We say, “Zen practice and precepts is one.” To observe precepts is to practice Zen. It is the same thing. In precepts we have—not moral code—but we have many rules. Most of the rules or commandments are almost impossible to observe completely [laughs]. I don’t think that you can observe them. But if you practice zazen, you can [laughs] observe them.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-12-11-A as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. These posts are also on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram. We are continually working on improving the quality of transcriptions of Suzuki's lectures. After a new "verbatim transcript" is made, we create a minimally edited version which is more readable. See the most recently completed transcripts at shunryusuzuki.com/n.
