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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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
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
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