Zen is considered the highest of all possible cultivation methods in existence because it doesn’t rely on any method at all – it just directly points to the true nature of the mind. In Zen you don’t add anything to the mind in order to attain Samadhi, nor do you try to remove anything from the mind.
With Zen, you neither accept nor reject your thoughts to attain Samadhi, but you simply let them come and go without clinging to them. Since there is no effort for effortless watching or knowing that is always there, Zen is called the method of no-method.
In Zen, you simply watch the function of awareness and turn it inwards, reflecting it back to its source, to perceive the fundamental essence of this knower. Some refer to this process as “resting” sine it means “dropping the busy mind” or “letting everything go” while the function of knowing continues to stay. The mind is open and aware, yet mental busyness naturally comes to a rest.
Our minds are forever visited by chaotic and confusing thoughts, so In Zen we treat these thoughts like hotel guests that come and go without prolonging their stay. So if you simple watch your thoughts without adding any energy to these, in time all these thoughts will depart and you will arrive at Samadhi.
Every thought, has to depart because nothing stays – death will certainly come to thoughts as it does to all other phenomena. Only one thing remains unmoved during all these transformations – the true self, which is the ultimate source of awareness. You can go east or go west, but the one thing that never moves, has never left, and has never gone anywhere.
Whether we know something or don’t know something, our true mind know that we know or don’t know, so awareness always shines. In Zen, it’s the root source of this awareness we must find.
