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
Only when you understand people, they may understand you. So even though you do not say anything, if you understand people there is some communication.
True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another... But the best way to communicate may be just to sit without saying anything.
Although we have no actual written communications from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what is going on in that world, and that is, you might say, enlightenment. When you see plum blossoms or hear the sound of a small stone hitting bamboo, that is a letter from the world of emptiness.
If your mind is empty, it is ready for anything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
Everything is perfect and there is always room for improvement.
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.
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.
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.
To renounce things is not to give them up. It is to acknowledge that all things go away.
Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere.
An enlightened person does not ignore things and does not stick to things, not even to the truth.
The Zen way of calligraphy is to write in the most straightforward, simple way as if you were a beginner, not trying to make something skillful or beautiful, but simply writing with full attention as if you were discovering what you were writing for the first time; then your full nature will be in your writing.
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.
Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.