Everyday Mind Is Dao

You may say, “If everyday mind is true mind, whatever we do doesn’t matter; that is dao. To sneak into some other’s field and get a sweet melon, and eat it in hot summer weather is dao [laughs]. Whatever you do, that is dao.” You may understand it that way, but actually, what it means is to feel big mind through our everyday practice. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-A - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Other Pain or Problems

Many times I said that even though you feel you do not make any progress in your practice, and even though you have many problems in your practice, it may be better not to quit sitting because if you quit sitting you will not have the pain in your legs, but instead of that pain you will have another pain [laughs]. So this pain in your practice will be much better than the pain or problems you will have in city life or in some other way. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-A - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Chicago

Problems

If you can accept yourself completely, then you are not in this world any more [laughs, laughter]. That you have problems means you are still alive. That is our way. And even if you make a trip to another world, [laughs] you will have same problems, as long as you have your body and mind. That is how things exist in this world. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-A - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Sides

Dogen Zenji says, “When one side is described, the other side is dark.” We cannot describe both ways [at once]. That is why we describe just one side of the Truth. But if you have ears to listen to it, eyes to read it, you should be satisfied with one description, because you know there is the other side. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Photographs by Judith Keenan

Another article by Lawrence Shainberg on his birthday

Klondike Neurology

by Lawrence Shainberg 

His cuke page

happy birthday larry!

The 6th Patriarch Sutra in Tibetan

 Introduction to The Platform Sutra in Tibetan

Ken Ireland wrote:

After more than 3 years of work, interrupted by Covid but continued by means of the internet, Kempo Kunga Dakpa and I are pleased to announce that The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch is now available in Tibetan for the first time in over a thousand years. We have completed a meticulous draft of one of the key texts of Zen practice. Dakpa and I are currently looking for scholars to check the manuscript before publication.

Ken Ireland cuke page

Enter

Ken

Attainment

When we say “attainment,” the meaning is actually very different from the usual connotation of the word. By attainment we mean not the result of practice, but that everything is attainment. So, even though I call it attainment, it may be the practice. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Skillful Devices

Usually people respect the First Principle rather than skillful devices. But in this sutra, Buddha put emphasis on skillful devices instead. This means that Buddha put emphasis on mercy. The way to help people with skillful devices is the most important point. And to find each one's own position, responsibility, and meaning of life, and to find the joy of life in the activity near at hand, or the previous attainment, is the most important point. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Unhappy

For a bodhisattva, to be unhappy is also good. For the usual person, to be unhappy is a terrible thing. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Friendly With Each Other

Most people think, if we become friendly with each other, we will be lost. The only way is to have hard competition. If it is necessary, we should even fight or reject others’ opinions. And we should stick to our own way. That is what we are doing.

Before you actually practice our way, you have this fear, but if you practice our way, there is no such problem at all, as you must have seen. If you have even the faintest idea of this truth, then it will be a great help for you.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Jerry Fuller, Niels Holm, Bruce McAllister at the SFZC City Center, 1979

Common Ground

Even though each one of us is making a different effort, as long as all the effort is supported by Buddha Nature, there is no problem. When we don’t know that everyone’s effort is supported by the same ground and are attached to our own way, rejecting or ignoring the others’ ways and insisting on our own way, that is confusion. So we Buddhists put emphasis on each one’s own way. The Lotus Sutra, especially, puts emphasis on each one’s own way, and on the meaning of each one’s own being. At the same time this sutra provides every one of us with a big, common ground where we can enjoy each one’s own way. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Suzuki talking with boys on the way to Tassajara

A Zen Spiritual Union Ceremony

 

At Shunkoin in Myoshinji in Kyoto

We believe all love is equal and are open to all types of couples. 

I'm amazed. - dc

thanks Ghia

Strive Our Own Way

There is a characteristic way we make our effort. The direction in which we make our effort might be very interesting for you to know. If our human effort is pointed in the same direction by all human beings, that is a dreadful destiny. Everyone should strive in his own way, and everyone should find out his own way to develop himself. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Close up from day of Mel Weitsman's shuso ceremony at Tassajara, April 1970.

Cuke Podcast with Chris Miller

Chris Miller was a student of Shunryu Suzuki. Herein he talks about the path that led him there. He  was at the first practice period at Tassajara.  He's retired now from teaching college level composition. He published a book:  Searching for the  Path Within: From Poetry to Zen in the Sixties, under the pen name Christopher Lennox - the Zen part is on cuke.com. 

Cuke podcast with Chris

His cuke page

I Don't Know

The highest truth is the subject of the question the emperor asked Bodhidharma: “What is the First Principle?” Bodhidharma said, “I don't know.” “I don't know” is the First Principle. Do you understand? The First Principle cannot be known in terms of good or bad, right or wrong, because it is both right and wrong. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Calligraphy by Jakusho Bill Kwong

Everyone Will Attain Enlightenment

It is no use expecting attainment. Sooner or later everyone will attain enlightenment because we have Buddha nature. As a Buddhist, we must have this kind of big mind and big scale of practice. It is not a matter of today or tomorrow, or this year or next year. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Human Be-in, January 14, 1967

Eventually Attain Enlightenment

This is interesting, you know. Buddha was glad that he was not so good. If I were Shakyamuni Buddha, I would have been very angry maybe. I would not be happy to see that one of the disciples was not so good, treading the wrong path. But Buddha was very patient, and he was very glad. He thought, “eventually he will attain enlightenment.” —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

A technical query about ZMBM

Richard Baker asked me if I knew what font the first edition of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind used. I directed the question to font (and other publishing nuts and bolts matters) master Andrew Main. Andrew responded

Care About the Truth

Dogen was very strict about Buddhists having worldly desires. As a Buddhist we should not even have the desire to expect enlightenment. You may say that was a strict observation of the Lotus Sutra. Of course, that was his character which was so pure and lofty. And he didn’t care about anything but truth. He would give his whole body and mind to the truth. That was his way. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

The Eternal Teaching

When Dipankara Bodhisattva became enlightened and became a true teacher of the whole world, Buddha became his disciple, studied, and received his juki from him. All of those stories are about the eternal teaching which is always with every being, from beginningless beginning to endless end. That is what they mean. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Many Many Buddhas

These teachings were not started by Buddha. Before Buddha there must have been many many Buddhas, limitless, numerous Buddhas. There must have been. In this way the Lotus Sutra describes reality. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-E - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Buddhism: A Way of Life and Thought by Nancy Wilson Ross

Something Great or Small

As you know, I like stones very much, but especially big ones. Someone came to me the other day with a magnifying glass and said, “Look at those stones.” So I looked at them one by one. But to my great astonishment, those small stones were exactly the same as big ones! They were as interesting as big ones, the shapes were different, and some had very good shapes. You could make a beautiful garden with those stones. I was very pleased. I thought, this is what the universe consists of and how everything is going. So, if you cannot accomplish something great, you can work on a very small thing, in a very small scale, and the meaning is not any different at all. This is the nature of our practice and teaching. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-E - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Higher Place, Lower Place

We say, “You should put something which belongs in a higher place in a higher place, and something which belongs in a lower place in a lower place. Don’t mix them up.” Our way is very careful in this respect. So our teaching is limitless in both ways. Our teaching is on a great scale, and, at the same time, it is very particular on a small scale. This is the nature of our world. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-E - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Annapurna's Shrine