Top 15 D. T. Suzuki Quotes

The bodhisattva would revolve the identity-wheel of opposites or contradictions: black and white, dark and bright, same¬ness and difference, the one and the many, finite and infinite, love and hate, friend and foe, etc., etc. While in the midst of clouds and dust, infinitely variegated, the bodhisattva works with his head and face all covered with mud and ashes. Where the utmost confusion of passions rages in its indescribable furies, the bodhisattva lives his life in all its vicissitudes, as the Japanese proverb has it, “seven times rolling up and down, and eight times getting up straight.” He is like the lotus flower in flame, whose color grows brighter and brighter as it goes through the baptism of fire.

Somebody asked Joshu, “Buddha is the enlightened one and teacher of us all. He is naturally entirely free of all the passions (klesa), is he not?” Joshu said, “No, he is the one who cherishes the greatest of all the passions.” “How is that possible?” “His greatest passion is to save all beings!” Joshu answered

The head is conscious while the abdomen is unconscious. When the master tells his disciples to “think** with the lower part of the body, he means that the koan is to be taken down to the unconscious and not to the conscious field of consciousness.

Some primitive people were once visited by an American scientist, and when they were told that Western people think with their heads, the primitive people thought that the Ameri¬ cans were all crazy. They said, “We think with the abdomen.” People in China and also in Japan—I do not know about India —when some difficult problems come up, often say, “Think with your abdomen,” or simply, “Ask your belly.” So, when any question in connection with our existence comes up, we are advised to “think” with the belly—not with any detachable part of the body. “The belly” stands for the totality of one’s being, while the head, which is the latest-developed portion of the body, represents intellection.

The Zen master is a strange sort of man. He will not listen to you and to what you may tell him about sciences modern or ancient. He knows his business better from his experience.

Western people often wonder why the Chinese people have not developed many more sciences and mechanical contriv¬ ances. This is strange, they say, when the Chinese are noted for their discoveries and inventions such as the magnet, gun¬ powder, the wheel, paper, and other things. The principal reason is that the Chinese and other Asiatic peoples love life as it is lived and do not wish to turn it into a means of accomplish¬ ing something else, which would divert the course of living to quite a different channel.

The scientifically minded West applies its intelligence to inventing all kinds of gadgets to elevate the standard of living and save itself from what it thinks to be unnecessary labor or drudgery. It thus tries hard to “develop” the natural resources it has access to. The East, on the other hand, does not mind engaging itself in menial and manual work of all kinds, it is apparently satisfied with the “undeveloped” state of civiliza¬ tion. It does not like to be machine-minded, to turn itself into a slave to the machine. This love of work is perhaps characteristic of the East.

Tennyson’s plucking the flower and holding it in his hand, “root and all,” and looking at it, perhaps intently. It is very likely he had a feeling somewhat akin to that of Basho who discovered a nazuna flower by the roadside hedge. But the difference between the two poets is: Basho does not pluck the flower. He just looks at it. He is absorbed in thought. He feels something in his mind, but he docs not express it. He lets an exclamation mark say everything he wishes to say. For he has no words to utter; his feeling is too full, too deep, and he has no desire to conceptualize it. As to Tennyson, he is active and analytical. He first plucks the flower from the place where it grows. He separates it from the ground where it belongs. Quite differently from the Oriental poet, he does not leave the flower alone. He must tear it away from the crannied wall, ”root and all,” which means that the plant must die.

The ranges of the Himalayas may stir in us the feeling of sublime awe; the waves of the Pacific may suggest something of infinity. But when one’s mind is poetically or mystically or religiously opened, one feels as Basho did that even in every blade of wild grass there is something really transcending all venal, base human feelings, which lifts one to a realm equal in its splendor to that of the Pure Land.

Basho was a nature poet, as most of the Oriental poets are. They love nature so much that they feel one with nature, they feel every pulse beating through the veins of nature. Most Westerners are apt to alienate themselves from nature. They think man and nature have nothing in common except in some desirable aspects, and that nature exists only to be utilized by man. But to Eastern people nature is very close. This feeling for nature was stirred when Basho dcovered an inconspicuous, almost negligible plant blooming by the old dilapidated hedge along the remote country road, so innocently, so unpretentiously, not at all desiring to be noticed by anybody. Yet when one looks at it, how tender, how full of divine glory or splendor more glorious than Solomon's it is!

Karma cannot be denied, it is the law; but the human heart is tender and loving, it cannot remain calm and unconcerned at the sight of suffering, in whatever way this might have been brought about. It knows that all things ultimately come from the one source; when others suffer I suffer too; why then should not self-renunciation somehow moderate the austerity of karma? This is the position taken by Mahayana Buddhists in regard to the doctrine of karma. p 12

The doctrine of karma is terrible; the doctrine of Parinamana is humane: karma is the law of nature, inflexible and irreconcilable; Parinamana is the heart of a religious being, filled with tears: the one is rigidly masculine and knows no mercy whatever; the other is most tenderly feminine, always ready to weep and help: the one is justice incarnate; the other is absolute love: the one is the god of thunder and lightning, who crushes everything that dares to resist him; the other is a gentle spring shower, warm, soft, and relaxing, and helping all life to grow: we bow before the one in awe and reverence; we embrace the other as if finding again the lost mother: we must have the one to be responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and deeds; but we cannot let the other go, as we need love, tolerance, humaneness, and kindheartedness.

Likewise, at every deed, good or evil, committed by any of the sentient units of this spiritual organization, the Dharmakaya rejoices or is grieved. When it is grieved, it wills to counteract the evil with goodness; when it rejoices, it knows that so far the cause of goodness has been advanced. p 10

This subtle spiritual system, of which all sentient beings are its parts or units, is like a vast ocean in which the eternal moonlight of Dharmakaya is reflected. Even a faint wavelet which is noticed in one part of the water is sure to spread, sooner or later, according to the resistance of the molecules, over its entire surface, and thus finally disturb the serenity of the lunar image in it.

The Mahayana Buddhists offer a doctrine complementary to that of karma, in order to give a more satisfying and more human solution to our inmost religious needs. The Mahayana doctrine of Parinamana, therefore, must go side by side with that of karma; for through this harmonious co-working of the two, the true spirit of Buddhism will be more effectively realized. In this phase of development, Mahayana Buddhism must be said to be profoundly religious. p 9