Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzukiwas a Sōtō Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States, and is renowned for founding the first Buddhist monastery outside Asia. Suzuki founded San Francisco Zen Center, which along with its affiliate temples, comprises one of the most influential Zen organizations in the United States. A book of his teachings, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, is one of the most popular books on Zen and Buddhism in the West...
NationalityJapanese
ProfessionLeader
Date of Birth18 May 1904
CountryJapan
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.
The point we emphasize is strong confidence in our original nature.
To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
To express yourself as you are, without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, is the most important thing.
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.
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.
When you say, "Wait a moment," you are bound by your karma; when you say "Yes I will," you are free.
If you want to read a letter from the Buddha's world, it is necessary to understand Buddha's world.
From True Emptiness The Wondrous Being Appears
Time goes from present to past.
When he bowed to all those buddhas, the buddhas he bowed to were beyond his own understanding. Again and again he did it.
The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities.
It is not after we understand the truth that we attain enlightenment. To realize the truth is to live - to exist here and now.
In your big mind, everything has the same value...In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood