In 2008 shunryusuzuki.com became the repository for the systematic archive of Shunryu Suzuki lecture transcripts and audio, video, and photos. In 2010 Peter Ford started helping out and greatly upgraded shunryusuzuki.com and now cuke.com. Sep 11, 2020 Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in his dokusan and study room. © San Francisco Zen Centre. Over a period of just twelve years, from his arrival in the United States in 1959 until his death in 1971, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi made a profound and enduring mark on the practice of Zen in the West.
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
'In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.' So begins this most beloved of all American Zen books. Seldom has such a small handful of words provided a teaching as rich as has this famous opening line of Shunryu Suzuki's classic. In a single stroke, the simple sentence cuts through the pervasive tendency students have of getting so close to Zen as to completely miss what it's all about. An instant teaching on the first page. And that's just the beginning ...
Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness
Suzuki Roshi
When Shunryu Suzuki Roshi's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was published in 1972, it was enthusiastically embraced by Westerners eager for spiritual insight and knowledge of Zen. The book became the most successful treatise on Buddhism in English, selling more than one million copies to date. Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness is the first follow-up volume to Suzuki Roshi's important work. Like Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, it is a collection of lectures that reveal the insight, humor, and intimacy with Zen that made Suzuki Roshi so influential as a teacher.
Not Always So
Shunryu Suzuki Books
In Not Always So Suzuki Roshi once again voices Zen in everyday language with the vigour, sensitivity, and buoyancy of a true friend. Here is support and nourishment. Here is a mother and father lending a hand, but letting you find your own way. Here is guidance which empowers your freedom (or way–seeking mind), rather than pinning you down to directions and techniques. Here is teaching which encourages you to touch and know your true heart and to express yourself fully, teaching which is not teaching from outside, but a voice arising in your own being.