Quote

We do not slight the idea of enlightenment, but the most important thing is this moment, not some day in the future. We have to make our effort in this moment. This is the most important thing for our practice.

Shunryu Suzuki

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Shunryu Suzuki
Age: 67 †
Born: 1904
Born: May 18
Died: 1971
Died: December 4
Bhikkhu
Leader
Missionary
Philosopher
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
Future
Moment
Idea
Moments
Ideas
Slight
Important
Enlightenment
Thing
Effort
Make
Practice

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
When you say, Wait a moment, you are bound by your karma when you say Yes I will, you are free.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
The secret of Soto Zen is just two words: not always so.... In Japanese, it's two words, three words in English. That is the secret of our practice.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thirsty.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Take care of things, and they will take care of you.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner - not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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
Image
We try, and we try, and we fail and then we go deeper.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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
Image
To be different is to have value. In this sense all things have equal, absolute value. Each thing has absolute value and thus is equal to everything else.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
From True Emptiness The Wondrous Being Appears
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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
Image
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
Shunryu Suzuki