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When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

Shunryu Suzuki

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Shunryu Suzuki
Age: 67 †
Born: 1904
Born: May 18
Died: 1971
Died: December 4
Bhikkhu
Leader
Missionary
Philosopher
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
Trace
Burn
Leaving
Completely
Effort
Something
Good
Like
Bonfire

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A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
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Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.
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After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little.
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If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special.
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You can't make a date with enlightenment.
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The goal of our life’s effort is to reach the other shore, Nirvana. Prajna paramita, the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached.
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It is only by practicing through a continual succession of agreeable and disagreeable situations that we acquire true strengths. To accept that pain is inherent and to live our lives from this understanding is to create the causes and conditions for happiness.
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When he bowed to all those buddhas, the buddhas he bowed to were beyond his own understanding. Again and again he did it.
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When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself. When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity.
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To be different is to have value. In this sense all things have equal, absolute value. Each thing has absolute value and thus is equal to everything else.
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You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
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In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
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It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.
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It is a big mistake to think that the best way to express yourself is to do whatever you want, acting as you please. This is not expressing yourself. If you know what to do exactly, and you do it, then you can express yourself fully.
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Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.
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Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing.
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Happiness is sorrow sorrow is happiness. There is happiness in difficulty difficulty in happiness. Even though the ways we feel are different, they are not really different, in essence they are the same. This is the true understanding transmitted from Buddha to us.
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Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.
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When you sit, everything sits with you.
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Life without zazen is like winding your clock without setting it. It runs perfectly well, but it dosen't tell time.
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