Finite

Student F [Jack Weller]: Docho Roshi, I wish to ask a question that I ask of all religions. In the sutra that we have been reading [Lotus Sutra], and in other Buddhist works, and in your lectures you speak about the infinite. Infinite time, infinite truth: a truth-- true in the past for an infinite time. It is said that a sutra has been repeated again and again in the past for an infinite amount of time, or, if not infinite, then for an uncountable number of years-- of eons. Yet we know that man is not infinite in the same sense that-- at least today-- we believe that man evolved, physically-- evolved from other animals. This happened at a period of time that is not countable or infinite. Is then the sutra, your teaching, and other Buddhist teaching-- teaching about an infinite dimension of man, a finite being?
SR: Finite being itself already the revealed infinite being. In this sense we should appreciate our life, moment after moment. And we should appreciate things which we observe, day after day. This is actually the only way to appreciate the infinite, the ultimate, the first principle. So infinite should not be just an idea. We should appreciate everything without discrimination, not by small mind but by buddha-mind. True appreciation is by our big, limitlessly big, limitlessly great big buddha-mind. You have to accept things as it is, after all.  -------------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-09-00 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC