Shunryu Suzuki
Japanese Sōtō Zen monk who, more than any other figure, established Zen Buddhism on the West Coast of America and produced — through the transcripts of his San Francisco Zen Center talks — what remains the single most-read Zen book in English. Born in 1904 in Hiratsuka, Japan, the son of a Sōtō priest, he came to America in 1959 to serve a small Japanese-American congregation in San Francisco and quickly drew Western students who would form the founding generation of American Zen. From their dawn sittings he gave the talks collected in 1970 as Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind — one of the most influential Buddhist texts of the twentieth century. He died of cancer in 1971, leaving the San Francisco Zen Center, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and Green Gulch Farm as his living legacy.
quotes in library
Quotes by Shunryu Suzuki
109 quotes“In the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the meditation hall — all are zazen.”
“To work with full attention is to practice zazen.”
“Each meal is a Buddha's meal.”
“Eat with full attention. The food teaches.”
“In silence, the bell rings most loudly.”
“Just hear the bell. The hearer disappears.”
“In the autumn leaves, the dharma teaches.”
“In the spring rain, the dharma teaches.”
“The teacher is everywhere. Look.”
“In every koan, there is also a key.”
“To break the koan is to break yourself.”
“In the breaking, true seeing.”
“Mind is the way. Don't make the way somewhere else.”
“Everything is teaching us, all the time.”
“Not always so. Always not so.”
“In the constant change, the unchanging is found.”
“The leaves fall. The leaves return. Both are the way.”
“Beginner's mind is fresh. Expert's mind is stale.”
“Be fresh in every moment.”
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