Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki Quotes about Time
When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time.
When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves; we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.
Life without zazen is like winding your clock without setting it. It runs perfectly well, but it doesn't tell time.
Those who sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen.
So for a period of time each day, try to sit, without moving, without expecting anything, as if you were in your last moment. Moment after moment you feel your last instant. In each inhalation and each exhalation there are countless instants of time. Your intention is to live in each instant.
Time goes from present to past.
Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.
When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything.
To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or to cook for yourself; it is to express your sincerity. So when you cook you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You should allow yourself plenty of time.
Meditation opens the mind to the greatest mystery that takes place daily and hourly; it widens the heart so that it may feel the eternity of time and infinity of space in every throb; it gives us a life within the world as if we were moving about in paradise.
When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves. That is our way, to live fully in each moment of time.
The Zen way of calligraphy is to write in the most straightforward, simple way as if you were a beginner, not trying to make something skillful or beautiful, but simply writing with full attention as if you were discovering what you were writing for the first time; then your full nature will be in your writing.