For Zen students, a weed is a treasure.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
The point we emphasize is strong confidence in our original nature.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the importance of having confidence in one's true self.
Shunryu Suzuki emphasizes the significance of having a strong belief in our original nature, which reflects our authentic self. This confidence is essential for personal growth and self-acceptance, allowing individuals to navigate life with assurance and clarity.
In practice
During a motivational speech to inspire self-acceptance among students.
For Zen students, a weed is a treasure.
If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.
As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.
No teaching could be more direct than just to sit down.
Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
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.
One who is wise and disciplined, always kind and intelligent, humble and free from pride. One like this will be praised.
Though reading and conversation may furnish us with many ideas of men and things, yet it is our own meditation must form our judgment.
I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness.
If we judge ourselves only by our aspirations and everyone else only their conduct we shall soon reach a very false conclusion.
If the lecture is good, then everything is too smooth. That's the same in music: if the performance is too good, you really don't enjoy it, because it just goes by, and you can never penetrate into the heart of it. Sometimes a poor performance is better for enjoyment, because you can look at those things that were wrong and analyze them.
By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.
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