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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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Shunryu Suzuki
Age: 67 †
Born: 1904
Born: May 18
Died: 1971
Died: December 4
Bhikkhu
Leader
Missionary
Philosopher
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
Take
Attainment
Discouraged
Thick
Pride
Wall
Effort
Practice
Confine
Become
Idealistic
More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki
You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
Shunryu Suzuki
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.
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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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To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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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
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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The world is its own magic.
Shunryu Suzuki
Time goes from present to past.
Shunryu Suzuki
So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others...before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you.
Shunryu Suzuki
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.
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.
Shunryu Suzuki
The purpose of our practice is just to be yourself.
Shunryu Suzuki
If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one.
Shunryu Suzuki
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Bowing is a very serious practice. You should be prepared to bow, even in your last moment. even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-centered desires, we have to do it. Our true nature wants us to.
Shunryu Suzuki
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.
Shunryu Suzuki
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
