“A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?"

Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.”

Source: Zen Is Right Here: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki, Author of "ZEN Mind, Beginner's Mind"

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Shunryu Suzuki 39
Japanese Buddhist missionary 1904–1971

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Context: I am a reasonably emotional person, and I see no reason why that's incompatible with being a scientist. Even if we learn about how everything works, that doesn't mean anything at all. You can reduce how an impala leaps to a bunch of biomechanical equations. You can turn Bach into contrapuntal equations, and that doesn't reduce in the slightest our capacity to be moved by a gazelle leaping or Bach thundering. There is no reason to be less moved by nature around us simply because it's revealed to have more layers of complexity than we first observed.
The more important reason why people shouldn't be afraid is, we're never going to inadvertently go and explain everything. We may learn everything about something, and we may learn something about everything, but we're never going to learn everything about everything. When you study science, and especially these realms of the biology of what makes us human, what's clear is that every time you find out something, that brings up ten new questions, and half of those are better questions than you started with.

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“Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.”

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Context: "Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
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“The son of Joseph and Mary was born, like any other child, covered with his mother's blood, dripping with mucus, and suffering in silence. He cried because they made him cry, and he will cry for this one and only reason.”

O filho de José e de Maria nasceu como todos os filhos dos homens, sujo de sangue de sua mãe, viscoso das suas mucosidades e sofrendo em silêncio. Chorou porque o fizeram chorar, e chorará por esse mesmo e único motivo.
Source: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991), p. 58

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