Shunryu Suzuki Quotes

The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes.

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. In an exact sense, the only thing we actually can study in our life is that on which we are working in each moment. We cannot even study Buddha’s words.”
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“So we should be concentrated with our full mind and body on what we do; and we should be faithful, subjectively and objectively, to ourselves, and especially to our feelings. Even when you do not feel so well, it is better to express how you feel without any particular attachment or intention. So you may say, “Oh, I am sorry, I do not feel well.

Actually the best way to relieve your mental suffering is to sit in zazen, even in such a confused state of mind and bad posture.

When we first hear that everything is a tentative existence, most of us are disappointed; but this disappointment comes from a wrong view of man and nature. It is because our way of observing things is deeply rooted in our self-centered ideas that we are disappointed when we find everything has only a tentative existence. But when we actually realize this truth, we will have no suffering.

When you know everything, you are like a dark sky. Sometimes a flashing will come through the dark sky. After it passes, you forget all about it, and there is nothing left but the dark sky. The sky is never surprised when all of a sudden a thunderbolt breaks through. And when the lightning does flash, a wonderful sight may be seen. When we have emptiness we are always prepared for watching the flashing.

So try not to see something in particular; try not to achieve anything special. You already have everything in your own pure quality. If you understand this ultimate fact, there is no fear. There may be some difficulty, of course, but there is no fear.

Suzuki said that if we practiced zazen sincerely, we could gradually become free from enslavement to compulsive intellectual and emotional activity. He said calming the intellect would happen first, but that calming emotions was not so easy and would take longer.

Even though it is midnight, dawn is here; even though dawn comes, it is nighttime.

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

We say concentration, but to concentrate your mind on something is not the true purpose of Zen. The true purpose is to see thing as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control in its widest sense.

Concentration is not to try hard to watch something... Concentration means freedom... In zazen practice we say your mind should be concentrated on your breathing, but the way to keep your mind on your breathing is to forget all about yourself and just to sit and feel your breathing.

When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything.

Sé humilde: "En la mente del principiante hay muchas posibilidades, pero en la mente del experto hay pocas".

NIRVANA, THE WATERFALL “Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life.

Each existence depends on something else... there are no separate individual existences. There are just many names for one existence.