Shunryu Suzuki Quotes

79 Sourced Quotes

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
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.

Shunryu Suzuki
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.

Shunryu Suzuki
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.

Shunryu Suzuki
When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here.
In Buddhism it is a heretical view to expect something outside this world. We do not seek for something besides ourselves.

Shunryu Suzuki
To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind pervades your whole body.

Shunryu Suzuki
Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere.

Shunryu Suzuki
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
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
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
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
If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.

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

Shunryu Suzuki
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

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

Shunryu Suzuki
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
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
To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.

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

Shunryu Suzuki
People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross- legged position, or to attain enlightenment. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense.

Shunryu Suzuki
The basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of transiency or change. That everything changes is the basic truth for each existence. No one can deny this truth and all teaching of Buddhism is condensed within it. This is the teaching for all of us. Wherever we go this teaching is true. This teaching is also understood as the teaching of selflessness. Because each existence is in constant change, there is no abiding self.

Shunryu Suzuki
You may say you attained some stage in your practice. But that is just a trivial event in your long life. It is like saying the ocean is round, or like a jewel, or palace. For a hungry ghost the ocean is a pool of blood; for a dragon the ocean is a palace; for a fish it is his house; for a human being it is water. There must be various understandings. When the ocean is a palace, it is a palace. You cannot say it is not a palace. For a dragon it is actually a palace. If you laugh at a fish who says it is a palace, Buddha will laugh at you who say it is two o'clock, three o'clock. It is the same thing.

Shunryu Suzuki
The point we emphasize is strong confidence in our original nature.

Shunryu Suzuki
When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves; we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.

Shunryu Suzuki
What is true zazen? What do you mean by Zen becomes Zen and you become you? You become you is a very important point. You become you. When you become you, even though you are in bed, you may not be you most of the time. Even though you are sitting here, I wonder whether you are you in its true sense. So to be you is zazen.

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

Shunryu Suzuki
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.

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

Shunryu Suzuki
If enlightenment comes first, before thinking, before practice, your thinking and your practice will not be self-centered. By enlightenment I mean believing in nothing, believing in something which has no form or no color, which is ready to take form or color. This enlightenment is the immutable truth. It is on this orginal truth that our activity, our thinking, and our practice should be based.

Shunryu Suzuki