To the beginner: practice without effort is not true practice; the practice needs great effort.
The effort is showing up repeatedly and resisting the urge to chase results.
Practice little by little. When walking in a fog, you don’t realize you’re getting wet, but as you keep walking, you get wet little by little. When you get wet in a fog, it’s very difficult to dry yourself. Practicing slowly is the same; true progress is the result of slow practice, little by little.
When you keep this simple practice, you will obtain some wonderful powers. Before you attain it, it’s something wonderful, but after you attain it, it’s nothing special.
Stop and think: what is wonderful is the act of practice itself. Now you can restart and keep practicing.
When there’s no gaining idea in what you do, then you do something.
Forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. Just practice zazen in a certain posture.
From Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Suzuki, 2020)