Shunryu Suzuki Quotes

Quotes about:

• Leave your front door and your back door open.
  Allow your thoughts to come and go.
  Just don't serve them tea.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Doors, Tea, Comes And Goes

  118 Copy quote

• How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Ego, Needs, Steps

  67 Copy quote

• Wherever you go you will find your teacher, as long as you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Teacher, Eye, Long

  84 Copy quote

• Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Yoga, Buddhism, Mma

  96 Copy quote

• 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.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Saws, Awareness

  82 Copy quote

• In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner - not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Light, Lotuses, World

  13 Copy quote

• When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Self, Trying, Way

  Shunryū Suzuki, Trudy Dixon, Richard Baker (2006). “Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind”, p.136, Shambhala Publications

  15 Copy quote

• Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Perfect, Rooms, Improvement

  61 Copy quote

• Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Mind, Causes, Calm

  Shunryu Suzuki (2010). “Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind”, p.18, Shambhala Publications

  103 Copy quote

• Moment after moment everything comes out of nothingness. This is the true joy of life.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  True Joy, Moments, Joy Of Life

  35 Copy quote

• Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  9 Copy quote

• When my master and I were walking in the rain, he would say, 'Do not walk so fast, the rain is everywhere.'

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Fun, Rain, Masters

  72 Copy quote

• So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very very careful about this point. If you start to practice zazen, you will begin to appreciate your beginner's mind. It is the secret of Zen practice.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Art, Real, Practice

  4 Copy quote

• 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 flower includes everything

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Gratitude, Flower, Appreciate

  Shunryu Suzuki (1999). “Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai”, p.88, Univ of California Press

  92 Copy quote

• Hell is not punishment, it's training.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Punishment, Training, Hell

  20 Copy quote

• I think you're all enlightened, until you open your mouths.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Thinking, Mouths, Enlightened

  4 Copy quote

• You must be true to your own way until at last you actually come to the point where you see it is necessary to forget all about yourself.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Way, Lasts, Forget

  Shunryu Suzuki (2010). “Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind”, p.27, Shambhala Publications

  5 Copy quote

• Faith is a state of openness or trust...In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to the truth, whatever it might turn out to be.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Faith, Letting Go, Attitude

  65 Copy quote

• 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 attained something.' All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. We can really learn something.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Self, Meditation, Achievement

  71 Copy quote

• 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 and to live our lives from this understanding is to create the causes and conditions for happiness.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Pain, Understanding, Causes

  21 Copy quote

• Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an enlightened person. There is only enlightened activity.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Enlightened, Persons, Activity

  28 Copy quote

• It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Easy, Calmness, Inactivity

  Shunryu Suzuki (2010). “Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind”, p.31, Shambhala Publications

  63 Copy quote

• Zen is everywhere.... But for you, Zen is right here.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  5 Copy quote

• Instead of criticizing, find out how to help.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Helping, Criticize

  73 Copy quote

• After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Progress, Trying, Littles

  Shunryu Suzuki (2010). “Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind”, p.31, Shambhala Publications

  10 Copy quote

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