Shunryu Suzuki Quotes

132 quotes in 1290 categories

• Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.
• When you say, "Wait a moment," you are bound by your karma; when you say "Yes I will," you are free.
• 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…
• 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…
• The best way to control cow and sheep is to give them a big grazing field.
• Those who sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen.
• The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thursty.
• 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…
• When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, 'Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere.'
• 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.
• 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…
• 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…
• When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.
• 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…
• 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…
• There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment.
• For Zen students, a weed is a treasure.
• Everything you do is right, nothing you do is wrong, yet you must still make ceaseless effort.
• Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
• You are perfect as you are and there is always room for improvement.

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