5 Shunryu Suzuka Quotes on Philosophy

Shunryu Suzuka quotes on philosophy

3. 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.

11. Hell is not punishment. It's training.

12. To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.

16. My life has been one long series of mistakes.

18. 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.