In Japan we had a clinic for the insane, and in that clinic the patients worked all day long. Even though they had nothing to do, they should pick up dust, [laughter] or clean the floor, or repair shoji. They had to find something to do as long as they stayed in the clinic. That way helps patients very much. When you lie in bed thinking, “What is it?” or “What should I do? Why I am so bleak?” in this way, there is no time. There is no hope of recovering. You should set your true nature in activity, set your machine in motion. That is the only way.
Image generated by Leonardo.ai
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-28-D 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.