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When you sit, everything sits with you.

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
Everything
Sits
Meditation

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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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
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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.
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.
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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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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
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When the restrictions you have do not limit you, this is what we mean by practice.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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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If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one.
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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To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice there is no other way of life than this way of life.
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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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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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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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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We try, and we try, and we fail and then we go deeper.
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
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Instead of respecting things, we want to use them for ourselves and if it is difficult to use them, we want to conquer them.
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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Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way.
Shunryu Suzuki