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
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.
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.
Let your ears hear without trying to hear. Let the mind think without trying to think and without trying to stop it. That is practice.
To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind pervades your whole body.
If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one.
Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.
The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities.
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
In the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there are few.
In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
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.
Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing.
The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.
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.