Shunryu Suzuki Lecture
July 31, 1965

65-07-31-C-TB-inc

Partial transcription. More to come. 3rd installment added

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Tape operator speaks: saturday night lecture ... ??? beginning at 615 by ??? suzuki or ... bishop sumi

??? forty fifty ... we have ... we did ... last night ... maybe ... good idea ... to answer some questions and ... i rather briefly ??? for the question and ask about why you may have some more question for you. in this world we can extend our discussion way down way down.

i think this is ... maybe ... we our ... discussion will be more successful i think. so if you have some question ... please ask ... away.

and and then we ... we have many question after might answer and ... we are up with bishop ... sumi to answer ... further question.

student: sensei, if our eye moves to the ??? before it sounds is it already to late?

sr: ... excuse me?

student: if our eye moves

sr: eye?

student: if our eye moves to the ???

sr: eye moves to the ???

student: to the ??? call is a ??? before it strikes

sr: before?

student: and it anticipates it, is it already to late?

sr: already to late? maybe this is a question for bishop sumi

[laughter]

sr: do you mean ... before ... listen to the sound before it ... it is hit you mean?

student: yes. ??? express ??? understanding to be listening for the sound of the ???

sr: ... no, i don’t understand what you say.

... where ... where your mind is you know. where whatever you think that that something and not something came through ... through yourself your ... deep mind or true nature. so it is already there. that sound you mean i don’t know. ... what do you mean by the sound but ... i think by sound you mean ??? the true nature or deep mind or through you. so you be ??? listen to if you want to listen to your doing listen to or yourself in your own voice. but the better before you do ... it is hit. that my answer do you think my answer is right? what did you meant?

student: i don’t know.

sr: you don’t know?

studen: no, i think its right. but that’s a matter of fate.

sr: yeah, thats good.

some more question?

student: is a zen a method of achiving enlightment is that what idiots ??? zen or zen buddhism is a method to achive enlightment. do you know if it can be achived through other religions such as hindu and ... the tibetan lama type thing. do you know if it can be achived to those as a ??? and if it can, what makes zen buddishm exclusive?

sr: yeah, exclusive yeah thats right

[laughter]

studend: what makes it exclusive?

sr: that kind of understanding of zen is very now understanding of things.

??? ??? ??? so what ... ??? our practice is quite different as we or we discuss about our (can you hear me) 

students: yeah

sr: as ... we discuss our ... way always our way is where you practice it ??? enlightenment you know. but our ??? you do not expect enlightenment. enlightenment is there. or ... we can say ... if you expect enlightenment, enlightenment will have to be there and you will never attain enlightenment if you practice that kind of zen.

that kind of exclusive zen because your knowledge ... knowledge may be zen practice we can not say that ??? we zen. but knowledge one of the five school or one of the eight schools of zen, that is not original zen ??? ... transmitted by bodhidharma or buddha. you know before bodhidharma ... there was no ... zen master or the ... or the buddhist practice zen. but more and more bodhidharma ??? ??? that kind of zen and after bodhidharma we have many and many types of zen many schools of zen and each school they all kept or ??? we call ??? ??? and this kind of zen is one of the ... five ??? most of zen. but original zen is to practice zen as a disciple of buddha. to practice zen as he as buddha is our practice.

this is not just to attain some ??? masters type of enlightenment. strictly, strictly speaking enlightenment may not be the same you know i called it to the master. it’s fundamentally to say that ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? some particular way, original way can not be expressed you know because there is something because ... i am here, i can express the original way through me. which is express through me in some particular type of zen.

 

??? if people thinks my ... particular zen is zen but how others zen you know. so there must theirs clear distinction from through fundamentally practice of zen and exclusive some particular ??? so we if we go back to the origin it is the same. and at the same time ... by studying more and more ??? there is the way we can get through new idea of zen. like shobogenzo you know.

that kind of effort is to make it clear make the original idea zen clear and make clear distinction from ... some exclusive and particular zen ... to make original zen. to make clear original zen from various types of zen. you understand? that is our effort ... ah, that was not i can not say our effort but dogen sent his effort. so by dogen we could ... resume to our original zen so here we have no exclusive idea of zen and at the same time we have many possibility. there’s many possibility of ... expressive original idea in various way you can express and dogen his spirits in your own way because we have no exclusive ... possible of zen.

????

student: what is satori?

sr: satori... how to i say... satori ... it is ... i don’t know what you mean. what do you mean ... what is ... you know ... is satori very difficult question to figure out what you what kind of ... you know answer you... or expect. what is satori? because satori is as i ... explain as i explain in various way. there is no other way to explain ... some kind ... various kind of answer to your question. there’s many various kind of answer we be should be prepared you know from... scientifically viewpoint or psychological viewpoint or from ??? viewpoint. you know, we can not say ??? satori just from ??? viewpoint. psychologist they say such and such state of mind is you know that is psychology psychologist may answer in that way and science may say you know satori is the answer which is which science cant answer. That is to figure out to throw apart the problem which is science can

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Partial transcription by Thorsten Bauer submitted 12-26-12. Posted 12-28-12.
Update still partial post 4-29-13
Thorsten is German and not sure about capitalization so he's not using capitals as yet.