Quote

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.

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
World
Emptiness
Description
Limited
Expression
Mistake
Reality
Descriptions
Think
Attach
Thinking
Expressions

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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In your big mind, everything has the same value...In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood
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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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In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner - not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.
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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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We must exist right here, right now!
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The secret of zen is just two words: not... always... so.
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The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is.
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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.
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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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Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way.
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The goal of our life’s effort is to reach the other shore, Nirvana. Prajna paramita, the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached.
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Instead of respecting things, we want to use them for ourselves and if it is difficult to use them, we want to conquer them.
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To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
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It is a big mistake to think that the best way to express yourself is to do whatever you want, acting as you please. This is not expressing yourself. If you know what to do exactly, and you do it, then you can express yourself fully.
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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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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
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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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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
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Meditation opens the mind to the greatest mystery that takes place daily and hourly it widens the heart so that it may feel the eternity of time and infinity of space in every throb it gives us a life within the world as if we were moving about in paradise.
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You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
Shunryu Suzuki