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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

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
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. SUZUKI

Buddhist Enough Teaching
Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.
D.T. SUZUKI

Enlightenment Everyday Two
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
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
That’s why I love philosophy: no one wins.
D.T. SUZUKI

Love Philosophy Winning
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

Experience Facts Ordinary Thinking
Because since the beginningless past we are running after objects, not knowing where our Self is.
D.T. SUZUKI

Past Running Time
When the identity is realized, I as swordsman see no opponent confronting me and threatening to strike me.
D.T. SUZUKI

Identity Movement Opponents
Unless we agree to suffer we cannot be free from suffering.
D.T. SUZUKI

Agree Suffering Unless
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
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

Forgotten Ideas Realizing
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
D.T. SUZUKI

All Bleeding Artist Great
Zen has no business with ideas.
D.T. SUZUKI

Business Ideas People
Implicity, there should be something mysterious in every day.
D.T. SUZUKI

Mysterious Mystery Should
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
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.
D.T. SUZUKI

Disagreeable Regarding Threatening Track
To Zen, time and eternity are one.
D.T. SUZUKI

Eternity One Time
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

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

Done Great Work Thinking
I am an artist at living – my work of art is my life.
D.T. SUZUKI

Inspirational Life Motivational
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
Absolute faith is placed in a man’s own inner being. For whatever authority there is in Zen, all comes from within.
D.T. SUZUKI

Absolute Faith Inner
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
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

Eye Thirds Two Sides
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
Eternity is the Absolute present.
D.T. SUZUKI

Inspirational Life Time

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.

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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.

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