Shunryu Suzuki
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.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Truth
Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It is about everything!Collection: Food
Everything is perfect and there is always room for improvement.
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen.
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.
The world is its own magic.
If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.
We must exist right here, right now!
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.
Discipline is creating the situation.
When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.
Moment after moment everything comes out of nothingness. This is the true joy of life.Collection: True Joy
In Japan we have the phrase, "Shoshin," which means "beginner's mind." Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.Collection: Mean
Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement.Collection: Perfect
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.Collection: Saws
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an enlightened person. There is only enlightened activity.Collection: Enlightened
Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.Collection: Yoga
How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.Collection: Ego
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 everythingCollection: Gratitude
Wherever you go you will find your teacher, as long as you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.Collection: Teacher
I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color--something which exists before all forms and colors appear... 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.Collection: Believe
Instead of criticizing, find out how to help.Collection: Helping
When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.Collection: Self
You are perfect as you are and there is always room for improvement.Collection: Perfect
When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, 'Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere.'Collection: Fun
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.Collection: Mind
Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.Collection: Inspirational
Hell is not punishment, it's training.Collection: Punishment
Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.Collection: Voice
The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.Collection: Two
It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.Collection: Easy
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.Collection: Faith
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.Collection: Love
For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.Collection: Weed
There is no connection between I myself yesterday and I myself in this momentCollection: Yesterday
Although we have no actual written communications from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what is going on in that world, and that is, you might say, enlightenment. When you see plum blossoms or hear the sound of a small stone hitting bamboo, that is a letter from the world of emptiness.Collection: Communication
Our practice should be based on the ideal 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.Collection: Selfish
If it is raining out, do not walk fast, because it is raining everywhere.Collection: Rain
Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.Collection: Spring
If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.Collection: Meditation
The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities.Collection: Doubt
When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves. That is our way, to live fully in each moment of time.Collection: Way To Live
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.Collection: Helping Others
While you are continuing this practice, week after week, year after year, your experience will become deeper and deeper, and your experience will cover everything you do in your everyday life. The most important thing is to forget all gain ing ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. Do not think about anything. Just remain on your cushion without expecting anything. Then eventually you will resume your own true nature. That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself.Collection: Thinking
Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way.Collection: Individuality
Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.Collection: Buddhist