For Zen students, a weed is a treasure.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the transient nature of reality, suggesting that attachment to things is futile as everything is in constant flux.
Shunryu Suzuki highlights the impermanence of life in this quote, illustrating that nothing is permanent and therefore, trying to own or control aspects of life is ultimately futile. The acknowledgment of constant change is a central tenet in many philosophical and spiritual traditions, urging individuals to embrace the fluidity of existence rather than cling to illusions of possession or stability.
Themes
ChangeImpermanenceAttachmentLifeAcceptance
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a speech about adaptability in a volatile job market.
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.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
No teaching could be more direct than just to sit down.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
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
Similar quotes
Getting sober just exploded my life. Now I have a much clearer sense of myself and what I can and can't do. I am more successful than I have ever been. I feel very positive where I never did before, and I think that's all a direct result of getting sober.
Jamie Lee CurtisRead
Irrespective of todays judgment and the price we had to pay in this generation, we were able to close an epoch of divisions, different blocs and borders, opening the way for an era of globalization.
Lech WalesaRead
You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay? Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.
Jim RohnRead
Perhaps middle-age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells; the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of the ego.
Anne Morrow LindberghRead
Fearless is knowing that someday things will change.
Taylor SwiftRead
I didn't want to be a slave to any passion anymore. I gave up card playing altogether, even bridge and gambling - more or less. It took me a few years to get out of it.
Omar SharifRead