There is a clear distinction between social work and religious work. Social work is based on science and sociology. Of course, sociology is good. And, we should have sociology. But to help others in a religious sense is quite different from social work. So, what I mean is, working at a hospital is to help others. For a religious person, working at a hospital without changing anything is our practice. For those who understand the religious way, there is no sociology. Sociology [laughs] is, without changing anything, a religious activity for a person who knows how to help others. But, for those who do not understand religious life, sociology is just sociology. And, if you ignore religious life, it will not work properly. Some confusion will be created. So that is why all of us should have a religious life.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-30-C 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.
