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Zen professes itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all religions and philosophies.

D.T. Suzuki

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D.T. Suzuki
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More quotes by D.T. Suzuki

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I am an artist at living - my work of art is my life.
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The contradiction so puzzling to the ordinary way of thinking comes from the fact that we have to use language to communicate our inner experience, which in its very nature transcends linguistics.
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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.
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The fighter is to be always single-minded with one object in view: to fight, looking neither backward nor sidewise. To go straight forward in order to crush the enemy is all that is necessary for him.
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Suzuki's works on Zen Buddhism are among the best contributions to the knowledge of living Buddhism... We cannot be sufficiently grateful to the author, first for the fact of his having brought Zen closer to Western understanding, and secondly for the manner in which he has achieved this task.
D.T. Suzuki
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Unless we agree to suffer we cannot be free from suffering.
D.T. Suzuki
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Zen teaches nothing it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points.
D.T. Suzuki
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The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one's humdrum life, a life of monotonous, uninspiring commonplaceness, into one of art, full of genuine inner creativity.
D.T. Suzuki
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When we start to feel anxious or depressed, instead of asking, What do I need to get to be happy? The question becomes, What am I doing to disturb the inner peace that I already have?
D.T. Suzuki
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We can see unmistakeably that there is an inner relationship between Zen and the warrior's life.
D.T. Suzuki
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Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.
D.T. Suzuki
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Eternity is the Absolute present.
D.T. Suzuki
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Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself.
D.T. Suzuki
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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
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One has not understood until one has forgotten it.
D.T. Suzuki
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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
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Among the most remarkable features characterizing Zen we find these: spirituality, directness of expression, disregard of form or conventionalism, and frequently an almost wanton delight in going astray from respectability.
D.T. Suzuki
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Unless it grows out of yourself no knowledge is really yours, it is only borrowed plumage.
D.T. Suzuki
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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
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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