A standard teaching of Zen Buddhism is that the truth it points to with words goes beyond words. This should not be hard for anyone to understand. Where often the problem lies is that what is unspeakable may not be the truth. It doesn’t follow that what is unspeakable is always the truth of what the Buddha saw under the Bodhi-tree when he awakened. Ignorance, to give one example, is unspeakable.

The truth to which Zen Buddhism points is very real. It is within our capacity to realize it. But it is not an easy matter to realize what is absolutely true and unspeakable. For one thing, we are in the grip of spiritual amnesia. We are like someone who can’t remember who he is. Not even his name. Even if a member of his family tries to refresh his memory, it will prove unsuccessful. So deep is our spiritual amnesia that it may take a lifetime to wake up to our true nature—or we may never awaken.

To get around this difficulty, some popular modern teachers of Zen tell their students all they have to do is just sit or just be aware of the task at hand. This is all the practice of Zen is about, they insist. Such teachers, to be frank, are selling rat burgers under a sign that says, hamburger. In no Sutra has the Buddha ever taught his disciples that prolonged sitting or being aware of the task at hand will lead to anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, that is, the highest enlightenment. Looking back to ancient India, many schools taught meditation which required sitting in the full lotus posture. In light of this it would be foolish to insist that because these ascetics sat in the lotus posture, they all became Buddhas!

The teachings of Zen Buddhism have a specific goal. We are to attain a glimpse into Buddha Mind, which means the Mind that is awakened; not our ordinary, familiar mind that is in a state of spiritual amnesia. All of Zen’s teachings are directed to this goal—not the goal of just sitting or being aware of peeling onions both of which are impermanent practices. If this is not so then why did Bodhidharma teach the following?

“Buddhas of the past and future only talk about this mind. The mind is the Buddha, and the buddha is the mind. Beyond the mind there’s no buddha, and beyond the buddha there's no mind. If you think there’s a buddha beyond the mind, where is he? There’s no buddha beyond the mind, so why envision one? You can’t know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself. As long as you’re enthralled by a lifeless form, you’re not free. If you don’t believe me, deceiving yourself won’t help. It’s not the buddha’s fault. People, though, are deluded. They’re unaware that their own mind is the buddha. Otherwise they wouldn’t look for a buddha outside the mind” (trans. Red Pine, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, p. 11).

Bodhidharma’s words are very profound. A sincere beginner upon reading these words would set out on a quest to experience this Mind of which Bodhidharma speaks. He would want to put an end to his delusions, not wasting a second by getting caught up in practices such as invoking the name of a Sutra, making offerings, keeping precepts, etc. As Bodhidharma points out it is more important to find our true nature.

Many modern Zennists, however, are uncomfortable with learning the truth about Zen Buddhism, that it is directed to a cognition of pure Mind; it is simply not taught in Western Zen traditions. Nevertheless, it is historically accurate to point out to these Zennists that many followers of the Zen school in China during the Sung denied Zen was a meditation school. Zen, they said is synonymous with Buddha Mind, not sitting in meditation. This also might explain why there is a voluminous amount of Zen literature directed towards the explication of Mind and very little in the way of how to sit and what we do when we sit.

For Westerners it is much easier to just sit because introspection is so very difficult. Besides this, they prefer sitting since it is easy to measure their progress in Zen by how much sitting they’ve done. This can even leave the practitioner with the belief that going beyond words simply means don’t have anything to do with words. Just sit or be aware of what you are doing every moment.