A Great Help

Before attaining perfect enlightenment, just to seek enlightenment is a great help for others. That is what I’m talking about. Even though you haven’t attained enlightenment, but to try to attain enlightenment is good enough to help others.

August 25, 1970, Jukai lay ordination ceremony at City Center

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-B 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.

Brave Enough Observing Your Way

Actually, to help others is to help yourself. And to help yourself without paying any attention to others [laughs] is also to help others. If you are observing your way carefully, that will help others. When almost all people are discouraged, if you are brave enough or good enough to observe your way, that will be great encouragement for others.

Photo from SF Chronicle by Jim Marshall

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-B 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.

Help Others – Help Yourself

Actually, to help others and to help yourself is the same, not different. To try not to have regrets in life is to help myself and to help others. It is true that we feel better when we help others more than when we help ourselves because we are so selfish [laughs]. Actually, we are pretty selfish. And we know to be selfish is not so good, so we always try not to be selfish. Your voice of conscience will tell you, “Don’t be selfish. That’s too much. You are too selfish.” So usually, we try not to be selfish.

First Page St. Gardeners, 1977 – Photo from Ginny Baker, uploaded to Barbara Lubanski-Wenger’s Flickr

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-B 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.

Featured Cuke Archives page

Barrie Mottishaw is a landscape artist who spent years at the Jones Farm on Quadra Island, a Zen community that was started by students at the San Francisco Zen Center. Learn about that and more in our podcast and see some of her work.

Save Others

Bodhisattva-mind is universal to everyone. There is no difference between a priest or layman. There is no difference for a wise man. When we have way-seeking mind we are all bodhisattvas. Enlightenment, or way-seeking mind, or to help others before we attain enlightenment is bodhisattva spirit. Before you save yourself, you should save others. This is also bodhisattva-mind.

Sign made by Sally Baker-Photo from Ginny Baker, uploaded to Barbara Lubanski-Wenger’s Flickr

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-B 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.

Failing with True Spirit

So, it is not only enlightenment that is valuable. Failing with true spirit is also valuable. It has the same meaning. That is why even when your zazen is not perfect, it has the same meaning if you have way-seeking mind. If you do not have way-seeking mind, even when you attain enlightenment, that is so-called “dry enlightenment” [laughter]. Dry enlightenment. No meaning in it.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-B 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.

Hit or Miss

Dogen Zenji said when you hit the mark, that is the same effort you have been making. Suppose after failing ninety-nine times, you hit the mark at the one-hundredth time. The meaning of “hit the mark” and the meaning of “missing the mark” should be the same. The difference is, now you hit the mark [laughs]. From a materialistic viewpoint, to miss the mark is not good at all. You should hit the mark. But from the meaning of actual practice, even though you miss it, the meaning of the practice is the same: to hit the mark or miss the mark is not different. That is our enlightenment.

Image generated by Google Gemini

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-B 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.

Supported by Way-seeking Mind

Enlightenment is not only a kind of psychological state of mind. When the psychological state of mind is supported by right wisdom, we call it enlightenment. When it is supported by way-seeking mind, that is called enlightenment. If you obtain the same psychological state of mind by LSD [laughter], if you lack the way-seeking mind, we do not call it enlightenment. That is a quite different matter. It should be based on a way-seeking mind.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-B 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.

Featured Cuke Archives page

DC reads the Preface to Tassajara Stories. Full title - Tassajara Stories: A Sort of Memoir/Oral History of the First Zen Buddhist Monastery in the West—The First Year, 1967. Publishing date for the book/audio book/ebook is September 23, 2025. Go to cuke.com to read reviews and so forth.

Way-seeking Mind

In morality you have freedom of choice. You can take bad instead of good [laughs]. But in religion we have no alternative way. But it is our choice. Which way to go is up to us. And yet for us there is no other way than to take good. This is way-seeking mind. To pursue truth and beauty is also our way-seeking mind. There is some difference from ethics. This mind is the traditional mind transmitted from Buddha to us, and for Zen students this spirit is most important.

Drawing by Stan White

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-B 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.