Quote

How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.

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
Much
Ego
Fronts
Front
Step
Steps
Need
Enough
Needs
Bus

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

Image
If you want to study Zen, you should forget all your previous ideas and just practice zazen and see what kind of experience you have in your practice. That is naturalness.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
The purpose of our practice is just to be yourself.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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
Image
Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another... But the best way to communicate may be just to sit without saying anything.
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
Don't move. Just die over and over. Don't anticipate. Nothing can save you now because you have only this moment. Not even enlightenment will help you now because there are no other moments. With no future, be true to yourself and express yourself fully. Don't move.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
If you were not born in this world, there would be no need to die. To be born in this world is to die, to disappear [laughing].
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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
Image
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
Image
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.
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 say, Wait a moment, you are bound by your karma when you say Yes I will, you are free.
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