When we say, “to observe things as it is” it means “to see things as it should be” [laughs]. For you, these are opposites. For you, “as it should be” and “as it is” are quite different. “As it should be” means “it is not so, but it should be so.” It means you want to be moral. But human beings are not always moral. When you are not religious, when you are not good, that is how you are. So “way it should be” means morality or religion. And “way as it is” is science. But for us, “things as it is” is morality, not science. So, to observe “things as it is” means to be moral and to be religious. It’s what I mean by “way it should be” [laughs]. So, the statement is the same, but what we mean is not the same.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-27-B 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.
