A Quote by Shunryu Suzuki

The purpose of our practice is just to be yourself. — © Shunryu Suzuki
The purpose of our practice is just to be yourself.
You are not an accident. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He wanted you alive and created you for a purpose. Focusing on yourself will never reveal your real purpose. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. Only in God do we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance and our destiny.
Sometimes, after you have taken part in a seven, one or two-day retreat, you could feel that your level of practice had risen. That was because we had given our undivided attention to breaking through our level of practice. We knew that was the sole purpose of coming to a retreat here, so our levels were uplifted and our karma left behind.
Generosity is another quality which, like patience, letting go, non-judging, and trust, provides a solid foundation for mindfulness practice. You might experiment with using the cultivation of generosity as a vehicle for deep self-observation and inquiry as well as an exercise in giving. A good place to start is with yourself. See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance, or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation-to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe.
That's what our training is for, we practice not panicking, we practice breathing, we practice looking directly at the thing that scares us until we stop flinching, we practice overriding our Can't.
Follow your nature. The practice is really about uncovering your own pose; we have great respect for our teachers, but unless we can uncover our own pose in the moment, it's not practice - it's mimicry. Rest deeply in Savasana every day. Always enter that pratyahara (withdrawn state) every day. And just enjoy yourself. For many years I mistook discipline as ambition. Now I believe it to be more about consistency. Do get on the mat. Practice and life are not that different.
See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance , or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation - to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe.
There is nothing to practice. To know yourself, be yourself. To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that. Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don't disturb your mind with seeking.
Naturalism says that we were not put here for any purpose. But that doesn't mean there isn't such thing as purpose. It just means that purpose isn't imposed from outside. We human beings have the creative ability to give our lives purposes and meanings.
One of my optimistic prophecies is based on the assumption that machines could have the best algorithms in the universe, but it will never have purpose. And the problem for us to explain purpose to a machine is because we don't know what our purpose is. We have the purpose, but we still ... When we look at this global picture, a universal picture, to understand what is our purpose being here on this planet? We don't know.
Doubt has purpose sometimes. If we don't think our work is good enough, we strive to do better and be better. Which then makes us better because practice does just that.
Most people think that once they've found their purpose and the power to practice it, they'll finally be at peace. Actually, though, it's only by starting in a place of peace that we find our purpose and power. Peace is the first step and the final lesson we all need to learn.
The way anything is developed is through practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice and more practice.
You go from being with the guys all the time in the locker room, in practice, having a militarized brain in terms of this schedule, and then, all of a sudden, you are on your own. You lose a sense of purpose; you lose a sense of yourself. And you lose confidence. You find yourself saying, 'I was the best at this, and now I'm not the best.'
The practice of altruism is the authentic way to live as a human being, and it is not just for religious people. As human beings, our purpose is to live meaningful lives, to develop a warm heart. There is meaning in being everyone's friend. The real source of peace amongst our families, friends and neighbours is love and compassion.
This is a very important practice. Live your daily life in a way that you never lose yourself. When you are carried away with your worries, fears, cravings, anger, and desire, you run away from yourself and you lose yourself. The practice is always to go back to oneself.
If you are always frightened for yourself you can't act, and then life loses its purpose. You just have to tell yourself that, when you get right down to it, you don't matter all that much.
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