Shunryu Suzuki Quotes
As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.
An enlightened person does not ignore things and does not stick to things, not even to the truth.
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.
In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
We should not be just a fan of dragons; we should always be the dragon himself. Then we will not be afraid of any dragon.
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.
Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way.
The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities.
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.
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.
Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.
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.
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.
Those who sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen.
If you think you will get something from practicing zazen, already you are involved in impure practice.
So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others...before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you.
There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
In the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there are few.
To be different is to have value. In this sense all things have equal, absolute value. Each thing has absolute value and thus is equal to everything else.
In your big mind, everything has the same value...In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood
You want to eliminate your evil desires in order to reveal your Buddha nature, but where will you throw them away?
To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind pervades your whole body.
Instead of respecting things, we want to use them for ourselves and if it is difficult to use them, we want to conquer them.
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.
The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is.
When he bowed to all those buddhas, the buddhas he bowed to were beyond his own understanding. Again and again he did it.
If I tell you something, you will stick to it and limit your own capacity to find out for yourself.
It is not after we understand the truth that we attain enlightenment. To realize the truth is to live - to exist here and now.
If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
If you want to read a letter from the Buddha's world, it is necessary to understand Buddha's world.
A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?"Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.