Shunryu Suzuki - Mind Quotes

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

Shunryu Suzuki
You should rather be grateful for the weeds you have in your mind, because eventually they will enrich your practice.

Shunryu Suzuki
The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. The innocence of the first inquiry—what am I?—is needed throughout Zen practice. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything.

Shunryu Suzuki
Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.

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
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
When you are just you, without thinking or trying to say something special, just saying what is on your mind and how you feel, then there is naturally self-respect.

Shunryu Suzuki
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.

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. 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. So there is no need to worry about progress.

Shunryu Suzuki
Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.

Shunryu Suzuki
The mind we have when we practice zazen is the great mind: we don't try to see anything; we stop conceptual thinking; we stop emotional activity; we just sit. Whatever happens to us, we are not bothered. We just sit. It is like something happening in the great sky. Whatever kind of bird flies through it, the sky doesn't care. That is the mind transmitted from Buddha to us.

Shunryu Suzuki
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 does not mean that whatever you do, even lying down, is zazen. When the restrictions you have do not limit you, this is what we mean by practice….
When you sit, you will sit. When you eat, you will eat…. If you say, It doesn't matter, it means that you are making some excuse to do something in your own way with your small mind. It means that you are to some particular thing or way. That is not what we mean when we say, Just to sit is enough, or Whatever you do is zazen. Of course, everything you do is zazen, but if so, there is no need to say it.

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

Shunryu Suzuki