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

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
Something
Sake
Exist
Else

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We try, and we try, and we fail and then we go deeper.
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How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.
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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.
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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.
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From True Emptiness The Wondrous Being Appears
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Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.
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If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.
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There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.
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True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another... But the best way to communicate may be just to sit without saying anything.
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If you want to read a letter from the Buddha's world, it is necessary to understand Buddha's world.
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The secret of Soto Zen is just two words: not always so.... In Japanese, it's two words, three words in English. That is the secret of our practice.
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Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way.
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When you sit, everything sits with you.
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If you want to enjoy the movie, you should know that it is the combination of film and light and white screen, and that the most important thing is to have a plain, white screen.
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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.
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You can't make a date with enlightenment.
Shunryu Suzuki
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To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.
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If you were not born in this world, there would be no need to die. To be born in this world is to die, to disappear [laughing].
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
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To express yourself as you are, without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, is the most important thing.
Shunryu Suzuki