D. T. Suzuki on the Unconscious in Zen Art Meditation and Enlightenment

<p><b>A comprehensive study of D. T. Suzuki's Zen philosophy and philosophical psychology in relation to his Buddhist understanding of the cosmic Unconscious.</b></p><p>This book explores how the Japanese philosopher D. T. Suzuki (1870-1966) developed an integral synthesis of Eastern and Western sources to establish a modern philosophical psychology of the cosmic Unconscious which he in turn used as the basis to interpret every aspect of Zen art meditation and enlightenment. Beyond Freud's personal unconscious and Jung's collective unconscious according to Suzuki is the cosmic Unconscious of Zen which as absolute nothingness is the fountain of inexhaustible creative potentialities and the source of all Zen-inspired arts. The book demonstrates that like the Kyoto School of modern Japanese philosophy Suzuki's Zen endeavors to overcome the existential problem of nihilism or relative nothingness by shifting to the openness of absolute nothingness wherein emptiness is fullness and all things are disclosed in the evanescent beauty of their suchness. Suzuki however formulates his scheme in terms of a depth psychology where the cosmic Unconscious is the encompassing locus of absolute nothingness. Ultimately the book argues that by integrating both Eastern and Western views of the unconscious psyche including the different schools of Zen and Mahayana Buddhism as well as American French and German theories of the unconscious Suzuki's Zen concept of the cosmic Unconscious constitutes a significant original contribution to philosophical psychology.</p>