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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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To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
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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].
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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.
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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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From True Emptiness The Wondrous Being Appears
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When you sit, everything sits with you.
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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.
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Because all existence is founded upon the ever-present state of union, everything already exists in a state of tranquility. However, this state of tranquility is masked from us by our assumption that there is a separation, that there is a problem.
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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.
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Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.
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A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Discipline is creating the situation.
Shunryu Suzuki
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It is wisdom that is seeking for wisdom.
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If it is raining out, do not walk fast, because it is raining everywhere.
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We try, and we try, and we fail and then we go deeper.
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Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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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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
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When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything.
Shunryu Suzuki
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The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thirsty.
Shunryu Suzuki