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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
Ready
Open
Anything
Everything
Mind
Always
Empty
Meditation

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We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves.
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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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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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How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.
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If it is raining out, do not walk fast, because it is raining everywhere.
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Life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life.
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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.
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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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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.
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All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness. Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake.
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Take care of things, and they will take care of you.
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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.
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When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be so big. But when you are fooled by yourself, it is fatal. No more medicine.
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We try, and we try, and we fail and then we go deeper.
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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 accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.
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Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.
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Moment after moment everything comes out of nothingness. This is the true joy of life.
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There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.
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Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.
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