When you say “mind,” there is no material. When you say “material,” there is no mind. Before you see fish, watch the water. When you watch the water, there is fish, not water. For science it’s water, but for me it is fish [laughter]. For the scientific mind it’s oxygen plus two hydrogen. But for me it is not water, it is fish, and I’m involved in it, and I am swimming in the water. In this way we are flying through the sky. All the sky is mind. This understanding is very subtle and wonderful. All the sky is my home. If you say it is too wide, that is your problem. If you say that’s wonderful, that is your pleasure of life.
—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.
