Quotes from Shunryu Suzuki

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Quotes from Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Roshi):

 

"Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the

flowers of spring."

 

"When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, 'Do not

walk so fast, the rain is everywhere'."

 

"Our practice should be based on the idea of selflessness.

Selflessness is very difficult to understand. If you try to be

selfless, that is already a selfish idea. Selflessness will be there

when you do not try anything. When you are practicing with a good

teacher, you will naturally be not so selfish."

 

"Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your

inner voice."

 

"We should be very careful of half-baked enlightenment, and

especially of taking pride in our enlightenment."

 

"When a tree stands up by itself, we call that tree a buddha."

 

"Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours."

 

"Because things don't actually go as you expect, there is suffering."

 

"On one side we are all fools, but when we realize this we are

enlightened, and when we make efforts in the face of it, we are

bodhisattvas."

 

"When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be so

big. But when you are fooled by yourself, it is fatal. No more

medicine."

 

"In reflecting on our problems, we should include ourselves."

 

"Only when you give everything up can you see a true teacher. Even

the name of Buddhism is already a dirty spot on our practice. It is

not teaching. The character and effort of our teachers is our

teaching."

 

"A person who falls on the earth, stumbling on a stone, will stand up

by means of the same earth they fell on. You complain because you

think earth is the problem, having caused your fall. Without the

earth, you wouldn't fall, but you wouldn't stand up either. Falling

and standing up are both great aids given to you by the earth.

Because of mother earth you can continue your practice. You are

practicing in the zendo of the great mother earth, which is the

problem. Problems are actually your zendo."

 

"In your life, if you come to a great difficulty, like a big mountain

in Nepal that looks like it has no passageway, you know there is a

way to get through."

 

"We should practice with a beginner's real innocence, devoid of ideas

of good or bad, gain or loss."

 

"Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea

and sink."

 

"The practice of zazen is not for gaining a mystical something.

Zazen is for allowing a clear mind -- as clear as a bright autumn

sky."

 

"There is a limit to physical pain, but there is no limit to mental

pain."

 

"As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of

reality and not reality itself."

 

"True religion cannot be obtained by seeking for some good; that is

the way to attain something in a material sense. The way to work on

spiritual things is very different. Even to talk about spiritual

things is not actually spiritual but a kind of substitute."

 

"Just to be there in the corner of the garden is enough."

 

"When you try to do something, you lose it, because you are

concentrated on one out of one thousand hands. You lose 999 hands.

Before you try, you have it."

 

"Almost all people are carrying a big board, so they cannot see the

other side. They think they are just the ordinary mind, but if they

take the board off they will understand, 'Oh, I am Buddha too. How

can I be both Buddha and ordinary mind? It is amazing!' That is

enlightenment."

 

Bodhidharma said, 'I don't know.' 'I don't know' is the first

principle. Do you understand? The first principle cannot be known

in terms of good or bad, right or wrong, because it is both right and

wrong."

 

"We get no letters from the world of emptiness, but when you see the

plant flower, when you hear the sound of bamboo hit by the small

stone, that is a letter from the world of emptiness."

 

"Buddhism is transmitted from warm hand to warm hand."

 

"How not to be lost in our problems is our practice."

 

"There is no special path which is true."

 

"Wherever you go you will find your teacher, as long as you have the

eyes to see and the ears to hear."

 

"The ancient bodhisattvas were not afraid of, but found joy in

failure, poverty and death -- and in doing small things."

 

"Nirvana is seeing one thing through to the end."