If you cannot bow to Buddha, you cannot be a Buddha. It is arrogance. Shunryu Suzuki More Quotes by Shunryu Suzuki More Quotes From Shunryu Suzuki Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing. Shunryu Suzuki focus mind trying In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner - not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are. Shunryu Suzuki lotuses light world 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. Shunryu Suzuki life-and-death no-fear facts When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. Shunryu Suzuki one-thing Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well. Shunryu Suzuki growing garden important 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 causes understanding We do not slight the idea of enlightenment, but the most important thing is this moment, not some day in the future. We have to make our effort in this moment. This is the most important thing for our practice. Shunryu Suzuki effort practice ideas If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. Shunryu Suzuki empty meditation mind The goal of our life’s effort is to reach the other shore, Nirvana. Prajna paramita, the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached. Shunryu Suzuki effort goal way 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 You may say that things happen just by chance, but I don't feel that way. Shunryu Suzuki chance may way Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way. Shunryu Suzuki universal individuality way The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities. Shunryu Suzuki experts doubt mind 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 lasts forget way We try, and we try, and we fail; and then we go deeper. Shunryu Suzuki deeper failing trying Although we have no actual written communications from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what is going on in that world, and that is, you might say, enlightenment. When you see plum blossoms or hear the sound of a small stone hitting bamboo, that is a letter from the world of emptiness. Shunryu Suzuki enlightenment communication sound 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 paper ideas For Zen students a weed is a treasure. With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art. Shunryu Suzuki weed attitude art Time goes from present to past. Shunryu Suzuki past When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything. Shunryu Suzuki dependent independent doors
