If you understand about true nature, you will find the true nature within yourself and in every existence. Flowers have this nature. Even though it is cold, they are preparing for spring. Even though they do not know it, they are making good effort to come up in the spring. So when we become aware of it, we will know that this nature we have is universal nature to every existence. But this awareness of true nature is limited to human beings. So, this awareness is very important, and this awareness is, in short, to try to do something good is our spirit.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-22 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.