What do you think?
Rate this book
The Awakening of Zen
This collection of essays and lectures by D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966) covers a wide range, from Mahayana Buddhism generally and the Zen school in particular, to Japanese art and culture, to the relationship between Zen Buddhism and Western psychology. Suzuki, whose work has had a profound and lasting influence, communicates his insights clearly and energetically. The clarity of his presentation makes The Awakening of Zen a book for novice and scholar alike.
136 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
11 people are currently reading
270 people want to read
About the author
D.T. Suzuki
325 books453 followersDaisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (鈴木 大拙 貞太郎 Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō; rendered "Daisetz" after 1893) was Professor of Buddhist philosophies at Ōtani University. As a translator and writer on Buddhism and Eastern philosophy, he greatly helped to popularize Japanese Zen in the West.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 7, 2018
Leer sobre John Cage me trajo a DT Suzuki, leer DT Suzuki me lleva a Meister Eckhart, y así... Es hermoso este libro, y es hermoso el Zen.
March 16, 2014
“Westerners talk about conquering Nature and never about befriending her. They climb a high mountain and they declare the mountain is conquered. They suceed in shooting a certain type of projectile heavenwards and then claim that they have conquered the air. (…) Those who are power-intoxicated fail to see that power is blinding and keeps them within an ever-narrowing horizon. Love, however, transcends power because, in its penetration into the core of reality, far beyond the finiteness of the intellect, it is infinity itself. Without love one cannot see the infinely expanding network of relationships which is reality. Or, we may reverse this and say that without the infinite network of reality we can never experience love in its true light.
To conclude: Let us first realize the fact that we thrive only when we are co-operative by being alive to the truth of interrelationship of all things in existence. Let us then die to the notion of power and conquest and be resurrected to the eternal creativity of love which is all-embracing and all-forgiving. As love flows out of rightly seeing reality as it is, it is also love that makes us feel that we – each of us individually and all of us collectively – are responsible for whatever things, good or evil, go on in our human community, and we must therefore strive to ameliorate or remove whatever conditions are inimical to the universal advancement of human welfare and wisdom.”
(D. T. Suzuki, Love and Power, pg. 70)
See more at: http://awestruckwanderer.wordpress.co...
To conclude: Let us first realize the fact that we thrive only when we are co-operative by being alive to the truth of interrelationship of all things in existence. Let us then die to the notion of power and conquest and be resurrected to the eternal creativity of love which is all-embracing and all-forgiving. As love flows out of rightly seeing reality as it is, it is also love that makes us feel that we – each of us individually and all of us collectively – are responsible for whatever things, good or evil, go on in our human community, and we must therefore strive to ameliorate or remove whatever conditions are inimical to the universal advancement of human welfare and wisdom.”
(D. T. Suzuki, Love and Power, pg. 70)
See more at: http://awestruckwanderer.wordpress.co...
June 17, 2020
This book is an insightful and pointed read. Suzuki is successful at directly portraying the core essence of Zen, including its relation to Chinese and Indian philosophy, without overly mystifying the subject at hand, which is the fault of most western authors. Zen is a rather difficult subject to speak upon, as it’s said “that those who know do not speak, and those who speak do not know”. Zen isn’t as much as a philosophy as it is an experience. And being an experience, it’s not accurately portrayed when western academia logically categorizes it’s tenets. This is the anti-thesis of Zen. Suzuki adequately takes the middle ground, between that of a western scholarly outsider, and that of the practitioner who is instilled within the institutional-hierarchy of Zen. Overall, an enjoyable, insightful read for the beginner or advanced student of Zen practice.
October 21, 2010
To review this book in the most Zen way I am able, would be to simply say... upon finishing the book I was hungry, so I ate a muffin.
July 12, 2018
Now that I have dealt with Blaise Pascal, Jean-Luc Marion, and Henri de Lubac, S.J., it was for me very timely to once again return to my Japanese Philosophy through Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki. And reading him actually makes more sense. I can see how religious traditions converge but at the same time differentiate themselves against each other, toward a greater understanding of the relation between the human person and that which infinitely transcends him/her.
April 2, 2019
The second time through this book was a wonderful experience. This collection of DT Suzuki's talks on Zen is quite old, but worth its weight in gold.
August 18, 2025
BOOK REVIEW - Awakening of Zen, by D.T. Suzuki (02.25.81)
I read this book shortly after reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Not because I thought the former had much to do with Zen but because I was intrigued by the philosophy of Zen. Suzuki’s Awakening of Zen represents the mature thought of one of the most influential figures in bringing Zen Buddhism to the West. The book condenses Suzuki’s decades of scholarship and personal experience into a presentation that is at once philosophically rigorous and deeply practical.
At the heart of Suzuki’s work is the insistence that Zen is not a doctrine, dogma, or system of belief, but rather a direct, lived experience of reality. This volume emphasizes the immediacy of Zen awakening, known as satori, which cannot be captured by intellectual explanation or ritual performance but only realized in one’s own mind and heart. Suzuki’s treatment of Zen combines clarity with paradox, reminding readers that Zen defies neat categories and demands a leap beyond conceptual thinking.
Key concepts include:
• Direct experience over theory - Zen bypasses intellectualization; it is “a finger pointing at the moon,” and not the explanation of the moon itself.
• The function of koans - Rather than puzzles to be solved, koans are transformative devices designed to exhaust the rational mind and awaken intuitive insight.
• Satori as the turning point - Awakening is not a gradual accumulation of knowledge but a breakthrough experience that collapses subject and object into pure awareness.
• Ordinary life as enlightenment - Enlightenment is not separate from daily tasks; Zen teaches that chopping wood and carrying water are themselves the arena of awakening.
In the end, Awakening of Zen is not only a window into the philosophy and practice of Zen but also a window into Suzuki himself. His lifelong contribution lay in translating the language of Zen for Western readers without reducing its depth. He managed to make Zen accessible while preserving its challenge, showing that enlightenment is not a distant goal but the awakening to reality in the here and now. By the time this book was published, Suzuki was in his eighties, and his ability to distill Zen into simple yet profound expressions reflects a lifetime of engagement.
Quotes:
“Zen is not a system of philosophy, nor a religion in the ordinary sense of the term. It does not rely on words, for words are at best a pointer. Zen is the direct grasp of Reality itself. The truth is grasped when there is no separation between subject and object, when the mind is free from the tyranny of dualistic thinking. In that moment there is no longer an observer and a thing observed—there is only the clear fact of Being itself.”
“When a man seeks satori as if it were some extraordinary vision, he has already missed the point. Satori is not apart from chopping wood or carrying water, from sweeping the floor or boiling the rice. What makes the act different is the awakened awareness with which it is carried out. Zen liberates us to see into the very marrow of daily life, where the distinction between the sacred and the profane dissolves, and we find ourselves living each moment as complete in itself.”
I read this book shortly after reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Not because I thought the former had much to do with Zen but because I was intrigued by the philosophy of Zen. Suzuki’s Awakening of Zen represents the mature thought of one of the most influential figures in bringing Zen Buddhism to the West. The book condenses Suzuki’s decades of scholarship and personal experience into a presentation that is at once philosophically rigorous and deeply practical.
At the heart of Suzuki’s work is the insistence that Zen is not a doctrine, dogma, or system of belief, but rather a direct, lived experience of reality. This volume emphasizes the immediacy of Zen awakening, known as satori, which cannot be captured by intellectual explanation or ritual performance but only realized in one’s own mind and heart. Suzuki’s treatment of Zen combines clarity with paradox, reminding readers that Zen defies neat categories and demands a leap beyond conceptual thinking.
Key concepts include:
• Direct experience over theory - Zen bypasses intellectualization; it is “a finger pointing at the moon,” and not the explanation of the moon itself.
• The function of koans - Rather than puzzles to be solved, koans are transformative devices designed to exhaust the rational mind and awaken intuitive insight.
• Satori as the turning point - Awakening is not a gradual accumulation of knowledge but a breakthrough experience that collapses subject and object into pure awareness.
• Ordinary life as enlightenment - Enlightenment is not separate from daily tasks; Zen teaches that chopping wood and carrying water are themselves the arena of awakening.
In the end, Awakening of Zen is not only a window into the philosophy and practice of Zen but also a window into Suzuki himself. His lifelong contribution lay in translating the language of Zen for Western readers without reducing its depth. He managed to make Zen accessible while preserving its challenge, showing that enlightenment is not a distant goal but the awakening to reality in the here and now. By the time this book was published, Suzuki was in his eighties, and his ability to distill Zen into simple yet profound expressions reflects a lifetime of engagement.
Quotes:
“Zen is not a system of philosophy, nor a religion in the ordinary sense of the term. It does not rely on words, for words are at best a pointer. Zen is the direct grasp of Reality itself. The truth is grasped when there is no separation between subject and object, when the mind is free from the tyranny of dualistic thinking. In that moment there is no longer an observer and a thing observed—there is only the clear fact of Being itself.”
“When a man seeks satori as if it were some extraordinary vision, he has already missed the point. Satori is not apart from chopping wood or carrying water, from sweeping the floor or boiling the rice. What makes the act different is the awakened awareness with which it is carried out. Zen liberates us to see into the very marrow of daily life, where the distinction between the sacred and the profane dissolves, and we find ourselves living each moment as complete in itself.”
November 13, 2022
Interesante, sobre todo la relación entre arte japones y budismo zen. Creo que en los ultimos 3 capitulos se pierde mucho. Además, se nota mucho que una de las labores del autor era dar conferencias sobre budismo a occidentales, porque intenta unir conceptos de budismo y cristianismo constantemente, lo cual no me ha molado mucho.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews