Sufism and Zen in the West

Saeko Yazaki is Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow. Michael Conway is Associate Professor at Otani University, Kyoto.

• List of FiguresList of ContributorsAcknowledgementsNotes on Transliteration and Conventions for Non-English Terms IntroductionSaeko Yazaki and Michael Conway1. Rendering the Strange Familiar: Orientalist Appropriations of SufismRobert Irwin2. Buddhism for the West: Modern Disenchantment, Religion, and Zen’s Appeal to Modern AudiencesTullio Lobetti3. ‘Mystics, Masters and Teachers’: the Entanglement of Spirituality, Politics and Empire in the European ‘Guru Field’ c. 1918-1939Steven J. Sutcliffe4. The Universalist Exoticism of Inayat Khan: From Sufi to ProphetMark Sedgwick5. Oneness and Separation in Japanese Buddhist Sensibility: Suzuki Daisetsu’s Presentation of the MyokoninMichael Conway 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 PeaceSaeko Yazaki7. American Zen After D. T. Suzuki: Encounters with a Tibetan Buddhist MasterAkemi Iwamoto8. Bringing Sufism to the Mainstream: ‘Traditional Islam’ and the Making of the Third Place in an American Muslim CommunityKei Takahashi9. Zen for the Elite, Buddhism for the Masses: Religious and Spiritual Circulation between Japan and the WestJørn BorupConcluding ReflectionsGeorge Pattison

This collection is essential for those who follow new religious movements inthe West, academically or personally. It traces major Sufi and Zen teachersand lineages within the evolving social, political and cultural contexts ofthe 20th/21st centuries, revealing pivotal moments of spiritual transmissionand charismatic embodiment across individuals and traditions.