Do you know Ryokan? A famous Soto priest. He didn’t mind anything bad—it’s the secret of the Soto way. Concerning Soto practice, he was very strict, but [laughs] he didn’t mind whatever people said or whatever he himself felt. He didn’t mind at all. Even when he was sick, he didn’t mind. Even though people did not understand him, he did not mind at all. If someone asked if he was not serious, he didn’t mind. But when he thought someone was too serious or sincere, he minded very much. And if someone asked him what was the Soto way, he was very serious. He had a strict sense of buddha-nature, his buddha-nature was very, very sharp and strict. Because of that strictness, he could accept his poor and humble and unfortunate life. But he didn’t mind at all because he had a strict sense of buddha-nature.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-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.
