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

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

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

Image
The seed has no idea of being some particular plant, but it has its own form and is in perfect harmony with the ground, with its surroundings ... and there is no trouble. This is what we mean by naturalness.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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
Image
When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
The way that helps will not be the same it changes according to the situation.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Zen is everywhere.... But for you, Zen is right here.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Someone was sitting in front of a sunflower, watching the sunflower, a cup of sun, and so I tried it too. It was wonderful I felt the whole universe in the sunflower. That was my experience. Sunflower meditation. A wonderful confidence appeared. You can see the whole universe in a flower.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
When he bowed to all those buddhas, the buddhas he bowed to were beyond his own understanding. Again and again he did it.
Shunryu Suzuki