"The true purpose (of Zen) is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes."

– Shunryu Suzuki

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"Maintenant il pleut, mais nous ne savons pas ce qui se produira l’instant suivant. Au moment où nous sortirons, il fera peut-être un temps magnifique, ou bien il y aura de l’orage. Puisque nous ne savons pas, apprécions dès maintenant le son de la pluie." 🙏

Shunryu Suzuki
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Everything changes

Shunryu Suzuki is said to have replied to a student who asked if he could put the Buddha’s teachings in a nutshell with the words, “Everything changes”.

Everything does. The weather, the leaves on the trees, our own bodies. And the things we make change too: human society, relationships, artifacts, language. Change is inescapable; impermanence is the one constant.

Just as we cannot escape change, we cannot escape sadness. Love and change lead inevitably to sadness. The death of a friend, of a beloved pet, the passing of summer into autumn. Rain clouds cover the sun.

It seems to me that we grow up to fear change and impermanence. Children need to know that their parents will always be there; as they acquire things, toys, little collections of found items, favourite clothes, they naturally long for these things not to be lost, not to break or perish. But they do. Toys are lost or damaged, favourite clothes are suddenly too small. Children grow fast, and even with the most reliable of parents, their relationship with them changes. Love is tested by change, always.

It might be natural, then, to grow up not to trust, to fear and expect loss and yes, betrayal. Things, and especially people, change, and if you rely on their remaining static, you will feel that change as betrayal.

If you cling to static forms, whether made things or living, you will lose. If you try to avoid sadness, you will avoid love, too. What can you do, except trust the love that is the essence of sadness, that is the heart of change?

You have no alternative anyway but to trust; when you die, what will you do? What else could you do, except trust in the vast field of light and life into which you will dissolve, into which you will return in peace? Sit still, and the field of awareness will open, the ground in which all things come to be will hold you. The light and the land are one; beyond is no thing, and the life becoming just what is.

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"Do not be too interested in Zen."

– Shunryu Suzuki

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"The best way to control cow and sheep is to give them a big grazing field."

– Shunryu Suzuki

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"In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few."

– Shunryu Suzuki

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"You just sit in the midst of the problem; when you are a part of the problem, or when the problem is a part of you, there is no problem, because you are the problem itself.
The problem is you yourself. If this is so, there is no problem."

— Shunryu Suzuki

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When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself.

—Shunryu Suzuki

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"When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves; we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized."

~ SHUNRYU SUZUKI

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