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
Focus
Open
Comes
Nothing
Hard
Trying
Directing
Mind
Concentration
Something
Keeping

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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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Take care of things, and they will take care of you.
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When the restrictions you have do not limit you, this is what we mean by practice.
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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.
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It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.
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Instead of criticizing, find out how to help.
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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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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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When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.
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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 should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment.
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So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others...before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you.
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All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness. Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake.
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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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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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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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Time goes from present to past.
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We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves.
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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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