For Zen students, a weed is a treasure.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things in the universe.
Shunryu Suzuki's quote reflects on the profound connection between individuals and the natural world, suggesting that wherever one may be, they share a unity with the cosmos. It encapsulates the idea that our existence is intertwined with the elements around us—clouds, sun, and stars—implying a harmonious relationship with everything that exists, transcending mere words and perceptions.
In practice
In a meditation class, to emphasize the connection between individuals and the universe.
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.
I understand that everything is connected, that all roads meet, and that all rivers flow into the same sea.
Genetically influenced behavior is not necessarily good and not necessarily unchangeable. Explanations of bad behavior that appeal to genes do not absolve a person any more than do explanations that appeal to upbringing.
Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate that the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself.
I like flawed characters, and I like seeing people who are supposed to be not villains but antagonists. There are elements to them, which are really annoying, but you kind of see where they came from. You see the things that caused those inadequacies.
Philanthropic and religious bodies do not commonly make their executive officers out of saints.
There is a danger to judicial independence when people have no understanding of how the judiciary fits into the constitutional scheme.
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