159 Quotes from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
This series of transcribed talks, given by Shunryu Suzuki, is a modern Zen classic for a reason! Arranged in a way that makes the great theme of Zen approachable to our busy, Western minds; to read the book is Zen itself.
Preface
It’s not that satori (enlightenment) is unimportant, but it’s not the part of Zen that needs to be stressed.
If, when I die, the moment I’m dying, if I suffer, that is all right, you know; that is suffering Buddha. No confusion in it.
If you had a limitless life it would be a real problem for you.
This piece of incense; which I have had for a long, long time; I offer with no hand… Walking with you in Buddha’s gentle rain; our robes are soaked through; but on the lotus leaves; not a drop remains.
There is no easy way to be a teacher or a disciple, although it must be the greatest joy in this life.
Introduction
This is the purpose of all Zen teaching – to make you wonder, and to answer that wondering, with the deepest expression of your own nature.
The innocence of the first inquiry – what am I? – is needed throughout Zen practice.
The student should teach himself.
Question Zen in a way that gives Zen life.
What the teacher really offers the student is literally living proof that all this talk and the seemingly impossible goals can be realized in this lifetime.
A roshi is a person who has actualized that perfect freedom, which is the potentiality for all human beings.
Prologue
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert ‘s there are a few.
In Japan, we have the phrase shoshin, which means “beginner’s mind.”
If you discriminate too much, you limit yourself. If you are too demanding or too greedy, your mind is not rich and self-sufficient.
All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind.
There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen.
Part One: Right Practice
Zazen practice (formal meditation) is the direct expression of our true nature.
Posture: these forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture is itself to have the right state of mind. There is no need to obtain some special state of mind.
Our body and mind are not two and not one.
We die, and we do not die. This is the right understanding.
The most important thing in taking the zazen posture is to keep your spine straight.
When your chin is tilted up, you have no strength in your posture; you are probably dreaming.
You should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with your head.
A Zen master would say, “Kill the Buddha!” Kill the Buddha, if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature.
Breathing; what we call “I” is just a swinging door, which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.
When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless.
If you think, “I breathe,” the “I” is extra.
When your mind is pure and calm… There is nothing… Just a swinging door.
We do things one after the other. That is all… At 1 o’clock you will eat your lunch. To eat lunch is itself 1 o’clock.
When you say, “I should not do this,” you are doing not-doing in that moment.
Tozan, a famous, Zen master, said, “The blue mountain is the father of the white cloud. The white cloud is the son of the blue mountain. All day long, they depend on each other, without being dependent on each other. The white cloud is always the white cloud. The blue mountain is always the blue mountain.”
When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent, and at the same time, dependent upon everything.
Control; to give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.
To live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being, moment after moment.
Whatever we see is changing, is losing its balance. The reason everything looks beautiful is because it is out of balance, but its background is always in perfect harmony. This is how everything exists in the realm of Buddha nature, losing its balance against a background of perfect balance.
In Zen sometimes we emphasize the imbalance or disorder of life.
In zazen, we say, concentration, but to concentrate your mind on something is not the true purpose of Zen. The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things, as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control’s widest sense.
Mind waves; because we enjoy all aspects of life as an unfolding of big mind, we do not care for any excessive joy. So we have imperturbable composure.
Do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself.
The true understanding is that the mind includes everything; when you think some thing comes from outside, it means only that some thing appears in your mind. Nothing outside yourself causes any trouble.
If your mind is related to something outside itself, that mind is a small mind… Big mind experiences everything within itself.
Water always has waves. Waves are the practice of water. (Thoughts are the practice of mind)
Mind means; you should rather be grateful for the weeds you have in your mind, because eventually they will enrich your practice.
We must make some effort (in practice), but we must forget ourselves in the effort we make.
The Marrow of Zen; in the zazen posture, your mind and body have a great power to except things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
Those who can sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen, the actual feeling of Zen, the marrow of Zen. But those who find great difficulties in practicing Zen will find more meaning in it.
No dualism; to stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind pervades your whole body. With your full mind, you form the Mudra in your hands.
We say our practice should be without gaining ideas… This does not mean, however, just to sit without any purpose. This practice free from gaining ideas is based on the Prajna Paramita Sutra. “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.” But if you attach to that statement, you are liable to be involved in dualistic ideas… But fortunately, our teaching goes on to say, “form is form and emptiness is emptiness.” Here there is no dualism.
With your whole mind, you sit with painful legs, without being disturbed by them. This is to sit without any gaining idea. At first, you feel some restriction in your posture, but when you are not disturbed by the restriction, you have found the meaning of “emptiness is emptiness and form is form.”
When Buddha comes, you will welcome him; when the devil comes, you will welcome him.
One year of life is good. One hundred years of life are good.
Just to continue should be your purpose.
Bowing; bowing is a very serious practice. You should be prepared to bow, even in your last moment. Even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-centered desires, we have to do it. Our true nature wants us to.
After zazen, we bow to the floor nine times. By bowing, we are giving up ourselves. To give up ourselves means to give up our dualistic ideas. So there is no difference between zazen practice and bowing.
Usually to bow means to pay our respects to something which is more worthy of respect than ourselves. But when you bow to Buddha you should have no idea of Buddha, you just become one with Buddha, you are already Buddha himself.
If you do not have this firm conviction of big mind (all things are one, of the same great mind) in your practice, your bow will be dualistic.
My teacher had a callus on his forehead from bowing.
Nothing special; if you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Before you attain it, it is something wonderful, but after you attain it, it is nothing special.
As a Chinese poem says, “I went and I returned. It was nothing special. Rozan famous for its misty mountains; Sekko for its water.”
When we express our true nature, we are human beings. When we do not, we do not know what we are.
To be a human being is to be a Buddha. Buddha nature is just another name for human nature, our true human nature.
Part II
Right Attitude
The point we emphasize is strong confidence in our original nature.
Single-minded way; even if the sun were to rise from the west, bodhisattva has only one way.
The purpose of my talk is not to give you some intellectual understanding, but just to express my appreciation of our Zen practice.
“To appreciate your human life is as rare as soil on your fingernail.” – The Buddha.
I when I sit I want to remain sitting forever.
Our way is not to sit to squire something; it is to express our true nature.
Even swaying right to left as you sit down or get up from zazen is an expression of yourself. It is not preparation for practice, or relaxation after practice; it is part of the practice.
To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or yourself; it is to express your sincerity.
The Bodhisattva way is in each moment to express his nature and his sincerity.
There is no need to remember what I say. You understand; you have full understanding within yourself. There is no problem.
Repetition; If you lose the spirit of repetition, your practice will become quite difficult.
Buddha was not interested in the elements comprising human beings, nor in metaphysical theories of existence. He was more concerned about how he himself existed in this moment.
Zen and excitement; Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual every day routine.
If we become interested in some excitement, or in our own change, we will become completely involved in our busy life, and we will be lost.
Right effort; if your practice is good, you may become proud of it. What you do is good, but something more is added to it. Pride is extra. Right effort is to get rid of something extra.
Our effort in our practice should be directed from achievement to non-achievement.
No trace; when you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving, no trace of yourself.
If you do not burn yourself, completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do… That is what Dogen meant when he said, “Ashes do not come back to firewood.”
God giving; to give is non-attachment, that is, just not to attach to anything is to give.
Not to be attached to something is to be aware of its absolute value.
Mistakes in practice; it is when your practice is rather greedy that you become discouraged with it. So you should be grateful that you have a sign or warning signal to show you the weak point in your practice.
There are several poor ways of practice that you should understand.
Usually, when you practice zazen, you become very idealistic… But as I have often said, this is absurd.
“Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.” – Dogen
If you find some difficulty in your practice, that is the warning that you have some wrong idea, so you have to be careful.
Limiting your activity; usually when someone believes in a particular religion, his attitude becomes more and more a sharp angle, pointing away from himself. In our way, the point of the angle is always towards ourselves.
Joshu, a great Chinese Zen master, said, “A clay Buddha cannot cross water; a bronze Buddha cannot get through a furnace; I wooden Buddha cannot get through fire.” Whatever it is, if your practice is directed toward some particular object, such as a clay, a bronze, or a wooden Buddha, it will not always work.
When you bow, you should just bow; when you sit, you should just sit; when you eat, you should just eat.
Study yourself; to have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.
If you are attached to the teaching, or to the teacher, that is a big mistake. The moment you meet a teacher, you should leave the teacher, and you should be independent.
There is no need to teach the student, because the student himself is Buddha, even though he may not be aware of it.
When he is not aware of it, he has everything, but when he becomes aware of it, he thinks that what he is aware of is himself, which is a big mistake.
To talk about ourselves, is actually to forget about ourselves.
Dogen-zenji said, “To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.”
To polish your tile; “When you become you, then Zen becomes Zen. When you are you, you see things as they are, and you become one with your surroundings.”
A frog also sits like us, but he has no idea of zazen… Actually, that is our zazen - not any special thing.
We say, “When the night is here, the dawn comes.” it means there is no gap between the dawn and the night. Before the summer is over, autumn comes. In this way, we should understand our life. We should practice with this understanding, and solve our problems in this way.
Constancy; “People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.”
Cultivate your own spirit.
Our understanding of Buddhism should not be just gathering many pieces of information, seeking to gain knowledge. Instead of gathering knowledge, you should clear your mind. If your mind is clear, to knowledge is already yours.
Sometimes we think it is impossible for us to understand something unfamiliar, but actually, there is nothing that is unfamiliar to us.
The usual translation of the Japanese word nin is “patience,” but perhaps “constancy” is a better word…Nin is our way of continuous practice.
Even if the flashing of enlightenment comes, our practice forgets all about it. Then it is ready for another Enlightenment.
It is necessary for us to have enlightenment’s one after another, if possible, moment after moment. This is what it’s called enlightenment before you attain it and after you attain it.
Communication; “without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, to express yourself as you are is the most important thing.”
If you do not understand your master’s words, you are not his disciple.
Through your master’s language, you understand more than what his words actually say.
When you listen to someone, you should give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinions.
This is why we practice zazen: to clear our mind of what is related to something else.
Negative and positive; “Big mind is something to express, not something to figure out. Big mind is something you have, not something to seek for.”
It is impossible to talk about Buddhism.
Although our practice looks very formal, our minds are not formal.
Nirvana, the waterfall; “Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life.”
To attain Nirvana is to pass away.
Part III
Right Understanding
Our understanding of Buddhism is not just an intellectual understanding. True understanding is actual practice itself.
Traditional Zen Spirit; if you are trying to attain enlightenment, you are creating and being driven by karma, and you are wasting your time on your black cushion.
We should practice Zen with the same sincerity as Buddha.
If our practice is only a means to attain enlightenment, there is actually no way to attain it!…But when we believe in our way firmly, we have already attained enlightenment.
If you want to see something, you should open your eyes. When you do not understand Bodhidharma’s Zen, you are trying to look at something with your eyes closed.
Transiency; “We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.”
Because each existence is in constant change, there is no abiding self.
Without excepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure.
Naturalness; “Moment after moment, everyone comes out from nothingness. This is the true joy of life.”
Emptiness; “When you study Buddhism you should have a general house cleaning up your mind.”
A view of life based on existence alone is heretical.
As long as we have some definite idea about or some hope in the future, we cannot really be serious with the moment that exists right now.
When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything.
We say, “Step by step, I stop the sound of the murmuring brook.” When you walk along the brook, you will hear the water running. The sound is continuous, but you must be able to stop it if you want to stop it. This is freedom; this is renunciation.
Readiness, Mindfulness; “it is the readiness of the mind that is wisdom.”
When we realize that everything we see is a part of emptiness, we can have no attachment to any existence; we realize that everything is just a tentative form and color.
So realization of the truth (emptiness) is salvation itself.
Believing in nothing; “In our every day life, our thinking is ninety-nine percent self-centered.”
I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color – something which exist before all forms and all colors appear.
When we start to study science, or read a difficult sutra, we very soon become sleepy or drowsy. But we are always wide awake and very much interested in our self-centered thinking!
Dogen-zenji said, “Although everything has blue the nature, we love flowers, and we do not care for weeds.” This is true human nature. But that we are attached to some beauty is it sell for Buddha’s activity.
Calmness; “For Zen students a weed is a treasure.“
You will find the value of Zen in your everyday life, rather than while you sit.
To keep your body straight, means not to rely on anything. In this way, physically, and mentally, you will obtain complete calmness.
The meaning lies in the effort itself. We should find out the meaning of our effort before we obtain something. So Dogen said, “We should attain enlightenment before we attain enlightenment.”
Trying to do something in itself is enlightenment.
Those who are attached only to the result of their effort, will not have any chance to appreciate it, because the results will never come. But if moment by moment your effort arises from its pure origin, all you do will be good, and you will be satisfied with whatever you do.
So just to sit, without any idea of gain, and with the purest intention to remain as quiet as our original nature - this is our practice.
Walking, standings, sitting, and lying down, are the four activities or ways of behavior in Buddhism.
How to sit it is how to act. We study how to act by sitting, and this is the most basic activity for us.
We are just Buddhists. We are not even Zen Buddhists; we are just Buddhists. If we understand this point, we are truly Buddhists.
Beyond consciousness; “To realize pure mind in your delusion is practice. If you try to expel the delusion, it will only persist the more. Just say, “oh, this is just delusion,” and do not be bothered by it.”
Whether or not we have experience of our true nature, what exists there, beyond consciousness, actually exists, and it is there that we have to establish the foundation of our practice.
The best way to find perfect composure is not to retain any idea of things, whatever they may be – to forget all about them, and not to leave any trace or shadow of thinking.
You know how to rest physically. You do not know how to rest mentally.
When you just observe the delusion, you have your true mind, your calm, peaceful mind. When you start to cope with it, you will be involved in delusion.
When we just are – each just existing in his own way – we are expressing Buddha himself.
Epilogue
Zen mind; “Before the rain stops we can hear a bird. Even under the heavy snow, we see snow drops, and some new growth.”
You are on your way to discovering some appropriate way of life.
Your true mind is always with whatever you see.
Bodhidharma’s Buddhism is to be practice, to be enlightenment.
If we become too serious we will lose our way.
If you think that Big Mindis somewhere outside yourself, outside of your practice, then that is a mistake. Big Mind is always with us.
In the east, I saw rhubarb already. In Japan in the spring, we eat cucumbers.