Shunryu Suzuki

"Each of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way.  This is a mystery.  When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything."

Shunryu Suzuki
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Suzuki came to San Francisco in 1959, just before the "great awakening" of the 60's.  He founded the San Francisco Zen Center and the Tasajara Zen Mountain Center.  He is the second great introducer of Zen Buddhism to America.

"Two Suzukis.  A half century ago, in a transplant that has been likened in its historical importance to the Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century and of Plato in the Fifteenth, Daisetz Suzuki brought Zen to the West single-handed.  Fifty years later, Shunryu Suzuki did something almost as important.  He sounded exactly the follow-up note Americans interested in Zen needed to hear."

"Whereas Daisetz Suzuki's Zen was dramatic, Shunryu Suzuki's is ordinary.  Satori was focal for Daisetz, and it was in large part the fascination of this extraordinary state that made his writings so compelling.  In Shunryu Suzuki's book the words satori and kensho, its near equivalent, never appear."

Huston Smith
Preface
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind