Universal

We say we have two kinds of knowledge: intuitive knowledge and thinking or discriminating knowledge. Scientific and philosophical knowledge are the dualistic thinking knowledge. As long as we use words and we think with words, it is impossible to reach the absolute conclusion. When we just resume our own nature, which is universal to everyone, we can realize our true nature, which is universal to human beings and even animals, and plants, and all existence. And that is why in Zen practice we stop our mind.

Jane Hirshfield with her horse

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-26-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.