D.T. Suzuki famous quotes

The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one's humdrum life, a life of monotonous, uninspiring commonplaceness, into one of art, full of genuine inner creativity.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Life #Art #Truth

The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Moving #Mean #Thinking

To Zen, time and eternity are one.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Eternity

Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Facts #Emptiness #Infinite

Zen Makes use, to a great extent, of poetical expressions; Zen is wedded to poetry.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Expression #Poetry #Use

Life, according to Zen, ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air, or as a fish swims in the water.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Air #Water #Bird

The waters are in motion, but the moon retains its serenity.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Inspiring #Moving #Heart

The contradiction so puzzling to the ordinary way of thinking comes from the fact that we have to use language to communicate our inner experience, which in its very nature transcends linguistics.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Thinking #Use #Way

The rocks are where they are- and this is their will. The rivers flow- and this is their will. The birds fly- this is their will. Human beings talk- this is their will. The seasons change, heaven sends down rain or snow, the earth occasionally shakes, the waves roll, the stars shine- each of them follows its own will. To be is to will and so is to become.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Stars #Rain #Rocks

I am an artist at living - my work of art is my life.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Art #Artist #Art Is

Though perhaps less universally known than such figures as Einstein or Gandhi (who became symbols of our time) Daisetz Suzuki was no less remarkable a man than these. And though his work may not have had such resounding and public effect, he contributed no little to the spiritual and intellectual revolution of our time.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Spiritual #Men #Intellectual

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Space #Tea #Swallowing

When traveling is made too easy and comfortable, its spiritual meaning is lost. This may be called sentimentalism, but a certain sense of loneliness engendered by traveling leads one to reflect upon the meaning of life, for life is after all a travelling from one unknown to another unknown.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Life #Spiritual #Loneliness

We can see unmistakeably that there is an inner relationship between Zen and the warrior's life.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Warrior

The basic idea of Zen is to come in touch with the inner workings of our being, and to do this in the most direct way possible, without resorting to anything external or superadded. Therefore, anything that has the semblance of an external authority is rejected by Zen. Absolute faith is placed in a man's own inner being. For whatever authority there is in Zen, all comes from within.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Men #Ideas #Way

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Mind #Firsts #Unconscious

The right art is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Art #Arrows #Goal

We have two eyes to see two sides of things, but there must be a third eye which will see everything at the same time and yet not see anything. That is to understand Zen.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Eye #Two Sides #Thirds

Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one's own rules-this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Creating #Trying #Kind

Zen opens a man's eyes to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of space in its every palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Heart #Eye #Men

Zen purposes to discipline the mind itself, to make it its own master, through an insight into its proper nature. This getting into the real nature of one's own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism. Zen, therefore, is more than meditation and Dhyana in its ordinary sense. The discipline of Zen consists in opening the mental eye in order to look into the very reason of existence.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Nature #Real #Eye

Among the most remarkable features characterizing Zen we find these: spirituality, directness of expression, disregard of form or conventionalism, and frequently an almost wanton delight in going astray from respectability.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Expression #Delight #Spirituality

The more you suffer the deeper grows your character, and with the deepening of your character you read the more penetratingly into the secrets of life. All great artists, all great religious leaders, and all great social reformers have come out of the intensest struggles which they fought bravely, quite frequently in tears and with bleeding hearts
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Religious #Struggle #Heart

That's why I love philosophy: no one wins.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Philosophy #Winning #Philosophy Love

Copying is slavery. The letter must never be followed, only the spirit is to be grasped. Higher affirmations live in the spirit. And where is the spirit? Seek it in your everyday experience, and therein lies abundance of proof for all you need.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Lying #Everyday #Experience

The claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal garments.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Buddhism #Essence #Historical

Zen is the spirit of a man. Zen believes in his inner purity and goodness. Whatever is superadded or violently torn away, injures the wholesomeness of the spirit. Zen, therefore, is emphatically against all religious conventionalism.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Religious #Believe #Men

Zen has nothing to teach us in the way of intellectual analysis; nor has it any set doctrines which are imposed on its followers for acceptance.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Acceptance #Intellectual #Doctrine

Unless it grows out of yourself no knowledge is really yours, it is only borrowed plumage.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Grows

Zen has no business with ideas.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Ideas

Zen wants us to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature. This is because Zen has come to the definite conclusion that the ordinary logical process of reasoning is powerless to give final satisfaction to our deepest spiritual needs.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Spiritual #Nature #Views

In the spiritual world there are no time divisions such as the past, present and future; for they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense. The past and the future are both rolled up in this present moment of illumination, and this present moment is not something standing still with all its contents, for it ceaselessly moves on.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Spiritual #Moving #Single Mom

You ought to know how to rise above the trivialities of life, in which most people are found drowning themselves.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Life Lesson #People #Rise Above

Eternity is the Absolute present.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Time #Eternity

Zen in it's essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Art #Essence #Vision

Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Art #Technique #Growing

The intuitive recognition of the instant, thus reality is the highest act of wisdom.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Reality #Recognition #Instant

Personal experience, therefore, is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Ideas #Experience

Let the intellect alone, it has its usefulness in its proper sphere, but let it not interfere with the flowing of the life-stream.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Spheres #Intellect #Streams

Zen approaches it from the practical side of life-that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Work #Enlightenment #Sides

One has not understood until one has forgotten it.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Understanding #Forgotten #Understood

Facts of experience are valued in Zen more than representations, symbols, and concepts-that is to say, substance is everything in Zen and form nothing.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Experience #Substance #Facts

The fighter is to be always single-minded with one object in view: to fight, looking neither backward nor sidewise. To go straight forward in order to crush the enemy is all that is necessary for him.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Crush #Fighting #Warrior

Zen professes itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all religions and philosophies,
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Philosophy #Buddhism #Facts

If I am asked If I am asked, then, what Zen teaches, I would answer, Zen teaches nothing. Whatever teachings there are in Zen, they come out of one's own mind. We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Teaching #Mind #Answers

Dhyana is retaining one's tranquil state of mind in any circumstance, unfavorable as well as favorable, and not being disturbed or frustrated even when adverse conditions present themselves one after another.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Frustrated #Mind #Coping

Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Two #Everyday #Enlightenment

The greatest productions of art, whether painting, music, sculpture or poetry, have invariably this quality-something approaching the work of God.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Art #Quality #Sculpture

Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Doe #Wake Up #Teach

Art always has something of the unconscious about it.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Art #Unconscious

Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Aim #Marksman

When mountain-climbing is made too easy, the spiritual effect the mountain exercises vanishes into the air.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Spiritual #Exercise #Climbing

Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Thinking #Done #Great Work

We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Way #Teach

Zen abhors repetition or imitation of any kind, for it kills. For the same reason Zen never explains, but only affirms. Life is fact and no explanation is necessary or pertinent. To explain is to apologize, and why should we apologize for living? To live—is that not enough? Let us then live, let us affirm! Herein lies Zen in all its purity and in all its nudity as well.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Life #Lying #Facts

The mistake consists in our splitting into two what is really and absolutely one. Is not life one as we live it, which we cut to pieces by recklessly applying the murderous knife of intellectual surgery?
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Mistake #Cutting #Knives

Prophecy is rash, but it may be that the publication of D.T. Suzuki's first Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927 will seem to future generations as great an intellectual event as William of Moerbeke's Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century or Marsiglio Ficino's of Plato in the fifteenth.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Plato #Latin #Buddhism

Zen, in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. By making us drink right from the fountain of life it liberates us from all the yokes under which we finite beings are usually suffering in this world.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Art #Essence #Suffering

Implicity, there should be something mysterious in every day.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Mysterious #Mystery #Should

To point at the moon a finger is needed, but woe to those who take the finger for the moon...
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Moon #Thinking #Woe

Until we recognize the SELF that exists apart from who we think we are - we cannot know the Ch'an ( ZEN ) MIND
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Thinking #Self #Mind

Suzuki's works on Zen Buddhism are among the best contributions to the knowledge of living Buddhism... We cannot be sufficiently grateful to the author, first for the fact of his having brought Zen closer to Western understanding, and secondly for the manner in which he has achieved this task.
-- D.T. Suzuki

#Grateful #Buddhism #Understanding