For Zen students, a weed is a treasure.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Pride and discouragement can hinder your personal growth and practice.
This quote by Shunryu Suzuki emphasizes that feelings of pride in oneβs success or discouragement from unmet ideals can create barriers to true growth and practice. It suggests that clinging to these emotions may lead to stagnation, confining one's potential within self-imposed limits.
Themes
PrideDiscouragementGrowthPracticePotential
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech to encourage students to embrace their journey, regardless of setbacks.
More from Shunryu Suzuki
All quotes βAs long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.
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No teaching could be more direct than just to sit down.
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Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
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When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore.
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Leave your front door and your back door open. _x000D_ Allow your thoughts to come and go. _x000D_ Just don't serve them tea.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
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If you don't work on important problems, it's not likely that you'll do important work.
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