The Purpose of Zen Meditation

When you practice Zen earnestly, you are burning up the karma that binds you to ignorance. In Japanese the word for ‘earnest’ means ‘to heat up the heart’. If you heat up your heart, this karma, which is like a block of ice, melts and becomes liquid. And if you keep on heating it, it becomes steam and evaporates into space. Those people who practice come to melt their hindrances and attachments. Why do they practice? Because it is their karma to practice, just as it is other people’s karma not to practice. Man’s discriminating thoughts build up a great thought-mass in his mind, and this is what he mistakenly regards as his real self. In fact, it is a mental construction based on ignorance. The purpose of Zen meditation is to dissolve this thought-mass. What is finally left is the real self. You enter into the world of the selfless. And if you don’t stop there, if you don’t think about this realm or cling to it, you will continue in your practice until you become one with the Absolute.”

The first student said, “What do you mean by the Absolute?” Seon-sa said, “Where does that question come from?” The student was silent. Seon-sa said, “That is the Absolute.”

-Zen Master Seung Sahn