Introduction
Deep in the mountains, the great temple bell is struck. You hear it reverberating in the morning air, and all thoughts disappear from your mind. There is nothing that is you; there is nothing that is not you. There is only the sound of the bell, filling the whole universe.
Springtime comes. You see the flowers blossoming, the butterflies flitting about; you hear the birds singing, you breathe in the warm weather. And your mind is only springtime. It is nothing at all.
You visit Niagara and take a boat to the bottom of the Falls. The downpouring of the water is in front of you and around you and inside you, and suddenly you are shouting: YAAAAAA!
In all these experiences, outside and inside have become one. This is Zen mind.
Original nature has no opposites. Speech and words are not necessary. Without thinking, all things are exactly as they are. The truth is just like this.
Then why do we use words? Why have we made this book?
According to Oriental medicine, when you have a hot sickness you should take hot medicine. Most people are very attached to words and speech. So we cure this sickness with word-and-speech medicine.
Most people have a deluded view of the world. They don't see it as it is; they don't understand the truth. What is good, what is bad? Who makes good, who makes bad? They cling to their opinions with all their might. But everybody's opinion is different. How can you say that your opinion is correct and somebody else's is wrong? This is delusion.
If you want to understand the truth, you must let go of your situation, your condition, and all your opinions. Then your mind will be before thinking. "Before thinking" is clear mind. Clear mind has no inside and no outside. It is just like this. "Just like this" is the truth.
An eminent teacher said,
If you want to pass through this gate,
do not give rise to thinking.
This means that if you are thinking, you can't understand Zen. If you keep the mind that is before thinking, this is Zen mind.
So another Zen Master said,
Everything the Buddha taught
was only to correct your thinking.
If already you have cut off thinking,
what good are the Buddha's words?
The Heart Sutra says, "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form." This means, "no form, no emptiness." But the true meaning of "no form, no emptiness" is, "form is form, emptiness is emptiness."
If you are thinking, you won't understand these words. If you are not thinking, "just like this" is Buddha-nature.
What is Buddha-nature?
Deep in the mountains, the great temple bell is struck.
The truth is just like this.
Seung Sahn
