By John S. Haller, professor of history and medical humanities, emeritus, Southern Illinois University
According to the Pew Research Center, Buddhism is practiced by approximately five hundred million people, or roughly 7 percent of the worldโs population. Current estimates place the number in the United States at three to four million, with an additional undefined secularized population who identify with numerous nonreligious aesthetic and presumably healthy โZenโ products and practices ranging from lotions, foods, and lay meditation to minimalist architecture and music. In its diversityโboth at home and abroadโBuddhism has managed to remain conspicuously free from the associations with violence or religious fanaticism that come hand-in-hand with current media reports on terrorism.
One element often overlooked in the history of Buddhismโs rise in the United States is its connection with Swedenborgianism, particularly in the aftermath of the Worldโs Parliament of Religions in 1893. This connection came by way of Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (1870โ1966), a Zen Buddhist who spent eleven years with Paul Carus of the Open Court Publishing Company in LaSalle, Illinois, as Carusโs assistant editor and translator of Buddhist and Hindu texts. Carus published thirty-eight books on Buddhism, including the widely popular The Gospel of Buddhaย (1894), a compilation of tracts favored by reform-minded Buddhists in the United States and abroad. In assessing the relationship between Carus and Suzuki, historian Carl T. Jackson wrote, โIf Suzukiโs work had been one of the important bridges to the Westโs modern understanding of Buddhism, Carus must be accounted one of the chief engineers.โ
When asked about the similarities between Buddhism and Swedenborgianism during a meeting with religious scholars Henry Corbin and Mircea Eliade, Suzuki reportedly responded,ย โFor you Westerners, it is Swedenborg who is your Buddha; itย is he who should be read and followed!ย He isย โyour Buddha of the North.โโย With the perceptual lens of someone trained as a Zen Buddhist who had studied Americaโs literary and intellectual history, including the transcendentalism of Emerson and the pragmatic theories of William James and Charles Sanders Peirce, Suzuki found the ideas and concepts in the canon of Swedenborgโs writings similar to those already integral to American thought and culture, and appealing as well to his own belief system.
In 1913, Suzuki wrote Suedenborugu, a biographical overview of Swedenborgโs spiritual vision; his character and lifestyle; his views of heaven, love, and correspondence; and numerous parallels with Buddhist philosophy. (This work was translated in the volume Swedenborg: Buddha of the Northย published by the Swedenborg Foundation.) He focused on the Swedeโs concept of proprium, or lifeโs loves, which he compared to the Buddhist teaching of expedient means and the freedom to do evil through โthe attachment to selfโ; the term salvation,ย meaning the โharmonious unification of belief and actionโ; the Divine that manifested itself in the form of wisdom and love; and the actions of life considered ontologically or providentially based (i.e., there is no such thing as a chance universe). Though Suedenborugu resembled at times a travelogue of Swedenborgโs life and writings, Suzuki dispersed poignant observations that revealed his innermost fascination with the Seer.ย Whether quoting the adage โWill, namely love, makes the manโ from Heaven and Hellย or recounting elements of Swedenborgโs philosophy such as the law of correspondences, the analysis of degrees, or the explanation of the relationship between love and wisdom to the heart and lungs, respectively; Suzuki made clear the manifest nature of divine providence in these writings.ย The same was true for the presence of evil and falsehood in the world, the rationality and freedom of the human mind, the laws of divine providence, or the purpose of creation and the realization of its โuses.โ He interpreted Swedenborgโs accounts as the narratives of a wizened old man attempting to disentangle the mysteries of life and beyondโa mindโs eye response to lifeโs paradoxesโusing stories that would delight both the child and the adult. Swedenborgโs narratives had โan air of sincerity and honesty about themโ that, without embellishment, struck a chord with individuals the world over who were seeking answers to questions that came from the heart. โOne does not have to believe in all of Swedenborgโs claims,โ cautioned Suzuki, โbut one also cannot say that there are not diamonds in the rough.โ
In 1924, Suzuki published Suedenborugu: Sono Tenkai to Tarikikanย (Swedenborgโs View of Heaven and โOther Powerโ). In it, he remarked that while Swedenborgโs religious philosophy was โunfathomably deep,โ it nevertheless contained elements โdifficult to dismiss.โ In particular, Heaven and Hell contained profound comments regarding the state after death that helped to explain the selfย and its relationship to the Divine, specifically the concept that โnothing results from self-power; everything is achieved through the addition of divine power to oneself.โ This, Suzuki explained, indicated how remarkably similar Swedenborgโs philosophy was to Buddhism; indeed, they were complementary.
Suzuki not only appreciated Western-style spirituality through his reading of Swedenborg (he later turned to the German medieval mystic Meister Eckhart) but built a bridge between Western and Eastern traditions without distancing himself from his native roots. In effect, there was sufficient kinship with the Westโs own sojourn into spirituality that Suzukiโs philosophy was able to resonate as a positive contribution of Orientalism in the West. For those beginning to think in this manner, it was not too difficult to reflect on Gautamaโs constant admonishment to his disciples to be their own lamps and to work out their own salvationโa message relevant to both East and West.
Suggested Readings
Adele S. Algeo, โBeatrice Lane Suzuki: An American Theosophist in Japan,โย inย Quest 95, no. 1 (January-February 2007): 13โ17.
Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha (Chicago: Open Court, 1894).
Paul Carus, Religion of Science (Chicago: Open Court, 1893).
John Haller, The History of New Thought (West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2012).
Wakoh Shannon Hickey, โSwedenborg: A Modern Buddha?โย Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhistย Studiesย (Fall 2008), also inย https://www.shs.psr.edu/wsh%20swedenborg%20a%20modern%20buddha.pdfย (accessed December 9, 2015).
Carl T. Jackson,ย โD.T. Suzuki, โSuzuki Zen,โ and the American Reception of Zen Buddhism,โ in Gary Storhoff and John Whalen-Bridge, eds., American Buddhism as a Way of Lifeย (Albany: SUNY Press, 2010).
David McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Stephen Morris, โBuddhism and Christianity: The Meeting Place,โย Buddhist-Christian Studiesย 19 (1999), 19โ34.
D. T. Suzuki, Swedenborg: Buddha of the North (West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 1996).
Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell (Boston: Swedenborg Printing Bureau, 1907 [1758]).
Eugene Taylor, โSwedenborgian Roots of American Pragmatism: The Case of D.T. Suzuki,โ Studia Swedenborgiana 9 (May 1995). Seeย https://www.shs.psr.edu/studia/index.asp?article_id=129 (accessed December 9, 2015).
Visit our Swedenborg Studies bookstore page to explore our series of scholarly titles >