In the Soto School, most Zen masters do not use koans because we stress the self-use of one sole existence. Our practice covers everything. When you do something, that practice covers everything. So, in our religious experience there is no duality. Our religious experience is not in a thinking or even a contemplative realm. That is why we do not use koans, even though koans are useful of course. But they will not help us to have ultimate religious experience.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-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.
