Top 204 Quotes & Sayings by Shunryu Suzuki
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Japanese leader Shunryu Suzuki.
Last updated on November 5, 2024.
If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one.
When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.
If your mind is empty, it is ready for anything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.
Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It is about everything!
Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. Unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.
We must exist right here, right now!
The world is its own magic.
Everything is perfect and there is always room for improvement.
When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.
Discipline is creating the situation.
There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen.
You must be true to your own way until at last you actually come to the point where you see it is necessary to forget all about yourself.
Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an enlightened person. There is only enlightened activity.
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.
Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.
Moment after moment everything comes out of nothingness. This is the true joy of life.
The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.
In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
It is only by practicing through a continual succession of agreeable and disagreeable situations that we acquire true strengths. To accept that pain is inherent and to live our lives from this understanding is to create the causes and conditions for happiness.
Meditation opens the mind to the greatest mystery that takes place daily and hourly; it widens the heart so that it may feel the eternity of time and infinity of space in every throb; it gives us a life within the world as if we were moving about in paradise.
A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it....In this way our life should be understood. Then there is no problem.
Wherever you go you will find your teacher, as long as you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.
When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore.
Everything you do is right, nothing you do is wrong, yet you must still make ceaseless effort.
Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself.
You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.
Instead of criticizing, find out how to help.
A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?" Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.
How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.
To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.
Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.
You are perfect as you are and there is always room for improvement.
To express yourself as you are, without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, is the most important thing.
When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, 'Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere.'
If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything
Faith is a state of openness or trust...In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to the truth, whatever it might turn out to be.
What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.
Don't move. Just die over and over. Don't anticipate. Nothing can save you now because you have only this moment. Not even enlightenment will help you now because there are no other moments. With no future, be true to yourself and express yourself fully. Don't move.
Hell is not punishment, it's training.
In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner - not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.
Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours.
The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. The innocence of the first inquiry—what am I?—is needed throughout Zen practice. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.
In reflecting on our problems, we should include ourselves.
Leave your front door and your back door open.
Allow your thoughts to come and go.
Just don't serve them tea.
We try, and we try, and we fail; and then we go deeper.
Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.
The highest truth is daiji, translated as dai jiki in Chinese scriptures. This is the subject of the question the emperor asked Bodhidharma: "What is the First Principle?" Bodhidharma said, "I don't know." "I don't know" is the First Principle.
Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.
When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.
It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.
It must be obvious...that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.
I think you're all enlightened, until you open your mouths.
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.
Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.
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