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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A flower falls, even though we love it and a weed grows, even though we do not love it....In this way our life should be understood. Then there is no problem.
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Instead of criticizing, find out how to help.
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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.
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If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.
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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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If it is raining out, do not walk fast, because it is raining everywhere.
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The way that helps will not be the same it changes according to the situation.
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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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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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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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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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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 true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thirsty.
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Because all existence is founded upon the ever-present state of union, everything already exists in a state of tranquility. However, this state of tranquility is masked from us by our assumption that there is a separation, that there is a problem.
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When you sit, everything sits with you.
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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.
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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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In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
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