If you say, “This is nose,” you lose your reality of the nose. So, when we want to express what is actually nose, the best way is, “That is not your nose.” [Laughs.] That is maybe the best way. When you think, “Oh, this is not just a nose, something more than that,” then you realize the reality of the nose. So, we say, “no nose.” No, that is not nose or no nose. When we say, “no nose” we realize what nose actually is.
Image modified by ChatGPT
—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.
