Zen teaching is clear: put it all down.

Put down your opinion, your condition, and your situation. Let it all go, and come back to this! And when there is some experience of this, we have to let that go, as well. And when there is an experience of the void, emptiness, the not-knowing mind, suchness…that, too, must be dropped or it becomes a memory, a thing for comparison.

A Zen master was walking on the beach with his student. “Look back,” he said. “The footprints you see are your past. Look forward and imagine how your footprints might fall. That’s your future. But you cannot see your present footstep. It is not possible to see the footstep you are making. Just in the mirror, but how do you know you really have eyes and that reflection is not an illusion? Our life unfolds without concepts. Conceptual understanding is added after the fact.  

 
The sufi mystic, Bayazid, remained in one village for many years. One day, the villagers said to Bayazid, “We have been seeing and hearing you for at least five years. You were always praying and talking to God. Now, we see that you never talk, you never pray. Why this change? Have you become an atheist? Have you lost your belief in the divine? You never talk now, you never pray.”

Bayazid laughed and said, “Before, I was talking and praying. Now, God has started talking to me…so, I have to be silent and listen. The whole process has changed. Now, I need not talk. Now, he talks to me.”

This moment comes. But, this moment comes only when your heart is filled with melody and a Divine silence has come into you. There is no more noise. Wherever you look, you feel the music; wherever you look, you feel the unity; wherever you look, you feel the One, in different forms. Now, you have become aware of the sea. Waves have disappeared for you. There are no waves; only the ocean exists. Then, the Divine talks to you directly.

It is not a metaphor. Existence speaks to you directly. It is not a metaphor; it is not a poetic expression. It happens! But you have to be ready. And that readiness means a heart filled with music, a heart filled with silence.