Dogen Zenji says our practice is like going through fog. It is not like going out in a thunderstorm [laughs]. If you go out in heavy rain, your clothes will get wet all at once. You will be soaked, but a sudden rainstorm will not penetrate into your underwear. But when you walk through thick fog for a long time, even though you don’t realize it, your clothing is wet, and it will penetrate into your underwear. This is true practice. You don’t think you made any progress, [laughs] but you had remarkable progress, and someone who knows what real practice is will acknowledge it.
—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.
