My Encounter with Daisetz T. Suzuki

Abstract

When I first met D. T. Suzuki to ask if I might study Buddhism under his instruction, he told me all I needed to do was become Namuamidabutsu itself. Looking back over the twenty-eight months I spent with him, I realised for the very first time the other day, a good forty-five years after his death, that for all those months, through the kindness of his deeds and actions, he had been leading me to the point where I would be able of my own accord to understand the true meaning of that puzzling injunction. A short while ago I suddenly recalled something he once said about himself, namely that he had no sincerity, and it came to me then just how profound his awareness of his own finite existence had been and how deeply his understanding of the Buddha-dharma had been united with his awareness of his own karmic existence. This brief talk, entitled My Encounter with D. T. Suzuki, is in every respect an expression of my profound gratitude to D. T. Suzuki for all he did for me during my stay with him from March 1964 to July 1966.