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

Categorized in : Art Practice Real

Leave your front door and your back door open.

Shunryu Suzuki

comes-and-goes tea doors

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

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

calm causes mind

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 appreciate flower

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

achievement meditation self

The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.

Shunryu Suzuki

beginners compassion mind

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

Shunryu Suzuki

joy-of-life true-joy moments

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

Shunryu Suzuki

ego steps needs

Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.

Shunryu Suzuki

practice spiritual ideas

Happiness is sorrow; sorrow is happiness. There is happiness in difficulty; difficulty in happiness. Even though the ways we feel are different, they are not really different, in essence they are the same. This is the true understanding transmitted from Buddha to us.

Shunryu Suzuki

buddhist understanding sorrow

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

Shunryu Suzuki

mma buddhism yoga

Our practice should be based on the ideal of selflessness. Selflessness is very difficult to understand. If you try to be selfless, that is already a selfish idea. Selflessness will be there when you do not try anything.

Shunryu Suzuki

selfish practice ideas

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

Even though you try to put people under control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good. That is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.

Shunryu Suzuki

sheep giving people

Hell is not punishment, it's training.

Shunryu Suzuki

punishment hell training

Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours.

Shunryu Suzuki

When you are just you, without thinking or trying to say something special, just saying what is on your mind and how you feel, then there is naturally self-respect.

Shunryu Suzuki

respect self thinking

Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself.

Shunryu Suzuki

ego wisdom reality

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

Shunryu Suzuki

eye teacher long

The true practice to meditation is to sit as if you where drinking water when you are thirsty.

Shunryu Suzuki

practice drinking water