“I think, therefore I am.”

As Descartes says, “I think, therefore I am.” Here, “therefore I am”—that “I” is not just small mind. He could not deny that “I” which thinks, which watches water. That someone who is watching—you, who are watching water—is true nature itself. You think fish is true nature [laughing], but it is not. You are watching water. And that “you” cannot be denied. That is ultimate existence. And at the same time, that is universal existence. That is your “I,” and at the same time it includes everything.

Portrait after Frans Hals from Wikipedia

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-30-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.

DC at book event in Sanur - Zoom link

Topic: A Conversation with David Chadwick at Talking Leaves Bali

Time: Feb 8, 2026 02:00 PM Asia/Makassar (that's 10pm Feb.7 West Coast US)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89286831257?pwd=JbW4Y2PCpoQ1Gg9cByanGkSZ2SAEqz.1

Meeting ID: 892 8683 1257

Passcode: 754279

Watching Water

Bodhidharma, the first Chinese patriarch, said, “If you want to see a fish, you have to watch water.” If you want to see a fish, you have to watch water before you’ll see any fish. If you want to see buddha-nature, you have to see your small mind before you see buddha-nature. Actually, when you see water, there is true fish. Here, by “fish” he meant “true nature.” If you want to see true nature, when you see the water, there is true nature. The true nature is watching water. You are watching water. At the same time, true nature is watching water.

Image generated by Google Gemini

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-30-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.

Zen Conversations and Profiles - Richard Baker

Rick McDaniel's Zen Conversations and Profiles' excellent piece on Richard Baker.

He interviewed Baker for this not that long after Baker's stroke last spring. Nicole Baden was there and helped out some but Baker is candid and open in a way that's impressive to me. - DC

Richard Baker cuke page

Actual Mind

The most important thing is to understand our true mind or inmost nature in our practice. How we understand our actual mind should be the most important point. That is why Zen emphasizes living in each moment.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-30-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

Richard Jaffe was a student at the San Francisco Zen Center for years. He went on to become a leading Buddhist scholar who has spent a lot of time in Japan and knows Buddhism and especially Soto Zen there thoroughly in Japanese. He’s a professor of religion at Duke University, retiring this or next year. His first book was Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in Modern Japanese Buddhism followed by collections of the writings of D.T. Suzuki. On Duke’s site it says: Richard Jaffe specializes in the study of Buddhism in early modern and modern Japan. In particular he has focused his research and teaching on the transformations that took place in Japanese Buddhist practice in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Jaffe's current research centers on the role of D.T. Suzuki in the globalization of Japanese Buddhism in the twentieth century. He also has questions for me later on in this podcast.

A Dissection

Science or philosophy is like a dissection. It is possible to analyze what we did after we did something. It is possible. But it is already a dead corpse [laughs] a dead corpse of our practice. So even if you analyze what you have done, it will not work. It will not help you so much.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-30-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.

Your Mind

Don’t be bothered by your mind!

Drawing by Stan White

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-30-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.

Not Sport

Student: Well, in judo if you’re good you get a black belt, so— [laughter]. SR: No—Zen is not physical training. Zen is not sport [laughs, laughter].

Image generated by Leonardo.ai

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-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.

Teaching

Our teaching is not, “You should do like this,” or “Society should be like this,” or “Human beings should be like this.” We do not have this kind of thinking or idea. When we take off the cover, when we forget all about our teaching, that is heaven [laughs] for us. But it does not mean we do not want a cover. We want it. But when we enjoy Buddhism, there must not be any teaching.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-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.