Quote

We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves.

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
Sake
Exist
Else
Something

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

Image
The world is its own magic.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Let your ears hear without trying to hear. Let the mind think without trying to think and without trying to stop it. That is practice.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
We try, and we try, and we fail and then we go deeper.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or to cook for yourself it is to express your sincerity. So when you cook you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You should allow yourself plenty of time.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Don't move. Just die over and over. Don't anticipate. Nothing can save you now because you have only this moment. Not even enlightenment will help you now because there are no other moments. With no future, be true to yourself and express yourself fully. Don't move.
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
The highest truth is daiji, translated as dai jiki in Chinese scriptures. This is the subject of the question the emperor asked Bodhidharma: What is the First Principle? Bodhidharma said, I don't know. I don't know is the First Principle.
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
Meditation opens the mind to the greatest mystery that takes place daily and hourly it widens the heart so that it may feel the eternity of time and infinity of space in every throb it gives us a life within the world as if we were moving about in paradise.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
The purpose of our practice is just to be yourself.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Time goes from present to past.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
The seed has no idea of being some particular plant, but it has its own form and is in perfect harmony with the ground, with its surroundings ... and there is no trouble. This is what we mean by naturalness.
Shunryu Suzuki