Quote

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.

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
Sound
Else
Preparation
Everything
Appreciate
Something
Activity
Deep
Expression
Hear
Whatever

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.
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Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.
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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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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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Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.
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There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.
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Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing.
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If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special.
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Happiness is sorrow sorrow is happiness. There is happiness in difficulty difficulty in happiness. Even though the ways we feel are different, they are not really different, in essence they are the same. This is the true understanding transmitted from Buddha to us.
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You can't make a date with enlightenment.
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If you want to read a letter from the Buddha's world, it is necessary to understand Buddha's world.
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It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.
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To express yourself as you are, without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, is the most important thing.
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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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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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The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is.
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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.
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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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For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.
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