Zen approaches it from the practical side of life-that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.
D.T. SUZUKIWe teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way.
More D.T. Suzuki Quotes
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Absolute faith is placed in a man’s own inner being. For whatever authority there is in Zen, all comes from within.
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Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking.
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Eternity is the Absolute present.
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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.
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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 -
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.
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When I say that Zen is life, I mean that Zen is not to be confined within conceptualization, that Zen is what makes conceptualization possible.
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All great artists, all great religious leaders, and all great social reformers have come out of the intensest struggles which they fought bravely, quite frequently in tears and with bleeding hearts
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Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.
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The waters are in motion, but the moon retains its serenity.
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To Zen, time and eternity are one.
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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.
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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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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 -
The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow.
D.T. SUZUKI