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Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Organizations and Rules

As soon as we start to talk about organizations, we will have this kind of problem. “What is the teaching? What are your rules?” [Laughter.] But we do not want those rules. Actually, we do not have such kinds of rules like: “As a Buddhist you have to believe in re-incarnation.” [Laughs] we have no such rules. Most Buddhists believe in re-incarnation, I think, but I am not so sure. This kind of rule is not fundamental, and for our sect, the most important thing is our system of teaching.

cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-31 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.