D.T. Suzuki Quotes & Sayings

When a thing is denied, the very denial involves something not denied. — D.T. Suzuki

The intuitive recognition of the instant, thus reality ... is the highest act of wisdom — D.T. Suzuki

Among the most remarkable features characterizing Zen we find these: spirituality, directness of expression, disregard of form or conventionalism, and frequently an almost wanton delight in going astray from respectability. — D.T. Suzuki

However insistently the blind may deny the existence of the sun, they cannot annihilate it. — D.T. Suzuki

To Zen, time and eternity are one. — D.T. Suzuki

Enlightenment is like everyday consciousness but two inches above the ground. — D.T. Suzuki

The rocks are where they are- and this is their will. The rivers flow- and this is their will. The birds fly- this is their will. Human beings talk- this is their will. The seasons change, heaven sends down rain or snow, the earth occasionally shakes, the waves roll, the stars shine- each of them follows its own will. To be is to will and so is to become. — D.T. Suzuki

Zen has nothing to teach us in the way of intellectual analysis; nor has it any set doctrines which are imposed on its followers for acceptance. — D.T. Suzuki

I raise my hand; I take a book from the other side of this desk; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighboring woods:-in all these I am practicing Zen, I am living Zen. No worldly discussion is necessary, or any explanation. — D.T. Suzuki

The mistake consists in our splitting into two what is really and absolutely one. Is not life one as we live it, which we cut to pieces by recklessly applying the murderous knife of intellectual surgery? — D.T. Suzuki

The claim of the Zen followers that they are transmitting the essence of Buddhism is based on their belief that Zen takes hold of the enlivening spirit of the Buddha, stripped of all its historical and doctrinal garments. — D.T. Suzuki

Let the intellect alone, it has its usefulness in its proper sphere, but let it not interfere with the flowing of the life-stream. — D.T. Suzuki

Until we recognize the SELF that exists apart from who we think we are - we cannot know the Ch'an ( ZEN ) MIND — D.T. Suzuki

Zen abhors repetition or imitation of any kind, for it kills. For the same reason Zen never explains, but only affirms. Life is fact and no explanation is necessary or pertinent. To explain is to apologize, and why should we apologize for living? To live - is that not enough? Let us then live, let us affirm! Herein lies Zen in all its purity and in all its nudity as well. — D.T. Suzuki

God against man. Man against God. Man against nature. Nature against man. Nature against God. God against nature. Very funny religion! — D.T. Suzuki

Zen approaches it from the practical side of life-that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself. — D.T. Suzuki

Zen in it's essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. — D.T. Suzuki

This acquiring of a new viewpoint in Zen is called *satori* (*wu* in Chinese) and its verb form is *satoru*. Without it there is no Zen, for the life of Zen begins with the "opening of *satori*". *Satori* may be defined as intuitive looking-into, in contradistinction to intellectual and logical understanding. Whatever the definition, *satori* means the unfolding of a new world hitherto unperceived in the confusion of the dualistic mind. — D.T. Suzuki

I am an artist at living - my work of art is my life. — D.T. Suzuki

The finger pointing at the moon remains a finger and under no circumstances can it be changed into the moon itself. — D.T. Suzuki

The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one's humdrum life, a life of monotonous, uninspiring commonplaceness, into one of art, full of genuine inner creativity. — D.T. Suzuki

Zen has no business with ideas. — D.T. Suzuki

We can see unmistakeably that there is an inner relationship between Zen and the warrior's life. — D.T. Suzuki

deepest spiritual experience. — D.T. Suzuki

The contradiction so puzzling to the ordinary way of thinking comes from the fact that we have to use language to communicate our inner experience, which in its very nature transcends linguistics. — D.T. Suzuki

Because since the beginningless past we are running after objects, not knowing where our Self is, we lose track of the Original Mind and are tormented all the time by the threatening objective world, regarding it as good or bad, true or false, agreeable or disagreeable. We are thus slaves of things and circumstances. — D.T. Suzuki

Zen has nothing to do with letters, words, or sutras. — D.T. Suzuki

When mountain-climbing is made too easy, the spiritual effect the mountain exercises vanishes into the air. — D.T. Suzuki

We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way. — D.T. Suzuki

When traveling is made too easy and comfortable, its spiritual meaning is lost. This may be called sentimentalism, but a certain sense of loneliness engendered by traveling leads one to reflect upon the meaning of life, for life is after all a travelling from one unknown to another unknown. — D.T. Suzuki

Implicity, there should be something mysterious in every day. — D.T. Suzuki

If there is anything Zen strongly emphasizes it is the attainment of freedom; that is, freedom from all unnatural encumbrances. Meditation is something artificially put on; it does not belong to the native activity of the mind. Upon what do the fowls of the air meditate? Upon what do the fish in the water meditate? They fly; they swim. Is not that enough? Who wants to fix his mind on the unity of God and man, or on the nothingness of life? Who wants to be arrested in the daily manifestations of his life-activity by such meditations as the goodness of a divine being or the everlasting fire of hell? — D.T. Suzuki

The greatest productions of art, whether painting, music, sculpture or poetry, have invariably this quality-something approaching the work of God. — D.T. Suzuki

The truth of Zen is the truth of life, and life means to live, to move, to act, not merely to reflect. — D.T. Suzuki

The wise Sekiso (Shih-shuang) said, 'Stop all your hankerings; let the mildew grow on your lips; make yourself like unto a perfect piece of immaculate silk; let your one thought be eternity; let yourself be like the dead ashes, cold and lifeless; again let yourself be like an old censer in a deserted village shrine! — D.T. Suzuki

Zen is the spirit of a man. Zen believes in his inner purity and goodness. Whatever is superadded or violently torn away, injures the wholesomeness of the spirit. Zen, therefore, is emphatically against all religious conventionalism. — D.T. Suzuki

When I say that Zen is life, I mean that Zen is not to be confined within conceptualization, that Zen is what makes conceptualization possible. — D.T. Suzuki

Facts of experience are valued in Zen more than representations, symbols, and concepts-that is to say, substance is everything in Zen and form nothing. — D.T. Suzuki

Suzuki's works on Zen Buddhism are among the best contributions to the knowledge of living Buddhism ... We cannot be sufficiently grateful to the author, first for the fact of his having brought Zen closer to Western understanding, and secondly for the manner in which he has achieved this task. — D.T. Suzuki

Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious. — D.T. Suzuki

Dhyana is retaining one's tranquil state of mind in any circumstance, unfavorable as well as favorable, and not being disturbed or frustrated even when adverse conditions present themselves one after another. — D.T. Suzuki

Zen opens a man's eyes to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of space in its every palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden — D.T. Suzuki

We have two eyes to see two sides of things, but there must be a third eye which will see everything at the same time and yet not see anything. That is to understand Zen. — D.T. Suzuki

When the identity is realized, I as swordsman see no opponent confronting me and threatening to strike me. I seem to transform myself into the opponent, and every movement he makes as well as every thought he conceives are felt as if they were my own and I intuitively ... know when and how to strike him. — D.T. Suzuki

One has not understood until one has forgotten it. — D.T. Suzuki

A simple fishing boat in the midst of the rippling waters is enough to awaken in the mind of the beholder a sense of vastness of the sea and at the same time of peace and contentment - the Zen sense oof the alone. — D.T. Suzuki

No amount of wordy explanations will ever lead us into the nature of our own selves. The more you explain, the further it runs away from you. It is like trying to get hold of your own shadow. You run after it and it runs with you at the identical rate of speed. — D.T. Suzuki

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space? — D.T. Suzuki

Zen perceives and feels, and does not abstract and meditate. Zen penetrates and is finally lost in the immersion. Meditation, on the other hand, is outspokenly dualistic and consequently inevitably superficial. — D.T. Suzuki

Zen Makes use, to a great extent, of poetical expressions; Zen is wedded to poetry. — D.T. Suzuki

In the spiritual world there are no time divisions such as the past, present and future; for they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense. The past and the future are both rolled up in this present moment of illumination, and this present moment is not something standing still with all its contents, for it ceaselessly moves on. — D.T. Suzuki

How hard, then, and yet how easy it is to understand Zen! Hard because to understand it is not to understand it; easy because not to understand it is to understand it. — D.T. Suzuki

Unless we agree to suffer we cannot be free from suffering. — D.T. Suzuki

The more you suffer the deeper grows your character, and with the deepening of your character you read the more penetratingly into the secrets of life. All great artists, all great religious leaders, and all great social reformers have come out of the intensest struggles which they fought bravely, quite frequently in tears and with bleeding hearts — D.T. Suzuki

The basic idea of Zen is to come in touch with the inner workings of our being, and to do so in the most direct way possible, without resorting to anything external or superadded. — D.T. Suzuki

Unless it grows out of yourself no knowledge is really yours, it is only borrowed plumage. — D.T. Suzuki

Eternity is the Absolute present. — D.T. Suzuki

Art always has something of the unconscious about it. — D.T. Suzuki

Personal experience, therefore, is everything in Zen. No ideas are intelligible to those who have no backing of experience. — D.T. Suzuki

Modern life seems to recede further and further away from nature, and closely connected with this fact we seem to be losing the feeling of reverence towards nature. It is probably inevitable when science and machinery, capitalism and materialism go hand in hand so far in a most remarkably successful manner. Mysticism, which is the life of religion in whatever sense we understand it, has come to be relegated altogether in the background. Without a certain amount of mysticism there is no appreciation for the feeling of reverence, and, along with it, for the spiritual significance of humility. Science and scientific technique have done a great deal for humanity; but as far as our spiritual welfare is concerned we have not made any advances over that attained by our forefathers. In fact we are suffering at present the worst kind of unrest all over the world. — D.T. Suzuki

The mind has first to be attuned to the Unconscious. — D.T. Suzuki

Copying is slavery. The letter must never be followed, only the spirit is to be grasped. Higher affirmations live in the spirit. And where is the spirit? Seek it in your everyday experience, and therein lies abundance of proof for all you need. — D.T. Suzuki

The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow. — D.T. Suzuki

Though perhaps less universally known than such figures as Einstein or Gandhi (who became symbols of our time) Daisetz Suzuki was no less remarkable a man than these. And though his work may not have had such resounding and public effect, he contributed no little to the spiritual and intellectual revolution of our time. — D.T. Suzuki

Prophecy is rash, but it may be that the publication of D.T. Suzuki's first Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927 will seem to future generations as great an intellectual event as William of Moerbeke's Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century or Marsiglio Ficino's of Plato in the fifteenth. — D.T. Suzuki

The meaning of service is to do the work assigned ungrudgingly and without thought of personal reward material or moral. — D.T. Suzuki

You ought to know how to rise above the trivialities of life, in which most people are found drowning themselves. — D.T. Suzuki

As soon as you raise a thought and begin to form an idea of it, you ruin the reality itself, because you then attach yourself to form. — D.T. Suzuki

The waters are in motion, but the moon retains its serenity. — D.T. Suzuki

Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points. — D.T. Suzuki

The fighter is to be always single-minded with one object in view: to fight, looking neither backward nor sidewise. To go straight forward in order to crush the enemy is all that is necessary for him. — D.T. Suzuki

Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself. — D.T. Suzuki

Unless we die to ourselves, we can never be alive again. — D.T. Suzuki

Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one's own rules-this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live. — D.T. Suzuki

When we start to feel anxious or depressed, instead of asking, "What do I need to get to be happy?" The question becomes, "What am I doing to disturb the inner peace that I already have?" — D.T. Suzuki

The way to ascend unto God is to descend into one's self";
these are Hugo's words. "If thou wishest to search out the deep things of God, search out the depths of thine own spirit"; — D.T. Suzuki

Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities. — D.T. Suzuki

The idea of Zen is to catch life as it flows. There is nothing extraordinary or mysterious about Zen. I raise my hand ; I take a book from the other side of the desk ; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighbouring wood: - in all these I am practising Zen, I am living Zen. No wordy discussions is necessary, nor any explanation. I do not know why - and there is no need of explaining, but when the sun rises the whole world dances with joy and everybody's heart is filled with bliss. If Zen is at all conceivable, it must be taken hold of here. — D.T. Suzuki

To point at the moon a finger is needed, but woe to those who take the finger for the moon ... — D.T. Suzuki

To live - is that not enough? — D.T. Suzuki

The worst passion we mortals cherish is the desire to possess. Even when we know that our final destination is a hole not more than three feet square, we have the strongest craving — D.T. Suzuki

Zen wants us to acquire an entirely new point of view whereby to look into the mysteries of life and the secrets of nature. This is because Zen has come to the definite conclusion that the ordinary logical process of reasoning is powerless to give final satisfaction to our deepest spiritual needs. — D.T. Suzuki

Thought creates things by slicing up reality into small bits that it can easily grasp. Thus when you are think-ing you are thing-ing. Thought does not report things, it distorts reality to create things, and as Bergson noted, "In so doing it allows what is the very essence of the real to escape." Thus to the extent we actually imagine a world of discrete and separate things, conceptions have become perceptions, and we have in this manner populated our universe with nothing but ghosts. — D.T. Suzuki

Zen purposes to discipline the mind itself, to make it its own master, through an insight into its proper nature. This getting into the real nature of one's own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism. Zen, therefore, is more than meditation and Dhyana in its ordinary sense. The discipline of Zen consists in opening the mental eye in order to look into the very reason of existence. — D.T. Suzuki

Life, according to Zen, ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air, or as a fish swims in the water. — D.T. Suzuki

Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking. — D.T. Suzuki

We do not realize that as soon as our thoughts cease and all attempts at forming ideas are forgotten the Buddha reveals himself before us. — D.T. Suzuki

Zen professes
itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all
religions and philosophies, — D.T. Suzuki

That's why I love philosophy: no one wins. — D.T. Suzuki

Perhaps there is after all nothing mysterious in Zen. Everything is open to your full view. If you eat your food and keep yourself cleanly dressed and work on the farm to raise your rice or vegetables, you are doing all that is required of you on this earth, and the infinite is realized in you. — D.T. Suzuki

If you have attained something, this is the surest proof that you have gone astray. Therefore, not to have is to have, silence is thunder, ignorance is enlightenment. — D.T. Suzuki

To be a good Zen Buddhist it is not enough to follow the teaching of its founder; we have to experience the Buddha's experience. — D.T. Suzuki

Emptiness constantly falls within our reach. It is always with us, and conditions all our knowledge, all our deeds and is our life itself. It is only when we attempt to pick it up and hold it forth as something before our eyes that it eludes us, frustrates all our efforts and vanishes like vapor. — D.T. Suzuki