When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others...before you make your own way you cannot help… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
Let your ears hear without trying to hear. Let the mind think without trying to think and without trying to stop it.… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing. — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
If you try to observe the precepts, that is not true observation of precepts. When you observe the precepts without trying to… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
When you are just you, without thinking or trying to say something special, just saying what is on your mind and how… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
“The trying to do something is in itself enlightenment. When we are in difficulty or distress, there we have enlightenment.” — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
The Zen way of calligraphy is to write in the most straightforward, simple way as if you were a beginner, not trying… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
The mind we have when we practice zazen is the great mind: we don't try to see anything; we stop conceptual thinking;… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
Our practice should be based on the ideal of selflessness. Selflessness is very difficult to understand. If you try to be selfless,… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love...Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
If you understand real practice, then archery or other activities can be zen. If you don't understand how to practice archery in… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
Even though you try to put people under control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share Image
If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
You want to eliminate your evil desires in order to reveal your Buddha nature, but where will you throw them away? — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
“In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the experts mind, there are few.” — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
The seed has no idea of being some particular plant, but it has its own form and is in perfect harmony with the ground,… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything.… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
“Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense. To make… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
So the secret is just to say 'Yes!' and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to… — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way. — Shunryu Suzuki Copy Share
