You do not attain enlightenment after Buddha, or before Buddha. When you attain enlightenment, Buddha attains enlightenment, and the rest of the patriarchs attain enlightenment at the same time. This is the right understanding of enlightenment.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-01-21-BN 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.
