Yeah, the physical pain is real [laughter]. If you accept it, it is real. If you don’t accept it, it is not real, you know. “My legs are painful.” That’s all. If you put a period, “I am painful.” That’s real. But if you say, “I am painful, so what shall I do?” Or, “Is there any way to escape from it?” Then the pain you mean will become big [laughs]. To accept the pain as it is is big patience.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-28-D 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.
