A Zen Life—D.T. Suzuki

A Buddhist Film Society
Fiscal Sponsored Film

“He’s probably the most culturally significant Japanese person, in international terms, in all of history.” –Gary Snyder

Winner of the Chris Award in Religion, 2006
– Columbus International Film & Video Festival

Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (1870–1966) was one of the 20th century’s most important writers and thinkers. During his long and extraordinarily fruitful life Suzuki became the first voice of Japanese Buddhism, especially Zen, to the Western world. He traveled and lectured around the world and has had a major impact on religious, artistic and philosophical thinking that continues to this day.

D.T. Suzuki’s landmark books, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (1934) and Zen and Japanese Culture (1959) changed the world of arts and letters profoundly. More than thirty of his books remain in print.

A Zen Life is the first documentary film to present the extraordinary life of D.T. Suzuki. This vivid portrait of the man and his times includes rare footage of Suzuki himself and reminiscences by many whose lives and thinking he influenced, including poet Gary Snyder, religious philosopher Huston Smith, author Donald Richie, psychiatrist Albert Stunkard, and Suzuki’s long-time assistant Mihoko Okamura and many others.

Numerous important figures of the 20th century acknowledged Suzuki’s impact on their work and thought including Carl Jung, Erich Fromm, Martin Heidegger, Merce Cunningham, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, John Cage, and Alan Watts.

A film by Michael Goldberg
Japan Inter-Culture Foundation

Bonus Features:

• 32 page Supplementary Text which includes quotes from Dr. Suzuki’s lectures published for the first time
• SPECIAL FEATURE: A recently discovered filmed interview of Dr. Suzuki by Huston Smith, 1955

77 minutes / Color / English and Japanese (English subtitles) / NTSC /
SRP $40

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