Quote

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

Shunryu Suzuki

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

Image
When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be so big. But when you are fooled by yourself, it is fatal. No more medicine.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another... But the best way to communicate may be just to sit without saying anything.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness. Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
When you say, Wait a moment, you are bound by your karma when you say Yes I will, you are free.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Someone was sitting in front of a sunflower, watching the sunflower, a cup of sun, and so I tried it too. It was wonderful I felt the whole universe in the sunflower. That was my experience. Sunflower meditation. A wonderful confidence appeared. You can see the whole universe in a flower.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Christopher McCandless:I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
When you sit, everything sits with you.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
In your everyday life you always have opportunities for enlightenment. If you go to the rest room, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you cook, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you clean the floor, there is a chance to attain enlightenment.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
The way that helps will not be the same it changes according to the situation.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
A flower falls, even though we love it and a weed grows, even though we do not love it....In this way our life should be understood. Then there is no problem.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Only when you understand people, they may understand you. So even though you do not say anything, if you understand people there is some communication.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki