Karlfried Graf Dürckheim

Karl Friedrich Alfred Heinrich Ferdinand Maria Graf Eckbrecht von Dürckheim-Montmartin (October 24, 1896 – December 28, 1988) was a German diplomat, psychotherapist and Zen-Master.

Life and work

Dürckheim was born in Munich. He was a descendant of old Bavarian nobility whose parents still had a fortune, eventually lost during bad economic times.

In his early twenties, he was reading in the Tao Te Ching of Lao-Tzu.

"Suddenly it happened! I was listening and lightning went through me. The veil was torn asunder, I was awake! I had just experienced 'It'. Everything existed and nothing existed. Another Reality had broken through this world. I myself existed and did not exist..."

"I had experienced that which is spoken of in all centuries: individuals, in whatever stage of their lives, have had an experience which struck them with the force of lightning and linked them once and for all to the circuits of True Life."

Meister Eckhart became very important for him. "I recognize in Eckhart my master, the master. But we can only approach him if we eliminate the conceptual consciousness."

Dürckheim was a professor at Kiel for a few years. Then it was discovered that he had a Jewish grandmother. Eventually he became an envoy for Nazi Germany's foreign ministry under Joachim von Ribbentrop. Before World War II, in 1938, he was sent to Japan, residing there for eight years.

After the war, Tokyo was occupied by Americans and Dürckheim was imprisoned for a year and a half in Sugamo Prison. "That time of captivity was precious to me because I could exercise zazen meditation and remain in immobility for hours." Graf "Duerckheim" is identified by Albert Stunkard in "Zen Teaching, Zen Practice", (Weatherhill 2000) edited by Kenneth Kraft, as the person who suggested to Stunkard that he should visit D.T. Suzuki in Kita Kamakura, not far from the Sugamo prison. That visit started a chain reaction of visitors to the Suzuki residence, one of whom was Philip Kapleau, author of "The Three Pillars of Zen" and founder of the Rochester Zen Center. Dürckheim thus was directly responsible for launching Zen into the American mainstream.

Along with psychologist Maria Hippius, Dürckheim founded the "Center of existential and psychological formation and encounter" in the early 1950s. It was located in the Black Forest village of Todtmoos-Rutte. His books were based on his conferences, and were influential in Europe.

"What I am doing is not the transmission of Zen Buddhism; on the contrary, that which I seek after is something universally human which comes from our origins and happens to be more emphasized in eastern practices than in the western."

Dürckheim's "Initiation Therapy" dealt with the encounter between the profane, mundane, "little" self — the ego — and the true Self. "The therapist is not the one who heals, that is, who intervenes with his own skills; he is a therapist in the original meaning of the word: a companion on the way."

Dürckheim died in Todtmoos.

Quotations

"The man, who, being really on the Way, falls upon hard times in the world will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old self to survive. Rather, he will seek out someone who will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself, so that he may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it. Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and over again to annihilation, can that which is indestructible arise within him. In this lies the dignity of daring."
– from "The Way of Transformation"

Books

* "Hara: The Vital Center of Man", Inner Traditions, 2004. English. 4th Ed. 216 pp. ISBN 1594770247
* "Zen and Us". Arkana Publishing, 1991. English. 144 pp. ASIN: B00072HEP0
* "The Call for the Master". Penguin Books, 1993. 176 pp. ISBN 0140193456
* "Absolute Living: The Otherworldly in the World and the Path to Maturity". Arkana, 1992. 224 pp. ISBN 0140194525
* "The Way of Transformation: Daily Life as Spiritual Exercise" (London: Allen & Unwin, 1988)
* "The Japanese cult of tranquility". Rider, 1960. English. 106 pp. ASIN: B0006AXFRE.

References

* Alphonse Goettmann. Dialogue on the Path of Initiation: An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Karlfried Graf Durckheim. Globe Press Books, April 1992. 168 pp. English. ISBN 0936385278.
* Gerhard Wehr, "The life and work of Karlfried Graf Durckheim". In Theodore J. Nottingham, Becoming Real: Essays on the Teachings of a Master. Nottingham Publishing, 1995. 120 pp.

External links

* [http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewwork.asp?id=4583 Description] of 'Becoming Real: Essays on the Teachings of a Master' by Nottingham
* [http://www.duerckheim-ruette.de The Dürckheim Centre] (in German)