Shunryu Suzuki
You should rather be grateful for the weeds you have in your mind, because eventually they will enrich your practice.Collection: Weed
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.Collection: Past
Time goes from present to past.Collection: Past
It is a big mistake to think that the best way to express yourself is to do whatever you want, acting as you please. This is not expressing yourself. If you know what to do exactly, and you do it, then you can express yourself fully.Collection: Mistake
When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything.Collection: Independent
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.... 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. We can really learn something.Collection: Self
When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything. It appears as if something comes from outside your mind, but actually it is only the waves of your mind, and if you are not bothered by the waves, gradually they will become calmer and calmer.Collection: Mean
Meditation opens the mind to the greatest mystery that takes place daily and hourly; it widens the heart so that it may feel the eternity of time and infinity of space in every throb; it gives us a life within the world as if we were moving about in paradise.Collection: Moving
Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself.Collection: Wisdom
We try, and we try, and we fail; and then we go deeper.Collection: Trying
So for a period of time each day, try to sit, without moving, without expecting anything, as if you were in your last moment. Moment after moment you feel your last instant. In each inhalation and each exhalation there are countless instants of time. Your intention is to live in each instant.Collection: Time
When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves; we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.Collection: Order
After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little.Collection: Progress
I think you're all enlightened, until you open your mouths.Collection: Thinking
In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner - not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.Collection: Light
When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore.Collection: Inspirational
To express yourself as you are, without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, is the most important thing.Collection: Important
Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.Collection: Spiritual
You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.Collection: Form
Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.Collection: Life
Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.Collection: Change
What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.Collection: Moving
It is only by practicing through a continual succession of agreeable and disagreeable situations that we acquire true strengths. To accept that pain is inherent and to live our lives from this understanding is to create the causes and conditions for happiness.Collection: Pain
To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.Collection: Cake
The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves.Collection: Buddhism
In reflecting on our problems, we should include ourselves.Collection: Problem
You must be true to your own way until at last you actually come to the point where you see it is necessary to forget all about yourself.Collection: Way
When you sit, everything sits with you.Collection: Meditation
The highest truth is daiji, translated as dai jiki in Chinese scriptures. This is the subject of the question the emperor asked Bodhidharma: "What is the First Principle?" Bodhidharma said, "I don't know." "I don't know" is the First Principle.Collection: Chinese
It must be obvious...that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.Collection: Wisdom
The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.Collection: Compassion
Even though you try to put people under control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good. That is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.Collection: Sheep
The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind.Collection: Practice
So the secret is just to say 'Yes!' and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always yourself, without sticking to an old self.Collection: Being Yourself
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.Collection: Medicine
When you are just you, without thinking or trying to say something special, just saying what is on your mind and how you feel, then there is naturally self-respect.Collection: Respect
Don't move. Just die over and over. Don't anticipate. Nothing can save you now because you have only this moment. Not even enlightenment will help you now because there are no other moments. With no future, be true to yourself and express yourself fully. Don't move.Collection: Spiritual
So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very very careful about this point. If you start to practice zazen, you will begin to appreciate your beginner's mind. It is the secret of Zen practice.Collection: Art
The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thirsty.Collection: Drinking
Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing.Collection: Focus
A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?" Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.Collection: Suffering
The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. The innocence of the first inquiry—what am I?—is needed throughout Zen practice. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.Collection: Nature
When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time.Collection: Time
Take care of things, and they will take care of you.Collection: Care
To renounce things is not to give them up. It is to acknowledge that all things go away.Collection: Giving
Happiness is sorrow; sorrow is happiness. There is happiness in difficulty; difficulty in happiness. Even though the ways we feel are different, they are not really different, in essence they are the same. This is the true understanding transmitted from Buddha to us.Collection: Buddhist
Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.Collection: Enlightenment
The mind we have when we practice zazen is the great mind: we don't try to see anything; we stop conceptual thinking; we stop emotional activity; we just sit. Whatever happens to us, we are not bothered. We just sit. It is like something happening in the great sky. Whatever kind of bird flies through it, the sky doesn't care. That is the mind transmitted from Buddha to us.Collection: Emotional
In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.Collection: Mind