When you are critical of your practice, usually it’s because you have some other purpose or aim. You become critical not by inmost request, but because of some gaining idea. In this case, to be critical of your practice is not good. But, if we accept our imperfect practice, trying to be perfect is our inmost request. If so, not to be perfect itself, but to be aware of our imperfect practice is an expression of our inmost request. If you understand in this way, that is right understanding.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-08-28-B 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.
