All earthly phenomena come and go within a constant Reality that does not—being eternal, which means “without beginning or end”—come or go. “The true purpose of Zen,” said Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, “is to see things as they are [objectively], and to let everything go as it goes.” In Taoism, this non-resistance is known as the “watercourse” way. It is to have no predilection for how things “ought” to go, as opposed to how they are going.

Contrast this attitude with what is considered to be “idealism.” We conceive some idea, for example, as to how we ought to behave, some ideal standard to which we compare our ensuing behavior (e.g., “What would Jesus do?”). As a consequence, we forever find ourself falling short of our idealistic—and unrealistic—criterion. This leads to dissatisfaction, discontent, and particularly to self-critique. And the same ideal standard to which we compare ourself is the same standard we use to compare others. Meanwhile, obviously, each of us is doing precisely what we are capable of doing and inclined to do—or else we would actually be doing something else.

In the freed and empty mind, there are no such ideas, ideals, opinions or judgments, nor belief in the virtue of rigid and limited standards. One’s behavior is spontaneous, unpremeditated, unconstrained by notions of “rightness.”

The empty mind is free of “gaining ideas,” such as the presumption that “I will be a better person, if only…” this or that were the case. This even applies to enlightenment. If we assume that we will be a better person if enlightened, we are consciously moving away from the ultimate Reality which is ever-present right here, right now—the very same ultimate Reality which we hope that enlightenment will lead us to. This is what in Buddhism is called “grasping at the wind.” Enlightenment is merely the name for a condition of namelessness, emptiness, non-grasping.

Your original mind was an empty mind. In it, not anything ever really mattered. And you and the Absolute were One, in that condition, without either “you” or the “One” existing.

[Excerpted from: One Essence by Robert Wolfe]