D. T. Suzuki Quotes
-
The claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal garments.
-
We can see unmistakeably that there is an inner relationship between Zen and the warrior's life.
-
The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.
-
When I say that Zen is life, I mean that Zen is not to be confined within conceptualization, that Zen is what makes conceptualization possible.
-
The meaning of service is to do the work assigned ungrudgingly and without thought of personal reward material or moral.
-
The right art is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede.
-
To Zen, time and eternity are one.
-
Zen wants us to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature. This is because Zen has come to the definite conclusion that the ordinary logical process of reasoning is powerless to give final satisfaction to our deepest spiritual needs.
-
Unless it grows out of yourself no knowledge is really yours, it is only borrowed plumage.
-
The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one's humdrum life, a life of monotonous, uninspiring commonplaceness, into one of art, full of genuine inner creativity.
-
Zen in it's essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom.
-
Though perhaps less universally known than such figures as Einstein or Gandhi (who became symbols of our time) Daisetz Suzuki was no less remarkable a man than these. And though his work may not have had such resounding and public effect, he contributed no little to the spiritual and intellectual revolution of our time.
-
Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.
-
Art always has something of the unconscious about it.
-
Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?
-
The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow.
-
Zen has nothing to teach us in the way of intellectual analysis; nor has it any set doctrines which are imposed on its followers for acceptance.
-
Copying is slavery. The letter must never be followed, only the spirit is to be grasped. Higher affirmations live in the spirit. And where is the spirit? Seek it in your everyday experience, and therein lies abundance of proof for all you need.
-
When traveling is made too easy and comfortable, its spiritual meaning is lost. This may be called sentimentalism, but a certain sense of loneliness engendered by traveling leads one to reflect upon the meaning of life, for life is after all a travelling from one unknown to another unknown.
-
Implicity, there should be something mysterious in every day.
-
The rocks are where they are- and this is their will. The rivers flow- and this is their will. The birds fly- this is their will. Human beings talk- this is their will. The seasons change, heaven sends down rain or snow, the earth occasionally shakes, the waves roll, the stars shine- each of them follows its own will. To be is to will and so is to become.
-
I am an artist at living - my work of art is my life.
-
Unless we die to ourselves, we can never be alive again.
-
Life, according to Zen, ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air, or as a fish swims in the water.