Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

by Shunryu Suzuki

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.

This is the most important teaching: not two, and not one. Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one.

What we call “I” is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves; that is all.

There is no such time as “this afternoon” or “one o’clock” or “two o’clock.” At one o’clock you will eat your lunch. To eat lunch is itself one o’clock. You will be somewhere, but that place cannot be separated from one o’clock.

The result is not the point; it is the effort to improve ourselves that is valuable. There is no end to this practice.

“It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.”

I think that if you try to do zazen once a week, that will make you busy enough. Do not be too interested in Zen.

“Step by step I stop the sound of the murmuring brook.”

Oneness is valuable, but variety is also wonderful. Ignoring variety, people emphasize the one absolute existence, but this is a one-sided understanding. In this understanding there is a gap between variety and oneness. But oneness and variety are the same thing, so oneness should be appreciated in each existence.

Just to sit, that is enough.