In Soto practice, you know, we do not put too much emphasis on enlightenment. When we say enlightenment, we mean something perfect, a perfect stage, you will attain. But actually [laughs] that is not possible.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - 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.
Beginner's Mind Calligraphy by Shunryu Suzuki
See the next day's post clarifying this.
On Monday, the Wilderness Land Trust, a nonprofit in Montana, announced it had bought what it calls the Church Creek property, which sits in the heart of the coastal range adjacent to the Tassajara Mountain Zen Center, a remote and historic Buddhist monastery built at a natural hot springs site. The property is also a short distance as the crow flies from the Arroyo Seco Campground area, a hub of backcountry trails that serves as a launchpad for backpackers into the vast Ventana Wilderness inland from Big Sur.
“With incredible vistas, flat building sites and access via a public road, the Church Creek property would have been at high risk of development had it sold to a private buyer,” the Wilderness Land Trust wrote in a press release.
We understand Buddha as the ideal, as a perfect one. At the same time, we understand him as a human being. Although we have an ideal, there is no need for us to be bound by it. The same thing is true with rituals and precepts. There is no need to be bound by precepts, and there is no need to observe our rituals as some formality.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Drawing by Stan White
We should not treat an ideal or reality as something desirable or something not satisfactory. We should accept ideal as ideal, and reality as reality. So, even though our practice is not perfect, we should accept it, without rejecting ideals. How to do that is to live in each moment. In each moment we include reality and ideals. Everything is included in each moment. There’s no other way to be satisfied with what we have in each moment. That is the only approach to the ideal.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Each Moment Is the Universe by Dainin Katagiri
Somehow the link got lost. That happens. I was tired and didn't check. Here it is.
When we are satisfied with our attainment, moment after moment, with some improvement, we have there composure of life. We have satisfaction. In our way there is no idea of complete success—complete enlightenment. And yet we have some ideals, but we should note that an ideal is something which can’t be reached. Because you cannot reach it, it's an ideal. So, ideal is ideal, and reality is reality. Now, we should have both reality and ideals, or else we cannot do anything. So, both ideals and reality will help our practice.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - 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.
Apple picking with Suzuki - Tassajara, Summer 1968
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Because of the impossibility of solving our problem of sin we have bodhisattva vows. Even though our desires are innumerable, we vow to put an end to them. Even though our way is unattainable, we want to attain it. Then our Buddhist way will have its own life. If Buddhism is a teaching which is attainable, if you attain it that’s all [laughs], there’s no need to study Buddhism. But fortunately, it is unattainable, so we have to strive to attain it. And here we have double structure. We should attain it, but on the other hand it is unattainable. How to solve this problem is to practice our way, day by day, moment after moment.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Shunryu Suzuki at lay ordination in City Center zendo, August 1971.
I think there is some similarity of Christian sin and our idea of sin. Both for us and Christians, sin is something inevitable and impossible to get out of. This is the idea of karma or sin for us. And how to get out of it—the last answer is by our practice. But before we go to the last answer, where we have no idea of good or bad, sinful or not sinful, we have to go a pretty long way [laughs] in our practice. We should improve ourselves little by little. Even though you attain enlightenment in some sense, you cannot change your karma as long as you live here. So, we have a long way to go.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Photo by Judith Keenan
But Buddhists think our nature is as we say Buddha Nature. Buddha Nature is universal nature to everyone, and that is more good nature [laughs] than sinful nature. That is our understanding of our nature. And, in its true sense it is neither good nor bad, that is the complete understanding. But, in its usual sense it is more good nature than bad nature.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Tassajara Group Photo
After Bill Lane's spring 1975 shuso ceremony.
Our inmost nature can help us observe precepts. When we understand our precepts as the expression of our inmost nature, that is the
way as it is. Then there are no precepts. When we are expressing our
inmost nature, precepts are not necessary, so we are not observing any
precepts. But on the other hand we have the opposite nature, so we
want to observe our precepts, or we feel we have to observe them. We
feel the necessity of precepts will help us, and when we are helped by
precepts that is also the blossoming of our true nature. So when we
understand precepts in this negative or prohibitory sense that is also an
expression of our true nature. So precepts observation has two sides. One
is negative and the other side is positive. And we have a choice of how to observe them.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - 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.
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It occurred almost fifty years ago.
That's Connie Lueck on the far right in this early (1960-2) photo taken in front of Sokoji. See it with names at the photo data base here.
If you observe precepts, that is not true observation of precepts. When you observe precepts without trying to observe precepts, then, you know, that is true observation of precepts.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - 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.
Narcissus Quagliata's watercolor sketch for a stained-glass window depicting Suzuki-roshi purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The sketch is hanging in the stairwell of 300 Page Street.
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This photo is SR0209 in the data base. That's a link to it there.
L to R: Jean Ross, Betty Warren, Connie Lueck, Della Goertz, Bill Kwong, Grahame Petchey?, Paul Alexander, + Bob Hense in zazen at Soko-ji. Posed for photo because this is the men's side for actual zazen period.
Connie Lueck cuke page with more photos and where more will go as I find out. - dc
Note: I just realized one day later that this is something that happened decades ago. Am posting a new follow-up post because more has come to light.
Egolessness does not mean to annihilate or to give up our own individual practice. True egolessness should forget egolessness too [laughs]. As long as you understand your practice is egolessness, then you stick to ego too. When you practice with others, true egolessness happens. That egolessness is not just egolessness, it is also maybe ego practice. And at the same time it is a practice of egolessness. This egolessness is beyond ego or egolessness [laughs].
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - 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.
Art by Paul Reps
When we observe one thing together, we should forget our own practice. When we practice something with people, it is partly each individual’s practice and it is also others’ practice. So, we say, recite sutras with your ears [laughs]. Ears are to listen to some others chanting. So, with my mouth we practice our practice, and with my ears we listen to others’ practice. So, here we have complete egolessness in its true sense.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - 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.
Oryoki at Tassajara, 1967
August 19 - September 15, 4-6pm
Opening Reception, Saturday, August 26, 4-6 PM
311 Lorton Ave, Burlingame, CA
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Page on this exhibition at the Andra Norris website
From the email promoting this impressive show
Willard Dixon and Richard Shaw met in the sixties when they were students at the San Francisco Art Institute, where they studied art and joined the Studio 13 band, playing New Orleans-style jazz in a group that once included artists Elmer Bischoff and David Park. The band had a long tradition at the school, and over the years the artists would see each other at art openings and sometimes perform at them. Though Dixon’s and Shaw’s art is vastly dissimilar, their important individual contributions, taking root in California’s Bay Area, are integral to American contemporary art.
Willard Dixon, known for capturing the vast beauty of the American West, sees possible paintings in his everyday movements through the world, which he later develops in a way that communicates the feeling of what he experiences. Dixon’s paintings, with their signature early-evening light, feature landscapes, water, and sky, and they include vistas from the artist’s recent travels to the Hawaiian Islands and from skies over Utah.
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Two more of Dixon's paintings in the show
Rituals are not just training; they are more than that. Through rituals we communicate in its true sense, and we transmit the teaching in its true sense. That is the meaning of rituals.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - 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.
Shunryu Suzuki at Soko-ji Mountain Seat ceremony - 1962
It is quite natural for a teacher to recommend some other teacher for a disciple. And once he becomes a disciple he should try hard to devote himself to study his teacher’s way. At first a disciple may like him not just because he wants to study Buddhism. He may want to study under him for some other reason, but it doesn’t matter. Anyway, [laughs] if he devotes himself completely to the teacher, he will understand. He will be his teacher’s disciple, and he can transmit our way.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Shunryu Suzuki’s master - Gyokujun So-on Suzuki
Zazen—this posture, is originally maybe a kind of training or something, but it is not just training. It is more the actual way of transmitting Buddha’s way to us. Through practice we can actually transmit Buddha’s teaching because words are not good enough to actualize his teaching.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - 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.
At City Center - Photo by Tanya Takacs
How to organize this dualistic or paradoxical teaching into our actual life is the purpose of zazen practice. In zazen as I explained rather symbolically what does it mean to put this leg here and the other leg here. The right leg symbolizes our activity. The left is more or less the opposite, calmness of mind. If the left is wisdom, the right is practice, and when we cross our legs, it means we don’t know which is which [laughs]. So here we have already oneness, symbolically. Our posture is vertical without tipping left or right, back or forward. This is an expression of the perfect understanding of teaching which is beyond duality.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-29 - 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.
Bill Kwong at Sokoji Temple 1965
We are discussing now how to rightly identify ourselves, but what I am suggesting is not to try to identify yourself—to something. If you are trying to do it—why don’t you try to identify yourself: nothing? Actually, we are nothing. We don’t exist, so it’s all right. But, if you want to understand yourself more in terms of some feeling, or of good or bad, or in terms of right or wrong, perfect or imperfect—that is possible too when your practice is mature. When you do not rely on anything. Then you can resolve it. As long as you have something in your mind, your practice tends to be distorted practice.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Nothing Holy About It by Tim Burkett
You are nothing. That is the other side of true experience. Then there is no problem, no danger. But if you try to identify yourself with some experience, in terms of right or wrong, perfect or imperfect, there is danger. So, the best way is to identify yourself with nothing, no form, or no teaching. Just sit. That is why we call it shikantaza, or just sit, with no purpose of sitting, without trying to do anything.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - 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.
How we get out of suffering is to have wisdom, to see things as it is. By your thinking that is not possible. But when you think from various angles, then thinking will help. If you want to have sudden enlightenment, you should fight it out. And if you do not want to feel that you are fooled by something, then you should strive for it little by little according to your wisdom or thinking. Sometimes by wisdom we mean wisdom followed by teaching. And wisdom sometimes is direct understanding, but to have direct contact with reality is wisdom.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - 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.
Katharine was an early student of Shunryu Suzuki. She and Silas Hoadley were married back then.
Kathy was a dear and gentle woman with a long love of gardening and land and watershed preservation. Farewell dear friend. - dc
That something exists here is already suffering. For me that I’m here is suffering, [laughs, laughter] and how you take this suffering is the point. I think you will have a clear picture of the cause of suffering. That I am here is suffering, and maybe it is joy too [laughs]. It is an honor to be here. And it is a kind of joy. Joy is also suffering [laughs]. Not only after I have joy, but simultaneously I suffer too. Because I suffer I have joy. So, things have two sides, suffering and joy at the same time. The two sides of one coin.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - 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.
There is nothing that’s perfect. The teaching of selflessness means nothing is perfect. We think it is possible to get contact with something or to understand or to grasp something perfect or to attain some stage of perfection. But according to Buddhism that is not possible, [laughs] it is not possible. When you understand that is not possible, that understanding is perfect understanding, [laughs] and that is enlightenment. [Laughter.]
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Shunryu Suzuki and Richard Baker next to cabin at Tassajara, 1968
When we rely on one-sided understanding we lose the purpose of our study. So to study Buddhism means not only Buddhist teachings—everything—to study everything is to study ourselves. And to study ourselves is to forget ourselves. And to forget ourselves is to be enlightened by things we study. What we study will teach us something which is real and true. Dogen said, to study ourselves is to be enlightened by everything. And this enlightenment goes forever, in this way, wiping the enlightenment and having enlightenment again. In this way this enlightenment procedure will go on and on and on, and you will understand everything in its true sense.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Dogen explained that you should not think firewood becomes ash. Firewood has its own period, and ash also has its own period. Ash has its own past and future, and so does firewood. So firewood is independent and ash is independent. When we understand self in that way, that self includes everything: its own past and future and everything which exists with fire or ash. That does not mean to have some substantial idea of ash or fire. It is not some substance, but it’s something named ash, which includes everything and is related to everything. This is also the understanding of reality and understanding of our self. Only when we understand in this way, can we understand Buddhism and understand other’s lives, and understand science and everything.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - 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 Big Sur–Marble Cone forest fire burning at night, 1977.
When the meaning of selflessness is to annihilate all evil desires or to give up the idea of fame or profit—when that is selflessness, that is a one-sided idea. Selflessness also means a strong self. The toughness of the self plus that which is always free from personal attachment, that is selflessness.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Suzuki by Tosca CD Cover
You will get more accustomed to this kind of understanding of life, and some day you will actually experience and enjoy this kind of paradoxical world. The enjoyment we mean is completely different from that meant by people who just dwell on a one-sided understanding of life. Buddhists on the one hand sometimes look like very joyous people. On the other hand we are very dismal and gloomy people [laughter.] This is also double structure.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - as found on
shunryusuzuki.com
edited by PF. Go to
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for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.
Shunko Mike Jamvold with Mitsu Suzuki - Fall 2015?
There are more minimum edits of Shunryu Suzuki lecture transcripts thanks to the diligent work of Wendy Pirsig and Peter Ford. Shundo David Haye goes over all the transcripts too. He's with Engage Wisdom. I'm on standby for an opinion. We had five people giving opinions of what one word he said was recently - delude or denude. You can see a list of the recent Minimum Edits here:
Newer Minimum Edits on shunryusuzuki.com
There's a link on that page to all Minimum Edits. There are also More Edited version. Every edited and non edited version we could find is there. This archive is continually being updated and added to. We should post every change and addition on What's New but we only do that now and then.
Remember - anything you want to find, go to the Lecture Search Form and the Dropdown menus for help.
Take care. - dc
Enlightenment will happen to you when you are very, very, very truthful to a fact. Even if you are not truthful toward reality or a fact from both sides, but if you are very truthful to a one-sided view of life, then you have a chance to attain enlightenment. And whether you attain enlightenment or not, this is true. [Much laughter.]
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - 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.
Art by Max Gimblett
If we understand the reality that we hope everything will not change and that everything is changing is also true [laughs], that is the two sides of the one reality, then there is no problem. When we say everything changes, “oh, it’s okay” [laughter]. When someone says everything does not change, “oh, that is true, that is okay” [laughter]. When you can accept in this way, even for a moment, that is enlightenment.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - 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.
Bodhgaya photo by Eric Arnow
It was always a pleasure to hear, read, or run into Wes Nisker. His wise and humorous presence put those around at ease. He and I did a book signing together once years and years ago. We walked in together and as soon as we walked in, the proprietor looked startled. She'd forgotten about it and not let anyone know and neither had we. We had a most enjoyable time talking to each other and customers who happened by. After an hour or so we told her it was the best experience either had had at a book signing. I didn't know him well. Just some encounters through the years. My wife Katrinka told me this morning he'd passed and thanked me for introducing them at some event or something. She said she admired him and used to love listening to him on KSAN and quoted his "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own." I can't remember if his close friends and associates. called him Scoop or Wes but I called him Scoop. Farewell Scoop. Thanks for making your corners of the world brighter. - DC
Scoop's Corner of the Cosmos website
thanks Katrinka
Although everything, including self, changes always, we expect everything not to change [laughs]. This is also double structure of our nature. On one hand everything changes, and on the other hand we try not to think everything changes. And so there we have suffering. When we expect things not to change, but actually everything is, everything betrays our hope [laughs]. That is how, you know, we suffer.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-06-28 - 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.
