99+ Shunryu Suzuki Quotes on Buddhism, Zen and Buddhism - Quotes.pub

Here you will find all the famous Shunryu Suzuki quotes. There are more than 99+ quotes in our Shunryu Suzuki quotes collection. We have collected all of them and made stunning Shunryu Suzuki wallpapers & posters out of those quotes. You can use this wallpapers & posters on mobile, desktop, print and frame them or share them on the various social media platforms. You can download the quotes images in various different sizes for free. In the below list you can find quotes in various categories like Buddhism, Zen and Buddhism

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.

If I tell you something, you will stick to it and limit your own capacity to find out for yourself.

Everything changes. There is nothing to stick to. That is the Buddha’s most important teaching.

Reality cannot be caught by thinking or feeling mind.

In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.

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.

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.

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.

Tai Shimano visited Shunryu Suzuki. “How are you feeling these days?” Suzuki replied, “They have a new name for me: Cancer!”

If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.

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.

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.

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.

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

People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.

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.

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.

To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind pervades your whole body.

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.

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.

When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.

If you want to read a letter from the Buddha’s world, it is necessary to understand Buddha’s world.

Enlightenment is not a complete remedy.

In reflecting on our problems, we should include ourselves.

When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time.

An enlightened person does not ignore things and does not stick to things, not even to the truth.

You can’t make a date with enlightenment.

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.

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.

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.

If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance.

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.

There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it.

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.

You should rather be grateful for the weeds you have in your mind, because eventually they will enrich your practice.

Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.

Everything you do is right, nothing you do is wrong, yet you must still make ceaseless effort.

No teaching could be more direct than just to sit down.

The purpose of our practice is just to be yourself.

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.

You may say that things happen just by chance, but I don’t feel that way.

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.

There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The point we emphasize is strong confidence in our original nature.

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