Shogaku Shunryū Suzuki (1904–71,) born Toshitaka Suzuki, was an influential Japanese Sōtō Zen priest. He is one of the most eminent of the early Zen pioneers in North America. His spiritual classic, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, is one of the most read books on Zen practice and Buddhism.
Born in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, the son of a Zen priest, Suzuki was trained by the best teachers of his generation. He served a temple priest in Japan during the World War II. He came to San Francisco in 1959 to minister to a small Japanese-American congregation.
Suzuki is the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the first Sōtō Zen training monastery in the United States. He had an colossal influence on the growth of Buddhist dharma in the West.
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (1972,) a skillfully edited compilation of his lectures published in 1970, has sold over a million copies in a dozen languages. Other compilations of Suzuki’s teachings include Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai (2001) and Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen (2009.)
Suzuki’s disciple David Chadwick published the biography Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki (2000.)
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Communication is — start by understanding — your own understanding about people. Even though you want them to understand you, you know, it is — unless you understand people, it is almost impossible.
—Shunryu Suzuki
The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind.
—Shunryu Suzuki
If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
—Shunryu Suzuki
Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.
—Shunryu Suzuki
Topics: Change
Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.
—Shunryu Suzuki
Topics: Zen
When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves. That is our way, to live fully in each moment of time.
—Shunryu Suzuki
If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.
—Shunryu Suzuki
Topics: Possibilities, Potential, Imagination
When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
—Shunryu Suzuki
Topics: Effort
It is a big mistake to think that the best way to express yourself is to do whatever you want, acting as you please. This is not expressing yourself. If you know what to do exactly, and you do it, then you can express yourself fully.
—Shunryu Suzuki
A Master who cannot bow to a disciple cannot bow to Buddha.
—Shunryu Suzuki
Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.
—Shunryu Suzuki
The basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of transiency or change. That everything changes is the basic truth for each existence. No one can deny this truth and all teaching of Buddhism is condensed within it. This is the teaching for all of us. Wherever we go this teaching is true. This teaching is also understood as the teaching of selflessness. Because each existence is in constant change, there is no abiding self.
—Shunryu Suzuki
There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
—Shunryu Suzuki
Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well.
—Shunryu Suzuki