Shunryu Suzuki famous quotes

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.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Love #Life #Weed

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Two #Feet #Important

Instead of criticizing, find out how to help.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Helping #Criticize

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Yoga #Buddhism #Mma

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.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Practice #Mind #Purpose

The goal of our life’s effort is to reach the other shore, Nirvana. Prajna paramita, the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Goal #Effort #Way

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.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Thinking #Years #Practice

Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Reality #Perfect #Imperfection

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Mind #Empty #Ready

Tai Shimano visited Shunryu Suzuki. "How are you feeling these days?" Suzuki replied, "They have a new name for me: Cancer!"
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Cancer #Names #Feelings

The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Buddhism #Purpose #Study

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.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Mean #Thinking #Long

When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Effort #Leaving #Should

Take care of things, and they will take care of you.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Care #Take Care

Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet, but as you keep walking you get wet little by little. If your mind has ideas of progress, you may say, 'Oh, this pace is terrible!' But actually it is not. When you get wet in a fog it is very difficult to dry yourself.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Fog #Ideas #Mind

It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Easy #Calmness

When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves. That is our way, to live fully in each moment of time.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Way #Moments

Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Practice #Ideas #Way

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

#Saws #Awareness

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

#Life #Stars #Clouds

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.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Mean #Japan #Mind

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.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Selfish #Practice #Ideas

When you sit, everything sits with you.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Meditation

A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Disciple

Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Art #Teaching #Reality

When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Trying #Way #Awareness

Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Perfect #Rooms #Improvement

When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, 'Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere.'
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Fun #Rain #Masters

Everything you do is right, nothing you do is wrong, yet you must still make ceaseless effort.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Perfection #Effort #Stills

Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Practice #Everyday #Everyday Life

We do not slight the idea of enlightenment, but the most important thing is this moment, not some day in the future. We have to make our effort in this moment. This is the most important thing for our practice.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Practice #Ideas #Effort

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

#Moving #Enlightenment #Spirituality

When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

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

#Progress #Trying #Littles

Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#People #Enlightened

When something dies is the greatest teaching.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Teaching

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.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Change #Perfect #Worry

When you accept everything, everything is beyond dimensions. The earth is not great nor a grain of sand small. In the realm of Great Activity picking up a grain of sand is the same as taking up the whole universe. To save one sentient being is to save all sentient beings. Your efforts of this moment to save one person is the same as the eternal merit of Buddha.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Effort #Earth #Dimensions

There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Teaching #Moments #Should

For Zen students, a weed is a treasure.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Weed #Treasure #Students

Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Practice #Expression #Way

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

#Ideas #Long #Serious

Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It is about everything!
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Preparing Food #About Yourself #Preparing

When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Time #Ideas #Moments

Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness.  Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality.  That is a mistake.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Mistake #Reality #Thinking

In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Mind #Body #Accepting

The person who can freely acknowledge that life is full of difficulties can be free, because they are acknowledging the nature of life - that it can't be much else.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Life Is #Difficulty #Acknowledge

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

#Inspirational #Spiritual #Rivers

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.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Sheep #Giving #People

We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Sake

What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Moving #Doors

You should not have any remains after you do something. But this does not mean to forget all about it. In order not to leave any traces, when you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Mean #Order #Fire

Even though you have pain in your legs, you can do it. Even though your practice is not good enough, you can do it.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Pain #Practice #Not Good Enough

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

#Expression #Appreciate #Preparation

The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves. That is why we have teaching. But the teaching is not ourselves. It is some explanation of ourselves. To study the teaching is to know yourselves. That is why we do not ever attach to the teaching, or to the teacher. The moment you meet a teacher you should leave the teacher, and you should be independent. You want a teacher so that you can be independent. So you study yourselves. You have the teacher for yourselves, not for the teacher.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Teacher #Teaching #Independent

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.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Believe #Self #Color

When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say "inner world" or "outer world" but actually, There is just one whole world.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Air #Justice #World

True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another... But the best way to communicate may be just to sit without saying anything.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Communication #May #Way

Life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Life And Death #Facts #No Fear

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

#Mma #Perfect #Littles

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

#Garden #Important #Growing

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Buddhist #Everyday #Usual

Wherever you go you will find your teacher, as long as you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Teacher #Eye #Long

As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Reality #Long #Shadow

The world is its own magic.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Magic #World

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 essense they are the same. This is the true understanding transmitted from Buddha to us.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Buddhist #Understanding #Sorrow

We ourselves cannot put any magic spells on this world. The world is its own magic.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Magic #World #This World

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Inspirational #Teaching #Imagination

You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
-- Shunryu Suzuki

#Form #Universe