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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.

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

Buddhism Essence Historical
Zen approaches it from the practical side of life-that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself.
D.T. SUZUKI

Enlightenment Sides Work
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

Mean Moving Thinking
That’s why I love philosophy: no one wins.
D.T. SUZUKI

Love Philosophy Winning
The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow.
D.T. SUZUKI

Ego Hardest Shells
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.
D.T. SUZUKI

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

Done Great Work Thinking
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

Believe Men Religious
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
The waters are in motion, but the moon retains its serenity.
D.T. SUZUKI

Heart Inspiring Moving
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
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
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
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

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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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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Popular Authors

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