SOKEI-AN SASAKI ON MEDITATION

Sokei-an Sasaki (1882-1945) was the first Zen master to settle permanently in America.  In a lecture on November 23, 1940, he offered the following apt description of meditation:

"The Buddha founded his religion upon Samadhi, full mental absorption.  His object of meditation was his own mind.  He did not meditate upon any external object, thoughts, or words, or ideas.  He meditated simply upon his mind, a mind from which he had extracted every thought, every image, every concept.  He paid no attention either to the outside or to the inside; he meditated upon his own mind.  Perhaps we should say mind meditated upon itself, for, in true Buddhist meditation, mind by itself is the meditator and at the same time the object of the meditator's meditation.

“I think the meaning of 'his own mind' is not very clear to Western people.  Western people think that mind, to be mind, must have something in it; if it has nothing in it, it is not mind.  But consider the mind of an infant; he does not know the words papa or mama, he does not know his own existence, he does not know the outside world; nevertheless he has his own mind, pure and empty.  We can discover that mind in this world through meditation.  The attainment of this pure and empty mind is true samadhi.  And this is Buddhism.

“The Buddha practiced meditation for six years and succeeded in attaining this pure and empty mind.  He did not call it God, or Mind either.  He did not call it by any name.  For him, Buddhism was very simple and very pure.  It is pure mind.  If you prefer to call it soul, Buddhism is pure soul.  Our teacher used to say to us when we practiced mediation: 'Don't close your eyes; you will be bothered by your own thoughts. Don't keep your eyes open; you will be bothered by outside things.  Keep your eyes partly closed and meditate upon your soul.’  This is Buddhism." 

Note that Sokei-an's use of the word "soul" here is in its broadest sense.  Buddhism, in the doctrine of anatta, denies the existence of a permanent or static entity, i.e. soul, that remains constant and migrates after death to another body.