This workshop explores the cultural, religious, and intellectual legacy of Daisetz Teitaro (D. T.) Suzuki (1870-1966), the preeminent figure who introduced Zen and Mahayana Buddhism to the modern Western world. The invited scholars, curators, and practitioners reflect on Suzuki’s wide-ranging contributions and evaluate their enduring cross-cultural impact from various perspectives.

The program features a keynote address by Dr. Richard M. Jaffe, professor of religious studies at Duke University; an exhibition of rare Buddhist archives related to D. T. Suzuki from UCLA Library Special Collections; and a roundtable bringing together academic research, lived practice and community engagement.

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Co-sponsored by UCLA Library, UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies and UCLA Center for the Study of Religion

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Promoting Buddhism from West to East: D. T. Suzuki’s California Sojourns
Richard M. Jaffe, Department of Religious Studies, Duke University

“California is a really wonderful place. 
Nature combined with human care achieves wonders for us.” 
D. T. Suzuki to Charles Richard Crane, February 8, 1939)

Most studies of D. T. Suzuki’s time in the United States focus on his extended residencies in LaSalle, Illinois at the turn of the nineteenth–twentieth centuries and in New York City in the 1950s. California, however, due to its geographic location, particularly in the era before convenient transcontinental air travel and concentration of Japanese Americans, was a convenient way station and source of sustenance for Suzuki each time he traversed the American continent. In his address, Jaffee will explore Suzuki’s trips through, and extended stays in, California. Using archival documents, some housed in UCLA Library, he will highlight the many exchanges Suzuki had with Californians as he adapted his presentation of Buddhism for diverse American audiences.