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The '''Minnesota Department of Transportation''' ('''Mn/DOT''', pronounced "min-dot") oversees transportation by [[land]], [[water]], and [[air]] in the [[U.S. state]] of [[Minnesota]]. The [[cabinet]]-level agency is responsible for maintaining the state's [[trunk highway]] system (including [[List of Minnesota state highways|state highways]], [[U.S. highway]]s, and [[interstate highway]]s), funding municipal [[airport]]s and maintaining [[radio navigation aid]]s, and other activities. Minnesota's lieutenant governor, [[Carol Molnau]], is currently head of the department (Commissioner of Transportation).
[[Image: DTSuzuki.jpg|right|Dr. Suzuki]]
'''Dr. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki''' ([[1870]], [[Kanazawa]], [[Japan]] - [[1966]]; standard transliteration: '''Suzuki Daisetsu''', 鈴木大拙) was a famous author of books and essays on [[Buddhism]] and [[Zen]] that were instrumental in spreading interest in Zen to the West.
== Early Life History==
The agency's history can be traced to the state's '''Railroad and Warehouse Commission''' which emerged slowly from [[1871]] to [[1905]], and the '''State Highway Commission''' created in 1905. However, the Highway Commission was abolished in [[1917]] and replaced by a '''Department of Highways'''. For air transport, the '''Minnesota Aeronautics Commission''' was created in [[1933]]. Much of the railroad oversight was transferred to the [[Minnesota Department of Public Service]] in [[1967]]. Two years later in [[1969]], the [[Minnesota Department of Public Safety|Department of Public Safety]] was established and took over the [[Minnesota State Patrol|Highway Patrol]] and [[driver's license|Driver's License Bureau]]. Mn/DOT finally came into being in [[1976]] and took over the functions of the aeronautics and highway departments, plus transportation-related duties of the [[Minnesota State Planning Agency|State Planning Agency]] and Department of Public Service.
The Samurai class into which Suzuki was born having declined with the fall of feudalism in Japan, and his physician father having died, Suzuki was raised in impoverished circumstances by his mother. When he became old enough to reflect on his fate in being born into this situation, he began to look for answers in various forms of religion. His naturally sharp and philosophical intellect found difficulty in accepting some of the cosmologies to which he was exposed.
==Services and projects==
His brother, a lawyer, financed his life and education in [[Tokyo]] at [[Waseda University]]. During this time (1891), he also entered spiritual studies at [[Engaku-ji]] in [[Kamakura]] initially under [[Kosen Roshi]], then after Kosen’s death, with [[Soyen Shaku]]. The studies were essentially internal and non-verbal. The task involved what Suzuki described as four years of mental, physical, moral, and intellectual struggle.
Mn/DOT operates networks of [[ramp meter]]s and [[traffic camera]]s in the [[Minneapolis-St. Paul]] [[metropolitan area]] in order to manage traffic flow. In [[2000]], the ramp meters were turned off for a study period mandated by the [[Minnesota Legislature]]. The bill was backed by [[Republican Party of Minnesota|Republican]] [[Minnesota State Senate|State Senator]] [[Dick Day]] of [[Owatonna, Minnesota]], who has often been critical of Mn/DOT policies and projects. The study showed that ramp meters reduce the number of crashes on highways, and marginally reduce travel time in many cases. However, the study also showed some places where the meters were more of a hindrance, and metering strategies have been altered since that time. There are about 430 ramp meters and more than 280 traffic cameras.
The department has also put up informational [[variable message sign|electronic signage]] along highways to provide alert messages. Message boards have been in [[Rochester, Minnesota|Rochester]], [[Duluth, Minnesota|Duluth]] and the Twin Cities for some time. Part of the reason for the Rochester signs is occasional [[flood]]ing of [[U.S. Highway 52]]. The department expanded use of the signs after [[Amber Alert]] legislation allocated funding for larger networks. In the Twin Cities, Mn/DOT began using them to display freeway travel times in [[2003]] or [[2004]] to help drivers plan alternate routes to avoid heavy traffic if necessary (although a generic message like "buckle up for safety" is often encountered).
During training periods at Engau-ji, Suzuki lived the monk's life. He described this life and his own experience at Kamakura in his book ''The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk''. Suzuki was invited by Soyen Shaku to visit the United States in the 1890s. Suzuki acted as English-language translator for a book written by him. This was the beginning of Suzuki's career as a writer in English.
[[Twin Cities Public Television]] (TPT) station KTCI channel 17 has been used for many years to display [[weather]]-related information that is funded by Mn/DOT. The department also had a long-standing partnership with [[KBEM]] radio (88.5 FM) in [[Minneapolis, Minnesota|Minneapolis]] to relay area traffic information, although that relationship is coming to an end. After public outcry, the term was extended, but it is unclear how long the two organizations will continue the relationship. Mn/DOT paid KBEM [[United States dollar|US$]]400,000 per year to provide the information, about half of the station's annual budget. Video from traffic cameras is also shown on [[cable television]] systems in the metro area (at one time, this had also been shown on KVBM channel 45, today known as [[KSTC-TV|KSTC]]).
== Career ==
While he was young, Suzuki had set about acquiring knowledge of [[Chinese]], [[Sanskrit]], [[Pali]], and several European languages. Soyen Shaku was one of the invited speakers at the [[World Parliament of Religions]] held in Chicago in 1893. When a German scholar who had set up residence in Illinois, Dr. [[Paul Carus]], approached Soyen Shaku to request his help in translating and preparing Oriental spiritual literature for publication in the West, the latter instead recommended his disciple Suzuki for the job. Suzuki lived at Dr. Carus’s home and worked with him, initially in translating the classic [[Tao Te Ching]] from ancient Chinese. In Illinois, Suzuki began his early work ''Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism''.
[[Snow plow]]s used on trunk highways are also operated by Mn/DOT.
Suzuki married Beatrice Erskine Lane, a [[Theosophist]] and [[Radcliffe]] graduate, in 1911. Dedicating themselves to spreading an understanding of Mahayana Buddhism, they lived in a cottage on the Engaku-ji grounds until 1919, then moved to [[Kyoto]], where Suzuki took up a professorship at [[Otani University]].
==See also==
Still a professor of [[Buddhist philosophy]] at Otani University in Kyoto in the middle decades of the [[twentieth century]], Suzuki wrote some of the most celebrated introductions and overall examinations of Buddhism, and particularly of its Japanese Zen school. His reputation was secured in England prior to the U.S. Besides popular works, Suzuki wrote a translation of the ''Lankavatara Sutra'' and a commentary on its Sanskrit terminology.
*[[Mn/ROAD]]
*[[MnPASS]]
Suzuki's books have been widely read and commented on by many important figures. A notable example is ''[[An Introduction to Zen Buddhism]]'', which includes a thirty page commentary by famous [[psychoanalyst]] [[Carl Gustav Jung|Carl Jung]]. Other works include ''Zen and Japanese Culture'', ''Studies in Zen Buddhism'', and ''[[Manual of Zen Buddhism]]''. Additionally, [[Willam Barrett]] has compiled many of Suzuki's articles and essays concerning Zen into a volume entitled ''[[Studies in Zen]]''.
Suzuki's Zen master, Soyen Shaku, who also wrote a book published in the United States (English translation by Suzuki), had emphasized the [[Mahayana Buddhist]] outlook of the Zen tradition. Contrasting with this, to a degree, was Suzuki's own view that in its centuries of development in China, Zen (or Ch'an) had absorbed much from indigenous Chinese [[Taoism]].
Suzuki lived in the [[United States]] and traveled through [[Europe]] before taking up his position at [[Otani University]] in [[1921]]. He founded the Eastern Buddhist Societyin this same year; the Society is focused on [[Mahayana Buddhism]] and offers lectures and seminars, and publishes a Scholarly journal, ''The Eastern Buddhist''. Suzuki maintained connections in the West and, for instance, delivered a paper at the World Congress of Faiths in 1936, at the [[University of London]]. Later in his life he was a visiting professor at [[Columbia University]]. Suzuki is often linked to the [[Kyoto School]] of philosophy, but he is not considered one of its official members.
Suzuki took an interest in other traditions besides Zen. His book ''Zen and Japanese Buddhism'' delved into the history and scope of interest of all the major Japanese Buddhist sects. He also wrote a small volume about [[Shin Buddhism]]. And he took an interest in Christian mysticism and some of the noted off-beat mystics of the West.
Despite Suzuki's pioneering efforts, today he is sometimes considered a marginal figure, who was neither a formal Zen monk nor a serious historian. This may be a somewhat harsh view, since some clearly credible Western scholars, such as [[Heinrich Dumoulin]], have acknowledged some degree of debt to Suzuki's published work. Nevertheless, Suzuki's view of Zen Buddhism, today judged to be an idealized portrayal, as well as his ambivalent position toward Japanese imperialism in the interwar years, have both come under much scrutiny.
{{buddhism}}
==References==
These essays were influential when they came out; making Zen more widely known in the West.
* D T Suzuki. ''Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series'', New York: Grove Press
* ---- ''Essays in Zen Buddhism: Second Series'', New York: Samuel Wieser, Inc. 1953-1971. Edited by Christmas Humphreys.
* ---- ''Essays in Zen Buddhism: Third Series'', York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc, 1953. Edited by Christmas Humphreys.
* ---- ''The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind''
* ---- ''Living by Zen''
* ---- ''Manual of Zen Buddhism'', New York: Grove Press, 1960. A collection of Buddhist texts, images,including the "ten ox-herding pictures".
* ---- trans. of ''[[Lankavatara Sutra]]'' from the Sanskrit. Boulder, CO: Prajña Press, 1978, ISBN 0877737029, first published Routledge Kegan Paul, 1932.
* ---- ''Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist: The Eastern and Western Way'', Macmillan, 1957. "A study of the qualities Meister Eckhart share with Zen and Shin Buddhism".
* ---- ''Swedenborg: Buddha of the North'', West Chester, Pa: Swedenborg Foundation, 1996. Trans. by Andrew Bernstein of ''Swedenborugu'', 1913.
==External links==
*[http://www.dot.state.mn.us/ Minnesota Department of Transportation]
*[http://www.511mn.org/ 511mn.org] (state [[5-1-1]] webpage)
*[http://www.dot.state.mn.us/tmc/trafficinfo/map/refreshmap.html Twin Cities traffic map]
*[http://www.dot.state.mn.us/tmc/trafficinfo/metrocams/mapindex.html Twin Cities traffic cameras]
[[Category:Government of Minnesota|Department of Transportation]]
* [http://web.otani.ac.jp/EBS/dts.html Biography of D.T. Suzuki at Otani University]
[[Category:Transportation in Minnesota|Department of Transportation]]
* [http://web.otani.ac.jp/EBS/ Eastern Buddhist Society]
[[Category:1870 births|Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro]]
[[Category:1966 deaths|Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro]]
[[Category:Buddhist philosophers|Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro]]
[[ja:鈴木大拙]]
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