Shunryu Suzuki

To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you can not eat.

Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It is about everything!

Real practice has no purpose or direction, so it can include everything that comes.

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

When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

The world is its own magic.

There’s nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, If you believe in Me, you ain’t going to have no troubles.

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

To follow the path, look to the master, follow the master, walk with the master, see through the master, become the master.

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.

I love learning about different religions, and discovering the different ways to worship, and to love the greatness and the higher being that surrounds us all. I definitely believe in a bigger presence, and I really respect all religions; at their core they all teach the same message – community and kindness and looking out for each other.

Outside the kingdom of the Lord there is no nation which is greater than any other. God and history will remember your judgment.

The ordinary mind is the way.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I’m the fifth generation of Seventh Day Adventists and the youngest of four brothers. When I was still very small, we formed a gospel quartet.

Faith is one of the most effective tools in the human equipment. I believe that faith works.

The fact that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than any other single reason. That, that my friends, that is true perversion!

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.