The Supreme Spiritual Ideal

- By Daisetz T. Suzuki

Note: When I read this article, I felt like returning my home – the very original place. If we touch the core of our life, as Daisetz expressed in this speech, we may find our life vibrant, liberated, and without lie. The original is found from p.107-112 of the book, The Awakening of Zen. (Shambhala Dragon Editions) Although I tried not to make any mistake, it is possible that there were errors made in the copying process. - Kio Suzaki (5/7/03)

In July, l9 Sir Francis Younghusband convened in London a World Congress of Faiths which, in a fortnight’s hard work of discussions, punctuated by public meetings and ensuing questions, hammered out, with remarkable goodwill, the common ground of some seven religions.

At the Queen’s Hall on July 9th, one of the speakers was Dr. D. T. Suzuki, and many who later discussed with me that memorable evening made the same remark, that all they remembered was his speech. The theme was no less than The Supreme Spiritual Ideal, and this would not do for a master of Zen with little liking for generalities. As I noted in my diary at the time, “he seemed to be dozing when roused by the Chairman for his contribution. Then with his soft and gentle voice he reached up, as it were, and brought the subject down to earth, where the heart may understand it and the hands make use of it.” Here it is, taken from a large volume of the proceedings published by Watkins in 1937 as Faiths and Fellowship and republished by courtesy of the present Society in Norfolk Square—Ed.

When I was first asked to talk about the Supreme Spiritual Ideal I did not exactly know what to answer. Firstly, I am just a simple-minded country-man from a far-away corner of the world suddenly thrust into the midst of this hustling city of London, and I am bewildered and my mind refuses to work in the same way that it does when I am in my own land. Secondly, how can a humble person like myself talk about such a grand thing as the Supreme Spiritual Ideal, and this before such a grand assembly of people, everyone of whom looks to me to be so wise and intelligent, knowing everything that is under the sun? I am ashamed that I have somehow been made to stand here. The first mistake was committed when I left Japan.

Let me tell you how I lived before I came to London. In my country we have straw-thatched houses. Japanese houses are mostly little. Well, still in the country you see many such straw houses, and mine is one of them. I get up in the morning with the chirping of the birds. I open windows which look right into the garden. Japanese windows are quite different from your English windows. English windows are somewhat like holes made in the walls, but Japanese windows are a combination of English windows and walls. So when Japanese windows are opened, one side of the house is entirely taken away. The house itself opens right into the garden. There is no division between the house and the garden; but here a house is quite separate. A house stands by itself, and so does its occupant. Its occupant is separated from his or her surroundings altogether. There is nature, here I am; you are you, I am I; so there does not seem to be any connection between those two—nature, natural surroundings, and the occupants of the house.

So by opening Japanese windows, the house continues into the garden. And I can look at the trees quite easily, not as I look from the English window—that is a kind of peeping out into the garden. I just see the trees growing from the ground. And when I look at those trees growing right from the ground, I seem to feel something mysterious which comes from the trees and from the mother earth itself. And I seem to be living with them, and they in me and with me. I do not know whether this communion be called spiritual or not. I have no time to call it anything, I am just satisfied. Then there is the little pond, a little lower down the garden. I hear the fish occasionally leaping out of the pond as though they were altogether too happy, and could not stay contented swimming in the pond. Are they? I do not know, but I somehow feel they are very very happy indeed. Just as we dance when we are filled with joy, so the fish are surely dancing. Do they also get something from the element in which they live and have their being? What is this something, after all, which seems to be so stirred in my own self, as I listen to the dancing of the fish in the pond?

Then this is the time for the lotuses to bloom. The pond is filled with them, and my imagination travels far out to the other end of the globe. When I talk like this, do you think I am dreaming in the middle of this big city? Perhaps, I am. But my dream, I feel somehow, is not altogether an idle one. Could not there be in these things of which I am dreaming something of eternal and universal value? These huge buildings I see about me are really great work, grand human achievements, no doubt.

I had a similar feeling when I visited China and was confronted with the Great Wall, of which you have perhaps heard. Are they, however, of eternal duration, as I like to say my dreams are? Let the earth shake a little. Here in this part of the earth, fortunately, it does not seem to shake so frequently as it does in Japan. But let it shake for once. Well, I wonder what would be the result? I can see that result. I even refuse to think of it. But some time ago in an American magazine a certain writer wrote about the ruins of the city of New York when possible future explorers will try to locate where certain of the highest buildings in the world—they call them skyscrapers, don’t they—which are now standing in New York would have been. But I will not go on any more with this kind of talk; I must stop dreaming, though it is very pleasant.

Let me awake and face actualities. But what are those actualities I am facing now?— not you, not this building, not the microphone, but this Supreme Spiritual Ideal, those high-sounding words. They come from me. I can’t be any longer dreaming of anything. I must make my mind come back to this subject, the Supreme Spiritual Ideal. But I really do not know what Spiritual is, what Ideal is, what Supreme Spiritual Ideal is. I do not seem to be able to comprehend exactly the true significance of these three words, placed so conspicuously before me.

Here in London I come out of the hotel where I am staying. I see in the streets so many men and women walking - or rather, running hurriedly, for to my mind they don’t seem to be walking; they seem to be really running. It may not be quite correct to say so, but it seems to me so. And then their expressions are more or less strained, their facial muscles are contracted intensely; they could be more easily relaxed. The roads are riddled with all kinds of vehicles, buses, cars, and other things; they seem to be running in a constant stream—in a constant, ceaseless stream—and I don’t know when I can step into that constantly flowing stream of vehicles. The shops are decorated with all kinds of things,

most of which I don’t seem to need in my little straw-thatched house. When I see all these things, I cannot help wondering where the so-called modern civilized people are ultimately going. What is their destiny? Are they in the pursuit of the Supreme Spiritual Ideal? Are their intense expressions somehow symbolic of their willingness to look into the spirituality of things? Are they really going to spread this spirituality into the farthest end of the globe? I do not know. I cannot answer.

Now let me see, spirituality is generally contrasted to the material ideal to actual or practical, and supreme to commonplace. If when we talk about the Supreme Spiritual Ideal, does it really mean to do away with what seems to be material, not idealistic but practical and prosaic, not supreme but quite commonplace—this our everyday life in this big city? When we talk about spirituality, do we have to do away with all these things? Does spirituality signify something quite apart from what we see around here? I do not think this way of talking, dividing spirit from matter and matter from spirit, a very profitable way of looking at things about us. As to this dualistic and spirit, I made some references to it in my little speech the other day.

In point of fact, matter and spirit are one, or rather they represent two sides of one reality. The wise will try to take hold of the reality, the shield itself, instead of just looking at this side or that side of it, known sometimes as matter and sometimes as spirit. For when the material side alone is taken hold of, there will be nothing spiritual in matter. When the spiritual side alone is emphasized, matter will have to be altogether ignored. The result in either case is onesidedness, the crippling of reality, which ought to be kept whole and wholesome, too. When our minds are properly adjusted and are able to grasp the reality which is neither spirit nor matter and yet which is, of course spirit and matter, I venture to say that with all its materiality, London is supremely spiritual; and further, when our minds are crookedly adjusted, all the monasteries and temples, all the cathedral and all the ecclesiastic orders in connection with them, all the holy places with their holy

paraphernalia, with all their devout worshippers, with everything that goes in the name of religion, I venture to say again are nothing but materiality, heaps of dirt, sinks of corruption.

To my mind, the material is not to be despised, and the spiritual is not always to be exalted – I mean anything which goes in the name of spiritual, but things that pride themselves on the name of spiritual. Such things are not always to be exalted. Those who talk about spirituality are sometimes men of violent nature, while amongst those who have amassed large fortunes and seem ever to be inclined toward things material we often find the highest and biggest souls, stepped in spirituality. But the main difficulty is how can I bring my-straw-thatched house right into the midst of these solidly built-up London walls? And how can I construct my humble hut right in the midst of this Oxford Circus? How can I do that in the confusion of cars, buses, and all kinds of conveyances? How can I listen to the singing of the birds, and also leaping of the fish? How can one turn all the showings of the shop window displays into the freshness of the green leaves swayed by the morning breeze? How am I to find the naturalness, artlessness, utter self-abandonment of nature in the utmost artificiality of human works? This is the great problem set before us these days.

Again, I do not know about the Supreme Spiritual Ideal. But as I am forced to face this so-called materiality of modern civilization, I have to make some comments on it. As long as man is the work of nature and even the work of God, what he does, what he makes, cannot altogether be despised as material and contrasted to the so-called spiritual. Somehow it must be material-spiritual or spiritual-material with a hyphen between these two terms—spiritual not divided from material, material not severed from spiritual, but both combined, as we read, with a hyphen. I do not like to make references to such concepts as objectivity and subjectivity, but for lack of a suitable term, just at this moment let me say this. If the spiritual-material, linked with a hyphen, cannot be found objectively, let us find it in our subjective minds and work it out so as to transform the entire world in accordance with it.

Let me tell you how this was worked out by an ancient master. His name was Yoshu, and the monastery in which he used to live was noted for its natural stone bridge. Monasteries are generally built in the mountains, and this place where Yoshu used to reside was noted for its stone bridge over the rapids. One day a monk came to the master and asked: “This place is very well-known for its natural stone bridge, but as I come here I don’t see any stone bridge. I just see a rotten piece of board, a plank. Where is your bridge, pray tell me, O master?” That was a question given to the master and the master now answered this way: “You only see that miserable rickety plan and don’t see the stone bridge?” The disciple said: “Where is the stone bridge then?” And this is the master’s answer: “Horses pass over it, donkeys pass over it, cats and dogs. . . .“ (Excuse me if I add a little more than the master actually said.) “Cats and dogs, tigers and elephants pass over it, men and women, the poor and the rich, the young and the old, the humble and the noble (any amount of those opposites might be enumerated); Englishmen, perhaps Japanese, Muslims, Christians; spirituality and materiality, the ideal and the practical, the supreme and the most commons place things. They all pass over it, even you, O monk, who

refuse to see it, are really walking over it quite nonchalantly; and above all you are not thankful for it at all. You do not say, ‘I thank you’ for crossing over the bridge. What good is this stone bridge then? Do we see it? Are we walking on it? The bridge does not cry out and say: ‘I am your supreme spiritual ideal.’ The stone bridge lies flat and goes on silently from the beginningless past to the endless future.”

I must stop here. Thank you for your kind attention to my Japanese English. I expect you have done your best to understand me. Then the kindness must be mutual, and in this mutuality of kindness, do we not seize a little glimpse of what we call Spiritual World Fellowship?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: If there is any reader of my book, Results from the Heart, finding that there is some theme in common to the above speech of Daisetz, I am hopeful that the “mission” we have on earth is based on the bridge Daisetz talked at the end of this speech. Good day, good life! - Kio Suzaki