Quote

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.

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
Littles
Rapids
Little
Practiced
Hard
Extraordinary
Even
Realize
Trying
Progress
Make
Realizing
Always
Possible
Though
Rapid

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Instead of criticizing, find out how to help.
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When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.
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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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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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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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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.
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If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything it is open to everything.
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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 he bowed to all those buddhas, the buddhas he bowed to were beyond his own understanding. Again and again he did it.
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It is wisdom that is seeking for wisdom.
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Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.
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To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or to cook for yourself it is to express your sincerity. So when you cook you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You should allow yourself plenty of time.
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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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