Quote

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

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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
Mistake
Acting
Whatever
Expressing
Bigs
Express
Best
Fully
Way
Exactly
Think
Please
Thinking
Expression

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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There is no connection between I myself yesterday and I myself in this moment
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A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
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People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.
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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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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.
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Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen.
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There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment.
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Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.
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If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
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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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We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves.
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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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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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Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.
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True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another... But the best way to communicate may be just to sit without saying anything.
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Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
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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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You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
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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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