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Yasutani Hakuun. (安谷白雲) (1885-1973). Japanese ZEN teacher in the SoToSHu, who was influential in the West. Born in Japan, Yasutani attended public school until he entered a Soto Zen seminary at the age of thirteen. Yasutani was trained as a teacher and taught elementary school. He was married at the age of thirty and raised five children before turning to a life dedicated to the work of a Soto priest. He met Sogaku Harada in 1924 while lecturing in Tokyo. Yasutani began intensive study with Harada roshi and dedicated his life to teaching the dharma to laypeople. Yasutani organized a group called the Sanbo Kyodan (Fellowship of the Three Jewels), which became independent of the Soto school in 1954. Yasutani was the teacher of PHILIP KAPLEAU, who studied with him for eight years, and maintained a close relationship with him until 1967. Kapleau's The Three Pillars of Zen was based heavily on Yasutani's teachings. Yasutani traveled to the United States for the first time at the age of seventy-seven, three years after SHUNRYu SUZUKI arrived. For seven years, Yasutani taught Zen to many laypeople in the USA and, although he had prepared to live somewhat permanently in the country, a tuberculosis test prevented him from receiving a permanent visa. In his later years, Yasutani continued to travel in the United States as well as in India. He preferred to teach Zen in a nonmonastic environment. He died in Kamakura in 1973.
KEYS (10k)
37 Shunryu Suzuki
1 Tom Butler-Bowdon
1 Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Mind
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
235 Shunryu Suzuki
3 Gavin de Becker
2 Phil Knight
2 Pema Ch dr n
2 David Allen
1:A garden is never finished. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
2:You exist as an idea in your mind. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
3:there is only enlightened activity. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
4:Zen is nothing to get excited about." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
5:Zen practice is to open up our small mind." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
6:When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
7:There are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
8:The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
9:Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
10:Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It's about everything!
~ Shunryu Suzuki,#KEYS
11:When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.
~ Shunryu Suzuki,#KEYS
12:If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
13:Real practice has no purpose or direction, so it can include everything that comes. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
14:When the restrictions you have do not limit you, this is what we mean by practice.
~ Shunryu Suzuki,#KEYS
15:Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
16:More important than any stage which you will attain is your sincerity, your right effort." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
17:In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
18:If I tell you something, you will stick to it and limit your own capacity to find out for yourself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
19:Our way is not to sit to acquire something; it is to express our true nature. That is our practice." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
20:A mind full of preconceived ideas, subjective intentions, or habits is not open to things as they are." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
21:But as long as you think you are practicing zazen for the sake of something, that is not true practice." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
22:When you bow, you should just bow; when you sit, you should just sit; when you eat, you should just eat." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
23:When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
24:The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
25:When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
~ Shunryu Suzuki,#KEYS
26:When we realize the everlasting truth of "everything changes" and find our composure in it, we find ourselves in Nirvana." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
27:The true purpose [of Zen] is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
28: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, #KEYS
29:When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
30: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, #KEYS
31:The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities." ~ Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind), #KEYS
32:If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
33:If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginners Mind, #KEYS
34:If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
35: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #KEYS
36:Real enlightenment is always with you, so there is no need for you to stick to it or even think about it. Because it is always with you, difficulty itself is enlightenment. Your busy life itself is enlightened activity. ." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, (1904-1971), Zen master, Wikipedia., #KEYS
37:As long as you are clinging to the idea of self and trying to improve your practice or find something out, trying to create an improved, better self, then your practice has gone astray." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, (1904-1971), Japanesse Zen master. Came to the U.S. in 1954. See Wikipedia., #KEYS
38:You should not be tilted sideways, backwards, or forwards. You should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with your head. This is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice this way.
These forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture itself is the purpose of our practice. When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind, so there is no need to try to attain some special state.
When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. A Zen master would say, "Kill the Buddha!" Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature. Doing something is expressing our own nature. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. This is the fundamental teaching expressed in the forms we observe. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginners Mind,#KEYS
39:reading :::
50 Spiritual Classics: List of Books Covered:
Muhammad Asad - The Road To Mecca (1954)
St Augustine - Confessions (400)
Richard Bach - Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
Black Elk Black - Elk Speaks (1932)
Richard Maurice Bucke - Cosmic Consciousness (1901)
Fritjof Capra - The Tao of Physics (1976)
Carlos Castaneda - Journey to Ixtlan (1972)
GK Chesterton - St Francis of Assisi (1922)
Pema Chodron - The Places That Scare You (2001)
Chuang Tzu - The Book of Chuang Tzu (4th century BCE)
Ram Dass - Be Here Now (1971)
Epictetus - Enchiridion (1st century)
Mohandas Gandhi - An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth (1927)
Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness (1097)
Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet (1923)
GI Gurdjieff - Meetings With Remarkable Men (1960)
Dag Hammarskjold - Markings (1963)
Abraham Joshua Heschel - The Sabbath (1951)
Hermann Hesse - Siddartha (1922)
Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception (1954)
William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Carl Gustav Jung - Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1955)
Margery Kempe - The Book of Margery Kempe (1436)
J Krishnamurti - Think On These Things (1964)
CS Lewis - The Screwtape Letters (1942)
Malcolm X - The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964)
Daniel C Matt - The Essential Kabbalah (1994)
Dan Millman - The Way of the Peaceful Warrior (1989)
W Somerset Maugham - The Razor's Edge (1944)
Thich Nhat Hanh - The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975)
Michael Newton - Journey of Souls (1994)
John O'Donohue - Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (1998)
Robert M Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)
James Redfield - The Celestine Prophecy (1994)
Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements (1997)
Helen Schucman & William Thetford - A Course in Miracles (1976)
Idries Shah - The Way of the Sufi (1968)
Starhawk - The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979)
Shunryu Suzuki - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1970)
Emanuel Swedenborg - Heaven and Hell (1758)
Teresa of Avila - Interior Castle (1570)
Mother Teresa - A Simple Path (1994)
Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now (1998)
Chogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (1973)
Neale Donald Walsch - Conversations With God (1998)
Rick Warren - The Purpose-Driven Life (2002)
Simone Weil - Waiting For God (1979)
Ken Wilber - A Theory of Everything (2000)
Paramahansa Yogananda - Autobiography of a Yogi (1974)
Gary Zukav - The Seat of the Soul (1990)
~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Spirital Classics (2017 Edition),#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open for everything. Shunryu Suzuki ~ david-allen, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:To live is enough. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
2:enjoy your problems ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
3:"To live is enough." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
4:We die, and we do not die. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
5:A garden is never finished. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
6:The world is its own magic. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
7:A garden is never finished. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
8:Time goes from present to past. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
9:You exist as an idea in your mind. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
10:We must exist right here, right now! ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
11:Discipline is creating the situation. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
12:Hell is not punishment, it's training. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
13:Enlightenment is not a complete remedy. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
14:For Zen students, a weed is a treasure. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
15:When you sit, everything sits with you. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
16:It is wisdom that is seeking for wisdom. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
17:You can't make a date with enlightenment. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
18:"Zen practice is to open up our small mind." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
19:Instead of criticizing, find out how to help. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
20:When something dies is the greatest teaching. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
21:From True Emptiness The Wondrous Being Appears ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
22:Leave your front door and your back door open. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
23:The purpose of our practice is just to be yourself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
24:Take care of things, and they will take care of you. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
25:Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
26:There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
27:Zen is everywhere.... But for you, Zen is right here. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
28:"Buddhism is transmitted from warm hand to warm hand." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
29:No teaching could be more direct than just to sit down. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
30:We try, and we try, and we fail; and then we go deeper. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
31:The secret of zen is just two words: not... always... so. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
32:A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
33:In reflecting on our problems, we should include ourselves. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
34:I think you're all enlightened, until you open your mouths. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
35:Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
36:You will always exist in the universe in one form or another. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
37:We have to study with our warm heart, not just with our brain. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
38:There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
39:Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
40:Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
41:The point we emphasize is strong confidence in our original nature. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
42:To find perfect composure in the midst of change is to find nirvana. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
43:We should not hoard knowledge; we should be free from our knowledge. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
44:You are perfect as you are and there is always room for improvement. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
45:If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
46:There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
47:If it is raining out, do not walk fast, because it is raining everywhere. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
48:You may say that things happen just by chance, but I don't feel that way. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
49:The best way to control cow and sheep is to give them a big grazing field. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
50:The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
51:Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
52:"Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
53:Even if the sun were to rise from the west, the Bodhisattva has only one way. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
54:Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
55:Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It is about everything! ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
56:There is no connection between I myself yesterday and I myself in this moment ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
57:To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
58:When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
59:"Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
60:Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It's about everything!
~ Shunryu Suzuki,#NFDB
61:The way that helps will not be the same; it changes according to the situation. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
62:You see something or hear a sound, and there you have everything just as it is. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
63:Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
64:When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.
~ Shunryu Suzuki,#NFDB
65:How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
66:If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
67:Moment after moment, completely devote yourself to listening to your inner voice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
68:Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
69:The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
70:When the restrictions you have do not limit you, this is what we mean by practice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
71:"If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
72:We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
73:We ourselves cannot put any magic spells on this world. The world is its own magic. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
74:Real practice has no purpose or direction, so it can include everything that comes. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
75:Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
76:When the restrictions you have do not limit you, this is what we mean by practice.
~ Shunryu Suzuki,#NFDB
77:In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
78:Moment after moment everything comes out of nothingness. This is the true joy of life. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
79:Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
80:What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
81:In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
82:In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
83:There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
84:Those who sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
85:To renounce things is not to give them up. It is to acknowledge that all things go away. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
86:Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
87:As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
88:Everything you do is right, nothing you do is wrong, yet you must still make ceaseless effort. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
89:The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thirsty. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
90:When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
91:If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open for everything. —Shunryu Suzuki ~ David Allen, #NFDB
92:The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
93:Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
94:For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
95:An enlightened person does not ignore things and does not stick to things, not even to the truth. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
96:Life is like stepping into a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink. —SHUNRYU SUZUKI ROSHI A ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
97:Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
98:If I tell you something, you will stick to it and limit your own capacity to find out for yourself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
99:If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open for everything. —Shunryu Suzuki And ~ David Allen, #NFDB
100:If you want to read a letter from the Buddha's world, it is necessary to understand Buddha's world. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
101:In the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there are few. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
102:Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.” -Shunryu Suzuki Roshi ~ Angela Roquet, #NFDB
103:People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
104:If I tell you something, you will stick to it and limit your own capacity to find out for yourself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
105:When you say, "Wait a moment," you are bound by your karma; when you say "Yes I will," you are free. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
106:Wherever you go you will find your teacher, as long as you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
107:If you think you will get something from practicing zazen, already you are involved in impure practice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
108:Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an enlightened person. There is only enlightened activity. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
109:The more you practice zazen, the more you will be able to accept something as your own, whatever it is. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
110:La vida es como subirse a un barco que está a punto de zarpar y hundirse en el océano. SHUNRYU SUZUKI ROSHI ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
111:Zazen practice and everyday activity are one thing. We call zazen everyday life, and everyday life zazen. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
112:When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves. That is our way, to live fully in each moment of time. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
113:When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, 'Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere.' ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
114:To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind pervades your whole body. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
115:In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner - not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
116:To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
117:When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
118:You want to eliminate your evil desires in order to reveal your Buddha nature, but where will you throw them away? ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
119:Even though you have pain in your legs, you can do it. Even though your practice is not good enough, you can do it. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
120:Life without zazen is like winding your clock without setting it. It runs perfectly well, but it dosen't tell time. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
121:When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
~ Shunryu Suzuki,#NFDB
122:You should rather be grateful for the weeds you have in your mind, because eventually they will enrich your practice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
123:To express yourself as you are, without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, is the most important thing. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
124:Sé humilde: “En la mente del principiante hay muchas posibilidades, pero en la mente del experto hay pocas”. SHUNRYU SUZUKI ~ Tony Hsieh, #NFDB
125:A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?" Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
126:In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities,” said Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki. “In the expert’s mind, there are few. ~ Austin Kleon, #NFDB
127:Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
128:We should not be just a fan of dragons; we should always be the dragon himself. Then we will not be afraid of any dragon. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
129:When he bowed to all those buddhas, the buddhas he bowed to were beyond his own understanding. Again and again he did it. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
130:A tiger does not ignore or slight any small animal. The way he catches a mouse and catches and devours a cow are the same. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
131:In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
132:Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
133:Instead of respecting things, we want to use them for ourselves and if it is difficult to use them, we want to conquer them. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
134:Tai Shimano visited Shunryu Suzuki. "How are you feeling these days?" Suzuki replied, "They have a new name for me: Cancer!" ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
135: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, #NFDB
136:It is not after we understand the truth that we attain enlightenment. To realize the truth is to live - to exist here and now. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
137:A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?"
Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason. ~ Shunryu Suzuki,#NFDB
138:If you were not born in this world, there would be no need to die. To be born in this world is to die, to disappear [laughing]. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
139:The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
140: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
141:En la mente del principiante hay muchas posibilidades; en la del experto hay pocas. SHUNRYU SUZUKI, Mente zen, mente de principiante ~ Phil Knight, #NFDB
142:In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. —Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind ~ Phil Knight, #NFDB
143:Let your ears hear without trying to hear. Let the mind think without trying to think and without trying to stop it. That is practice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
144:When you are fooled by something else, the damage will not be so big. But when you are fooled by yourself, it is fatal. No more medicine. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
145:You must be true to your own way until at last you actually come to the point where you see it is necessary to forget all about yourself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
146:As long as we have some definite idea about or some hope in the future, we cannot really be serious with the moment that exists right now. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
147: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
148:If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
149:As soon as you see something, you already start to intellectualize it. As soon as you intellectualize something, it is no longer what you saw. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
150: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
151: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, #NFDB
152:When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
153:If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
154:It must be obvious...that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
155: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
156: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
157: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, #NFDB
158: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, #NFDB
159: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
160: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, #NFDB
161: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, #NFDB
162: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, #NFDB
163:So the secret is just to say 'Yes!' and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always yourself, without sticking to an old self. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
164:If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
165:Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda, and Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa. They ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
166:If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
167:The person who can freely acknowledge that life is full of difficulties can be free, because they are acknowledging the nature of life - that it can't be much else. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
168:The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
169:When you are just you, without thinking or trying to say something special, just saying what is on your mind and how you feel, then there is naturally self-respect. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
170:Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki said, “The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. ~ Gavin de Becker, #NFDB
171:When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
172: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, #NFDB
173: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
174:"If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
175:If your practice is good, you may become proud of it. What you do is good, but something more is added to it. Pride is extra. Right effort is to get rid of something extra. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
176:Emotionally we have many problems, but these problems are not actual problems; they are something created; they are problems pointed out by our self-centered ideas or views. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
177:If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginners Mind, #NFDB
178:Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
179:If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
180:If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
181:If you want to enjoy the movie, you should know that it is the combination of film and light and white screen, and that the most important thing is to have a plain, white screen. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
182: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
183: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, #NFDB
184: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
185:In your big mind, everything has the same value...In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
186:If you try to observe the precepts, that is not true observation of precepts. When you observe the precepts without trying to observe the precepts, that is true observation of the precepts. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
187:Usually when someone believes in a particular religion, his attitude becomes more and more a sharp angle pointing away from himself. In our way the point of the angle is always toward ourselves. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
188:Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
189:After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
190:Without ignoring the objective side of the truth, it has to be subjective as well, Buddha's whole teaching just for you, something you can taste. Not something to believe in but to discover, to experience. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
191: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
192:Bowing is a very serious practice. You should be prepared to bow, even in your last moment. even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-centered desires, we have to do it. Our true nature wants us to. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
193:We do not slight the idea of enlightenment, but the most important thing is this moment, not some day in the future. We have to make our effort in this moment. This is the most important thing for our practice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
194:Wabi means spare, impoverished; simple and functional. It connotes a transcendence of fad and fashion. The spirit of wabi imbues all the Zen arts, from calligraphy to karate, from the tea ceremony to Zen archery. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
195:Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
196:Our practice should be based on the ideal of selflessness. Selflessness is very difficult to understand. If you try to be selfless, that is already a selfish idea. Selflessness will be there when you do not try anything. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
197:Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
198: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, #NFDB
199: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
200:It is a big mistake to think that the best way to express yourself is to do whatever you want, acting as you please. This is not expressing yourself. If you know what to do exactly, and you do it, then you can express yourself fully. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
201:Real Freedom is to not feel limited when wearing this Zen robe, this troublesome formal robe. Similarly, in our busy life we should wear this civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, without being caught by it. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
202:Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki said, “The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.” People enjoying so-called beginner’s luck prove this all the time. ~ Gavin de Becker, #NFDB
203: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
204: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
205:Calmness of mind does not mean you should stop your activity. Real calmness should be found in activity itself. We say, "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, #NFDB
206: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
207:The teaching which is written on paper is not the true teaching. Written teaching is a kind of food for your brain. Of course it is necessary to take some food for your brain, but it is more important to be yourself by practicing the right way of life. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
208:When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say "inner world" or "outer world" but actually, There is just one whole world. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
209:When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
210:So it is not a matter of whether it is possible to attain Buddhahood, or if it is possible to make a tile a jewel. But just to work, just to live in this world with this understanding is the most important point, and that is our practice. That is true zazen. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
211:Meditation opens the mind to the greatest mystery that takes place daily and hourly; it widens the heart so that it may feel the eternity of time and infinity of space in every throb; it gives us a life within the world as if we were moving about in paradise. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
212: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
213: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
214: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
215: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
216:The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.
So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others, and you will be helped by others.
Before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you. ~ Shunryu Suzuki,#NFDB
217: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, #NFDB
218:Christopher McCandless:"I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
219:So for a period of time each day, try to sit, without moving, without expecting anything, as if you were in your last moment. Moment after moment you feel your last instant. In each inhalation and each exhalation there are countless instants of time. Your intention is to live in each instant. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
220: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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
221:The Zen way of calligraphy is to write in the most straightforward, simple way as if you were a beginner, not trying to make something skillful or beautiful, but simply writing with full attention as if you were discovering what you were writing for the first time; then your full nature will be in your writing. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
222:Although we have no actual written communications from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what is going on in that world, and that is, you might say, enlightenment. When you see plum blossoms or hear the sound of a small stone hitting bamboo, that is a letter from the world of emptiness. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
223:When you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
224:In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.... In the beginner's mind there is no thought, 'I have attained something.' All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. We can really learn something. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
225:Faith is a state of openness or trust...In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to the truth, whatever it might turn out to be. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
226:I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color--something which exists before all forms and colors appear... 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. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
227:When you accept everything, everything is beyond dimensions. The earth is not great nor a grain of sand small. In the realm of Great Activity picking up a grain of sand is the same as taking up the whole universe. To save one sentient being is to save all sentient beings. Your efforts of this moment to save one person is the same as the eternal merit of Buddha. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
228:Sanity and enlightenment...I've been reading a new book Dogen's Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries, and it contains a commentary on Genjo Koan by Shunryu Suzuki, the author who wrote Zen Mind, Beginners Mind. He doesn't mention sanity at all but I think that one possible definition of enlightenment would be a kind of profound sanity, where being insane is no longer an option. ~ Brad Warner, #NFDB
229:The mind we have when we practice zazen is the great mind: we don't try to see anything; we stop conceptual thinking; we stop emotional activity; we just sit. Whatever happens to us, we are not bothered. We just sit. It is like something happening in the great sky. Whatever kind of bird flies through it, the sky doesn't care. That is the mind transmitted from Buddha to us. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
230:There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love...Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self-love bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
231:The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. The innocence of the first inquiry—what am I?—is needed throughout Zen practice. The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. It is the kind of mind which can see things as they are, which step by step and in a flash can realize the original nature of everything. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
232:When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves; we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
233:If enlightenment comes first, before thinking, before practice, your thinking and your practice will not be self-centered. By enlightenment I mean believing in nothing, believing in something which has no form or no color, which is ready to take form or color. This enlightenment is the immutable truth. It is on this orginal truth that our activity, our thinking, and our practice should be based. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
234:Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet, but as you keep walking you get wet little by little. If your mind has ideas of progress, you may say, 'Oh, this pace is terrible!' But actually it is not. When you get wet in a fog it is very difficult to dry yourself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
235:In Japan we have the phrase, "Shoshin," which means "beginner's mind." Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
236:And we should forget, day by day, what we have done; this is true non-attachment. And we should do something new. To do something new, of course we must know our past, and this is alright. But we should not keep holding onto anything we have done; we should only reflect on it. And we must have some idea of what we should do in the future. But the future is the future, the past is the past; now we should work on something new. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
237:In order not to leave any traces, when you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do. You should not have any remains after you do something. But this does not mean to forget all about it. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
238:I look over at my hero shelf and see Philip Levine, Rainer Maria Rilke, Virginia Woolf, Shunryu Suzuki, Adrienne Rich, Pablo Neruda, Subcomandante Marcos, Eduardo Galeano, James Baldwin. These books are, if they are instructions at all, instructions in extending our identities out into the world, human and nonhuman, in imagination as a great act of empathy that lifts you out of yourself, not locks you down into your gender.
(“80 Books No Woman Should Read”) ~ Rebecca Solnit,#NFDB
239:When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything. It appears as if something comes from outside your mind, but actually it is only the waves of your mind, and if you are not bothered by the waves, gradually they will become calmer and calmer. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
240:Many experts lose the creativity and imagination of the less informed. They are so intimately familiar with known patterns that they may fail to recognize or respect the importance of the new wrinkle. The process of applying expertise is, after all, the editing out of unimportant details in favor of those known to be relevant. Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki said, “The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. ~ Gavin de Becker, #NFDB
241:So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very very careful about this point. If you start to practice zazen, you will begin to appreciate your beginner's mind. It is the secret of Zen practice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
242:While you are continuing this practice, week after week, year after year, your experience will become deeper and deeper, and your experience will cover everything you do in your everyday life. The most important thing is to forget all gain ing ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. Do not think about anything. Just remain on your cushion without expecting anything. Then eventually you will resume your own true nature. That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
243:The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves. That is why we have teaching. But the teaching is not ourselves. It is some explanation of ourselves. To study the teaching is to know yourselves. That is why we do not ever attach to the teaching, or to the teacher. The moment you meet a teacher you should leave the teacher, and you should be independent. You want a teacher so that you can be independent. So you study yourselves. You have the teacher for yourselves, not for the teacher. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
244:While you are continuing this practice, week after week, year after year, your experience will become deeper and deeper, and your experience will cover everything you do in your everyday life. The most important thing is to forget all gain
ing ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. Do not think about anything. Just remain on your cushion without expecting anything. Then eventually you will resume your own true nature. That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself. ~ Shunryu Suzuki,#NFDB
245:If you understand real practice, then archery or other activities can be zen. If you don't understand how to practice archery in its true sense, then even though you practice very hard, what you acquire is just technique. It won't help you through and through. Perhaps you can hit the mark without trying, but without a bow and arrow you cannot do anything. If you understand the point of practice, then even without a bow and arrow the archery will help you. How you get that kind of power or ability is only through right practice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
246:When you sit in the full lotus position, your left foot is on your right thigh and your right foot is on your left thigh. When we cross our legs like this, even though we have a right leg and a left leg, they become one. The position expresses the oneness of duality: not two and not one. This is the most important teaching: not two, and not one. Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
247:In the beginner's mind there is no thought, "I have attained something." All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless. Dogen-zenji, the founder of our school, always emphasized how important it is to resume our boundless original mind. Then we are always true to ourselves, in sympathy with all beings, and can actually practice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
248:Even though you try to put people under control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good. That is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, #NFDB
249:Zen teacher Lewis Richmond tells the story of hearing Shunryu Suzuki sum up Buddhism in two words. Suzuki had just finished giving a talk to a group of Zen students when someone in the audience said, “You’ve been talking about Buddhism for nearly an hour, and I haven’t been able to understand a thing you said. Could you say one thing about Buddhism I can understand?” After the laughter died down, Suzuki replied calmly, “Everything changes.” Those words, Suzuki said, contain the basic truth of existence: Everything is always in flux. Until you accept this, you won’t be able to find true equanimity. ~ Phil Jackson, #NFDB
250:In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
In our scriptures (Samyuktagama Sutra, volume 33), it is said that there are four kinds of horses: excellent ones, good ones, poor ones, and bad ones. The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver's will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second best will run as well as the first one does, just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. You can imagine how difficult it is for the fourth one to learn how to run! ~ Shunryu Suzuki,#NFDB
251:You should not be tilted sideways, backwards, or forwards. You should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with your head. This is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice this way.
These forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture itself is the purpose of our practice. When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind, so there is no need to try to attain some special state.
When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. A Zen master would say, "Kill the Buddha!" Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature. Doing something is expressing our own nature. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. This is the fundamental teaching expressed in the forms we observe. ~ Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginners Mind,#NFDB
252:reading :::
50 Spiritual Classics: List of Books Covered:
Muhammad Asad - The Road To Mecca (1954)
St Augustine - Confessions (400)
Richard Bach - Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
Black Elk Black - Elk Speaks (1932)
Richard Maurice Bucke - Cosmic Consciousness (1901)
Fritjof Capra - The Tao of Physics (1976)
Carlos Castaneda - Journey to Ixtlan (1972)
GK Chesterton - St Francis of Assisi (1922)
Pema Chodron - The Places That Scare You (2001)
Chuang Tzu - The Book of Chuang Tzu (4th century BCE)
Ram Dass - Be Here Now (1971)
Epictetus - Enchiridion (1st century)
Mohandas Gandhi - An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth (1927)
Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness (1097)
Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet (1923)
GI Gurdjieff - Meetings With Remarkable Men (1960)
Dag Hammarskjold - Markings (1963)
Abraham Joshua Heschel - The Sabbath (1951)
Hermann Hesse - Siddartha (1922)
Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception (1954)
William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Carl Gustav Jung - Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1955)
Margery Kempe - The Book of Margery Kempe (1436)
J Krishnamurti - Think On These Things (1964)
CS Lewis - The Screwtape Letters (1942)
Malcolm X - The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964)
Daniel C Matt - The Essential Kabbalah (1994)
Dan Millman - The Way of the Peaceful Warrior (1989)
W Somerset Maugham - The Razor's Edge (1944)
Thich Nhat Hanh - The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975)
Michael Newton - Journey of Souls (1994)
John O'Donohue - Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (1998)
Robert M Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)
James Redfield - The Celestine Prophecy (1994)
Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements (1997)
Helen Schucman & William Thetford - A Course in Miracles (1976)
Idries Shah - The Way of the Sufi (1968)
Starhawk - The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979)
Shunryu Suzuki - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1970)
Emanuel Swedenborg - Heaven and Hell (1758)
Teresa of Avila - Interior Castle (1570)
Mother Teresa - A Simple Path (1994)
Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now (1998)
Chogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (1973)
Neale Donald Walsch - Conversations With God (1998)
Rick Warren - The Purpose-Driven Life (2002)
Simone Weil - Waiting For God (1979)
Ken Wilber - A Theory of Everything (2000)
Paramahansa Yogananda - Autobiography of a Yogi (1974)
Gary Zukav - The Seat of the Soul (1990)
~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Spirital Classics (2017 Edition),#NFDB
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