The Fifth Patriarch in Japan was rather proud of his deep understanding of Buddhism. So Keizan Zenji did not accept him [laughs] because naturally he could not see the double moon. When you forget yourself, you have full strength. But it does not mean to be lazy or to become wood or stone. You are alive, and your mind is not working. You are in full activity, but your activity is not relying on anything. That is, you know, zazen.
Fifth Chan Patriarch
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-08-28-A 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.