Incessant Activity

A student asked: What happens if a person dies without realizing his buddha-nature? What happens to his buddha-nature? 

What happens to buddha-nature? Nothing happens to it. It is always the same and constant. Buddha-nature is always taking activity. It is in incessant activity. There are not two buddha-natures. There is only one buddha-nature for everyone, for everything. And it is always in incessant activity. Even when we are sleeping, it is in activity.

—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.

The Religious Experience

If someone is great, if you have some good example, it will give you some encouragement. But just an intellectual correction will not help you so much. So, we say that is not enough. The religious experience is something more than that and something different, completely different from our intellect or emotional feeling. So, we should not ignore our intellect, but we should not be limited. Our faculties should not be limited to the emotional or intellectual realms.

—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.

Correction

Scientific research or intellectual understanding of religion is not always wrong. We have intellect to correct our emotional faculty, which is sometimes not so clear or correct. Some correction is wanted for the emotional functions of our mind, or else we won’t know whether what we feel is right or wrong. That is a characteristic of the emotional functions. It may be necessary to correct them so that we can rely on our emotional faculty. But even though intellectual understanding can correct our emotional faculty, that correction will not help much unless we realize the original—the true nature of ourselves.

—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.

Quite Different

To pursue beauty or truth or good is different from the pursuit of holy nature within ourselves. The way is different. But there is no conflict because the pursuit of truth or good or beauty is based on our inmost nature. There should not be a conflict, unless your conclusion invades religious feelings. As long as your pursuit is limited to your own way, there is no conflict. If science is just science, and if philosophers are just philosophers, and religious people accept the conclusions of scientists and philosophers, there is no conflict. And it should be so. Pursuit of knowledge and pursuit of holiness are quite different things.

—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.

In Your Heart

It will easily become delusion—misunderstanding—if you attach to a statement. If you realize something in your heart, in your sight, “This is it,” that is the teaching. What I say is not [laughs]. It’s just a suggestion. “Have you something like this?” I say to you. And if you say, “Oh, yes, I have the same thing here,” that is true teaching. That is so-called enlightenment.

—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.

Featured Cuke Archives page

June Crow began her study and practice of Buddhism in l968 when she met Shunryu Suzuki. She was known as June Omura back then. I, DC, remember her from Tassajara in the early seventies. She met Chogyam Trungpa of the Tibetan Kagyu and Nyingma lineage at Tassajara and became his student and a meditation instructor and teacher with his group. She’s still actively teaching with it today, living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Trungpa moved his Shambhala center long ago. Hear about this and more in this podcast conversation with June and me.

Hint

Teaching is the teaching, period. Your conduct should not be based on just verbal teaching. Your inmost nature will tell you. That is true teaching. What I say is not true teaching. I just give you a hint, you know.

—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.

Your Own Idea

When you say something or when you try to figure out what our teaching is or what is our way, already there is some—your own idea is in it. In that case, it will not work [laughs].

Photo by Betty Warren

—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.

Stop

Stop everything [laughs] —completely. Because we can stop it, because we do not even try to stop it—just to practice, you know. We don’t try to stop anything. We do not try to stop even. As long as you try to stop something, it will not work.

—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.

Karma

Our purpose of zazen is to get out of the usual understanding of creating or destroying, or this kind of scientific philosophical thinking. When we are free from this thinking, there is no creation and no destruction. We are always free from those defilements. And we know this is our true nature. When we know that there is no more continuity of karma, we can stop karma. Even for a moment you can do it.

—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.