Quotes & Sayings About Suzuki

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

Geothermal can be a huge source of energy very quickly. — David Suzuki

You can't make a date with enlightenment. — Shunryu Suzuki

Some people enjoy taking a light stroll in the morning and that gives them relief and that sort of feeling. That is what I gain by practicing, by swinging the bat. — Ichiro Suzuki

Well it's always been an interesting area for me. In referencing something I just reread from Dogen it says, "Enlightenment doesn't break the person anymore than the reflection breaks the water" and Suzuki in his commentary is saying you don't lose your personality once you acquire some sort of Buddhist understanding. — Brad Warner

If I ever saw myself saying I'm excited going to Cleveland, I'd punch myself in the face, because I'm lying. — Ichiro Suzuki

Think! There's nothing certain in our future! All we can hope for is a vague continuation. But in spite of that, you're going to keep on living. You can't give up on life just because it's vague. It's a question of possibilities ... — Koji Suzuki

I played with children so that I could learn from them. — Shinichi Suzuki

Our practice should be based on the ideal of selflessness. Selflessness is very difficult to understand. If you try to be selfless, that is already a selfish idea. Selflessness will be there when you do not try anything. — Shunryu 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

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. Unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer. — Shunryu Suzuki

Many scientists and economists also say putting a price on carbon through carbon taxes and/or cap-and-trade is necessary. — David Suzuki

Waves are the practice of the water. — Shunryu Suzuki

Our choices at all levels-individual, community, corporate and government-affect nature. And they affect us. — David Suzuki

Each existence depends on something else ... there are no separate individual existences. There are just many names for one existence. — Shunryu Suzuki

Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere ... We should forget all about some particular teaching; we should not ask which is good or bad. There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment, in every existence. That is the true teaching. — Shunryu Suzuki

We have altered the physical, chemical and biological properties of the planet on a geological scale. We have left no part of the globe untouched. — David 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

Fukushima is the most terrifying situation I can imagine, — David Suzuki

Our effort in our practice should be directed from achievement to non-achievement. — Shunryu Suzuki

The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, droughts and floods is in line with what climate scientists have been predicting for decades - and evidence is mounting that what's happening is more severe than predicted, and will get far worse still if we fail to act. — David Suzuki

In his talk, Suzuki Roshi says that meditation and the whole process of finding your own true nature is one continuous mistake, and that rather than that being a reason for depression or discouragement, it's actually the motivation. — Pema Chodron

In order not to leave any traces, when you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do. You will have something remaining which is not completely burned out. Zen activity is activity which is completely burned out, with nothing remaining but ashes. This is the goal of our practice. That is what Dogen meant when he said, "Ashes do not come back to firewood." Ash is ash. Ash should be completely ash. The firewood should be firewood. When this kind of activity takes place, one activity covers everything. — Shunryu Suzuki

The Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki once stated, 'International cultural exchange is impossible - therefore we must try.' I agree with all my heart. The impossibility of seeing beyond one's own cultural context is a political act in the world and has the potential to break down the rigid assumptions surrounding us. — Anne Bogart

It wasn't that we started to look at things because there was now a mechanism by which to see them. There first had to be a will to see, buried somewhere inside living things. Without it, the mechanism would never have taken shape. — Koji Suzuki

All descriptions of reality are limited expressions of the world of emptiness. Yet we attach to the descriptions and think they are reality. That is a mistake. — Shunryu Suzuki

Al Gore, the former vice-president of the United States, lives in a mansion that uses more electricity than the average family's bungalow! David Suzuki rides on a bus that uses more fuel than a Smart car to get across Canada! Oh my God! And this is just the tip of the vanishing iceberg! — Linwood Barclay

A baby nursing at a mother's breast ... is an undeniable affirmation of our rootedness in nature. — David Suzuki

Hydraulic fracturing requires massive amounts of water. Disposing of the toxic wastewater, as well as accidental spills, can contaminate drinking water and harm human health. — David Suzuki

The secret of Soto Zen is just two words: not always so ... In Japanese, it's two words, three words in English. That is the secret of our practice. — Shunryu Suzuki

Building character is like making bread - you have to mix it little by little, step by step, and moderate temperature is needed. You know yourself quite well, and you know how much temperature you need. You know exactly what you need. But if you get too excited, you will forget how much temperature is good for you, and you will lose your own way. This is very dangerous. — Shunryu Suzuki

We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves. — Shunryu Suzuki

My life's been defined by my actions. I've shaped my destiny through my battles. I would rather keep chasing after my dreams until I crumble into dust than sit around waiting for fate to show me mercy. — Koji Suzuki

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

It is quite usual for us to gather pieces of information from various sources, thinking in this way to increase our knowledge. Actually, following this way we end up not knowing anything at all ... Instead of gathering knowledge, you should clear your mind. If your mind is clear, true knowledge is already yours. — Shunryu Suzuki

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

Scientists are being portrayed by much of the power structure in politics and business as having a vested interest - that they're just out to get more grant money by exaggerating the threats. — David Suzuki

If you receive things just as an echo of yourself, you do not really see them, you do not fully accept them as they are. — Shunryu Suzuki

It is when your practice is rather greedy that you become discouraged with it. — Shunryu Suzuki

In zazen, leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don't serve them tea. — Shunryu Suzuki

True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another ... But the best way to communicate may be just to sit without saying anything. — Shunryu Suzuki

I cannot live without children. — Shinichi Suzuki

Anything you think of doing, however insignificant, should be done immediately. Spur yourself on and carry it through without becoming discouraged. If this becomes an ingrained habit, things you thought were impossible will become possible, and closed doors will open, as you will discover in many ways. — Shinichi Suzuki

I read in 'Life' magazine that Asians had developed an operation to enlarge eyes, and I yearned to have this done. I wanted to dye my hair brown and to anglicize my name. Self-hate was the most terrible cost of the war years for me. — David Suzuki

We must exist right here, right now! — Shunryu Suzuki

With an estimated population of nine billion people by 2050, we cannot continue to consume resources at the same rate and maintain our quality of life. — David Suzuki

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

If we humans are good at anything, it's thinking we've got a terrific idea and going for it without acknowledging the potential consequences or our own ignorance. — David Suzuki

We pride ourselves on our democratic traditions, but in Canada, women couldn't vote until 1918, Asians until 1948, and First Nations people living on reserves until 1960. — David Suzuki

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

When you train your thoughts to dissolve as they arise, they will cross your mind like a bird crosses the sky
without leaving a trace. — Julietta Suzuki

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

If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything — Shunryu Suzuki

Including my nine years as a student, the majority of my life has been at Hokkaido University. After my retirement from the university in 1994, I served at two private universities in Okayama Prefecture - Okayama University of Science and Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts - before retiring from university work in 2002. — Akira Suzuki

Some argue we should get coal, oil and gas out of the ground as quickly as possible, build more pipelines and make as much money as we can selling it here and abroad. Their priorities are the economy and meeting short-term energy needs so we can live the lives to which we've become accustomed. — David Suzuki

Humans are distinguished from other species by a massive brain that enables us to imagine a future and influence it by what we do in the present. By using experience, knowledge and insight, our ancestors recognized they could anticipate dangers and opportunities and take steps to exploit advantages and avoid hazards. — David Suzuki

Less than 10% of the fuel energy burned in automobiles is translated into forward motion of the vehicle and even then most of this energy is needed to move the vehicle itself, which typically weighs 20 times more than its passengers. — David Suzuki

Just as fossil fuels from conventional sources are finite and are becoming depleted, those from difficult sources will also run out. If we put all our energy and resources into continued fossil fuel extraction, we will have lost an opportunity to have invested in renewable energy. — David Suzuki

You must be true to your own way until at last you actually come to the point where you see it is necessary to forget all about yourself. — Shunryu 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

Be aware of yourself and know yourself. No matter how much you have learned and how much you know, if you don't know yourself you don't know anything. — Suzuki Shosan

To be different is to have value. In this sense all things have equal, absolute value. Each thing has absolute value and thus is equal to everything else. — Shunryu Suzuki

If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us. — David Suzuki

In your big mind, everything has the same value ... In your practice you should accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha. Here there is Buddhahood — Shunryu Suzuki

I heard that in the United States the level of baseball was the highest in the world. So it was only natural that I would want to go there, as a baseball player. — Ichiro 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

If you want to read a letter from the Buddha's world, it is necessary to understand Buddha's world. — Shunryu Suzuki

When you accept everything, everything is beyond dimensions. The earth is not great nor a grain of sand small. In the realm of Great Activity picking up a grain of sand is the same as taking up the whole universe. To save one sentient being is to save all sentient beings. Your efforts of this moment to save one person is the same as the eternal merit of Buddha. — Shunryu Suzuki

So without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, to express yourself freely as you are is the most important thing to make yourself happy, and to make others happy ... So we should be concentrated with our full mind and body on what we do; and we should be faithful, subjectively and objectively, to ourselves, and especially to our feelings ... it is better to express how you feel without any particular attachment or intention. — Shunryu Suzuki

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

I fell in love with the elegance and precision of genetic analysis and experimentation to answer profound biological questions. — David Suzuki

Perhaps the whole world is actually a banquet, to which every living thing is invited. First you come as guests: then eventually you're on the menu. — David Suzuki

When you mail Ichiro something from the States, you only have to use that name on the address and he gets it (in Japan). He's that big. — Ichiro Suzuki

Teaching music is not my main purpose. I want to make good citizens. If children hear fine music from the day of their birth and learn to play it, they develop sensitivity, discipline and endurance. They get a beautiful heart. — Shinichi Suzuki

If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall. — Shunryu Suzuki

Our personal consumer choices have ecological, social, and spiritual consequences. It is time to re-examine some of our deeply held notions that underlie our lifestyles. — David Suzuki

Because all existence is founded upon the ever-present state of union, everything already exists in a state of tranquility. However, this state of tranquility is masked from us by our assumption that there is a separation, that there is a problem. — Shunryu Suzuki

The world doesn't hate you as much as you think it does. — Koji Suzuki

As parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts we need to start getting out into nature with the young people in our lives. Families play a key role in getting kids outside. — David Suzuki

DNA was the chemical material on which hereditary information was recorded, while a gene was one unit of that nearly infinite amount of hereditary information. — Koji Suzuki

The terrible part of this looming catastrophe is that people have been working on solutions for years and have developed concrete steps to massively reduce our energy use, while stimulating whole new industries and technologies that are more efficient and affordable. — David Suzuki

I don't want to get old. I want to stay young forever. Wouldn't that be great? — Koji Suzuki

We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit. — David Suzuki

When your mind is wandering about elsewhere you have no chance to express yourself. But if you limit your activity to what you can do just now, in this moment, then you can express fully your true nature, which is the universal Buddha nature. — Shunryu Suzuki

In our everyday life we are usually trying to do something, trying to change something into something else, or trying to attain something. Just this trying is already in itself an expression of our true nature. The meaning lies in the effort itself. We should find out the meaning of our effort before we attain something. — Shunryu Suzuki

But human borders mean nothing to air, water, windblown soil or seeds or migrating fish, birds or mammals. — David 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 most important thing is to express your true nature in the simplest, most adequate way and to appreciate it in the smallest existence. — Shunryu Suzuki

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

I am mentally preparing myself for the five-year-old mind. I want to come down to their physical limitations and up to their sense of wonder and awe. — Shinichi Suzuki

From year to year, environmental changes are incremental and often barely register in our lives, but from evolutionary or geological perspectives, what is happening is explosive change. — David Suzuki

To find perfect composure in the midst of change is to find nirvana. — Shunryu Suzuki

Suzuki also frequently quotes a sentence of Eckhart's: "The eye wherein I see God is the same eye wherein God sees me" (Suzuki, Mysticism: East and West, p. 50) as an exact expression of what Zen means by Prajna. — Thomas Merton

I play with children so that I can learn from them. — Shinichi Suzuki

There will always be war, but we must always work to oppose it. — Shunryu Suzuki

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

If I tell you something, you will stick to it and limit your own capacity to find out for yourself. — Shunryu Suzuki

Nature surrounds us, from parks and backyards to streets and alleyways. Next time you go out for a walk, tread gently and remember that we are both inhabitants and stewards of nature in our neighbourhoods. — David Suzuki

If you try to observe the precepts, that is not true observation of precepts. When you observe the precepts without trying to observe the precepts, that is true observation of the precepts. — Shunryu Suzuki