Shunryu Suzuki Quotes

You do not say, “This is enlightenment,” or “That is not right practice.” Even in wrong practice, when you realize it and continue, there is right practice.

When the restrictions you have do not limit you, this is what we mean by practice.

We emphasize straightforwardness. You should be true to your feelings, and to your mind, expressing yourself without any reservations. This helps the listener to understand more easily.

We have been taught that there is no gap between nighttime and daytime, no gap between you and I. This means oneness. But we do not emphasize even oneness. If it is one, there is no need to emphasize one.

Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (pp. 108-109). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.

Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.

Usually when you practice zazen, you become very idealistic, and you set up an ideal or goal which you strive to attain and fulfill. But as I have often said, this is absurd. When you are idealistic, you have some gaining idea within yourself; by the time you attain your ideal or goal, your gaining idea will create another ideal.

When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.

It is the people who are outside of the monastery who feel its atmosphere,” writes the Zen master. “Those who are practicing actually do not feel anything.

The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in its wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.

To live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being, moment after moment.

It is quite usual for us to gather pieces of information from various sources, thinking in this way to increase our knowledge. Actually, following this way we end up not knowing anything at all... Instead of gathering knowledge, you should clear your mind. If your mind is clear, true knowledge is already yours.

Those who can sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen, the actual feeling of Zen, the marrow of Zen.

When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves.

So even if the sun were to rise from the west, the Bodhisattva has only one way.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few