My teacher Kishizawa Roshi always said, “You have to have a vow or aim to accomplish.” If you do not have your aim of life, you cannot be a good Buddhist. The aim we have may not be perfect, but even if it is not perfect, it is necessary for us. It is like a precept. Even though it is almost impossible to observe it, we have to have it. Without that we cannot actualize our way, Buddha’s spirit.
—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.
