The emotional feelings, whether good or bad, you have them, and they are strongest. It is easier to find what is your inmost request by the strongest function of your mind. It is easier. And if you find your true nature, in your strongest emotional feelings, you will be very much encouraged by it. But if you find what inmost request means by logical thinking, you think, “I understand that is an inmost request.” That’s all. When you understand it, it will be forgotten, and you will think, “In this book, someone says inmost request is something such-and-such. So, when it is necessary, if I read that part I can understand it.” This kind of understanding will not help you at all. And in a case of necessity, you will forget all about it [laughs].
—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.
