If you have attained something, this is the surest proof that you have gone astray. Therefore, not to have is to have, silence is thunder, ignorance is enlightenment.
D.T. SUZUKIWe have two eyes to see two sides of things, but there must be a third eye which will see everything at the same time and yet not see anything. That is to understand Zen.
More D.T. Suzuki Quotes
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Eternity is the Absolute present.
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The fighter is to be always single-minded with one object in view: to fight, looking neither backward nor sidewise. To go straight forward in order to crush the enemy is all that is necessary for him.
D.T. SUZUKI -
Zen has nothing to teach us in the way of intellectual analysis; nor has it any set doctrines which are imposed on its followers for acceptance.
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The contradiction so puzzling to the ordinary way of thinking comes from the fact that we have to use language to communicate our inner experience, which in its very nature transcends linguistics.
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Implicity, there should be something mysterious in every day.
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I raise my hand; I take a book from the other side of this desk; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighboring woods:-in all these I am practicing Zen, I am living Zen. No worldly discussion is necessary, or any explanation.
D.T. SUZUKI -
We do not realize that as soon as our thoughts cease and all attempts at forming ideas are forgotten the Buddha reveals himself before us.
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The right art is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede.
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To be a good Zen Buddhist it is not enough to follow the teaching of its founder; we have to experience the Buddha’s experience.
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We lose track of the Original Mind and are tormented all the time by the threatening objective world, regarding it as good or bad, true or false, agreeable or disagreeable. We are thus slaves of things and circumstances.
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Dhyana is retaining one’s tranquil state of mind in any circumstance, unfavorable as well as favorable, and not being disturbed or frustrated even when adverse conditions present themselves one after another.
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I am an artist at living – my work of art is my life.
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Unless it grows out of yourself no knowledge is really yours, it is only borrowed plumage.
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Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.
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Zen is the spirit of a man. Zen believes in his inner purity and goodness. Whatever is superadded or violently torn away, injures the wholesomeness of the spirit. Zen, therefore, is emphatically against all religious conventionalism.
D.T. SUZUKI