D. T. Suzuki Quotes
-
The intuitive recognition of the instant, thus reality is the highest act of wisdom.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself.
-
To Zen, time and eternity are one.
-
The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect.
-
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.
-
Unless it grows out of yourself no knowledge is really yours, it is only borrowed plumage.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground.
-
The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow.
-
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?
-
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.
-
Art always has something of the unconscious about it.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Implicity, there should be something mysterious in every day.
-
I am an artist at living - my work of art is my life.
-
Unless we die to ourselves, we can never be alive again.
-
The contradiction so puzzling to the ordinary way of thinking comes from the fact that we have to use language to communicate our inner experience, which in its very nature transcends linguistics.