Student [Jack Weller]: Docho Roshi, I wish to ask a question asked of all religions. In the Lotus Sutra and in other Buddhist works, and in your lectures, you speak about infinite time, infinite truth. A truth true in the past for an infinite time. It is said that the sutra has been repeated again and again in the past for an infinite amount of time, or, if not infinite, then uncountable numbers of years, of eons. Yet we know that man is not infinite in the sense that—at least today we believe men physically evolved from other animals. This happened over a period of time that is not uncountable or infinite. Is then the sutra and your teachings, and other Buddhist teaching, speaking about an infinite dimension of man, a finite being?
SR: A finite being itself is already the revealed infinite being. In this sense we should appreciate our life, moment after moment. And we should appreciate things which we observe, day after day. This is actually the only way to appreciate the infinite, ultimate, the First Principle. So, infinite should not be just an idea. We should appreciate everything without discrimination, not by small mind but by buddha-mind. Appreciation, true appreciation, is by our limitlessly big, limitlessly great, big mind, buddha-mind. It means to accept things as it is, after all.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the photo. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 68-09-00 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.
