Suzuki Quotes

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

Your memory feels like home to me. So whenever my mind wanders, it always finds it’s way back to you.

There is an ocean of silence between us… and I am drowning in it.

…the sad part is, that I will probably end up loving you without you for much longer than I loved you when I knew you. Some people might find that strange. But the truth of it is that the amount of love you feel for someone and the impact they have on you as a person, is in no way relative to the amount of time you have known them.

If you cannot hold me in your arms, then hold my memory in high regard. And if I cannot be in your life, then at least let me live in your heart.

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

I had someone once who made every day mean something. And now…. I am lost…. And nothing means anything anymore.

When you experience loss, people say you’ll move through the 5 stages of grief…. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance ….. What they don’t tell you is that you’ll cycle through them all every day.

I think perhaps I will always hold a candle for you – even until it burns my hand. And when the light has long since gone …. I will be there in the darkness holding what remains, quite simply because I cannot let go.

If you’re searching for a quote that puts your feelings into words – you won’t find it. You can learn every language and read every word ever written – but you’ll never find what’s in your heart. How can you? He has it.

A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?" Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.

I miss that feeling of connection. Knowing he was out there somewhere thinking about me at the same time I was thinking about him.

He was both everything I could ever want… And nothing I could ever have…

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few

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, but in the expert's mind there are few.

Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities.

Though these words will never find you, I hope that you knew I was thinking of you today….. and that I was wishing you every happiness. Love Always, The girl you loved once.

It’s difficult for me to imagine the rest of my life without you. But I suppose I don’t have to imagine it... I just have to live it

I raised you so high that every other man on earth is now doomed to live in your shadow.

The last time I felt alive – I was looking into your eyes. Breathing your air…. touching your skin… … Saying goodbye…. The last time I felt alive…. I was dying.

It’s painful, loving someone from afar. Watching them – from the outside. The once familiar elements of their life reduced to nothing more than occasional mentions in conversations and faces changing in photographs….. They exist to you now as nothing more than living proof that something can still hurt you … with no contact at all.

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?

We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyones arguing over where they're going to sit

Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear.

Your smile and your laughter lit my whole world.

I didn’t love you to seek revenge. I didn’t love you out of loneliness or unhappiness. I didn’t love you for any of the misguided reasons that time might convince you I did. I just loved you because you’re you.

I would have followed you to hell and back... if only you'd lead me back.

I have poured my heart out …. And now I am empty.

The only place I ever felt at home was with you. There isn’t a place for me anywhere anymore… I’ve been evicted.

Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.

Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.

enjoy your problems

It’s times like this…. when it’s over a year later and I’m still crying over you that I want to turn to you and say: See…. This is why I asked you never to kiss me.

To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.

What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.

I try to do something positive – I socialise more… But deep down I know the truth. An entire world of people can never replace the one that I’ve lost.

There comes a point where you no longer care if there’s a light at the end of the tunnel or not. You’re just sick of the tunnel.

Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.

He looked at me like I was the stars when all I’d ever felt like was the dark nothingness between them.

I believe in love at first sight… But it’s not the first moment you lay eyes on a person, it’s the moment you first see the person they truly are.

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

Our parting was like a stalemate…. Neither of us won. Yet both of us lost. And worse still … that unshakable feeling that nothing was ever really finished.

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.

When something dies is the greatest teaching.

I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color--something which exists before all forms and colors appear... No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea.

You can miss places. You can miss people. Just know that what you’re really missing is the way things were. And even if you could go there again…. see them again…. you can’t go back. They’re not the same. You’re not the same. The loss of them changed you.

Though I never really had you…. … to me you will always be the one that got away.

The truth of Zen, just a little bit of it, is what turns one's humdrum life, a life of monotonous, uninspiring commonplaceness, into one of art, full of genuine inner creativity.

Deep down, I think everybody wants to be ‘the one’ to someone. I don’t know if I’ve ever been that person to anyone else – but I do know you are that person to me. You are the one. The only one. And you always will be.

They say “Follow your heart”…. …. But I can’t follow you where you’re going…

To live is enough.

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

Though life has fated that we never cross paths again, don’t ever feel alone. For we are parallel …. and I will always be by your side.

My heart’s been empty since you left - but still I refuse to put up a vacancy sign. I’m just not ready for anybody else to move in yet.

Emotionally we have many problems, but these problems are not actual problems; they are something created; they are problems pointed out by our self-centered ideas or views.

I don’t think you ever really understood…. …. All the love I had in the world went to you.

Calmness of mind does not mean you should stop your activity. Real calmness should be found in activity itself. We say, "It is easy to have calmness in inactivity, it is hard to have calmness in activity, but calmness in activity is true calmness.

You loved him enough to let him leave… Now you need to love yourself enough to let him go.

I've never been the most important person to anybody - not even myself.

I've never been the most important thing to anybody - not even myself.

The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything. So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others, and you will be helped by others. Before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you.

I need to stop running back to you in my mind all the time.

You made me feel worthwhile…. like for once it mattered if I was here or not because I actually meant something to someone…. because I meant something to you. I miss that feeling.

It’s funny how we say a person ‘made’ us when they actually broke us. Sort of like how I say ‘funny’... but I actually mean sad.

Every quote, every book, every film seemed to suggest that ‘one day’ someone would come into my life and love me with an intensity and a passion I had never experienced before. And to their credit they were right; It all came and went so fast it really did feel as if it were just ‘one day’....

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.

Perhaps the echoes of people we once loved still linger in the places we frequented with them and that is why we go back… Not so much to remember them as to feel them…

Even though you try to put people under control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good. That is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.

You’re everything to me. But at best, I’m just a memory to you.

Everybody wants their own little place in the world. And maybe mine is here… Loving you from a distance…

I still think of you every day. But I’m trying not to let it hurt me with the same intensity that it used to.

It’s just never going to get any easier is it. It’s never going away, this missing you. It’s going to become a sadness I incorporate into myself – along with all the other sadnesses – and quietly carry around with me forever…

Like so many others my story begins with that same old line…. ‘So anyway, there was this guy….’ Until one day…. there wasn’t. And nothing was ever the same after that….

When I was with him suddenly I wasn’t this broken person anymore. I was just me. I was whole again. I was just a person – like everyone else.

For you are you, and I am I, and once we were we… but as long as I exist and so do you – know that I will always love you.

The world is its own magic.

It hurts that I was just one page in the book of your life… But what hurts more is knowing you’ll revise that chapter someday…. ….. and you’ll erase me completely.

Time goes from present to past.

I’d never dreamed anybody could love me the way he did. And even when he proved it to me time and again – I still could hardly believe it was true.

God against man. Man against God. Man against nature. Nature against man. Nature against God. God against nature. Very funny religion!

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.

We should not hoard knowledge; we should be free from our knowledge.

The true purpose [of Zen] is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes... Zen practice is to open up our small mind.

It didn’t hurt me. Not “hurt”. Hurt is a four letter word. It’s short, almost cute sounding. Aawwww, did that hurt? No. It didn’t hurt. Destroyed, Obliterated, Desecrated, Annihilated, Demolished, Shattered, or Demoralised maybe… But no. It didn’t hurt me. It didn’t “hurt” me at all.

Today is just another day of trying to get by without you.

How do you love someone and just… walk away? Just like that. You just, go on as normal…. You get up, get dressed, go to work… How can you do that? How can you be okay with that?

Though it’s reasons to burn may vary... you are always the fuel of my fire.

How many times did we pass each other before we met? If only I’d known…. I would have searched for you endlessly. If only I’d found you before it was already too late.

Every breath is a sacrament, an affirmation of our connection with all other living things, a renewal of our link with our ancestors and a contribution to generations yet to come. Our breath is a part of life's breath, the ocean of air that envelopes the earth.

There was no more meaningless phrase in all of language than "Cheer up!" The only way to get someone to cheer up was to help them forget, and saying "cheer up" had quite the opposite effect, only reminding the person why he or she was depressed in the first place.

Suffering builds character and impels you to penetrate life’s secrets. It’s the path of great artists, great religious leaders, great social reformers. The problem is not suffering per se, but rather our identification with our own ego: our divided, dualistic, cramped view of things. ‘We are too ego-centered,’ Suzuki tells Cage.’ The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow. We seem to carry it all the time from childhood up to the time we finally pass away.

There’s only ever been one person I’ve looked at and thought… ‘I could quite easily spend the entire rest of my life with that man’. And sooner or later I need to accept that he’s spending it with somebody else.

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...

It’s the intricate details you miss the most. For me, it’s the soft lines around the eyes when he smiles… Or that look he gave me sometimes that I cannot begin to describe - but I would know it if I saw it again. It was the look that gave him away. I’d know that look anywhere… It used to be my everything.

She wears it so beautifully doesn’t she, her pain… Always smiling, always positive…. always happy to help… It’s like a garment perfectly tailored to fit the way she carries it… with a touch of grace… and the quietness of that sad smile…. All so you’d never know how heavy it really was.

They say the truth hurts. And these words hurt more than any I have ever written. But they are the truth – The cold, hard, undeniable truth. Not letting go doesn’t keep him with you. It’s still over. He’s still gone. … And nothing will ever change that.

While you are continuing this practice, week after week, year after year, your experience will become deeper and deeper, and your experience will cover everything you do in your everyday life. The most important thing is to forget all gain ing ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. Do not think about anything. Just remain on your cushion without expecting anything. Then eventually you will resume your own true nature. That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself.

The idea of Zen is to catch life as it flows. There is nothing extraordinary or mysterious about Zen. I raise my hand ; I take a book from the other side of the desk ; I hear the boys playing ball outside my window; I see the clouds blown away beyond the neighbouring wood: — in all these I am practising Zen, I am living Zen. No wordy discussions is necessary, nor any explanation. I do not know why — and there is no need of explaining, but when the sun rises the whole world dances with joy and everybody’s heart is filled with bliss. If Zen is at all conceivable, it must be taken hold of here.

In the zazen posture, your mind and body have, great power to accept things as they are, whether agreeable or disagreeable. In our scriptures (Samyuktagama Sutra, volume 33), it is said that there are four kinds of horses: excellent ones, good ones, poor ones, and bad ones. The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver's will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second best will run as well as the first one does, just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. You can imagine how difficult it is for the fourth one to learn how to run!

When you listen to someone, you should give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinions; you should just listen to him, just observe what his way is. We put very little emphasis on right and wrong or good and bad. We just see things as they are with him, and accept them. This is how we communicate with each other. Usually when you listen to some statement, you hear it as a kind of echo of yourself. You are actually listening to your own opinion. If it agrees with your opinion you may accept it, but if it does not, you will reject it or you may not even really hear it.