Shunryu Suzuki Mind Quotations

Let your ears hear without trying to hear. Let the mind think without trying to think and without trying to stop it. That is practice.

To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind pervades your whole body.

If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one.

Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the experts, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all possibilities.

In your big mind, everything has the same value...In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood

In the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there are few.

In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.

When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself. When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity.

Concentration comes not from trying hard to focus on something, but from keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing.

The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.

Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet, but as you keep walking you get wet little by little. If your mind has ideas of progress, you may say, 'Oh, this pace is terrible!' But actually it is not. When you get wet in a fog it is very difficult to dry yourself.

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.

In Japan we have the phrase, "Shoshin," which means "beginner's mind." Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. 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.

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.

People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross- legged position, or to attain enlightenment. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense.

When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves; we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.

Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.

If your mind is empty, it is ready for anything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.