The sutras usually look like they were spoken by the historical Buddha himself. But our Buddhist sutras were not actually spoken by him. So when you read sutras, if you think they were spoken by Buddha himself, you will be confused because there are actually many elements in them which did not exist in Buddha’s time. When sutras were compiled, they included various thoughts from their time. Buddhist thought developed from the understanding of the direct disciples of Buddha to that of Buddhists several generations afterward.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the photo. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 68-10-00-C as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.