Reading Summary - "Suzuki Sensei's Zen Spirit" by Shosan Victoria Austin.
REL 508 - Buddhism and Women - Winter 2003
Johnnie Mazzocco

In this essay, Victoria Austin writes about her experience and training with Suzuki Sensei, the widow of Suzuki Roshi, a Japanese Zen priest who wished to teach Zen in America.

Austin writes about her journey and how Suzuki Sensei taught her the way of Zen through tea ceremony.

Austin learned to conduct the tea ceremony with "presence and dignity" (212). She writes: "As I practiced her corrections and imitated her example, eventually I realized that the difficulty had become a challenge and the foreignness, a broader perspective" (212).

Austin quotes Suzuki Sensei:

The most important principle of tea ceremony is tranquility, quietness, nonattachment to the world, and it can be summarized as no false thoughts.
In establishing a company, the host and guest work together to build up the occasion of a single meeting, a particular occasion that will never occur again in one's whole life.
The master said, "Make tea so that it tastes good. Place the charcoal so that the water boils, and arrange the flowers to suit the flowers. Keep cool in summer and warm in winter. There is no other secret than this."
The way of tea is the way of knowing contentment.

As Austin writes, the point of learning the way of tea is to "bring out the meaning and depth of ordinary life" (213), i.e., it is important to practice Zen spirit when performing tasks we generally think of as mundane, doing so mindfully and in silence. Accomplishing this is a bit of a paradox; as Suzuki Sensei told Austin: "It is simple, but simple is not easy" (214).

Austin also quotes Suzuki Roshi, who spoke of this "lonely travel through life" in terms of wabi and sabi, "Japanese cultural terms of primary importance that literally mean 'lonesome' or 'monotonous.' He says:

In the strict sense, wabi and sabi mean reality which does not belong to any category of subjectivity or objectivity, simple or fancy. However, it is this reality which makes subjective and objective observation possible, and not only possible but perfect, and which makes everything simple or fancy able to come home to our heart. In the realm of wabi or sabi, even in one drop of dew you will see the whole universe. (215)

Austin writes that Suzuki Sensei lived her husband's words:

In the world of wabi and sabi, there is no attempt, no attainment, no anger, joy, sorrow, or any waves of mind of this kind whatsoever. Each existence in this world is the world of subjective self-training and objective pure and direct understanding. . .
The savor of fruits comes home to our heart, and confirmation of reality takes place. We observe falling flowers at their best. By repeating this kind of direct experience, one may have calm and deep understanding of life, and deliverance from it, like a traveling monk who has full appreciation of everything, and is nonetheless completely detached from it. (216)

Austin concludes by writing this of Suzuki Sensei: "And this was her practice and its fruit: her hands on a tea bowl, the appreciation of a moment as it happens and before it's already gone, and the ability to let go" (216).