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Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism Paperback – September 4, 2001
by Toshihiko Izutsu (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 13 ratings
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Toward a philosophy of Zen Buddhism

by Izutsu, Toshihiko, 1914-

Publication date 1977

Topics Zen Buddhism -- Philosophy

Publisher Tehran : Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy

Collection inlibrary; printdisabled; trent_university; internetarchivebooks

Digitizing sponsor Kahle/Austin Foundation

Contributor Internet Archive

Language English

xii, 259 p. ; 23 cm. --

Includes bibliographical references and index

The true man without any rank.--Two dimensions of ego consciousness.--Sense and nonsense in Zen Buddhism.--The philosophical problem of articulation.--Thinking and a-thinking through kōan.--The interior and exterior in Zen.--The elimination of color in Far Eastern art and photography

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Zen experience defies all thinking and linguistic description and simply affirms what is evidently real: "The ordinary way—that precisely is the Way." After questioning the nature of reality, the Zen student discovers that what remains is what is. Although it seems that Zen would not lend itself to philosophical discussion, that all conceptualization would dissolve in light of this empiricism, in this volume, the author demonstrates that the "silence" of Zen is in fact pregnant with words.

A variety of topics are discussed: the experience of satori, ego and egolessness, Zen sense and nonsense, koan practice, the influence of Zen on Japanese painting and calligraphy and much more.

Print length272 pages
PublisherShambhala
Publication dateSeptember 4, 2001

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover
Zen experience defies all thinking and linguistic description and simply affirms what is evidently real. "The ordinary way -- that precisely is the Way". After questioning the nature of reality, the Zen student discovers that what remains is what is. Although it seems that Zen would not lend itself to philosophical discussion, that all conceptualization would dissolve in light of this empiricism, in this volume, the author demonstrates that the "silence" of Zen is in fact pregnant with words.

A variety of topics are discussed: the experience of satori, ego and egolessness. Zen sense and nonsense, koan practice, the influence of Zen on Japanese painting and calligraphy and much more.
About the Author
Toshihiko Izutsu is Professor Emeritus at Keio University of Japan. He has been active in promoting transcultural dialogue in philosophy.

Product details
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Shambhala; Illustrated edition (September 4, 2001)

4.2 out of 5 stars 13 ratings

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4.2 out of 5 stars

Top reviews from the United States

PW108
5.0 out of 5 stars Profound and Illuminating Essays on the Essence of ZenReviewed in the United States on January 6, 2022
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This is the third book by Toshihiko Izutsu that I have had the pleasure of reading, and as it was with the others, I could not move on to another book without first taking time to leave a 5-star review for it. In my estimation, no list of the 20th century’s greatest philosopher-authors and/or religious scholars would be worth much without Professor Izutsu on it. The essays here, along with his other two texts that I have previously read (and appreciatively reviewed) — “Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts” and “Creation and the Timeless Order of Things: Essays in Islamic Mystical Philosophy” — have left me feeling that he was one of the most precise and eloquent writers on philosophy and religion that I have encountered.

This collection of seven essays, representing his talks and writings from the late 1960’s and early-mid 1970’s, are seamlessly woven together to provide the reader with a wide-ranging yet detailed look at Zen’s major philosophical themes and its greatest Masters, along with its famously bizarre mondos and koans, which are designed to foment Enlightenment.

In particular,

I found Essay #1, “The True Man Without Any Rank” with its descriptions of the egoic structure (along with the mind’s bifurcation of Nondual Existence into a dualistic, subject-object perception of reality) to be one of the best on this important topic that I have ever encountered.
Essay #4, “The Philosophical Problem of Articulation” provides the reader with an excellent examination of the inherent difficulties in utilizing language (which is unavoidably dualistic) to convey the ineffable and ultimately impossible to fully describe nature of Zen’s Satori, and the mystical experience in general.
Lastly, I found Essay # 5, “Thinking and A-Thinking Through Koan” and Essay #6, “The Interior and Exterior in Zen” to be fascinating deep dives into the nature of nondual awareness-experience and the inescapable considerations that go with it.

If you’re looking at this book, you are likely already familiar with Izutsu’s work, and therefore you don’t need me to tell you that his efforts to disseminate the essential tenets of Islam-Sufism, Taoism, and Zen Buddhism were top-of-the-line. However, if you’ve just found this book and are considering purchasing it, then I would say that if you have a sincere interest in what Professor Izutsu wrote about (in this case Zen), then this book will not disappoint. For anyone looking at furthering their conceptual understanding of Zen and its highly unique “technologies” for awakening its practitioners from the dream state of samsara, I am enthusiastically recommending “Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism.”

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GA Hans
5.0 out of 5 stars Clear, dense, full of ZenReviewed in the United States on May 7, 2019

More than philosophical, a logical approach to Zen. Toshihiko Izutsu has a wonderful, clear style of writing and explains Zen concepts that can be instantly grasped. One of the best books on Zen I have ever read! Right up there with D.T. Suzuki.

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Michael Hall
4.0 out of 5 stars Four StarsReviewed in the United States on August 4, 2015
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An excellent attempt to make Zen understandable in the context of western philosophical thought.

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Steven P. Champagne
5.0 out of 5 stars Philosophy of Zen BuddhismReviewed in the United States on February 16, 2008
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An extremely well written and well organized explanation in Western terms
of the processes of the Zen Buddhism experience. I highly recommend this book
to further your understanding of Zen.

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Human.Being.
5.0 out of 5 stars Profoundly enlightening and well-written.Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2015

Profound, brilliant, and insightful. Izutsu's work captures the quintessence of Being in a well-written and enlightened manner. If you are seeking Knowledge, then this is one of those books that will stay with you for life.

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly enjoyed reading this bookReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 6, 2017
Verified Purchase

Toshihiko Izutsu has done a marvelous job in explaining the nuts and bolts of Zen thought.
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

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Toshihiko Izutsu, The Theory of Beauty in The Classical Aesthetics of Japan-Springer Netherlands (1981) | PDF

Toshihiko Izutsu, Toyo Izutsu (Auth.) - The Theory of Beauty in The Classical Aesthetics of Japan-Springer Netherlands (1981) | PDF

Toshihiko Izutsu, Toyo Izutsu (Auth.) - The Theory of Beauty in The Classical Aesthetics of Japan

-Springer Netherlands (1981)

The Theory of Beauty in the Classical Aesthetics of Japan Kindle Edition

by T. Izutsu (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.0 out of 5 stars 1 rating

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The Japanese sense of beauty as actualized in innumerable works of art, both linguistic and non-linguistic, has often been spoken of as something strange to, and remote from, the Western taste.

It is, in fact, so radically different from what in the West is ordinarily associated with aesthetic experience that it even tends to give an impression of being mysterious, enigmatic or esoteric.

This state of affairs comes from the fact that there is a peculiar kind of metaphysics, based on a realization of the simultaneous semantic articulation of consciousness and the external reality, dominating the whole functional domain of the Japanese sense of beauty, without an understanding of which the so-called 'mystery' of Japanese aesthetics would remain incomprehensible.

The present work primarily purports to clarify the keynotes of the artistic experiences that are typical of Japanese culture, in terms of a special philosophical structure underlying them.

It consists of two main parts:

(1) Preliminary Essays, in which the major philosophical ideas relating to beauty will be given a theoretical elucidation, and

(2) a selection of Classical Texts representative of Japanese aesthetics in widely divergent fields of linguistic and extra-linguistic art such as the theories of waka-poetry, Noh play, the art of tea, and haiku. The second part is related to the first by way of a concrete illustration, providing as it does philological materials on which are based the philosophical considerations of the first part.

Toshihiko Izutsu - God and Man in The Quran | PDF | Abrahamic Religions | Religious Belief And Doctrine

Toshihiko Izutsu - God and Man in The Quran

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Toshihiko Izutsu - God and Man in The Quran. A study of words and concepts as used by The Quran. Linguistic analysis.

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Contents

Review by Fazlur Rahman vii

Preface xiii

1. Semantics and the Qur’an 1

I. Semantics of the Qur’an 1

II- Integration of Individual Concepts 4

ISBN 978 983 9154 38 2 in. ‘Basic’ Meaning and ‘Relational Meanings’ 11

2. Qur’anic Key-Terms in History 32

First published 1964 I- Synchronic and Diachronic Semantics 32

Keio University, Minatoku, IL The Qur’an and the Post-Qur’anic Systems 42

Tokyo, Japan

3. The Basic Structure of Qur’anic Weltanschauung 74

This new edition 2002 I- Preliminary Remark 74

First reprint 2004 II- God and Man 76

Second reprint 2008 HI- The Muslim Community 79

IV. The Unseen and the Visible 83

Published by V. The Present World and the Hereafter 86

Islamic Book Trust VI. Eschatological Concepts 91

607 Mutiara Majestic

Jalan Othman 4. Allah 100

46000 Petaling Jaya I. The Word Allah, Its ‘Basic’ and ‘Relational’ Meanings 100

Malaysia II. The Concept of Allah in Arabian Paganism 106

Website: wwwAbtbooks.com HI- The Jews and the Christians 111

IV. The Judeo-Christian Concept of Allah in the

Islamic Book Trust is affiliated to The Other Press. Hands of the Pagan Arabs 115

V. Allah of the HanTfs 117

Cover design 5. Ontological Relation Between God and Man 127

Habibur Rahman Jalaluddin I. The Concept of Creation 127

II. Human Destiny 130

6. Communicative Relation Between God and Man:

Non-linguistic Communication 142

Printed by I. The ‘Signs’ of God 142

Academe Art & Printing Services II. Divine Guidance 150

Kuala Lumpur III. The Worship as a Means of Communication 158

7. Communicative Relation Between God and Man:

Linguistic Communication 163

I. God’s Speech (Kalam Allah) 163

II. The Original Meaning of the Word Wahy 169

III. The Semantical Structure of Revelation 178

IV. Revelation in Arabic 199

V. Prayer (Al-Du ‘a) 208

8. Jahiliyyah and Islam 216

I. Islam and the Concept of Humble Submission 216

II. From Hilm to Islam 235

III. The Conception of Religion (Dm) as ‘Obedience’ 239

9. Ethical Relation Between God and Man 254

I. God of Mercy 254

II. God of Wrath 258

III. Wa ‘d and Wa ‘Id 265

References

Index

271

275

Toshihiko Izutsu: The Genius That Bridged East & West: Keio University

Toshihiko Izutsu: The Genius That Bridged East & West: Keio University

Toshihiko Izutsu:
The Genius That Bridged East & West

May 28, 2021

Toshihiko Izutsu, best known as the translator of the Quran—arguably the most famous translation of the sacred text from Arabic into Japanese—studied at Keio University, where he went on to become a member of the academic faculty. A linguistic prodigy and master of more than 30 languages, Izutsu made a lasting impact on scholarship through research that spanned Islamic studies, Eastern thought, and mysticism. Here, we follow the footsteps of this intellectual giant, who wielded an enormous wealth of knowledge on language and issues across many academic disciplines.

A commemorative photo taken on November 9, 1949, at the award ceremony of the first annual Fukuzawa Award and Keio Award, a tradition that continues today. Izutsu (seated at far right in the front row) won the Fukuzawa Award for his book Mystical Philosophy: The Greek Edition. (Photo courtesy of the Fukuzawa Research Center)

Encounter with Professor Junzaburo Nishiwaki Sets Izutsu on a Course Destined for Academia

Toshihiko Izutsu was born in 1914 in the Tokyo neighborhood of Yotsuya—modern-day Shinjuku City—just as World War I began to break out across Europe. Under the instruction of his father, a Zen Buddhist layman, he became familiar with Zen thought, and from a young age, read books on the subject and practiced zazen meditation.

He first encountered Christianity in middle school at Aoyama Gakuin, a school founded in Tokyo by Methodist missionaries in the late 19th century. At first, he felt a strong sense of aversion to Christian teaching, which challenged and even rejected the Zen philosophy he had grown up with, but the religion eventually piqued his interest. Izutsu, who was also a literary critic on the theory of poetry, loved reading the works of Junzaburo Nishiwaki, then a professor at the Keio University Faculty of Letters, which led Izutsu to enter the Keio University preparatory course in 1931. At first, he followed the path of his father, studying at the Faculty of Economics. Still, he could not bring himself to abandon his love of literature and eventually transferred to the English Department in the Faculty of Letters, where he studied under Prof. Nishiwaki. Recalling his first encounter with his mentor, Izutsu said, "When I first saw him [Prof. Nishiwaki] strolling through Mita Campus, my heart leaped in my chest." Izutsu is reported to have said that Prof. Nishiwaki was the only person he regarded as a mentor throughout his life.

Group photo taken in front of the Grand Lecture Hall on Mita Campus when Izutsu was a student. Izutsu is at far left, and his best friend Yasaburo Ikeda is second from right. Ikeda also enrolled in the Faculty of Economics but moved to the Faculty of Letters with Izutsu, later becoming a member of Keio's academic faculty alongside his old classmate. *

A Love of Language & Thirst for Knowledge Takes Izutsu Abroad

Izutsu attends Eranos in 1979 *

After graduating from university, Izutsu continued to serve as an assistant to Prof. Nishiwaki. Recognized for his extraordinary language skills, he became director at Keio's on-campus language school. He also worked as a researcher at the Keio Language Institute (later The Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies), established in 1942 by Nishiwaki and other faculty. While working on the history of Islamic thought and research into Greek mysticism at the Faculty of Literature, he taught Russian literature in addition to several languages such as Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Hindustani.

In 1954, Izutsu became a professor at the Faculty of Letters and began teaching "Introduction to Linguistics," a course he took over from his esteemed mentor Prof. Junzaburo Nishiwaki. The novel content of the lecture was so popular that it was famous for running out of seats if students didn't arrive early. Jun Eto, a literary critic who was a student at the time, recalls, "I never had a course that gave me so much intellectual excitement with every lecture." Izutsu later summarized the content of this lecture in his English-language book Language and Magic: Studies in the Magical Function of Speech.

In 1959, Izutsu traveled abroad for the first time at the age of 45. With a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation, he spent two years visiting Islamic research centers in Lebanon, Egypt, Germany, France, and Canada, among other places. It was at this time, in 1961, that he was invited to serve as a visiting professor at Canada's McGill University, where he knew the academic faculty. In 1967, he began to participate in Eranos, a long-running interdisciplinary conference dedicated to humanistic and religious studies covering Eastern and Western philosophy, religion, art, and science. Among the experts invited to speak was Izutsu, who presented many lectures on Eastern philosophy and theology.

The Spirit of Toshihiko Izutsu Still Embodied at Keio University

In 1969, Izutsu retired from Keio and became a full professor at McGill University. With the opening of the Tehran Branch of McGill's Institute of Islamic Studies, he moved to Iran's capital city. After working as a professor at Iran's Royal Institute of the Study of Philosophy, he returned to Japan in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. While most of Izutsu's writings had been authored in English until that point, he devoted himself to writing in Japanese until his death in 1993 in Kamakura, where he lived and authored books such as Islamic Culture.

The collection of books left by Izutsu at his Kamakura residence has since been entrusted to the Keio University Mita Media Center. Consisting of approximately 10,000 volumes of Japanese, Chinese, and Western-language books, the collection also includes roughly 3,700 volumes in Arabic as well as extremely valuable materials such as 90 Iranian lithographic books rarely seen outside of Iran.

In 2015, the Keio University Faculty of Letters established two academic awards named after Junzaburo Nishiwaki and Toshihiko Izutsu to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the faculty's founding. The Toshihiko Izutsu Prize is awarded to promising researchers who share Izutsu's spirit of inquiry, which spanned a wide range of academic disciplines that include philosophy, ethics, history, anthropology, archaeology, library sciences, sociology, psychology, pedagogy, and other human sciences. The prize aims to foster and encourage the next generation of scholars who can rival Izutsu's passion for knowledge in the 21st century.

Izutsu in his study at Kita-Kamakura, where he spent his last years (photographed in 1980) *

*From "Toshihiko Izutsu Zammai," Keio University Press (October 2019).

*This article appeared in Stained Glass in the 2020 Summer edition (No. 307) of Juku.

Language and Magic: Studies in the Magical Function of Speech by Toshihiko Izutsu | Goodreads

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Language and Magic: Studies in the Magical Function of Speech

Toshihiko Izutsu

4.14 · Rating details · 7 ratings · 2 reviews

The power of language has come to hold the central position in our conception of human mentality. Today, the man in the street has realised with astonishment how easy it is to be deceived and misled by words. The 'magical' power of the word has caught the attention of those who explore the nature of the human mind and the structure of human knowledge. This work by the late Japanese scholar, first published in 1956, tackles this complex and difficult subject. He studies the worldwide belief in the magical power of language, and examines its influence on man's thought and action. The purpose of the author in this book is to study the world-wide and world-old belief in the magical power of language, to examine its influence on the ways of thinking and acting of man, and finally to carry out an inquiry, as systematically as may be, into the nature and origin of the intimate connection between magic and speech. About The Author Toshihiko Izutsu was Professor Emeritus at Keio University in Japan and an outstanding authority in the metaphysical and philosophical wisdom schools of Islamic Sufism, Hindu Advaita Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism (particularly Zen), and Philosophical Taoism. Fluent in over 30 languages, including Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Greek, his peripatetic research in such places as the Middle East (especially Iran), India, Europe, North America, and Asia were undertaken with a view to developing a meta-philosophical approach to comparative religion based upon a rigorous linguistic study of traditional metaphysical texts. Izutsu often stated his belief that harmony could be fostered between peoples by demonstrating that many beliefs with which a community identified itself could be found, though perhaps masked in a different form, in the metaphysics of another, very different community. (less)

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Paperback, 199 pages

Published 2012 by Islamic Book Trust (first published 1956)

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9839541765 (ISBN13: 9789839541762)

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Sejin, start your review of Language and Magic: Studies in the Magical Function of Speech

Feb 16, 2022Mamluk Qayser rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2022

This complex book sets out to delineate the magical nature of language.

Magical thinking, as often found in primitive societies, the peripheries of modern religions, or even in daily superstition thinking of the modern people could be loosely defined into the direct manifestation of effect via an indirect medium that is directly associated with the effect. An example would be the concept of "jinxing", where something actually happened when one actually speaks about it.

Izutsu strived to demonstrate that the magical nature of language is not based from fallacious thinking of men, but rise from the very nature of language itself.

Language as understood by the modern positivists as an activity embedded in logic. Monstrosities rose from their hapless quest for a logical structure of language, until Wittgenstein called it a day by deciding that language is an active activity, where no set-to-stone carved in it. We created rules for almost everything, but not everything. We set the ground rules in football in order for it to be playable, but not to an extent to exactly define how high the ball should go etc., as long as these peripheries questions do not interrupt with the game itself.

Language thus, is not a one-to-one function with rigid logical framework behind it. It is half-referential (as in denotative function, to directly refers to things concrete and experiential without), and also half-emotive (as in connotative function, to indirectly refers things without i.e. feelings, emotions, memories, poetic usage of language). When we speak of a thing, we not only isolate the thing and to highlight upon it its existence, but also to imbued it with webs of evocative information.

This active and fluid nature of language is what makes language magical in the sense of creating awe behind lines of poetry of ejaculations of emotion. Those are the magical properties of language in our daily lives.

Isutzu also offers a theory of origin of language, not from communicative purposes, but rather that language originated from a festal origin. The primitive people would gather together in rituals, ceremonies that would facilitate the heightening of emotion. These rituals then acts as a medium where heightening of emotions could be then released with vocal raptures, allowing first associations between meaning and vocal ejaculations. It is the symbolic nature of men's mind that allows them to, in a way, pregnant the early gesticulations with meaning. (less)

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Feb 06, 2020Istvan Zoltan rated it liked it

Shelves: 20th-century, big-picture-philosophy, history, non-fiction, philosophy, poetry, language

A very insightful book combining ideas from linguistics, anthropology and sociology. With great sensitivity Izutsu identifies several social practices and institutions in which our traditional ways of thinking, our inherited appreciation for rituals, form the basis of what and how we do.

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