Top 204 Quotes & Sayings by Shunryu Suzuki - Page 3

A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.

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.

In the beginner's mind there is no thought, "I have attained something." All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless. Dogen-zenji, the founder of our school, always emphasized how important it is to resume our boundless original mind. Then we are always true to ourselves, in sympathy with all beings, and can actually practice.

Let your ears hear without trying to hear. Let the mind think without trying to think and without trying to stop it. That is practice.

When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. In Buddhism it is a heretical view to expect something outside this world. We do not seek for something besides ourselves.

If it is raining out, do not walk fast, because it is raining everywhere.

When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say "inner world" or "outer world" but actually, There is just one whole world.

As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.

Usually when someone believes in a particular religion, his attitude becomes more and more a sharp angle pointing away from himself. In our way the point of the angle is always toward ourselves.

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.

Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.

A garden is never finished.

We do not slight the idea of enlightenment, but the most important thing is this moment, not some day in the future. We have to make our effort in this moment. This is the most important thing for our practice.

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.

There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment.

We ourselves cannot put any magic spells on this world. The world is its own magic.

A tiger does not ignore or slight any small animal. The way he catches a mouse and catches and devours a cow are the same.

If you understand real practice, then archery or other activities can be zen. If you don't understand how to practice archery in its true sense, then even though you practice very hard, what you acquire is just technique. It won't help you through and through. Perhaps you can hit the mark without trying, but without a bow and arrow you cannot do anything. If you understand the point of practice, then even without a bow and arrow the archery will help you. How you get that kind of power or ability is only through right practice.

You see something or hear a sound, and there you have everything just as it is. [...] Whatever you do, it should be an expression of the same deep activity. We should appreciate what we are doing. There is no preparation for something else.

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities.

When the restrictions you have do not limit you, this is what we mean by practice.

You should rather be grateful for the weeds you have in your mind, because eventually they will enrich your practice.

Bowing is a very serious practice. You should be prepared to bow, even in your last moment. even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-centered desires, we have to do it. Our true nature wants us to.

We die, and we do not die.

We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves.

Wabi means spare, impoverished; simple and functional. It connotes a transcendence of fad and fashion. The spirit of wabi imbues all the Zen arts, from calligraphy to karate, from the tea ceremony to Zen archery.

When he bowed to all those buddhas, the buddhas he bowed to were beyond his own understanding. Again and again he did it.

People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.

In your everyday life you always have opportunities for enlightenment. If you go to the rest room, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you cook, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you clean the floor, there is a chance to attain enlightenment.

No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea.

If enlightenment comes first, before thinking, before practice, your thinking and your practice will not be self-centered. By enlightenment I mean believing in nothing, believing in something which has no form or no color, which is ready to take form or color. This enlightenment is the immutable truth. It is on this orginal truth that our activity, our thinking, and our practice should be based.

If your practice is good, you may become proud of it. What you do is good, but something more is added to it. Pride is extra. Right effort is to get rid of something extra.

To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.

You may say that things happen just by chance, but I don't feel that way.

An enlightened person does not ignore things and does not stick to things, not even to the truth.

And we should forget, day by day, what we have done; this is true non-attachment. And we should do something new. To do something new, of course we must know our past, and this is alright. But we should not keep holding onto anything we have done; we should only reflect on it. And we must have some idea of what we should do in the future. But the future is the future, the past is the past; now we should work on something new.

For Zen students, a weed is a treasure.

If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special.

In the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there are few.

Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.

When you sit in the full lotus position, your left foot is on your right thigh and your right foot is on your left thigh. When we cross our legs like this, even though we have a right leg and a left leg, they become one. The position expresses the oneness of duality: not two and not one. This is the most important teaching: not two, and not one. Our body and mind are not two and not one. 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.

There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.

The secret of zen is just two words: not... always... so.

When you say, "Wait a moment," you are bound by your karma; when you say "Yes I will," you are free.

The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves. That is why we have teaching. But the teaching is not ourselves. It is some explanation of ourselves. To study the teaching is to know yourselves. That is why we do not ever attach to the teaching, or to the teacher. The moment you meet a teacher you should leave the teacher, and you should be independent. You want a teacher so that you can be independent. So you study yourselves. You have the teacher for yourselves, not for the teacher.

The teaching which is written on paper is not the true teaching. Written teaching is a kind of food for your brain. Of course it is necessary to take some food for your brain, but it is more important to be yourself by practicing the right way of life.

If you want to study Zen, you should forget all your previous ideas and just practice zazen and see what kind of experience you have in your practice. That is naturalness.

You can't make a date with enlightenment.

The secret of Soto Zen is just two words: not always so.... In Japanese, it's two words, three words in English. That is the secret of our practice.

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.

Instead of respecting things, we want to use them for ourselves and if it is difficult to use them, we want to conquer them.

Even though you have pain in your legs, you can do it. Even though your practice is not good enough, you can do it.

Those who sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen.

We have to study with our warm heart, not just with our brain.

The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is.

All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness. Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake.

Tai Shimano visited Shunryu Suzuki. "How are you feeling these days?" Suzuki replied, "They have a new name for me: Cancer!"

Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.

Someone was sitting in front of a sunflower, watching the sunflower, a cup of sun, and so I tried it too. It was wonderful; I felt the whole universe in the sunflower. That was my experience. Sunflower meditation. A wonderful confidence appeared. You can see the whole universe in a flower.

As long as we have some definite idea about or some hope in the future, we cannot really be serious with the moment that exists right now.