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DC MISC.        

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02-20-08 - On my birthday 11 days ago I wrote a little something in dchad misc in which I mentioned that I remembered Suzuki Roshi saying the reason we practice is so we can enjoy our old age. I suggested that maybe he meant "a" reason rather than "the" reason. Later that day in working with the audio archive of his lectures I came across a lecture (August 3, 1971 - one of his last ones) where he said:

How you have always hope in your old age, how you create, you know, yourself after 50 or 60 is the main purpose of our practice. So that you may not feel sorry when you become old, you practice hard.

It was serendipitous to find an example of what I'd just referenced, but also I was reminded of the characteristic way in which he would say whatever point he was making was the most important one, not "a" practice but "the" practice. But it's not like he didn't say that about a zillion other things. I once made a list from his lectures of many, many different subjects of his oft used phrase, "the most important thing is..." There were like 150.

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