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You can't make a date with enlightenment.

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
Date
Enlightenment
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More quotes by Shunryu Suzuki

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The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Someone was sitting in front of a sunflower, watching the sunflower, a cup of sun, and so I tried it too. It was wonderful I felt the whole universe in the sunflower. That was my experience. Sunflower meditation. A wonderful confidence appeared. You can see the whole universe in a flower.
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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make our effort, moment after moment, is our way.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.
Shunryu Suzuki
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You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thirsty.
Shunryu Suzuki
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An enlightened person does not ignore things and does not stick to things, not even to the truth.
Shunryu Suzuki
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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.
Shunryu Suzuki
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To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or to cook for yourself it is to express your sincerity. So when you cook you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You should allow yourself plenty of time.
Shunryu Suzuki
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If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.
Shunryu Suzuki
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The way that helps will not be the same it changes according to the situation.
Shunryu Suzuki