Suzuki Shunryu

Suzuki Shunryū ( Japanese 鈴木 俊 隆 ; * 1905 ; † 1971 ) was a Japanese Zen master who made Zen popular in the USA.

Life

Suzuki Shunryū was the son of a Sōtō Zen master and himself a master of the Sōtō lineage. His teacher Gyokujun was a student of his father. S. Suzuki started his apprenticeship very early. At the age of 30 he was allowed to take students. During the Second World War he was the leader of a pacifist movement in Japan.

In 1958 he went to the USA to look after the Japanese Sōtō community in San Francisco for two years. However, as a large number of American supporters soon gathered around him, he extended his stay in the USA until the end of his life.

S. Suzuki founded the Zen Center in San Francisco, later the Zen Mountain Center in Tassajara Springs, the first Zen monastery outside of Asia. He later asked Kobun Shino Otowaga for help in running the Zen Mountain Center.

In Germany, S. Suzuki was first known through his book Zen-Geist, Beginners-Mind , an introduction to Zen practice.

Occasional confusion with the considerably older Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki he used to reply: “No, I'm the smaller Suzuki”.

Web links

• Literature by and about Suzuki Shunryū in the catalog of the German National Library
• The San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC)
• About Kōbun, Steve Jobs Zen teacher

literature

• Shunryū Suzuki: Zen mind, beginner mind. 11th edition Theseus, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89620-131-X
• Shunryū Suzuki: Be like pure silk and sharp steel, The spiritual legacy of the great Zen master. Hardcover, Lotos Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7787-8144-8 (American original title: Not always so)
• David Chadwick: Shunryu Suzuki or the Art of Becoming a Zen Master. Life and teachings of the man who brought Zen to the west. Bern u. a. 2000, ISBN 3-502-61052-5
• Dietrich Wild: "The Tiger Report ", ISBN 3-931560-17-1

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Suzuki is the family name, Shunryū the first name.