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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.

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
Bowed
Beyond
Understanding

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special.
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The secret of zen is just two words: not... always... so.
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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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There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment.
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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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For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.
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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.
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If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything it is open to everything.
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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.
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From True Emptiness The Wondrous Being Appears
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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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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.
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Life without zazen is like winding your clock without setting it. It runs perfectly well, but it dosen't tell time.
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There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.
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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.
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There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
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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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Instead of respecting things, we want to use them for ourselves and if it is difficult to use them, we want to conquer them.
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Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.
Shunryu Suzuki
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An enlightened person does not ignore things and does not stick to things, not even to the truth.
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