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.
D.T. SUZUKIZen 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.
More D.T. Suzuki Quotes
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Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking.
D.T. SUZUKI -
I am an artist at living – my work of art is my life.
D.T. SUZUKI -
A simple fishing boat in the midst of the rippling waters is enough to awaken in the mind of the beholder a sense of vastness of the sea and at the same time of peace and contentment – the Zen sense oof the alone.
D.T. SUZUKI -
The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.
D.T. SUZUKI -
The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow.
D.T. SUZUKI -
We 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.
D.T. SUZUKI -
To point at the moon a finger is needed, but woe to those who take the finger for the moon.
D.T. SUZUKI -
The waters are in motion, but the moon retains its serenity.
D.T. SUZUKI -
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.
D.T. SUZUKI -
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.
D.T. SUZUKI -
Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one’s own rules-this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live.
D.T. SUZUKI -
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.
D.T. SUZUKI -
The claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal garments.
D.T. SUZUKI -
Implicity, there should be something mysterious in every day.
D.T. SUZUKI