Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘We believe that an individual who sits in meditation is already in the world of emptiness or enlightenment, but has not yet become aware or experienced it. Knowing and experiencing can be two different things. Your mind may tell you that everything in this world has the potential to become a Buddha, or that all existence is basically the same in its essence, or that mind and matter are merely two aspects of the same existence, but unless you have let your mind go so that there is nothing in it but this emptiness, your knowledge will not become a vital part of you. It will remain something apart from your everyday life.’ (Introduction to Zen Buddhism)