It is not by advancing step by step that you attain enlightenment. You cannot arrange your steps to reach enlightenment. Each step is independent practice, and with each step there must be enlightenment. When you devote yourself to only one step, there is true understanding of that teaching. So, it means you have enlightenment. When you try to arrange it, you will lose the essence of the teaching.
Found in The Way of Eiheiji booklet
—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.
