"Just to be Alive Is Enough"
The Wisdom of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
Hello Spark Zen readers! I apologize for missing last week’s Zen in Ten. I had a super busy week. Below are brief dialogues between Shunryu Suzuki and his early students. The quotes are taken from a sweet, little book titled Zen Is Right Here, which was edited by David Chadwick, who wrote the fabulous Crooked Cucumber, a biography of Suzuki Roshi. Enjoy! Bows of peace from San Francisco.
“One morning when we were all sitting zazen, Suzuki Roshi gave a brief impromptu talk in which he said, ‘Each of you is perfect the way you are . . . and you can use a little improvement.’ ”
“Once I asked Suzuki Roshi, ‘What is Nirvana?’ He replied, ‘Seeing one thing through to the end.’ ”
“One day I complained to Suzuki Roshi about the people I was working with. He listened intently. Finally, he said, ‘If you want to see virtue, you have to have a calm mind.’ ”
“A student asked in dokusan [private interview with the Abbot], ‘If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?’ Suzuki Roshi answered, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ ”
“One day a student was in the hall at Sokoji when Suzuki Roshi approached him. ‘Just to be alive is enough,’ Suzuki said, and with that, he turned around and walked away.”
“One night after a dharma talk, I asked Suzuki Roshi a question about life and death. The answer he gave made my fear of death, for that moment, pop like a bubble. He looked at me and said, ‘You will always exist in the universe in some form.’ ”
“Once in a lecture, Suzuki Roshi said, ‘We should practice zazen like someone who is dying. For him, there is nothing to rely on. When you reach this kind of understanding, you will not be fooled by anything.’ ”
“One day in a lecture Suzuki Roshi said, ‘When you see one leaf falling, you may say, Oh, autumn is here! One leaf is not just one leaf; it means the whole autumn. Here you already understand the all-pervading power of your practice. Your practice covers everything.’ ”
“While serving as Suzuki Roshi’s attendant, I arrived at his cabin at Tassajara and found him in his underwear scrubbing out the toilet. ‘I should be doing that,’ I said with some embarrassment. ‘Sit down and have some tea,’ he answered.”
“One day while editing a transcription of Suzuki Roshi’s first lecture on the Sandokai, I came upon the phrase, ‘things as it is.’ I asked him if perhaps he had not meant to say ‘things as they are,’ which I thought to be proper syntax.
‘No,’ he said, ‘what I meant is ‘things as it is.’ ”
It is what it is. Beginners mind by Suzuki helped me a lot during major transitions in life. Thanks for sharing this ❤️