Shunryu Suzuki (dharma name Shogaku Shunryu, often called Suzuki Roshi) (born May 18, 1904, Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan; died December 4, 1971 in San Francisco, California, United States) was a Soto Zen monk and teacher who helped popularise Zen Buddhism in the United States, and is renowned for founding the first Buddhist monastery outside Asia (Tassajara Zen Mountain Center). Suzuki founded San Francisco Zen Center, which along with its affiliate temples, comprises one of the most influential Zen organisations 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. Wikipedia
Shunryu Suzuki
As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.
Daily life becomes our Zen training.
For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.
Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.
Our ‘original mind’ includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself.
Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.
Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It’s about everything!
Q: How much ego do you need? A: Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.
The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, open to all possibilities.
The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.
To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.
We dedicate ourselves to sincere practice, with no thought of gaining anything special.
We should appreciate what we are doing. There is no preparation for something else.
What we call ‘I’ is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and exhale.
When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
When your mind is calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing, no world, no mind nor body, just a swinging door.
Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. Because we cannot accept, we suffer.
You and I are just swinging doors. This kind of understanding is necessary.
‘You’ means to be aware of the universe in the form of you, and ‘I’ means to be aware of it in the form of I.
You stick to naturalness too much. When you stick to it, it is not natural anymore.
Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.