Quote

Life without zazen is like winding your clock without setting it. It runs perfectly well, but it dosen't tell time.

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
Without
Runs
Well
Settings
Time
Perfectly
Life
Clock
Like
Setting
Running
Tell
Wells
Winding

More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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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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If it is raining out, do not walk fast, because it is raining everywhere.
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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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The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thirsty.
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There is no connection between I myself yesterday and I myself in this moment
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There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.
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Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen.
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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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Discipline is creating the situation.
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A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
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The secret of Soto Zen is just two words: not always so.... In Japanese, it's two words, three words in English. That is the secret of our practice.
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The highest truth is daiji, translated as dai jiki in Chinese scriptures. This is the subject of the question the emperor asked Bodhidharma: What is the First Principle? Bodhidharma said, I don't know. I don't know is the First Principle.
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In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
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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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How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.
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The seed has no idea of being some particular plant, but it has its own form and is in perfect harmony with the ground, with its surroundings ... and there is no trouble. This is what we mean by naturalness.
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Because all existence is founded upon the ever-present state of union, everything already exists in a state of tranquility. However, this state of tranquility is masked from us by our assumption that there is a separation, that there is a problem.
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Take care of things, and they will take care of you.
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To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
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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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