Student: D. T. Suzuki wrote that “Zen was religion of the will.” What do you think about that?
Suzuki: Willpower is not the only power we have. Soto is more maybe emotional. And religious feeling is something like emotional, but just emotional power is blind. And willpower is also sometimes blind [laughs]. So that is why we want rational power that will correct the mistakes of—will help blend willpower and feeling or emotional power.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-30-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.
