Table Of ContentThe Zen Buddhist Philosophy
of D. T. Suzuki
Bloomsbury Introductions to World Philosophies
Series Editor:
Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach
Assistant Series Editor:
Leah Kalmanson
Regional Editors:
Nader El-Bizri, James Madaio, Sarah A. Mattice, Takeshi Morisato,
Pascah Mungwini, Omar Rivera and Georgina Stewart
Bloomsbury Introductions to World Philosophies delivers primers
reflecting exciting new developments in the trajectory of world
philosophies. Instead of privileging a single philosophical approach
as the basis of comparison, the series provides a platform for diverse
philosophical perspectives to accommodate the different dimensions
of cross-cultural philosophizing. While introducing thinkers, texts
and themes emanating from different world philosophies, each book,
in an imaginative and path-breaking way, makes clear how it departs
from a conventional treatment of the subject matter.
Titles in the Series:
African Philosophy, by Pascah Mungwini
A Practical Guide to World Philosophies, by Monika Kirloskar-
Steinbach and Leah Kalmanson
Daya Krishna and Twentieth-Century Indian Philosophy,
by Daniel Raveh
Māori Philosophy, by Georgina Tuari Stewart
Philosophy of Science and the Kyoto School, by Dean Anthony Brink
Tanabe Hajime and the Kyoto School, by Takeshi Morisato
The Zen Buddhist Philosophy of D. T. Suzuki, by Rossa Ó Muireartaigh
The Zen Buddhist Philosophy of
D. T. Suzuki
Strengths, Foibles, Intrigues, and
Precision
Rossa Ó Muireartaigh
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First published in Great Britain 2022
Copyright © Rossa Ó Muireartaigh, 2022
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In memory of my father, Pat Murtagh (1937-2021)
vi
Contents
Series Editor’s Preface viii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Self 13
2 Knowledge 43
3 World 81
Conclusion 121
Translations
The Place of Peace in Our Heart (安心立命の地-1894) 127
Religion and Science (宗敎と科學-1949) 146
Notes 158
Bibliography 170
Index 176
Series Editor’s Preface
The introductions we include in the World Philosophies series take
a single thinker, theme, or text and provide a close reading of them.
What defines the series is that these are likely to be people or traditions
that you have not yet encountered in your study of philosophy. By
choosing to include them, you broaden your understanding of ideas
about the self, knowledge, and the world around us. Each book
presents unexplored pathways into the study of world philosophies.
Instead of privileging a single philosophical approach as the basis of
comparison, each book accommodates the many different dimensions
of cross-cultural philosophizing. While the choice of terms used by the
individual volumes may indeed carry a local inflection, they encourage
critical thinking about philosophical plurality. Each book strikes a
balance between locality and globality.
The Zen Buddhist Philosophy of D.T. Suzuki: Strengths, Foibles,
Intrigues, and Precision offers a novel interpretation of D.T. Suzuki’s
unique Zen-inflected philosophy. Endorsing a renewed engagement
with this philosophy, Ó Muireartaigh offers arguments to critically
evaluate—and appreciate—key aspects of Suzuki’s work on Zen.
Furthermore, The Zen Buddhist Philosophy of D.T. Suzuki provides
translations of Suzuki’s essays “Religion and Science” (1949) and
“The Place of Peace in Our Heart” (1894). Both these hitherto
untranslated essays complement Ó Muireartaigh’s analysis of Suzuki’s
rich ruminations about the self, the world, and the teleological role of
philosophy.
Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach
Acknowledgments
First of all, I would like to thank Morisato Takeshi and Monika
Kirloskar-Steinbach for making this book possible. I am also grateful
to all the editors, advisors, and anonymous reviewers at Bloomsbury
for their assistance.
My knowledge of Zen and D. T. Suzuki has grown over many years,
fertilized in large part by conversations and instruction from teachers,
colleagues, and friends who are too many to name. But they include:
John Walsh, Patrick Hubbuck, Akitoshi Nagahata, Michael Cronin,
Francis Jones, Morihiko Isono, Tetsuya Isobe, Kumiko Yamada, Jim
Heisig, Joe O’Leary, Wolfgang Schirmacher, Mark Daniel Cohen, Shane
O’Grady, Donnacha Ó Beacháin, Declan Donnelly, Peadar Hannigan,
Martin Naughton, Paul Delahunty, and Sean McKeon.
Thanks too to my family for their constant support.
I am grateful also to the students at Aichi Prefectural University and
all the other universities where I have taught for helping me talk through
so many of the ideas I present here. And finally, thank you to all my
wonderful comrades in the European Network of Japanese Philosophy
(ENOJP) who remind me each time we meet in conference that there is
no greater joy than discussing and learning in good company.
Any errors in the text remain the fault of my non-existent selfhood.
