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… when in 1954 I asked Dr. Suzuki point-blank whether someone who had passed through a true Zen experience could have become a Nazi, he flatly denied this possibility. At the same time, however, he also denied having known any Westerner who – in his opinion – had achieved true Zen illumination or satori. This left me not a little baffled – which of course may be just the right state of mind for a student of Zen, or for that matter, for any student of the history of mysticism in general.
GERSHOM SCHOLEM