Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.

Shunryu Suzuki

It is important to have a good memory and to be able to go into every detail of activities so that effective decisions can be made. Yet one’s mind cannot respond to the coming of new objects into the consciousness if it is full of the traces of former thinking. It is useless to remember everything. There is no point in remembering things just so we can cry, be jealous, or be proud. The mind should be spotless so that everything may be observed as it is. If the mind is free from the traces of past thinking and is always clear, without tainted ideas or desires, then mind will always be calm and natural like the flowers that come out in Springtime or the red leaves that turn in the Autumn. Your mind and your nature will have the same pace.

Onze geest moet vrij zijn van de sporen van het verleden, net als de bloemen in de lente.

Uit: Crooked Cucumber, the life and teaching of Shunryu Suzuki, David Chadwick, 1999. | Kromme Komkommer, Asoka, Rotterdam, 2002. & Cho-sha’s “Strolling about Mountains and Waters” (Blue Cliff Record #36), 01 November, 1963 –  Suzuki Roshi Transcripts 
Afbeelding: Ready to Blossom in the Morning, Yayoi Kusama, 1989.