Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzukiwas a Sōtō Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States, and is renowned for founding the first Buddhist monastery outside Asia. Suzuki founded San Francisco Zen Center, which along with its affiliate temples, comprises one of the most influential Zen organizations in the United States. A book of his teachings, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, is one of the most popular books on Zen and Buddhism in the West...
NationalityJapanese
ProfessionLeader
Date of Birth18 May 1904
CountryJapan
Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don't serve them tea.
Moment after moment everything comes out of nothingness. This is the true joy of life.
The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves.
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 essense they are the same. This is the true understanding transmitted from Buddha to us.
Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It is about everything!
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.
A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?" Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.
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.
Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.
You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.
You can't make a date with enlightenment.
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.
A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
Hell is not punishment, it's training.