As the author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind denotes, "…by your practice of zazen you can cultivate this feeling" (p. 95) of totality and uniformity with the universe that is the primary focus of Buddhism. Yet the way of actuating this ideal state of big mind is decidedly counterintuitive. Westerners are used to thinking of heaven as something that one has to earn by going out and accomplishing feats of altruism to demonstrate his or her worth. In Buddhism, however, when one practices zazen and reaches a state of enlightenment that connects one with the entire universe, the exact opposite is the methodology employed to do this. Buddhists must learn to reject all worldly things, all desires, and ultimately free themselves from external concerns in order to reconnect with the oneness that they were a part of before they were born. The key is to focus one's mind on nothing, on emptiness -- which is what zazen itself cultivates. The focus on emptiness inherently connects one with the universe, and not the mere physical world and the thoughts it motivates, as the following quotation from Suzuki demonstrates. "We say, everything comes out of emptiness. One whole river or one whole mind is emptiness" (p. 94). As this quotation implies, by emptying one's mind of conscious thought and desire, one can connect with the eternal, the all or "everything." The reference to the river is simply the conception that all things can be one, much like a river is, before events (such as a waterfall) separates the water into individual drops.

This concept is difficult for Westerners to understand. The point of nirvana, the big mind, and of Buddhism is to connect with everything (remember the gathering of family and friends on the first page, right?). Yet to do so, requires giving up and rejecting everything. This is...

Buddhism, however, teaches that rejecting everything worldly and physical and related to desires and wants means that one has freed oneself from desire, and therefore has everything he or she could ever want. A good analogy is the concept of money, which in and of itself has no intrinsic value but merely serves as a means to an end. It affords clothes, homes, pretty girls and good food. but, if one could have all the feeling of satisfaction that those things produce without those material means of producing it, would money matter at all? No, it would not. That is the Buddhist concept of rejecting externalities and worldly ideals, which is why the author states "it is absolutely necessary for everyone to believe in nothing." Desire, after all, is the lack of something, and the attempt to pursue that something that is lacked. However, if one lacked nothing, then there is no desire, only fulfillment. This is the central notion of Buddhism.
Therefore, the way to achieve nirvana is by cultivating a degree of acceptance in one's life -- an acceptance of everything. When one is able to do so, and not desire to change things, or to desire at all, one can attain the big mind state that is akin to nirvana. Doing so allows one to feel a sense of harmony and totality with the universe and everything in it. This feeling and totality will be actualized after death, of course, during the process of nirvana for adepts. But it can also be reached during the physical life, right now, by those who are willing to give up everything and relate to it in a sense of uniformity instead.

Works Cited

Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice. New York: Weatherhill. 1970. Print.