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We must exist right here, right now!

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
Must
Exist
Right

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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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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Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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
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Bowing is a very serious practice. You should be prepared to bow, even in your last moment. even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-centered desires, we have to do it. Our true nature wants us to.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Only when you understand people, they may understand you. So even though you do not say anything, if you understand people there is some communication.
Shunryu Suzuki
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The way that helps will not be the same it changes according to the situation.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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
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There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.
Shunryu Suzuki
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In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Our practice should be based on the ideal of selflessness. Selflessness is very difficult to understand. If you try to be selfless, that is already a selfish idea. Selflessness will be there when you do not try anything.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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From True Emptiness The Wondrous Being Appears
Shunryu Suzuki
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Christopher McCandless:I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.
Shunryu Suzuki