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shunryu suzuka Quotes

Shunryu Suzuka Quotes

 

Quotes

    • Communication is - start by understanding - your own understanding about people. Even though you want them to understand you, you know, it is - unless you understand people, it is almost impossible. Don't you think so? Only when you understand people, they may understand you. So even though you do not say anything, if you understand people there is some communication.
    • When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
    • You may say you attained some stage in your practice. But that is just a trivial event in your long life. It is like saying the ocean is round, or like a jewel, or palace. For a hungry ghost the ocean is a pool of blood; for a dragon the ocean is a palace; for a fish it is his house; for a human being it is water. There must be various understandings. When the ocean is a palace, it is a palace. You cannot say it is not a palace. For a dragon it is actually a palace. If you laugh at a fish who says it is a palace, Buddha will laugh at you who say it is two o'clock, three o'clock. It is the same thing.
    • There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
    • In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few.
    • The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind.
    • You should rather be grateful for the weeds you have in you mind, because eventually they will enrich your practice.
    • Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life.
    • After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet, but as you keep walking you get wet little by little. If your mind has ideas of progress, you may say, 'Oh, this pace is terrible!' But actually it is not. When you get wet in a fog it is very difficult to dry yourself. So there is no need to worry about progress.
    • If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
    • Hell is not punishment. It's training.
    • To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.
    • Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well.
    • So the secret is just to say 'Yes!' and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always yourself, without sticking to an old self.
    • Take care of things, and they will take care of you.
    • My life has been one long series of mistakes.
    • Life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life.
    • As soon as you see something, you already start to intellectualize it. As soon as you intellectualize something, it is no longer what you saw.
    • The way that helps will not be the same; it changes according to the situation.
    • Buddhism
    • Nagarjuna
    • Dogen Zenji
    • shunryu suzuka

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