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When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.

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
Best
Everything
Self
Trying
Way
Awareness
Understand
Anything

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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You see something or hear a sound, and there you have everything just as it is. [...] Whatever you do, it should be an expression of the same deep activity. We should appreciate what we are doing. There is no preparation for something else.
Shunryu Suzuki
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We ourselves cannot put any magic spells on this world. The world is its own magic.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing.
Shunryu Suzuki
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If it is raining out, do not walk fast, because it is raining everywhere.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice there is no other way of life than this way of life.
Shunryu Suzuki
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We try, and we try, and we fail and then we go deeper.
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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No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea.
Shunryu Suzuki
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The world is its own magic.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.
Shunryu Suzuki
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For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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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To express yourself as you are, without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, is the most important thing.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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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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
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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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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