The Buddha Eye : An Anthology of the Kyoto School and it's Comtemporaries (Spiritual Classics (Bloomington, Ind.).)

Taitetsu Unno, author of Shin Buddhism
"With the appearance of The Buddha Eye…a new era in Buddhist thought has been launched."


Journal of Asian Studies
"This anthology serves as an excellent introduction to the Suzuki version of Zen."


Book Description
Contains essays by many of the most important twentieth century Japanese philosophers, offering challenging and illumination insights into the nature of Reality as understood by the school of Zen.


From the Publisher
Publisher's Note One of the defining notes in the history of twentieth century philosophical and religious thought is the encounter of East and West; and especially the enormous influence of Buddhism on many Western thinkers, artists, and spiritual seekers. Within the Buddhist tradition, Zen has achieved a level of prominence which has brought it so deeply into the public consciousness that in the last twenty years one has begun to hear this word used in connection with all manner of activity as a kind of mysterious informing intuition which allows us to transcend all "otherness" and harmoniously express the inward nature of things in the face of everyday life. But what exactly is Zen and why have so many people, across so many ranges of human endeavor, become interested in its teachings? This book, edited by the renowned artist and author Dr. Frederick Franck, offers a multi-faceted jewel of an answer to these questions. First published in l982, it continues to shed light and provide insights into Zen and is especially well-suited to Western readers. Moreover, we feel that it has achieved the status of a classic work on the subject and that it should thus become required reading for all serious students of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and its influence upon Western thought. We should also add that the final section of the book—on Shin Buddhism, often outwardly viewed as a perspective at the very antipodes of Zen—could hardly be a better introduction to this little known, but widely practiced, school of Buddhism. The very fact that the editor has chosen to include selections on Shin underlines the important idea of the resolution of opposites, which is key to developing a true understanding of Zen. The essays in The Buddha Eye: An Anthology of the Kyoto School are taken from The Eastern Buddhist, certainly one of the most quietly influential journals to have appeared in the twentieth century. Founded in l921 by the now famous Suzuki Teitaro Daisetz, during the many decades of its life it has been a vehicle for seminal articles by many of the most important philosophers of Zen, including D.T. Suzuki, Nishitani Keiji, Abe Masao, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi and many others who regularly contributed to its pages. Their capacity to explain, both in terms of breadth and depth, the meaning of Zen in xi a language attuned to the Western ear is remarkable. Many of these authors entered into the broader debate surrounding such characteristically twentieth century concerns as the relationship between science and religion, the rising tide of secularism, and the spiritually erosive influence of the nihilism which cannot but arise from a world suffering under what Frithjof Schuon has called "the contradiction of relativism". For an excellent outline of the Kyoto School and its particular features the reader can do no better than turn to Dr. Franck’s beautiful Prologue, which forms an integral part of the content of this book. Nevertheless, it might be worthwhile to offer a word of explanation as to why a publisher that typically focuses on books relating to the Perennial Philosophy would decide to reprint this work. In his Prologue, Dr. Franck quotes D.T. Suzuki as writing somewhere in his voluminous works that "Zen is not a religion . . . Zen is religion". The search for the very nature of religion, for the fundamental meaning of wisdom, and for the heart of reality which is the Eternal Religion—the Sophia Perennis, or Sanatana Dharma—strikes at the central root of the reason why World Wisdom’s books exist. We continue to remain dedicated to publishing works which point to the inner unanimity, transforming radiance, and irreplaceable spiritual values of the great spiritual traditions. As an introduction to the knowledge of some of the most important exponents of Zen in the last one hundred years, we believe that this work will continue to enlighten countless minds for the next century and beyond. Barry McDonald


About the Author
Born in the Netherlands in 1909, Frederick Franck began his career as an oral surgeon before moving more seriously to his artistic pursuits in the 1930s. Between 1958-1961, he served as a doctor on the staff of renowned missionary and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer in Africa. In 1962 Franck was the only artist invited to draw all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council in Rome, and for his efforts he was awarded a medal by Pope John XXIII shortly before his death. Frederick Franck's sculpture and artwork are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, and other public and private collections. He is the author of over thirty books, including The Zen of Seeing (1973), and the award-winning Pacem in Terris: A Love Story (2000), as well as an editor of What Does it Mean to be Human (2001), recently translated into Spanish and Chinese. He was recently honored with the World Citizenship Award by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands knighted him Officer of Orange-Nassau in 1994.


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Contains essays by many of the most important twentieth century Japanese philosophers, offering challenging and illumination insights into the nature of Reality as understood by the school of Zen.


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