Sufism and Zen in the West

The Transformation of Modern Religious Life and Practice

Saeko Yazaki, Michael Conway

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2025
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781838602376
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

Historically and culturally, Sufism and Zen may not seem to have anything in common. However, in the West, their spiritual messages are often perceived as strikingly similar. In this book, scholars analyse the ways in which Sufism and Zen were introduced to and developed in the West. The collection shows that the popularity of these religions arose not because of the substantive shared elements within the two traditions, but because their promoters in the West employed similar strategies to respond to the interests of a modern, Western audience. The first book to make a close comparison of Sufism and Zen, this study is an important contribution to understanding Western religious life and processes of 'easternisation'. It sheds new light on how Sufism and Zen came to represent a spirituality that is both countercultural and in touch with modern sensitivities.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on Transliteration and Conventions for Non-English Terms
• Introduction
• 1 Rendering the strange familiar: Orientalist appropriations of Sufism
• 2 Buddhism for the West: Modern disenchantment, religion and Zen’s appeal to modern audiences
• 3 ‘Mystics, masters and teachers’: The entanglement of spirituality, politics and empire in the European ‘Guru Field’ c.1918–39
• 4 The universalist exoticism of Inayat Khan: From Sufi to prophet
• 5 Oneness and separation in Japanese Buddhist sensibility: Suzuki Daisetsu’s presentation of the Myōkōnin
• 6 ‘The dance is the (s)way of life’: The open approach of the Jewish Sufi-Zen teacher Samuel Lewis and his Dances of Universal Peace
• 7 American Zen after D. T. Suzuki: Encounters with a Tibetan Buddhist master
• 8 Bringing Sufism to the mainstream: ‘Traditional Islam’ and the making of the third place in the American Muslim community
• 9 Zen for the elite, Buddhism for the masses: Religious and spiritual circulation between Japan and the West
• Concluding reflections
• Index