Everything is Nothing...

FROM YASUTANI ROSHI’S TEISHOS
(INTERVIEWS ONE TO ONE)

Student: I have been asking and asking "Who am I?"until I feel there is just no answer to this question.

Roshi: You won't find an entity called "I".
Student[heatedly]: Then why am I asking the question!?

Roshi : Because in your present state you can't help yourself. The
ordinary person is forever asking Why? or What? or Who?
There are many koans in which a monk asks "What is the Buddha?" or " Why did Bodhidharma come from India to China?" The aim of the master' s response is to break the deluded mind so
that he can realize his question is an abstraction.

Student: I have been reading the English translation of the Bassui
letters during your morning lecture, as you suggested I do. At one point Bassui says: " Who is the Master chat moves the hands?'"

Roshi: There is no real answer to Who? What? or Why? Why is sugar sweet?
Sugar is sugar.
Sugar!
You are you!"

Student: All right, I am I- I accept that. Isn't this enough? What moreneed I do? Why must I keep struggling with this question?

Roshi: Because this understanding is external to you, you don' t
really know what you mean by " I am I". You must come up against this question with the force of a bomb, and all your intellectual notions and ideas must be annihilated. The only way to resolve this question is to come to the explosive inner realization that everything is [ultimately reducible to] Nothing.
If your understanding is merely theoretical, you will forever ask Who? What? and Why?

- Three Pillars of Zen