Shunryu Suzuki Quotes - Page 8

Because all existence is founded upon the ever-present state of union, everything already exists in a state of tranquility. However, this state of tranquility is masked from us by our assumption that there is a separation, that there is a problem.

When he bowed to all those buddhas, the buddhas he bowed to were beyond his own understanding. Again and again he did it.

People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.

We die, and we do not die.

Those who sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen.

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.

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 enlightenment comes first, before thinking, before practice, your thinking and your practice will not be self-centered. By enlightenment I mean believing in nothing, believing in something which has no form or no color, which is ready to take form or color. This enlightenment is the immutable truth. It is on this orginal truth that our activity, our thinking, and our practice should be based.

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.

The way that helps will not be the same; it changes according to the situation.

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.

So it is not a matter of whether it is possible to attain Buddhahood, or if it is possible to make a tile a jewel. But just to work, just to live in this world with this understanding is the most important point, and that is our practice. That is true zazen.

The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is.

There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love...Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self-love bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love.

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 I tell you something, you will stick to it and limit your own capacity to find out for yourself.

Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.

Without ignoring the objective side of the truth, it has to be subjective as well, Buddha's whole teaching just for you, something you can taste. Not something to believe in but to discover, to experience.

The best way to control cow and sheep is to give them a big grazing field.

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen.

To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.

Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere.

If you want to read a letter from the Buddha's world, it is necessary to understand Buddha's world.

When something dies is the greatest teaching.

Even if the sun were to rise from the west, the Bodhisattva has only one way.