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Friday, October 10, 2025

More Than a Philosophical Understanding

When you try to understand the way of a bodhisattva by thinking or philosophy, it is dualistic. Each school has its system of teaching, but Zen has no system of philosophy. Although the Soto school has the Shobogenzo, it’s not possible to understand it in just a philosophical way. That is why when a scholar writes something about Shobogenzo, he will submit it to a Zen master. He does not publish before a Zen master checks it. This is pretty strict for the Soto school because just a philosophical understanding is not good enough.

cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-28-C 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.