If you don’t know the nature of suffering, you will suffer more. But if you know why you suffer, then you think, “I expect too much. There is no ice cream here,” [laughs] so I shouldn’t think about ice cream. Thinking that there is no ice cream is already not so good. But if you want [laughs, laughter] to have it, you make yourself worse. So, by knowing, you will be relieved from a lot of suffering.
Drawing by Stan White
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the photo. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-03-15 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.