I've finished the book. Overall, I can see much in Zen Buddhism that can improve an individual's lifr. I've already voiced several things I feel it seems to miss, but perhaps the final lack is pointed out by Suzuki himself when he focuses on Japanese Zen's sense of "eternal loneliness" (Sabi or Wabi or Shibumi). Thomas Merton once remarked that Buddhist monasticism struck him as Christianity without Christ. I find that one lack to make all the difference. Back to my earlier discussion of Hinduism, this quality is why I've always found Ramanuja so much more congenial than Shankara. The incarnation is God's bridging of that lonely existential gap.
As a farewell, though, I'd like to dwell not on a lack, but on a beauty. The book ends with a tea ceremony with powerful evocations of some of what we seek in temple worship --
"Where a series of flagstones irregularly arranged comes to a stop, there stands a most insignificant-looking straw-thatched hut, low and unpretentious to the last degree. The entrance is not by a door but a sort of aperture; to enter through it a visitor has to be shorn of all his encumbrances, that is to say, to take off both his swords, long and short, which in feudal days a samurai used to carry all the time. The inside is a small semi-lighted room about ten feet square; the ceiling is low and of uneven height and structure. The posts are not smoothly planed, they are mostly of natural wood. After a little while, however, the room grows gradually lighter as our eyes begin to adjust themselves to the new situation. We notice an ancient looking kakemono in the alcove with some handwriting or a picture of sumiye type. An incense burner emits a fragrance which has the effect of soothing one's nerves. The flower vase contains no more than a single stem of flowers, neither gorgeous nor ostentatious; but like a little white lily blooming under a rock surrounded by in no way somber pines, the humble flower is enhanced in beauty and attracts the attention of the gathering of four or five visitors especially invited to sip a cup of tea in order to forget the worldly cares that may be oppressing them."
"Now we listen to the sound of boiling water in the kettle as it rests on a tripod frame over a fire in the square hole cut in the floor. The sound is not that of actually boiling water but comes from the heavy iron kettle, and it is most appropriately likened by the connoisseur to a breeze that passes through the pine grove. It greatly adds to the serenity of the room, for a man here feels as if he were sitting alone in a mountain-hut where a white cloud and the pine music are his only consoling companions."
"To take a cup of tea with friends in this environment, talking probably about the sumiye sketch in the alcove or some art topic suggested by the tea-utensils in the room, wonderfully lifts the mind above the perplexities of life. The warrior is saved from his daily occupation of fighting, and the business man from his ever-present idea of money-making. Is it not something, indeed, to find in this world of struggles and vanities a corner, however humble, where one can rise above the limits of relativity and even have a glimpse of eternity."
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