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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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Shunryu Suzuki
Age: 67 †
Born: 1904
Born: May 18
Died: 1971
Died: December 4
Bhikkhu
Leader
Missionary
Philosopher
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
Practice
Forget
Experience
Ideas
Kind
Naturalness
Previous
Study

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Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.
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When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.
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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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The purpose of our practice is just to be yourself.
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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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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.
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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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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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Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.
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If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.
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Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.
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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.
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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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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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For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.
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A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
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When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
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Only when you understand people, they may understand you. So even though you do not say anything, if you understand people there is some communication.
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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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