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Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Sometimes

People write many books about Zen. But they are not true, you know. There is some true dragon which is very difficult to figure out. “What is it? Is this a dragon or a snake [laughs]? Looks like a snake. No good,” some scholar may say. But true zazen sometimes looks like a snake instead of a dragon. So, you cannot say true zazen is a dragon, or a true dragon, or a miniature dragon. It is not possible to figure out. If it takes the same form always, that is not a true dragon.

Art by Kazuaki Tanahashi

cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the photo. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 68-10-12-B as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.