and intellect. He creates forms and sounds out of formlessness and soundlessness.” The 1959 edition is lavishly illustrated with ‘tipped in’ plates; photos of rock gardens, paintings from the 600s, and photos of shrines. One amazing undocumented 18th century painting shows the Buddha entering Nirvana under the trees. His mother, Queen Maya, carries medicine with his disciple Mahākāśyapa, both arriving too late. All nature, human and non-human mourns as Buddha dies, the trees burst into flower.
Illustrating Zen itself
Zen and Japanese Culture endures as a classic because Suzuki’s carefully chosen prose illustrates Zen itself. His simple, poetic language describes 2,500 years of Buddhist history and relationship to Zen. He makes the case in both his prose style, and in his parables, that Zen is unique because Zen influences every part of life, not merely the spiritual.
Here’s a story from the book, written originally by Goso Hoyen (d. 1104). Suzuki writes:
“If you must ask what Zen is like, I will say it is like learning the art of burglary. The son of an aging burglar asks to learn the art. Thus, the father takes the son on a burglary, and in the night during the act in the house, he locks his son into a large trunk, awakens the household, and leaves, unnoticed, to return home. The son lay in the trunk hating his father. He thought to make rat sounds; was discovered and fled, hoisting a huge stone into the well in the courtyard as if to indicate his suicide therein. The master of the house and his sons dashed to the well, looked deep into the dark waters for the drowning burglar. All became quiet. All over.
“Returning to his father’s house, the young burglar accosted his father ‘Father, WHY??’ His father said, ‘Son, don’t be offended, just tell me how you got out of the situation.’ Which the son did, and upon hearing his escape, the father said, ‘There you are, son. You have learned the art.’”
Suzuki comments on this parable: “Satori (enlightenment) must be an outgrowth of one’s inner life, and not brought about from the outside.”
Bollingen Foundation
A husband-and-wife team founded the publishing company in 1940. Over many years, until 2002, the foundation awarded fellowships and an annual prize for poetry. The foundation published 275 titles including the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching, or Book of Changes; D. T. Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture; Vladimir Nabokov’s translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin; Erich Neumann’s The Origins and History of Consciousness; Mircea Eliade’s The Myth of the Eternal Return; Isaiah Berlin’s The Origins of Romanticism; Gershom Scholem’s Sabbatai Sevi; E. H. Gombrich’s Art and Illusion; and Kenneth Clark’s The Nude.
On the flyleaf a beautifully penned inscription from a friend named Shirley to Ann indicates the book as a gift. This short haiku comes from the book itself: “To Ann: If your eyes see,/ and ears hear,/ not a doubt you’ll cherish,/ How naturally the rain drips from the leaves!” Indeed, throughout the book Suzuki elegantly analyzes haiku such as this. Here’s my favorite – what I consider a symphony in simple green after a rainfall: “A solitary frog drenched in rain,/ Rides on a Basho leaf,/ Unsteadily.”
The value of the flea market treasure is $100.