The Japanese Zen Buddhist D.T. Suzuki (1870–1966) was instrumental in bringing Zen Buddhism to the West and his Buddhist modernist works were very influential in the United States. Suzuki's worldview was a Zen Buddhism influenced by Romanticism and Transcendentalism, which promoted a spiritual freedom as "a spontaneous, emancipatory consciousness that transcends rational intellect and social convention." This idea of Buddhism influenced the Beat writers, and a contemporary representative of Western Buddhist Romanticism is Gary Snyder. The American Theravada Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu has critiqued 'Buddhist Romanticism' in his writings.