Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘In our zazen, a big strength is necessary – or big power is necessary. When it is — when Zen students start to move, you can see the power. But when you do not move, you do not see the power of the Zen students. But nevertheless, power is in them – in each one of us who can decide what to do at a certain time. Something which is moving with a great speed has its — is actually the succession of the point – in each point it has some power to express that great speed. And each point should be Zen [laughs]. We are sitting on each point with big energy. That is Zen. It is still, and it is calm, and it is completely peaceful, but that is peaceful power, and peaceful energy – this is our Zen actually. We don’t know our power, how great our power is. But when you acquire the complete calmness, there is big power.

So Zen practice has two faces: one is power, and one is peaceful. One is limitation, and one is universality. When you find out this kind of meaning of your practice, you have nothing to be afraid of. You acquire perpetual life. In this understanding and spirit we have practiced zazen.’ (from the Suzuki Roshi archives)