Teaching

Our teaching is not, “You should do like this,” or “Society should be like this,” or “Human beings should be like this.” We do not have this kind of thinking or idea. When we take off the cover, when we forget all about our teaching, that is heaven [laughs] for us. But it does not mean we do not want a cover. We want it. But when we enjoy Buddhism, there must not be any teaching.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-C 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.

Remember Eldon Pura?

 Jed Linde sent me this 2018 obituary for Eldon Pura who used to do electrical and heavy equipment work at Tassajara. He was a farmer in Greenfield too and students would go there and help him make wine including barefoot stomping on grapes. He'd just drive in sometimes and join us for lunch bringing a jug of his wine and have to be reminded we didn't drink alcohol. A great guy. This is all in the 2nd Tassajara Stories book.

Same Under Heaven

Everyone is the same under heaven. Everyone is the same in the common bathtub in Japan [laughing]. Do you know the Japanese common bath? There may be five or six people in a big bathtub. They’re enjoying it, washing and talking. It’s wonderful. That is our ideal. And even so, when we do not use the bathtub, we want a cover on it. When people get into it, we should take off the cover and enjoy the bath with people as friends. There is no rich person or poor person in the common bath when they are naked. And they can talk about anything in the common bathtub. Even so, when we do not use it, there should be a cover on it.

Image generated by Google Gemini

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-C 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.

No Secret

We cannot change someone’s character or what they did or will do. It is very difficult. But there is no need to change anyone. If they have right understanding of their character, that’s good enough. So as a conclusion: to put in a high place things we should put in a high place. Something which should be put in a low place should be put at a low place, that is our religion. There is no secret.

Image generated by Google Gemini

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-C 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.

Featured Cuke Archives page

Shinshu Roberts  was at the SFZC for years and 18 years ago founded the Ocean Gate Zen Center on 41st Avenue in Capitola next to Santa Cruz with her partner Jake Kinst. The website is oceangatezen.org. She recently published Meeting the Myriad Things: A Zen Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s Genjokoan. She worked for years on the Shunryu Suzuki archives. Hear about that and more in this podcast.

Wake Up!

The missionary spirit is not just to spread some teaching of Buddha or to force something on people or to do something in the name of the missionary work. That is not fair. When someone wants something, a teacher should be prepared to give something. And, if they are lazy, he should strike them [laughs]. That is all right. If he’s sleeping: “Don't sleep. Get up!” [Laughs.]

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-C 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.

Incessant Activity

A student asked: What happens if a person dies without realizing his buddha-nature? What happens to his buddha-nature? 

What happens to buddha-nature? Nothing happens to it. It is always the same and constant. Buddha-nature is always taking activity. It is in incessant activity. There are not two buddha-natures. There is only one buddha-nature for everyone, for everything. And it is always in incessant activity. Even when we are sleeping, it is in activity.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-C 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.

The Religious Experience

If someone is great, if you have some good example, it will give you some encouragement. But just an intellectual correction will not help you so much. So, we say that is not enough. The religious experience is something more than that and something different, completely different from our intellect or emotional feeling. So, we should not ignore our intellect, but we should not be limited. Our faculties should not be limited to the emotional or intellectual realms.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-C 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.

Correction

Scientific research or intellectual understanding of religion is not always wrong. We have intellect to correct our emotional faculty, which is sometimes not so clear or correct. Some correction is wanted for the emotional functions of our mind, or else we won’t know whether what we feel is right or wrong. That is a characteristic of the emotional functions. It may be necessary to correct them so that we can rely on our emotional faculty. But even though intellectual understanding can correct our emotional faculty, that correction will not help much unless we realize the original—the true nature of ourselves.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-C 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.

Quite Different

To pursue beauty or truth or good is different from the pursuit of holy nature within ourselves. The way is different. But there is no conflict because the pursuit of truth or good or beauty is based on our inmost nature. There should not be a conflict, unless your conclusion invades religious feelings. As long as your pursuit is limited to your own way, there is no conflict. If science is just science, and if philosophers are just philosophers, and religious people accept the conclusions of scientists and philosophers, there is no conflict. And it should be so. Pursuit of knowledge and pursuit of holiness are quite different things.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-29-C 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.