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If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything it is open to 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
Anything
Everything
Mind
Always
Empty
Meditation
Ready
Open

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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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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People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.
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You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
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When you sit, everything sits with you.
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Zen is everywhere.... But for you, Zen is right here.
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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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To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
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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.
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Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.
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People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross- legged position, or to attain enlightenment. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense.
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If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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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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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In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
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There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
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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Although we have no actual written communications from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what is going on in that world, and that is, you might say, enlightenment. When you see plum blossoms or hear the sound of a small stone hitting bamboo, that is a letter from the world of emptiness.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Instead of criticizing, find out how to help.
Shunryu Suzuki