It will take quite a long time before you find your calm, serene mind in your practice. Many sensations come, many thoughts or images arise, but they are just waves of your own mind. Nothing comes from outside your mind. Usually we think of our mind as receiving impressions and experiences from outside, but that is not a true understanding of our mind. The true understanding is that the mind includes everything; when you think something comes from outside it means only that something appears in your mind. Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.
If your mind is related to something outside itself, that mind is a small mind, a limited mind. If your mind is not related to anything else, then there is no dualistic understanding in the activity of your mind. You understand activity as just waves of your mind. Big mind experiences everything within itself. Do you understand the difference between the two minds: the mind which includes everything, and the mind which is related to something? Actually they are the same thing, but the understanding is different, and your attitude towards your life will be different according to which understanding you have.
That everything is included within your mind is the essence of mind. To experience this is to have religious feeling. Even though waves arise, the essence of your mind is pure; it is just like clear water with a few waves. Actually water always has waves. Waves are the practice of the water.. To speak of waves apart from water or water apart from waves is a delusion. Water and waves are one. Big mind and small mind are one. When you understand your mind in this way, you have some security in your feeling. As your mind does not expect anything from outside, it is always filled. A mind with waves in it is not a disturbed mind, but actually an amplified one. Whatever you experience is an expression of big mind.
- SHUNRYU SUZUKI, excerpt from "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" (1973)
"I'm sure y'all have seen this 2012 movie poster before. If you're wondering what on earth a Zen monk is doing up in the Himalayas, um, let's just say he's having an out-of-Japan experience. Ok, obviously, I replaced the image of the Tibetan Buddhist monk with a Zen Buddhist monk to match the book excerpt you've just read. Anyway, SHUNRYU SUZUKI (18 May 1904 - 4 December 1971) was a Japanese Zen master of the Soto school, who played a major role in establishing Zen Buddhism in America. A collection of his teishos (Zen talks) were bundled in the books NOT ALWAYS SO: PRACTICING THE TRUE SPIRIT OF ZEN" and "ZEN MIND, BEGINNER'S MIND" (one of the most popular books on Zen and Buddhism in the West). If you're thinking about trying out Zen meditation, this is a good place to start.
