Top 100 Shunryu Suzuki Sayings
#1. Life is like stepping into a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink. - SHUNRYU SUZUKI ROSHI A
Pema Chodron
#2. Tai Shimano visited Shunryu Suzuki. "How are you feeling these days?" Suzuki replied, "They have a new name for me: Cancer!"
Shunryu Suzuki
#3. A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
Shunryu Suzuki
#4. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#5. For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.
Shunryu Suzuki
#6. When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself. When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity.
Shunryu Suzuki
#7. You may say that things happen just by chance, but I don't feel that way.
Shunryu Suzuki
#8. You want to eliminate your evil desires in order to reveal your Buddha nature, but where will you throw them away?
Shunryu Suzuki
#9. If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
Shunryu Suzuki
#10. The best way to control cow and sheep is to give them a big grazing field.
Shunryu Suzuki
#11. So if you do something, you should be observant, and careful, and alert.
Shunryu Suzuki
#12. Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.
Shunryu Suzuki
#13. You should not be absent-minded. But to be aware of the movement does not mean to be aware of your small self, but rather of your universal nature ...
Shunryu Suzuki
#14. When we say something, our subjective intention or situation is always involved. So there is no perfect word; some distortion is always present in a statement.
Shunryu Suzuki
#15. People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross- legged position, or to attain enlightenment. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense.
Shunryu Suzuki
#16. If you were not born in this world, there would be no need to die. To be born in this world is to die, to disappear [laughing].
Shunryu Suzuki
#17. The secret of zen is just two words: not ... always ... so.
Shunryu Suzuki
#18. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#19. If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.
Shunryu Suzuki
#20. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#21. Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
Shunryu Suzuki
#22. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#23. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#24. Because you are already there [in this world], you can appear in the world. Also, it is not possible for something to vanish which does not exist. Because something is there, something can vanish ... But even though you vanish, something which is existent cannot be non-existent. That is the magic.
Shunryu Suzuki
#25. But the purpose of studying Buddhism is to study ourselves and to forget ourselves. When we forget ourselves, we actually are the true activity of the big existence, or reality itself.
Shunryu Suzuki
#26. If you try to observe the precepts, that is not true observation of precepts. When you observe the precepts without trying to observe the precepts, that is true observation of the precepts.
Shunryu Suzuki
#27. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen.
Shunryu Suzuki
#28. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#30. The seed has no idea of being some particular plant, but it has its own form and is in perfect harmony with the ground, with its surroundings ... and there is no trouble. This is what we mean by naturalness.
Shunryu Suzuki
#31. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#33. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#34. When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time.
Shunryu Suzuki
#35. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#36. Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way.
Shunryu Suzuki
#37. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves.
Shunryu Suzuki
#38. We ourselves cannot put any magic spells on this world. The world is its own magic.
Shunryu Suzuki
#39. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#41. A mind full of preconceived ideas, subjective intentions, or habits it not open to things as they are.
Shunryu Suzuki
#42. In your very imperfections you will find the basis for your firm, way-seeking mind.
Shunryu Suzuki
#43. How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.
Shunryu Suzuki
#44. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.
Shunryu Suzuki
#45. We should not hoard knowledge; we should be free from our knowledge.
Shunryu Suzuki
#46. When you say, "Wait a moment," you are bound by your karma; when you say "Yes I will," you are free.
Shunryu Suzuki
#47. There is no particular way in true practice. You should find your own way, and you should know what kind of practice you have right now.
Shunryu Suzuki
#48. In zazen, leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don't serve them tea.
Shunryu Suzuki
#49. It will take quite a long time before you find your calm, serene mind in your practice.
Shunryu Suzuki
#50. Even though it is midnight, dawn is here; even though dawn comes, it is nighttime.
Shunryu Suzuki
#51. In other restless positions you have no power to accept your difficulties, but in the zazen posture which you have acquired by long, hard practice, your mind and body have great power to accept things as they are, whether they are agreeable or disagreeable.
Shunryu Suzuki
#52. The point we emphasize is strong confidence in our original nature.
Shunryu Suzuki
#53. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#54. Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.
Shunryu Suzuki
#55. Not to be attached to something is to be aware of its absolute value. Everything you do should be based on such an awareness, and not on material or self-centered ideas of value.
Shunryu Suzuki
#56. Moment after moment, everyone comes out from nothingness. This is the true joy of life.
Shunryu Suzuki
#57. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#58. If you want to discover the true meaning of Zen in your everyday life, you have to understand the meaning of keeping your mind on your breathing and your body in the right posture in zazen.
Shunryu Suzuki
#59. In reflecting on our problems, we should include ourselves.
Shunryu Suzuki
#60. People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.
Shunryu Suzuki
#61. When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, 'Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere.'
Shunryu Suzuki
#62. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#63. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#65. In Hinayana Buddhism, practice is classified in four ways. The best way is just to do it without having any joy in it, not even spiritual joy. This way is just to do it, forgetting your physical and mental feeling, forgetting all about yourself in your practice.
Shunryu Suzuki
#66. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities.
Shunryu Suzuki
#67. It is a heretical view to expect something outside this world. We do not seek for something besides ourselves. We should find the truth in this world, through our difficulties, through our suffering.
Shunryu Suzuki
#68. We try, and we try, and we fail; and then we go deeper.
Shunryu Suzuki
#69. The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thursty.
Shunryu Suzuki
#70. You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
Shunryu Suzuki
#71. If you are not concerned about what you do, you will not say so. When you sit, you will sit. When you eat, you will eat. That is all. If you say, "It doesn't matter," it means that you are making some excuse to do something in your own way with your small mind.
Shunryu Suzuki
#72. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#73. Christopher McCandless:I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.
Shunryu Suzuki
#74. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#75. Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.
Shunryu Suzuki
#76. In our practice we have no particular purpose or goal, nor any special object of worship.
Shunryu Suzuki
#77. When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves. That is our way, to live fully in each moment of time.
Shunryu Suzuki
#78. But the way of practice is just to be concentrated on your breathing with the right posture and with great, pure effort.
Shunryu Suzuki
#79. Everything you do is right, nothing you do is wrong, yet you must still make ceaseless effort.
Shunryu Suzuki
#80. When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way.
Shunryu Suzuki
#81. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#82. There is no connection between I myself yesterday and I myself in this moment
Shunryu Suzuki
#83. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#84. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.
So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others, and you will be helped by others.
Before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you.
Shunryu Suzuki
#85. The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.
Shunryu Suzuki
#88. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#89. Leave your front door and your back door open.
Allow your thoughts to come and go.
Just don't serve them tea.
Shunryu Suzuki
#90. In the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there are few.
Shunryu Suzuki
#91. We must make some effort, but we must forget ourselves in the effort we make ... So it is necessary for us to encourage ourselves and to make an effort up to the last moment, when all effort disappears.
Shunryu Suzuki
#92. Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.
Shunryu Suzuki
#93. Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It is about everything!
Shunryu Suzuki
#94. Just continue in your calm, ordinary practice and your character will be built up.
Shunryu Suzuki
#95. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#97. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#98. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
#99. Those who sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen.
Shunryu Suzuki
#100. 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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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