Quote

Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.

D.T. Suzuki

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

D.T. Suzuki
Consciousness
Two
Like
Inches
Enlightenment
Ground
Everyday

More quotes by D.T. Suzuki

Image
Because since the beginningless past we are running after objects, not knowing where our Self is, we lose track of the Original Mind and are tormented all the time by the threatening objective world, regarding it as good or bad, true or false, agreeable or disagreeable. We are thus slaves of things and circumstances.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Prophecy is rash, but it may be that the publication of D.T. Suzuki's first Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927 will seem to future generations as great an intellectual event as William of Moerbeke's Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century or Marsiglio Ficino's of Plato in the fifteenth.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Zen professes itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all religions and philosophies.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
The more you suffer the deeper grows your character, and with the deepening of your character you read the more penetratingly into the secrets of life. All great artists, all great religious leaders, and all great social reformers have come out of the intensest struggles which they fought bravely, quite frequently in tears and with bleeding hearts
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Though perhaps less universally known than such figures as Einstein or Gandhi (who became symbols of our time) Daisetz Suzuki was no less remarkable a man than these. And though his work may not have had such resounding and public effect, he contributed no little to the spiritual and intellectual revolution of our time.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Zen has nothing to teach us in the way of intellectual analysis nor has it any set doctrines which are imposed on its followers for acceptance.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Facts of experience are valued in Zen more than representations, symbols, and concepts-that is to say, substance is everything in Zen and form nothing.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Zen in it's essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
You ought to know how to rise above the trivialities of life, in which most people are found drowning themselves.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Zen wants us to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature. This is because Zen has come to the definite conclusion that the ordinary logical process of reasoning is powerless to give final satisfaction to our deepest spiritual needs.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
When I say that Zen is life, I mean that Zen is not to be confined within conceptualization, that Zen is what makes conceptualization possible.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Implicity, there should be something mysterious in every day.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Dhyana is retaining one's tranquil state of mind in any circumstance, unfavorable as well as favorable, and not being disturbed or frustrated even when adverse conditions present themselves one after another.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Life, according to Zen, ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air, or as a fish swims in the water.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
The mistake consists in our splitting into two what is really and absolutely one. Is not life one as we live it, which we cut to pieces by recklessly applying the murderous knife of intellectual surgery?
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
We can see unmistakeably that there is an inner relationship between Zen and the warrior's life.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
Unless we die to ourselves, we can never be alive again.
D.T. Suzuki
Image
The right art is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede.
D.T. Suzuki