Zazen

Student E: From time to time you emphasize a different recommendation for how we practice or do zazen. Breathing, watching our breath, or concentrating our power in our hara, or last night you referred to shikantaza.

SR: Mm-hmm.

Student E: When you change your recommendations, do you think that we as a group should change our way of practicing according to what you say in the lecture? Or just those who feel it?
SR: Yeah, that is good question [laughs, laughter]. You know, the point is, whatever practice you do, practice your way without expecting anything. Just to be yourself you practice zazen. --------------------------------------------------  Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC

Help You

Student D: This is-- I'm not sure how to put the question, but last night you said that when we find the true power of zazen we wouldn't have trouble affecting what we want to affect, or it will just come naturally. And then at other times you've said that zazen doesn't help us or doesn't change us a bit.

SR: [Laughing.] Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't help. [Laughter.] Zazen doesn't help, you know. But your true nature will help. If you, you know, practice zazen because zazen will help you, it will not help you [laughs] because that is not true zazen.  --------------------------------------------------  Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC

Substantial

First of all, when you want to be a Buddhist, you should understand emptiness, or you should give up substantial viewpoint of life. But you should come back to the substantial explanation of the world. --------------------------------------------------  Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC

Wildflower

I am very grateful for you to make various offering to the altar. Sometime, you know, wildflower, sometime stone, or candlestick. This is true offering I think. And this is the true practice, offering of practice, our practice, which should be continuously practiced. And when we practice our way in this way, there is buddha and we are also buddha. In this way, we should understand this bodhisattva's vows. --------------------------------------------------  Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC

Offering

If you understand this kind of spirit of making offering, as Dogen Zenji says, offering should be like to offer the flower which blooms in remote mountain to the Buddha. In spring, in Japan we have cherry blossom, and to offer that cherry blossom to the Buddha is kuyo, is offered to make offering. This evening, you know, you saw big ring [laughs] around the moon. To make offering to Buddha with a big ring is kuyo. To hear the sound of the river should be kuyo according to Dogen Zenji. So to have deeper understanding instead of shallow, substantial understanding is to make a perfect offering.  --------------------------------------------------  Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC

Things Going

If you understand how things are going completely, you should continue your practice as things are going. This is the point of practice.  --------------------------------------------------  Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC

Meaning

We practice our way to solemnize this dharma world. Without practice things don't mean anything. Because of our practice, things come to have some meaning. Without practice there is nothing. --------------------------------------------------  Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC

An Easter Letter

from Steve Frost, a Catholic Priest whose been featured on cuke a number of times through the years.

bow vow

Usually when you bow to Buddha you look like you are respecting Buddha, but actually why you bow to Buddha is to continue your practice. That is the point. Without having any particular idea or any particular substantial idea or materialistic idea, just to live in bodhisattva's vow is the point. --------------------------------------------------  Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC

Referring to yesterday's post

When we have this understanding, we have no more idea of self. Instead of having idea of self, we will see the Buddha in each world. So this world, if you say is it great, this world is as great as the cosmos. If you say this world is small, you will see innumerable worlds even in a speck of dust. In this way we have to understand our world, and in this way we have to practice our way. So accordingly, this bodhisattva's practice is always based on this understanding. --------------------------------------------------  Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC