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

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
Enough
Needs
Bus
Much
Ego
Fronts
Front
Step
Steps
Need

More quotes by 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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Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.
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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 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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If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything it is open to everything.
Shunryu Suzuki
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The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is.
Shunryu Suzuki
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When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself. When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity.
Shunryu Suzuki
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We ourselves cannot put any magic spells on this world. The world is its own magic.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.
Shunryu Suzuki
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When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be so big. But when you are fooled by yourself, it is fatal. No more medicine.
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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Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Moment after moment everything comes out of nothingness. This is the true joy of life.
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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We must exist right here, right now!
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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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
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In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner - not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing.
Shunryu Suzuki
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To express yourself as you are, without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, is the most important thing.
Shunryu Suzuki