For Zen students, a weed is a treasure.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
Leave your front door and your back door open. _x000D_ Allow your thoughts to come and go. _x000D_ Just don't serve them tea.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote encourages mindfulness and detachment from one's thoughts.
Shunryu Suzuki's quote emphasizes the importance of allowing thoughts to flow freely without getting attached to them. By 'leaving the doors open,' he suggests that we should be open to our thoughts and emotions as they come and go, but advises against engaging with them too deeply, such as by nurturing or dwelling on them, symbolized by the metaphor of not serving them tea.
Themes
MindfulnessThoughtsDetachmentZenAwareness
In practice
Example use cases
In a meditation class, one might say, 'As Shunryu Suzuki wisely advised, leave your front door and your back door open to your thoughts.'
More from Shunryu Suzuki
All quotes βIf you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
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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.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
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