Shunryu Suzuki

What is the Absolute? Does God exist?

The absolute is the darkness where nothing is distinguished, inseparable from the relative

The unnameableInferred from their doctrine

Shunryu Suzuki does not speak of a creator God. When he refers to the ultimate he does so in the language of his school: big mind as opposed to small mind, the emptiness from which things arise and to which they return. His most explicit treatment is in the 1970 Tassajara talks on the Sandōkai, Shitou's poem recited daily in Sōtō temples, collected in Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness. There he reads light as the relative world of distinguishable things and darkness as the absolute, where there are no distinctions to name. But he insists that these are not two realities: the absolute is found only in the relative, and practice consists in living that identity, not in describing it.

Who am I? Is there a true self?

In breathing there is no self: only a swinging door

There is no permanent selfStated explicitly

Shunryu Suzuki approaches the question through practice. In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind he describes zazen in terms of breathing: air comes in and goes out, and if one follows it attentively there is no self that breathes and no world outside, but something like a swinging door that moves. He distinguishes small mind, which clings to itself and measures everything against its own interest, from big mind, which includes everything. He does not present that big mind as a higher self to be possessed, but as what is expressed when practice is done without leaving a trace, burning oneself up completely like a good bonfire. The small self is not fought: it is given room until it loses importance.

Why do we suffer?

Without accepting that everything changes, no composure is possible

Craving and attachmentStated explicitly

For Shunryu Suzuki, suffering arises from not accepting impermanence. In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind he holds that the basic teaching of Buddhism is that everything changes, and that without accepting this fact composure cannot be found; we suffer when we want something to remain as it is. His favourite formula for this would give its title to the second anthology of his talks, Not Always So: the truth of a moment is not always so. Practice eliminates neither change nor pain, but the resistance to them. That is why he advises not fighting the thoughts that trouble meditation, but being grateful for them as weeds which, buried beside the plant, end up nourishing practice.

What happens after death?

The drop returns to the river: separate, we fear death; united, nothing to fear

What I am is never born and never diesStated explicitly

Shunryu Suzuki left a celebrated image in a talk collected in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: that of a great waterfall. The water comes down from the river as a single body, but in falling it separates into drops, and each drop has difficulties as it falls; on reaching the bottom it becomes river again. Life, he says, is like water separated into drops, and death like the return to the river of which it never ceased to be part. If we understand that we are one with the river, there is nothing to fear; fear arises from feeling ourselves isolated drops. Suzuki does not present this image as a doctrine of what survives, but as a way of living life without a trace and accepting death with composure.

How is liberation or salvation attained?

One does not practise to obtain something: the posture is already the purpose

Through disciplined practiceStated explicitly

Shunryu Suzuki conveys Dōgen's teaching to American listeners in simple words. Zazen practice, he says in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, is the direct expression of our true nature, and the forms of the posture are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind: to take them is itself the purpose of practice. Practising with the idea of obtaining enlightenment turns practice into a transaction. That is why enlightenment, once attained, is nothing special. What is cultivated is not an achievement but an attitude: beginner's mind, open and unpretentious, which accumulated experience tends to close and which daily practice must preserve.

Is a teacher necessary?

One practises with others and with forms, not by following a person

Community and traditionInferred from their doctrine

Shunryu Suzuki, a Sōtō priest who arrived in San Francisco in 1959, became the teacher of a large community and founded with it the San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara monastery. His way of teaching, as his students remember it in the anecdotes collected by David Chadwick in To Shine One Corner of the World, was not that of a guru: he practised with them, corrected posture, cleaned and worked in the temple. He gave great importance to shared forms, posture, bowing, the schedule, and to practising together; in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind he presents the practice of the group as what sustains that of each person. As a priest of his lineage he transmitted the Dharma to disciples, but without making himself the centre.

Is the world real?

Everything changes and everything depends on everything: the absolute lives in the relative

A web of causes without substanceInferred from their doctrine

Shunryu Suzuki does not regard the world as an illusion to be left behind: it is the place of practice. His talks insist that everything changes, that nothing has a fixed and separate existence, and that each thing exists in relation to the others. In the commentaries on the Sandōkai collected in Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness he develops the poem's teaching on the identity of absolute and relative: each thing has its own place and function, distinct from the others, and yet is not separate from the whole, like a box and the lid that fits it. His formula for being in that world is big mind, which does not divide it into what it wants and what it rejects.

What is love?

He barely thematised love; he speaks of big mind and welcoming what arises

Did not address it

In Shunryu Suzuki's published talks love is not a topic of its own; he offers no definition or doctrine of it. The closest thing is his description of big mind, which does not separate what it likes from what it dislikes and welcomes everything, and his insistence on treating each thing, each person and each object, with the same attention. In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind he even asks us to be grateful for the weeds in our own mind instead of fighting them. The anecdotes his students collected show him kind, patient and attentive to each person. But that attitude appears as the fruit of practice, not as an explicit teaching on love or compassion.

Are we free, or is everything determined?

He did not address the dilemma; he speaks of freedom within form

Did not address it

Shunryu Suzuki did not concern himself with the philosophical problem of free will and determinism. The closest thing in his teaching is an idea of freedom that is not opposed to limitation: the fixed posture, the schedule and the forms of the temple are for him not obstacles but the place where the person is freed from his small self. In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind he illustrates it with an image about control: the way to control a sheep or a cow is to give it a large, spacious meadow; likewise the mind is not mastered by repressing it but by giving it room. The freedom that interests him is not that of choosing between options, but that of acting completely, without leaving a trace.

Why meditate or pray?

The posture is not a means to a state: taking it is the purpose

Meditation is not a techniqueStated explicitly

Shunryu Suzuki teaches his school's shikantaza, «just sitting», with the same thesis as Dōgen. In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind he describes the posture in detail, but warns that these forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind: to take them is itself the purpose of practice. Meditating in search of enlightenment, calm or any other result turns practice into something other than itself. Thoughts are not fought: they are allowed to come and go, like waves that settle by themselves, and are even welcomed as weeds that enrich practice. What is sought, if one can put it that way, is to keep beginner's mind, without the pretension of already knowing what Zen is.

Can reason know the ultimate?

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's, few

Thought is limitedStated explicitly

The sentence with which Shunryu Suzuki opens Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind sums up his position: in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's, few. Accumulated knowledge is not useless, but it tends to close the mind: whoever believes he knows what Zen is can no longer receive it. That is why the real secret of the arts is always to be a beginner. Suzuki does not despise study, and devoted whole series of talks to the Sandōkai or Dōgen's Genjōkōan; but he warns that intellectual understanding does not replace practice, and that the truth of a moment is not always so. The ultimate is not possessed as knowledge, but expressed in practice.

Withdraw from the world or transform it?

Doing each thing completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace

Contemplation in actionStated explicitly

Shunryu Suzuki founded the first Zen monastery in the West, Tassajara, but most of his students were lay people who worked, had families and practised in the city. His teaching does not separate practice from daily life: in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind he asks that, when one does something, one burn oneself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of oneself. What leaves a trace and breeds attachment is activity done by halves, with a divided mind. Cooking, cleaning or talking with someone are as much practice as zazen if done in this way. He preached neither social engagement nor withdrawal, but a way of being anywhere with full attention.