Before philosopher Northrop, they classified our mental functions in three ways: pursuing truth, pursuing goodness, and pursuing beauty. But actually, those functions are not independent. When we do something, it is willpower, and it involves emotions. And it also involves good and bad ethics. So, if one of them is lacking, you cannot do anything. So, it is better to study it as mental activity itself, without classifying in three ways. This way is nearer to Buddhism—phenomenology or existentialism is close to Buddhism. But [laughs] not exactly so.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-A 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.