In this way, back and forth, there are many possibilities in our practice. The first stage may be the last stage, and the last stage may be the first. So actually, there are no stages [laughs]. I am intellectualizing to help you, that’s all [laughs]. I don’t know what the right order is, starting from actual Buddha to the third stage, or starting from believing in the absolute nature which we originally have, and then intellectual understanding, and then emotional practice which your emotions follow. Or until your emotional activity follows your practice or follows your intellectual understanding that you practice.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 67-08-02 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. These posts are also on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram. We are continually working on improving the quality of transcriptions of Suzuki's lectures. After a new "verbatim transcript" is made, we create a minimally edited version which is more readable. See the most recently completed transcripts at shunryusuzuki.com/n.
