If one person has a clear understanding of suffering and what is our true nature, many people will be enlightened. But without enlightenment, to help people means nothing. We say, “A blind man leading blind men.” [Laughter.] Even if they have a lantern, it doesn’t work because the leader is blind. If you are enlightened, everyone will help you. If you are not enlightened [laughs], even though everyone helps, you will not be helped. If you are enlightened, actually everyone, whether or not they are enlightened, will help you.
The Blind Leading the Blind - Bruegel
—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.
