Suchness

“If the mind does not differentiate, all things are of one Suchness.” This verse, from 2300 years ago and attributed to Seng Ts’an, an early patriarch of the Zen tradition, has profound meaning without meaning anything in any conventional way. It suggests the essence of human enlightenment in the perception of the unity of creation, and points to the problem of comparative or conditional thinking. It suggests that consciousness is universal and what we perceive within it is complete, lacking nothing. The holiness of this “realm of Suchness” is evident because, in achieving it, we are transported to that place of “peace which passeth all understanding.”