Don’t Attach to Purity or Impurity

When you sit, you say something occurred in your mind which is not so good. Some image came. Something covered your wisdom or buddha-nature. When you say so, you have the idea of clearness because you think you have to keep your mind clear of various images which will come to you. This is how you understand it, but Dogen Zenji says: Don’t even try to clear up your mind, even though you have something there. Don’t want to be pure. If you want to be pure, it means you have attached to purity. That is also not so good. Don’t attach to purity or impurity.

Image generated by Google Gemini

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

Beverly (Horowitz) Armstrong new poem

 Soon Solstice by Beverly (Horowitz) Armstrong

Direct Experience of Buddha-nature

The purpose of practice is to have direct experience of buddha-nature. That is the purpose of our practice. So, whatever you do, it should be the direct experience of buddha-nature.

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

At Each Moment

Drawing by Stan White

This is a very important point: to fight it out with the body [laughs], not with the mind, not by thinking, not by wandering about. To find something which we should do at each moment is the best way to raise our mind. To raise our mind means to realize big mind, not small mind. Small mind is wandering about. But for big mind there is no place or time to wander about. It is too big to wander about [laughs]. Too big. If you want to realize that imperturbability of your spirit, you have to raise your body. There is enlightenment.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-28-D 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.

Raise Your Body

There was a famous novelist, Toson Shimazaki. And in the opening page of a book he said, “If you want to raise your mind, you should raise your body.” I was very interested, and very much encouraged by his words when I was quite young. At that time, I couldn’t go to college because I had to help my master, and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to go, [laughs] but I had to help him. So sometimes I did not know what to do. And when I read those two lines, “If you want to raise your mind, you should raise your body,” I knew that was why he went abroad. But I thought that is very good, so I must do something. If I thought, “What shall I do?” I would suffer more. So, I must work hard: cooking or cleaning or sweeping the garden. So, I stopped thinking about myself, and I worked and worked and worked. And that helped me very much.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-28-D 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

Kirk Rhoads spent years at the SF Zen Center then moved to Yaizu Japan where Shunryu Suzuki’s home temple Rinsoin is located. In this podcast he talks about how his path led to Zen, his years at Zen Center and Japan where he became close with Hoitsu and Chitose Suzuki, and his return to America. He also talks about the Kent Rhoads Foundation which he founded in honor of his late brother. The purpose of it is to provide support so that more people can afford to attend Zen retreats and practice periods, a noble goal. See kentrhoadsfoundation.org.

Activity

In Japan we had a clinic for the insane, and in that clinic the patients worked all day long. Even though they had nothing to do, they should pick up dust, [laughter] or clean the floor, or repair shoji. They had to find something to do as long as they stayed in the clinic. That way helps patients very much. When you lie in bed thinking, “What is it?” or “What should I do? Why I am so bleak?” in this way, there is no time. There is no hope of recovering. You should set your true nature in activity, set your machine in motion. That is the only way.

Image generated by Leonardo.ai

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-28-D 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.

Not So Good

Image generated by ChatGPT

You have at least one eye to see yourself. And one eye will tell you, you are not so good [laughter]. That is a big enlightenment. When you think that you are not so good, your true nature starts to work.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-28-D 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.

One Hundred Thousand Downloads!

On behalf of the entire Podbean Team, we want to congratulate you on reaching 100,000 downloads of your podcast “Cuke Audio Podcast”!

Cuke Podcasts Page

Right Here

Most people are attached to some result from their practice. That is why they do not attain enlightenment. Enlightenment is right here in your practice, but people think by practicing something will result. But actually, enlightenment is right here.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-07-28-D 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.