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

  150 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

  101 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

  82 Copy quote

• In Japan we have the phrase, "Shoshin," which means "beginner's mind." Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Mean, Japan, Empty Mind

  45 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

  108 Copy quote

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

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Perfect, Rooms, Improvement

  76 Copy quote

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

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Yoga, Buddhism, Mma

  114 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

  57 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

  102 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

  115 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

  26 Copy quote

• Instead of criticizing, find out how to help.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Helping, Criticize

  87 Copy quote

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

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  19 Copy quote

• Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Spring, Flower, Past

  10 Copy quote

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

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Enlightened, Persons, Activity

  41 Copy quote

• In reflecting on our problems, we should include ourselves.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Problem, Should, Reflecting

  10 Copy quote

• Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Change, Suffering, Management

  23 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

  73 Copy quote

• Hell is not punishment, it's training.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Punishment, Training, Hell

  33 Copy quote

• A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it....In this way our life should be understood. Then there is no problem.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Love, Life, Weed

  72 Copy quote

• When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Time, Ideas, Moments

  9 Copy quote

• The highest truth is daiji, translated as dai jiki in Chinese scriptures. This is the subject of the question the emperor asked Bodhidharma: "What is the First Principle?" Bodhidharma said, "I don't know." "I don't know" is the First Principle.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Chinese, Principles, Scripture

  "Lotus Sutra No. 6". Lecture at the Zen Mountain Center, www.cuke.com. February 1968.

  10 Copy quote

• 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 drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Rivers

  19 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

  85 Copy quote

• To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you cannot eat.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Cake, Ideas, Paper

  11 Copy quote

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