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To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind pervades your whole body. With your full mind you form the mudra in your hands.
We say our practice should be without gaining ideas, without any expectation, even of enlightenment. This does not mean, however, just to sit without any purpose. This practice free from gaining ideas is based on the Prajina Paramita Sutra. However if your are not careful the sutra itself will give you a gaining idea. It says, "Form is emptiness and emptiness if form." But if you attach to that statement, you are liable to be involves in dualistic ideas: here is you, form, and here is emptiness, which you are trying to realize through your form. So "form is emptiness, and emptiness is form" is still dualistic. But fortunately, out teaching goes on to say, "Form is form and emptiness is emptiness." Here there is no dualism.
When you find it difficult to stop your mind while you are sitting and when you are still trying to stop your mind, this is the stage of "form is emptiness and emptiness is form." But while you are practicing in this dualistic way, more and more you will have oneness with your goal. And when your practice becomes effortless, you can stop your mind. This is the stage of "form is form and emptiness is emptiness."
- Shunryu Suzuki
2:31 PM
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