One day, a student of Zen Master Seung Sahn went up to him and said, ‘I have attained emptiness!’ So the Zen Master said, ‘Oh! You have attained emptiness! Then tell me, who attained emptiness?’ The student said, ‘Me! I have attained emptiness!’ So the Zen Master took his stick and hit him. The student said, ‘Ow!’ And the Zen Master said, ‘If there is “Ow!” then where is emptiness?’ This emptiness cannot be expressed in words or languages. We give it a name, however; that name is primary point. This primary point has many names and forms. Some people call it enlightenment. Some people call it mind. Some people call it Buddha. Some people call it God. Some people call it Tao. Some people call it nirvana. Some people call it substance.
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The Sixth Patriarch said, ‘Originally nothing.’ Zen Master Seung Sahn says, ‘Only don’t know.’ But the true primary point has no name and no form. When you attain this, then all naming and forming fall away. If there is still attachment to name, that is a barrier. Beyond name and form, in the unconditioned, there is neither coming nor going, neither birth nor death. In that realm, you cannot say there is anything to get or anything to lose. That is the place of no duality, no division, no “other.” Only this ungraspable, indescribable “suchness” remains — the primary point beyond concepts.
Zen Master Seung Sahn