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
Mind
Concentration
Something
Keeping
Focus
Open
Comes
Nothing
Hard
Trying
Directing

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In your everyday life you always have opportunities for enlightenment. If you go to the rest room, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you cook, there is a chance to attain enlightenment. When you clean the floor, there is a chance to attain enlightenment.
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From True Emptiness The Wondrous Being Appears
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It is wisdom that is seeking for wisdom.
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To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
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Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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When the restrictions you have do not limit you, this is what we mean by practice.
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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.
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We ourselves cannot put any magic spells on this world. The world is its own magic.
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There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.
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The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thirsty.
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The way that helps will not be the same it changes according to the situation.
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There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment.
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If it is raining out, do not walk fast, because it is raining everywhere.
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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.
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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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