Shunryu Suzuki - Quotes

A few quotes from Shunryu
Suzuki Lectures
From Suzuki Roshi's lectures as used in Crooked Cucumber
Buddha is always helping you. But usually we refuse Buddha's

offer. For instance, sometimes you ask for something special. This
means that you are refusing to accept the treasures you already
have. You are like a pig. When I was young, as my father was very
poor, he raised many pigs. I noticed that when I gave the pigs a
bucket of food, they would eat it after I went away. As long as I
was there, they wouldn't eat it, expecting me to give them more
food. I had to be very careful. If I moved too quickly they would
kick the bucket over. I think that is what you are doing. Just to
cause yourself more problems, you seek for something. But there
is no need for you to seek for anything. You have plenty, and you
have just enough problems. This is a mysterious thing, you know,
the mystery of life. We have just enough problems, not too many
or too few.
************
Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time,
with no gaining idea.
************
[From his Mountain Seat Ceremony (becoming the official abbot)
at his temple Sokoji in San Francisco in 1963. He'd been there
since 1959 but on this day officially became the chief priest.]
Like the birds I came,
No road under my feet,
A golden-chained gate unlocks itself.
************
From the Wind Bell. At the bottom of a page with the text and his
commentary on a Zen Koan, Suzuki wrote: "Give the monk thirty
blows! It is difficult to express reality fully on each occasion!"
************
"Don't kill" is a dead precept. "Excuse me" is an actual working
precept.
************
Maybe I am a very smoky kerosene lamp [kerosene lamps were
used to light the zendo]. When I start to talk about something, it is
already a smoky kerosene lamp. As long as I must give a lecture, I
have to explain in terms of right and wrong: "This is right practice,
that is wrong, this is how to practice zazen." It is like giving you a
recipe. It doesn't work. You cannot eat a recipe.
************
As Dogen says, people like what is not true and they don't like
what is true.
************
You may foolishly try to ignore karma, but this will never work, and
if you fight it too much, you will invite destruction that is worse than
war. We are actually creating war through our everyday activities.
You talk about peace in some angry mood, when actually you are
creating war with that angry mood. Ughhh! That is war! We should
know. We should open our dharma eyes, and together we should
help each other forever.
************
If you count your breathing, you will easily notice when you are not
taking care of your everyday life. I have many difficulties in my
practice, so I think you too will find it very difficult to sit in good
zazen.
************
The secret of Soto Zen is just two words: not always so.
************
There is nothing absolute for us, but when nothing is absolute, that
is absolute.
************
Enlightenment is not any particular stage that you attain.
************
Almost all people are carrying a big board, so they cannot see the
other side. They think they are just the ordinary mind, but if they
take the board off they will understand, "Oh, I am Buddha, too.
How can I be both Buddha and ordinary mind? It is amazing!" That
is enlightenment.
************
There is no particular teaching or way, but the buddha-nature of all
is the same, what we find is the same.
************
The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your
two feet.
************
The first principle is not something that Buddha or other people
came up with. If you think what Buddha proclaimed is the Royal
Law, that is not right. The Royal Law was already there before he
was on the pulpit.
************
If you have a preconceived idea of the first principle, that idea is
topsy-turvy, and as long as you seek a first principle that is
something to be applied in one way to every occasion, you will
have topsy-turvy ideas. Such ideas are not necessary. Buddha's
great light shines forth from everything, each moment.
************
"I don't know" is the first principle. Do you understand? The first
principle cannot be known in terms of good or bad, right or wrong,
because it is both right and wrong.
************
Buddhism is transmitted from warm hand to warm hand.
************
My lecture for tonight will be very short, especially after having a
good dinner of noodles, which were very long. Our transmission
should be a very long, long one. And our transmission is a special
noodle. Dogen Zenji says, "When you realize buddha nature, you
are the teacher." You are the teacher of your master too, and you
will be even the teacher of Shakyamuni Buddha.
************
Encouraged by trumpets, guns, and war cries, it is quite easy to
die. That kind of practice is not our practice.
************
To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a
painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat. There is no
taste, and you will give up, because it doesn't mean anything,
even though you sit seven days. But our true zazen cannot be like
that. If Zen was like that, it would have vanished from this world a
long time ago. Zen is still alive because of the other side of the
truth. Only when each one of us feels the truth, appreciates the
truth, accepts the truth, and is ready to follow the truth, will it work.
When someone puts himself outside of the truth in order to study
the truth, he won't know what to do when something happens to
him.
************
Do you know the story of the true dragon? In ancient China, there
was a person who liked dragons very much. He talked about
dragons to his friends, and he painted dragons, and he bought
various kinds of dragon sculptures. Then a dragon said to himself,
"If a real dragon like me visited him, he would be very happy." One
day the real dragon sneaked into his room. The man didn't know
what to do! Whaaaah! He could not run away. He could not even
stand up. Whaaaah! For a long, long time we have been like him.
That should not be our attitude. 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.
************
One day while walking in the vegetable garden at Tassajara,
Suzuki noticed a student who was sitting on a stone looking at a
sunflower growing nearby. He went over and sat by her.
"What are you doing?"
"Meditating with the sunflower," she said. "It rotates with the sun."
Suzuki sat with her for a long time. That night Suzuki referred to
his garden visit.
"Unless you get through to emptiness, you are not practicing. But if
you stick to the idea of emptiness, you are not a Buddhist yet.
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. If you say, 'Oh this is a
sunflower which doesn't really exist' [laughing], that is not our
zazen practice."
************
You stick to naturalness too much. When you stick to it, it is not
natural any more.

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A few quotes from Shunryu

Buddha is always helping you. But usually we refuse Buddha's

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