Quote

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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Shunryu Suzuki
Age: 67 †
Born: 1904
Born: May 18
Died: 1971
Died: December 4
Bhikkhu
Leader
Missionary
Philosopher
Writer
Atlanta
Georgia
Comes
Nothing
Hard
Trying
Directing
Mind
Concentration
Something
Keeping
Focus
Open

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To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
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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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Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.
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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.
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Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.
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Discipline is creating the situation.
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You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
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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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Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice.
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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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From True Emptiness The Wondrous Being Appears
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Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.
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Only when you understand people, they may understand you. So even though you do not say anything, if you understand people there is some communication.
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When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
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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.
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It is only by practicing through a continual succession of agreeable and disagreeable situations that we acquire true strengths. To accept that pain is inherent and to live our lives from this understanding is to create the causes and conditions for happiness.
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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.
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