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Zen approaches it from the practical side of life-that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.

D.T. Suzuki

Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking.
D.T. SUZUKI

Done Great Work Thinking
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.
D.T. SUZUKI

Acceptance Doctrine Intellectual
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

Anger Frustrated Mind
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

Creating Kind Trying
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

Book Boys Hands
Prophecy is rash, but it may be that the publication of D.T. Suzuki’s first Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927 will seem to future generations as great an intellectual event as William of Moerbeke’s Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century or Marsiglio Ficino’s of Plato in the fifteenth.
D.T. SUZUKI

Buddhism Country Latin People Plato
As soon as you raise a thought and begin to form an idea of it, you ruin the reality itself, because you then attach yourself to form.
D.T. SUZUKI

Ideas Reality Ruins
Unless we agree to suffer we cannot be free from suffering.
D.T. SUZUKI

Agree Suffering Unless
To point at the moon a finger is needed, but woe to those who take the finger for the moon.
D.T. SUZUKI

Moon Thinking Woe
Zen purposes to discipline the mind itself, to make it its own master, through an insight into its proper nature. This getting into the real nature of one’s own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism.
D.T. SUZUKI

Eye Get Nature Real Retaining
When the identity is realized, I as swordsman see no opponent confronting me and threatening to strike me.
D.T. SUZUKI

Identity Movement Opponents
Implicity, there should be something mysterious in every day.
D.T. SUZUKI

Mysterious Mystery Should
I am an artist at living – my work of art is my life.
D.T. SUZUKI

Inspirational Life Motivational
We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way.
D.T. SUZUKI

Merely Points Teach Way
The more you suffer the deeper grows your character, and with the deepening of your character you read the more penetratingly into the secrets of life.
D.T. SUZUKI

Heart Religious Struggle
Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.
D.T. SUZUKI

Enlightenment Everyday Two

Zen approaches it from the practical side of life-that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.

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Zen approaches it from the practical side of life-that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.

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Popular Authors

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