Shunryū Suzuki-rōshi
GENJŌ-KŌAN: PARAGRAPHS 1–11
Sunday Morning, June 19, 1966
Lecture A
Sōkō-ji Temple, San Francisco
Listen to this talk: Suzuki-roshi 66-06-19
Suzuki-rōshi: Someone has my—my paper.[1]
Student: [4-6 words unclear.] Wednesday night—[6-8 words]—Wednesday night.
Suzuki-rōshi: Wednesday?
Student: Yeah. Finish the whole thing.
Suzuki-rōshi: Hmm?
Student: Wednesday night we finish the whole thing.
Suzuki-rōshi: No, Wednesday we do Shushōgi.[2] Do you finish until the bottom part of Page 3?
Student: No, I think we finished the whole thing.
Suzuki-rōshi: Whole thing.
Student: Wednesday night we did it.
Suzuki-rōshi: Oh. [Laughs.] Wednesday night? Oh. [Laughs, laughter.] Oh. Big mistake. Okay.
Student: Maybe there are some here Sunday morning that weren’t here Wednesday night.
Suzuki-rōshi: Mm-hmm. All right. Then—paragraph—in each paragraph, I—I think you want some brief comment so that you can understand—
Aside by Suzuki-rōshi: It’s all right.
—so that you can understand all the—whole part of—whole [laughter] fascicle.
The first paragraph is the framework of whole Buddhism. First paragraph:
All—when all things are in Buddhist way or Buddhist phenomena, we are enlightenment and ignorance, something to study, life and death, buddha, and people. When all things are without self, we have no ignorance, no enlightenment, no doubt, no buddha, no people, and no life and no death. The Buddhist way is beyond being and non-being. Therefore we have life and death, ignorance and enlightenment, people and buddha. However, flowers fall with our attachment, and weeds grow with our detachment.
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