These are the only examples of correspondence by Suzuki that I can find. If anyone has any more, I'd be happy to include them in this archive. Thanks - DC. Adding calligraphy and doodles starting 10-02-14 and the Heart Sutra card links on 10-19-14

for Letters go here

 ZMC Benefit Art Exibition and Sale poster - First use of Shunryu Suzuki's famous enso.for a fundraiser organized by Mike in 1966

More on this famous enso

A poem by Tozan translated by Suzuki and given to Bill Kwong long ago. Bill gave his student Peter Levitt a copy. It came up in his podcast.

Beginner's Mind Calligraphy

Nyorai (thus come, tathagata) from the cover of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - original calligraphy now hanging on a wall at Richard Baker's Johanneshof.

Bob Watkins on Suzuki's Nyorai sumie used for the cover of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. 

from Richard Baker's Introduction to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: The calligraphy on the front of the binding reads nyorai in Japanese or tathagata in Sanskrit. This is a name for Buddha which means “he who has followed the path, who has returned from suchness, or is suchness, thus-ness, is-ness, emptiness, the fully completed one.” It is the ground principle which makes the appearance of a Buddha possible. It is Zen mind. At the time Suzuki-roshi wrote this calligraphy€”using for a brush the frayed end of one of the large swordlike leaves of the yucca plants that grow in the mountains around Zen Mountain Center€”he said: “This means that Tathagata is the body of the whole earth.”

***

Two more Suzuki yucca leaf brush late entries like the famous to us one above - sent by Bob Watkins

 Bob says Suzuki said this one is Pure Wind

and that Suzuki said this one means Everything is Perfect.

Need 2nd opinion

Read about the origin of the unique brush in Bob Watkins interview

click on thumbnails to enlarge

Datebook - 1959 
The date book Suzuki brought with him from Japan when he first came and made some entries, but he really wasn't a datebook type guy and there's not much there.

Certificate given participants in the first sesshin.

From the 2nd sesshin

Suzuki's? Maybe. A wind bell for the Wind Bells. See other uses of this and more artwork from early Wind Bells.

Three Wind Bell poems in Suzuki's hand maybe in preparation for the one used for the early Wind Bells.

from Wind Bell 67-02

PDF of this CV in Suzuki's hand

PDF of typed version

Zen Bones benefit lecture by Alan Watts poster with Suzuki calligraphy for bone.

Buddha calligraphy by Shunryu Suzuki

Be Careful with Fire calligraphy

for Grahame Petchey

Read about the origin of this in Zen Is Right Here.

Read about the origin of this piece in Zen Is Right Here.

From a January 1964 Suzuki lecture on Blue Cliff Records model subject #46 - as presented in the February Wind Bell.

All Wind Bells

Back side of DC lay rakusu with kanji written by Suzuki

Another Rakusu forget whose but looks like maybe the Buddhist name is Daiho Myogen (not Steve Stucky)

Reading R to L up to down

Daizai geda puku        ---   Great robe of liberation
Muso fuku den'e         ---   A field far beyond form and emptiness
Hibu nyori kyo            ---   Wearing the tathagatha's teaching
Kodo shoshujo           ---   Saving all beings

And here's the Kechimyaku that went with it.

Silas Hoadley's rakusu - thanks Isaac Gardiner

Calligraphy from Suzuki on the cover of the Brochure for Life, Times, and Teachings of Shunryu Suzuki

Ōzammai - king samadhi

A New Year's card Suzuki sent to Elsie Mitchell - More here

Suzuki's Romanized writing of an eko (chant to dedicate merit after sutra chanting)

click on thumbnail to enlarge

Comment and translation of the above by Shohaku Okumura, ed by DC - thanks Tracy Cramer (who has a copy of it) for getting this from Okumura.

The writing of Suzuki Roshi is a part of the Eko for a service, Sutra Chanting for Mortuary Hall Patrons (in Soto School Scriptures For Daily Services And Practice published by Sotoshu Shumucho). It is in page 68 of the book. The English translation of this part of the eko is:

The merit generated thereby may assist their awakened spirit and adorn the land of their reward. We humbly pray that within the current of birth and death they shall be as the lustrous pearl shimmering undisturbed in the vast sea; that on the shore of nirvana they shall be as a cinnamon moon shining alone in the azure sky; so that they will guide the entire world, together climbing the path to awakening.

Read Tracy's story this.