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

  144 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

  95 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

  54 Copy quote

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

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Perfect, Rooms, Improvement

  73 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

  103 Copy quote

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

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Enlightened, Persons, Activity

  39 Copy quote

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

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Yoga, Buddhism, Mma

  108 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

  79 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

  96 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

  17 Copy quote

• Instead of criticizing, find out how to help.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Helping, Criticize

  81 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

  24 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

  40 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

  113 Copy quote

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

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  17 Copy quote

• We try, and we try, and we fail; and then we go deeper.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Trying, Failing, Deeper

  20 Copy quote

• Meditation opens the mind to the greatest mystery that takes place daily and hourly; it widens the heart so that it may feel the eternity of time and infinity of space in every throb; it gives us a life within the world as if we were moving about in paradise.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Moving, Heart, Space

  54 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

  72 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

  82 Copy quote

• Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  69 Copy quote

• You will always exist in the universe in one form or another.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Form, Universe

  25 Copy quote

• When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves; we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Order, Organization, Mind

  Shunryu Suzuki (2010). “Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind”, p.10, Shambhala Publications

  84 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

  78 Copy quote

• Hell is not punishment, it's training.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Punishment, Training, Hell

  30 Copy quote

• Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Reality, Perfect, Imperfection

  "Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen". Book by Shunryū Suzuki. Chapter: "Wherever You Are, Enlightenment Is There", p. 127, 2002.

  29 Copy quote

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