Quote

Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.

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
Way
Breaths
Time
Spirituality
Step
Steps
Practice
Spiritual
Idea
Gaining
Ideas
Breath

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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If you want to study Zen, you should forget all your previous ideas and just practice zazen and see what kind of experience you have in your practice. That is naturalness.
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Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.
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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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In the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there are few.
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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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For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.
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From True Emptiness The Wondrous Being Appears
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You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
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It is wisdom that is seeking for wisdom.
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Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.
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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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Our practice should be based on the ideal of selflessness. Selflessness is very difficult to understand. If you try to be selfless, that is already a selfish idea. Selflessness will be there when you do not try anything.
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We try, and we try, and we fail and then we go deeper.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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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If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
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The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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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Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.
Shunryu Suzuki