Soft

Just, you know, to have generous mind and big mind and soft mind is how to continue our way. And we should be always flexible, you know. We should not stick to anything.           --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Continuous

If we have in our practice the smallest gap, we will fall into lower realms. So our practice should be continued. Continuous practice is necessary. And we should not rest. We should continue it, if possible, without trying to continue it.           --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Naturalness

 In yesterday's excerpt, Suzuki spoke of naturalness. In response, Andrew Main sent this:

Nisargadatta, the name Maruti Kambli gave himself when he began teaching, means “Giver (Bestower) of Naturalness”. “Nisarga” निसर्ग = “nature, natural”; Datta दत्त = giver (cf. Latin “data”, from “datum”, something given, from “dare” to give). 

Nisargadatta taught "Nisarga Yoga”. 

“'Nisarga' means natural.  The basic translation of his name was 'Mr. Natural'". – Jack Kornfield http://nisargadatta.net/kornfield.html

Mr Natural's 719th Meditation - YouTube

Easy

For me, you know, to be here right now is naturalness. And to wear robe is naturalness. And to shave my head is naturalness, as a priest [laughs]. In this way, we should practice our way and we should remember this. It is not so easy [laughs] to be natural. Not so easy.           --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Natural

If you say, “This is the way to be natural,” you know, that is not natural [taps table]. Only when you are you in its true sense, on this moment, at this place, that is “naturalness.” So there will not be any particular way to be “natural.”           --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Norm Randolph

In the forms of practice you can see a person's state of mind. If they're doing it in a sloppy way or a pride-filled way, you can see where the person is. It's evident in the forms. If you see somebody who's really doing it it looks completely natural - like how Katagiri would bow - not forced or arrogant or pompous in any way. I'd watch him bow before lecture and it would seem to come out of the circumstances of the moment. It wasn't always that way with Zen people. Suzuki Roshi said that the forms of practice he'd use like the sights on a gun. By looking at how students bowed and did oryoki or wore their robes, he was able to see their state of mind. It was in a lecture called "Warm-hearted practice" delivered in March of ‘71 at Tassajara when he came down for Peter's shuso ceremony and I think he stayed and gave it the day before or after.

That's from a 1995 interview with Norm Randolph. He's a guest for today's podcast. I read that interview and then went to a phone chat with him. 

Norm's a teacher with Dharma Field Zen Center in Minneapolis. 

Eyebrows

So to talk about enlightenment is rather, you know [laughs], foolish-- rather foolish. But sometime we have to talk about it in this way until we lose our eyebrows [laughs]. You know, to talk about it is to lose our eyebrows-- to lose ourselves. Instead of being ourselves.          --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Everything

We say, “One practice covers everything”-- various virtues. And when you practice your practice in that way, you may be a piece of stone, you may be a tree, you may be a star, you may be an ocean. So you cover everything.          --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Wave

One practice includes various virtues, and one feeling of practice will result in various feelings like a wave on the sea.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

When

Back and forth when you understand our practice, you will enjoy your practice, thinking about what kind of practice you had had before you attained actual enlightenment. Sometime you will have pity on someone who is involved in wrong practice. And sometime you will laugh at yourself, you know, when you fell into, when you are involved in wrong practice. “Oh, what were you doing?” [Laughs.] You will, you know, laugh at-- you will tease yourself: “What are you doing?” You will have various feeling. All the real compassion or real love or true encouragement or true courage will arise from here. You will be not only courageous person but also you are very kind person when you reach-- when you understand yourself in that way.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Purpose

So the purpose of our practice is just to be yourself. When you become yourself in that way, you have real enlightenment. The enlightenment you have in your mind, that you attained long time ago is not actual enlightenment.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Cake

If you cannot see actually what is buddha-nature [taps], it doesn't mean anything [laughs]. It is painted rice cake. It is not actual one. If you want to see the actual rice cake, you should see it when it is there.       --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Fukanzazengi Study Book

Fukanzazengi study book (thanks Kokyo Henkle for sending this and thanks to his friend Paul Hoffman for scanning it. I've been wanting to find a copy of it for decades. It now joins some other character studies I did at Tassajara. This one in 1975. It's on the Early Papers and Print page. The Fukanzazengi is Dogen's best known work on zazen.- dc Kanji by dear and departed Ryogen Yoshimura.

Here!

So buddha nature is not something which will appear in the future. True, real buddha-nature should be something which is actually [taps on table with stick] here.      --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Buddha Nature

“Hai!” is buddha nature itself, in its true sense. Buddha-nature which you have proudly within yourself is not buddha nature. Actual buddha-nature is when you say “Hai!” or when you become you yourself, or when you forget all about yourself. You will have another name for buddha or buddha nature. [hai is yes in Japanese]     --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Two Reivews of Jed Linde's Three Charles Stories

On Three Charles Stories 

Amazon Customer Review
Anne L Whitaker

5.0 out of 5 stars

 Life in three parts

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2021

Verified Purchase

What a delightful walk into Charles' life. From his early memories of a chaotic childhood,
through his developing years into manhood, and finally into a few highlights and "earth quaking" experiences
in his adult life. You are drawn into the next paragraph wanting to read more of his life experiences. and challenges .
Jed Linde is a marvelous storyteller!

*******

DC comment: It's a good read. I knew Jed pretty well way back then and I know him better now. My wife Katrinka
reads a lot of books and she started reading it today and said, "He's an excellent writer. It pulls me along.
I'll finish it quick." I said, "I told you so."

Jed Linde cuke page

Hai means Yes

 Buddha-nature is actually when I said “Hai!” to my wife. That “Hai!” is buddha-nature itself, in its true sense.     --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Be Yourself

So on each moment [laughs] you should be concentrated yourself, and you should be really yourself.               --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Forget

So, as Dogen Zenji says, “To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. And to study ourselves is to forget ourselves on each moment.” To forget ourselves means to be yourself on each moment. Then everything will come and help you, and everything will assure your enlightenment.                   --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

A New Review of Zen Is Right Now

 from the Buddhist Door

I put this comment in below the article: That's a wonderful review from a wonderful Buddhist Door. One small correction. Shunryu Suzuki founded the first Zen Buddhist Monastery in the West, not the first Zen Center in the US or West. The First Zen Inst. in New York City was founded in the thirties and Nyogen Senzaki had small groups in San Francisco and LA going back to at least the thirties. Tassajara Zen Mt. Center was founded in 1967. It's the first Buddhist monastery that was open to more than a few monks. It was open to lay people and monks, men and women. Many more traditional Buddhists would think of it as a Buddhist community and that's somewhat true during the guest season, but the practice periods are rigorous and I found it to be quite enjoyable despite the discipline. May all beings be happy and awaken.

Zen Is Right Now cuke page

Memorabilia

 

Sent by Hideko Oga whose boyfriend got it for a dollar at a yard sale. 

Continuing from last week's top of pole talk

For instance, you know, my wife [laughs]-- every morning, when breakfast is ready, she hits clappers. If I don't answer [laughs], she may continue to hit them [laughs, laughter] until I feel rather angry [laughs, laughter]. Why we have that kind of problem is quite simple. Because I don't answer, you know. If I say “Hai!”-- that's the end of it [laughs, laughter]. Because I don't say “Hai!” she she has to continue because she doesn't know whether I heard it or not [laughs].

Kazuaki Tanahashi streaming from Chicago on the 19th

The composer Andrea Clearfield has composed some of Kazuaki Tanahashi's peace poems to music. It includes libretto by Doreen Rao based on his book Painting Peace: Art in a Time of Global Crisis. The music will be performed by the Fourth Coast Ensemble, an extraordinary solo singer with quartet with a piano. After the Overture and in between the singing, Tanahashi will be creating paintings while a shakuhachi flutist and a drummer improvise. The concert will take place in Chicago on September 19. We can watch streaming live or anytime on September 20. 

Tickets are available at: http://www.fourthcoastensemble.com/brush.html. Anyone from any country can watch. This is another offering from Kazuaki Tanahashi whose peace work has been pouring out of him for decades. May his offerings continue long into the future.

Kaz Tanahashi cuke page

Right Here

You can't stop at the top of the pole and you can't jump off. That is the problem, you know. That is why you should practice and you should forget all about the top of the pole. If so, you know, where should we throw our misunderstanding is right here [taps three times on table with stick], you know. Not this way or that way or past or future. Right here.                    --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Jump

We have problem whether we should jump off from here [laughs], you know. Actually we cannot jump off [laughs].                   --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

More on that Koan

But you think when you have some experience of enlightenment or something, you think we can rest here, you know, observing various sight at the top of a pole, forgetting all about to climb up-- to continue climbing up a pole. But actually there is no top for anything. Things are continuously growing or changing to something else. Nothing exists in its own form or color. So actually there is no top. But when we think, “Here is a top,” that is already misunderstanding.                  --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Cremation Can Wait

Blessed was the richness of quietude. - Rico Provisoli shares a close one.

A Labor Day Message

 from Edward Brown

Top of the Pole

There is very famous koan, you know. A man who climb up to the top of a pole. If he stays here [tapping on stick, probably held to represent the pole], he is not enlightened one. When he jump off from the top of the pole, he may be a enlightened one. This is koan.

Don't Forget

 Instagram Cuke Archives page - Posting the Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts from Blogger starting years ago but this time tastefully superimposed over a photo from our photo archive, so far just ones with Shunryu Suzuki in them. - Well done Peter Ford! 

Fooled

You may feel as if you are fooled by me, you know, but it is not so [laughs, laughter]. It is not a laughing matter. You know, we are seriously confronting with our selfish desires, and we are always observing things in wrong way. When we come to this point, it is necessary for us to understand our practice-- our practice of shikantaza.                     --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Name

Evil desire is just a name, you know. Just name of one thing. There is no such thing to pull out, like this, and to throw away.                     --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Annihilated

as I explained, evil desire is another name of buddha-nature. Where does that evil desire [laughs], you know, come from? There is actually no place for evil desires. We evil desires should be annihilated. Why is that? Where do you throw this away [laughs, laughter]?                    --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

A film with Vanja Palmers

 Descending the Mountain - exploring psilocybin and the nature of consciousness

Vanja Palmers cuke page

 

Jordan Thorn

Thanks Myles Cowherd for sending these three links to videos with dear departed Jordan Thorn chanting. 

Jordan being Jordan :-)

Robe Chant

Sandokai

Jordan's cuke page

Name

 So whatever you call it, that is another name of one reality. Even though you call it mountain or river, that is another name of one reality. So we should not be fooled by words of “nature” or “result” or “buddhahood.” We should see thing itself with clear mind. In this way, we understand buddha-nature.                   --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Lage Carlson

Lage Carlson sent an email with photos. Check it out:

No Special Person

There is of course layman and thee is priest [laughs]. Usually you understand in that way, but actually there is no particular person to be a priest, you know. Each one of you can be a priest and I could be a layman. Just because I wear a robe I am priest. Because I behave like a priest, I am a priest. That's all, you know. There is no special person for priest or for layman.                   --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo. 

Another Name

“Evil desires,” we say [laughs], but it is another name of buddha-nature [laughs].                    --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 69-04-20 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. Got to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo.