Forever

Calmness is not something which exists outside of yourself. And it is not even a state of mind. It is something more than a state of mind. State of mind is just temporal, but true calmness of your mind is unperturbable, and it exists forever. This is the difference.                 --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Serenity

If you do not know absolute serenity, even though you are in a calm, silent place, you will hear some noise and feel scared by even a small mouse [laughs]—"oh!" But if you have a stable, calm mind you will not be scared even by a thunderbolt.                --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Bruce Fortin is going strong

Cuke Podcast with Bruce Fortin as our guest.

Bruce Fortin cuke page - 

One Coin

If you are not caught by the idea of "the moon is only one," the moon may be double and you will not be surprised to see double moon. So, oneness and duality are two sides of the one coin. And serenity and noisy place is dualistic, but it is not different.               --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Caught

 If you are not caught by idea of calmness, you have calmness.              --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Serenity

In perfect silence, if you have perfect serenity within yourself, you will find calmness wherever you go. So that is one calmness and many, various kind of calmness.               --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Double Moon

What is double moon?1 For you, actually, there is just one moon. But what is double moon then? Actually, the moon is one, so is the silence; silence is just one. But  you say this place is calm and silent, and you compare silence with noisy place. This is double moon—double. But if you find out calmness in noisy place, that is to see the double moon—the opposite way of observing things.               --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Calmness

When we think over and over about psychological states of mind, there will be no limit. The best way to have absolute serenity in our life is to find out the absolute serenity, absolute calmness wherever you go. That calmness is beyond calmness, and it is something more than just a silent place.              --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Too Many

Uneasiness is somewhere where you don't know what to do. If you are directed to one direction, there is no uneasiness. When you don't know what to do, there is some uneasy feeling. If you have too many things, too many choices, or too many chances, there you have worry. But if only one thing is left for you, there is no problem.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Noisy Place

Real calmness is in a noisy place. Where there is no danger to be disturbed—you are already [laughs, laughter] disturbed enough [laughs], so there is no danger for you, no mental danger [laughs] for you to be disturbed by something else. So, what you should do is just to obtain calmness within yourself. You can ignore the danger of being disturbed by someone else. So, there you have restfulness, and absolute reliance on yourself only. You can depend on your own effort.            --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Calm Place

Nowadays, if you want some calmness in your life, you have to go to mountain or retreat, or you have to build some special home for you, with a double wall [laughs], some contrivance is necessary. But even though you live in calm place, if your mind becomes agitated and restless, there is no calmness.            --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Calm

By calmness, we do not mean just calm, silent, soundless place. When our mind is calm in its true sense, nothing can disturb us.            --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Precious

Outside the zendo, the car is running always, and sometime Honda motorcycles [laughs]—like a thunderstorm—roars [laughs], "What are you doing there?" they say [laughs, laughter]. But still, we have deep calmness in here. I think this is rather unusual, and the ability to appreciate the calmness of our life in noisy city is very precious.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Deep Feeling

So, tea ceremony is, as you know, a very, very tedious ceremony. Before you take a cup of tea, the tea will be cool, cool enough for you [laughs], but for Japanese sometime it is too cold. But we of course try not to serve too hot ones or too cold ones, but still, even for Japanese it looks like tedious. But in the serenity of the tea house, the calm and delicate movement of the master, and graceful manner of taking tea will create a deep feeling.              --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to httDps://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

The Tetralemma

Podcast with David Padwa 

A serio-comic tour through modern Buddhism. The story illustrates how life's completely random encounters causally create a chain-of-events on the meaning of silent words in one's mind, of thought, of consciousness, of chance and necessity, philosophical emptiness, the "middle-way", psychedelic chemicals, anatomy, mathematics, neuroscience, enlightenment, machine intelligence, and the absolute indispensable future of sex. 

Not really by Joel Ash but by old Buddhist etc friend David Padwa
Released June 23 

Pre Order it now at Amazon or check out the tetralemma.org site for pre ordering from a bookstore

David Padwa cuke page - lots on him there like how he helped us big time to get Tassajara and the Be Here Now trip to Nepal etc.

Tea and Cake

What we do looks like very rigid and formal, but if you repeat this kind of practice over and over, you will find out some unique feeling, in our rituals and formalities. As we have not much good thing in Japan, especially, civil war time, when tea ceremony started—not much things to eat, or not much cake to serve, not much good tea to take, but—our life at that time was so hard, that we tried to help with each other by serving a cup of tea, or a piece of cake. And to prepare a piece of cake, and cup of tea is pretty difficult. All of us knew how it is to help people, to give, to serve a cup of tea—so we took it with great appreciation. If you take a piece of cake, you know, a small piece of cake as if you were eating a piece of bread [laughs], it doesn’t make any sense. [laughs] So we treat it very carefully, and we took even a cup of tea with great care and appreciation. That is how tea ceremony started.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Friendship

Our monthly one-day sesshin is not a matter of something unusual for us anymore; we are quite accustomed to it. But whenever we have this sesshin, we have some renewed feeling for zazen, and my talk may be different from what I said before. But the main point of my talk is always concentrated on several important points: one is the way-seeking mind, and right practice, and attitude towards practice, or discipline, or study of Buddhism. I am not so interested in what we will acquire by practice or philosophical answers to your question. But I am trying to be more sympathetic and systematic in my answer, because you will not understand what I am trying to say if my answer is not properly systematized. But for me, and for you too, systematic philosophical answer will not be necessary, but the mutual understanding and friendship between us is more important.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-03-26-C - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Edited Shunryu Suzuki Lecture Audio

There's a new lecture category on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited Audio. It's coming along slowly. I'm making podcasts from clips as I go along. And I read them in the podcasts as well. Not putting that part on the site. I'm on the 7th one now. As the page for Edited Audio says, "Gaps, coughs, and redundant words deleted." The gaps are almost entirely Suzuki's pauses, many of which are quite long. I leave a good deal of pause but also a good deal is removed. I leave most of his hmms and ahhs and you knows - You know is the most repeated phrase in the archive - a few thousand of them. Also removed, when possible, are extraneous sounds such as clicks, pops, bumps, furniture moving, work going on, some audience and traffic sounds. Some noise reduction is applied but I find if I take out too much background noise like traffic in the city and creek at Tassajara, it reduces the warmth in his voice. And for those who prefer to hear the coughs etc, that's all still there on or linked to from shunryusuzuki.com as well as other audio versions such as those excellently processed by Engage Wisdom. - DC

When You Want to Be You

 If you say, "I cannot practice any more [laughs] because of this or that," that is opposite. Because of this or that, you have to practice! [Laughs.] Do you understand? [Laughter.] Because you are busy, you have to [laughs] study [laughter]. Because your mind is occupied by some particular thing, you have to practice [laughter]. Because you are interested in some particular thing recently [laughs], so you have to practice it our way or else you will be lost [laughs]. Whatever you do, [laughter, laughs] it doesn't work. You are not you [laughs, laughter]. When you want to be you [laughter, laughs], you practice zazen. That is the most important thing for you.              --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Follows

My explanation, I'm afraid, was not so clear to you, maybe, but I want you to think about it more. Why I talked about it is, I saw many students who are very much afraid of their new experience [laughs]. It is so unusual that you become afraid of it, but there is no need to be afraid. And those people may not be able to see their teacher in most cases. Anyway, we should practice our way from beginning to end. As long as the practice follows, your intellectual understanding or your emotional activities, whatever it is, will be adjusted, and will be your own in its true sense. Whatever it is, if your practice follows, it will be your own.              --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Order of Four

What I told you this afternoon is based on the order of our belief: shi, ge, gyo, sho—four stages. Shi is belief, ge is intellectual understanding, and gyo is practice. Here it means something more —emotional practice, emotional activity followed by intellectual activity, we call gyo. And sho is the enlightenment or proof, to be proved by various teachers. This is a very important thing. Four ways. So, these four stages—our practice includes those four—in each order, our practice should follow. Our practice is not just one of the four order of entering our way.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Nothing

This is the most important belief we should have—to believe in nothing [laughs]. To believe in nothing is to believe in everything. So, first of all, we should believe in nothing. Don't feel lonely [laughs]. You should exist just by yourself. This kind of spirit you must have. And then practice our way, and then read scriptures, or see your teacher. Then you will have true meaning of your own life. Religion is through and through the personal thing. Religion is just for yourself, not for others.            --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Blood

Anyway, we are so grateful to have many teachers, and to have teachings which are an accumulation of the actual experience of various sages. All those teachings are each drops of blood of ancient sages. So, we have to study with our warm heart, you know, not just by our brain. Direct experience, direct practice is near. If you want to do so, you have to be very straightforward, you should be very open, and you should be ready for everything which will happen to you.            --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Podcast with Susan Moon

 

A podcast with Sue in which we discuss, among other things, her new book.

Sue Moon cuke page

Practice

But whichever way you take, most important thing is the practice, you know, practice of Zen. Anyway, if your process of attaining actual meaning of life does not follow practice, it is impossible. The problem you have will not be solved, so that your life will not be your own life. It is like your food, you know: even though you take food, if your tummy doesn't digest it [laughs], it doesn't work. So, the important thing is to digest things you have had. That is practice. By practice you will attain the oneness of the intellectual understanding and emotional understanding.            --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Happy birthday

 Gary Snyder - who is 92 today.

Study

There may be two ways,  two orders. I found recently for most of you, it is more appropriate to follow the first order, starting from believing in the absolute nature of all being, and to have various intellectual study—various religions or various teaching of Buddhism from intellectual—by intellectual way, and practice it—and practice zazen, so that you will find intellectual study something more than emotional activity. And then read scripture, or read the biography of our teachers, or to listen to lectures. This is more usual process for you. But the other way is, you know, to read the biography of the various teachers, and to live with teachers like this in a monastery, and more and more intellectualize those experience we have for life that we have here.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Right Order?

Because of our true nature, it is possible for us to think things in various way and act various way. So, the last stage can be the first one. And next stage where you can act is because you firmly believe in attainment of the Buddha you can act without any doubt. So that will be the second stage, the stage where you can emotionally follow the way will be the second stage, when you believe in actual Buddha who attained enlightenment three thousand years ago [sic], you see. If you believe in him emotionally, you can believe in Buddha's way, and you can intellectualize his teaching more. In this way, back and forth, there's many possibilities in our practice. The first stage may be the last stage, and last stage may be the first one. So actually, there is no stage [laughs, laughter]. I am intellectualizing for, you know, some way to help you, that's all [laughs]. So actually, I don't know which is right order, starting from actual Buddha to the third stage, or starting from the believing in the absolute nature which we originally have, and—and then intellectual understanding, and then emotional activity, emotional practice which your emotion follows. Or until your emotional activity follows your practice, or follows your intellectual understanding you practice.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Continuing from Yesterday

But this experience can be interpreted in reverse [laughs]. What Buddhas attained is the purity of the mind or the absolute mind, so the last stage will be the first one in which you believe in. And because you have the last stage which every Buddhas attained, and which everyone has, and because everyone has the same wisdom, whatever we do, whatever we understand, or think, that follows.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Valley Zendo

Good to be reminded about the Valley Zendo in Claremont - that's a link to a Facebook page with a bit about it and the priest there, Eishin Ikeda, and some photos. Shohaku Okumura mentioned it in his Cuke podcast. It's where he got started in America. Antaiji Soto Zen lineage. Here's the Valley Zendo link.  And a photo of Hideko Petchey with Eishin Ikeda. Thanks to John Seto who went there with Hideko for posting this.

Proved

So, the most important thing is to believe in our Buddha nature and then intellectually you have to study our way, which is not one. There are many ways. Back and forth we have to study our view of life. And we have to have enough experiences to accord with reality. And then we have to acquire the power by which you can act without any restriction, without any idea of teaching even. To act quite natural without being off the track. This is the third stage. And to be proved by Buddha is the last stage.            --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Soyo Matsuoka

 In 1939 Soyo Matsuoka, a Soto Zen priest, came to the US. He was cheif priest of Zenshuji in LA and Sokoji in San Francisco. He established a Zen Center in Chicago. Michael Elliston, teacher at the Atlanta Soto Zen Center is a dharma heir of Matsuoka. Someone just inquired about him and I thought it's a good time to remind ourselves about this oft forgotten teacher. Here's a cuke page for him.

Continuing from yesterday

Many of our patriarchs and Buddhas will prove your experience. That is the last stage. Then you have the same experience with the experience the old—our buddhas had. In this way Buddhism will be developed.           --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 67-08-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo