July 25th, 1971
Sunday, July 25th, 1971Shunryu Suzuki-roshi
Sunday Evening, July 25, 1971
Tassajara
Listen to this talk: Suzuki-roshi 71-07-25
Tonight I want to explain the outline of our practice. As a monk and as a layman, without understanding of what is practice, it is rather difficult to make actual progress in your practice. And what I will talk about tonight is a kind of universal practice for laymen and monks both, you know—which could be true for both laymen and priests.
We say, or you say [laughs] whatever you do, that is practice, our practice: to drink tea or to eat or to sleep, to walk, or to sit down. Whatever you do, that is practice, you know, we say. But how you, you know—with—with what kind of understanding you do things is very important point. Actually, whatever you do, if you do not do the point—that is true. But if you miss the point, even though you look like [you are] doing a proper practice, actually it doesn’t work. The point is, whether you do it for yourself or for the sake of the truth, or for sake of Buddha, or for sake of people—this point is a very important point.
I—I didn’t discuss or argue with you, but my way, you know, if there is many things in the basket, my way is to finish the fruit is—you know, start with—I st- [partial word: “start with”?], eat the worst [laughs] one first. I will make—eat best one first. And why you eat best one first is—according to the people who eat best one first—if you eat best one first always, you will always eat best one [laughs]. The last one, you know, will be also best one [laughs]. If—if—we eat worst one first, you will always eat worst—worst one. Last one is also worst one.