
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

When you sit, everything sits with you.
Shunryu Suzuki • Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance, but its background is always in perfect harmony.
Shunryu Suzuki • Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence. We should find perfection in imperfection. For us, complete perfection is not different from imperfection. The eternal exists because of non-eternal existence. In Buddhism it is a heretical view to expect something outside this world. We do not seek for something besides ourselves. We sh
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If an artist becomes too idealistic, he will commit suicide, because between his ideal and his actual ability there is a great gap. Because there is no bridge long enough to go across the gap, he will begin to despair. That is the usual spiritual way. But our spiritual way is not so idealistic.
Shunryu Suzuki • Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
If you leave a trace of your thinking on your activity, you will be attached to the trace. For instance, you may say, “This is what I have done!” But actually it is not so. In your recollection you may say, “I did such and such a thing in some certain way,” but actually that is never exactly what happened. When you think in this way you limit the a
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moment is enough.
Shunryu Suzuki • Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Because he is just himself, he is a mirror for his students. When we are with him we feel our own strengths and shortcomings without any sense of praise or criticism from him. In his presence we see our original face, and the extraordinariness we see is only our own true nature.
Shunryu Suzuki • Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way. This is the mystery.
Shunryu Suzuki • Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
The teaching or the rules should be changed according to the place, or according to the people who observe them, but the secret of this practice cannot be changed. It is always true.