' The state of mind called 'nothing '...

"Man thinks and acts without noticing. When he thinks, "It is fine
today," he is aware of the weather but not of his own thought. It is
the reflecting act of consciousness that comes immediately after the
thought that makes him aware of his own thinking."

The discipline of Zen concentration eliminates this reflecting
activity in order to come to what Sekida calls absolute samadhi or
pure existence:

"ultimately the time comes when no reflection appears at all. One
comes to notice nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing, see nothing. This
state of mind is called "nothing." But it is not vacant emptiness.
Rather is it the purest condition of our existence. It is not
reflected, and nothing is known directly of it."

"In a word, they and I were one. If I am you, you also are me. In the
field of vision, they and I are distinct structures, each separately
standing in its place. However, just as my own existence is intimate
and warm to me, so now are they intimate and warm to me. We are not
strangers; another me is standing there."


-KATSUKI SEKIDA