World of Ease

Posts Tagged ‘shunryu suzuki’

It might be possible to visit the city of San Francisco without coming in contact with its beatnik history, but there’s little reason to. It’s a fascinating part of all that the city has come to represent. Despite their reputation for excess and decadent living, they also can take at least some credit for the establishment of the famous San Francisco Zen Center . This is one of the most well-known in the country, and its origins stem from the Beat writers’ interest in Buddhism. Today, travelers will still come to town and stay at a San Francisco hotel in order to have access to the center.

So although the Beats’ interest lead to more serious Buddhist scholarship and practice in the area, it was really the work of Shunryu Suzuki who brought it to material light. He was a student all his life, and came to the city in 1959. Seeing a need for a more traditional approach, he opened the center. In part, this was to give practitioners a place to practice and learn in the traditional ways, but it was also a way of introducing the philosophy to the west. His teachings and books are widely known, and are considered to be some of the most accessible tracts in the area of Zen Buddhist studies.