The Radical Power of Doing Nothing: A Zen Approach

What if awakening didn't require you to become anything?

It didn't need or it doesn't need you to fix yourself or become anything that you're not already.

It doesn't really even ask you to do anything.

In Zen they have this lovely phrase,

An ordinary person aims to gain something every day,

Whereas a person of the way aims to lose something every day.

So in our everyday normal way of going about things,

We're trying to achieve something,

Become something else,

Learn something new.

But actually in Zen the approach is not about arriving somewhere else,

It's about arriving right now as you are.

So today I wanted to look at the two main approaches to Zen practice that you find out there.

In the Soto school they have the practice of Shikantaza,

Which translates as something like just sitting.

And in the Rinzai school,

Which is what we're part of,

Our particular branch of Zen,

We have the teaching of Zen master Bankei,

Who taught about the unborn,

About resting in the unborn.

So my name is Mark Kuren Westmackett and if you've been along here before it's great to see you back here.

Very welcome,

I'm glad to see you.

And if you haven't been here before,

If you haven't joined in,

Then great you could find us and join in.

This is our regular weekly Dharma slot where we're talking about Zen topics and exploring practice.

So I'm a Zen teacher in the Zenways group,

So our sangha based mostly in London,

But much more worldwide and online.

People joining from all over the place,

Including you guys joining and feeling part of this broader community that we have,

And we offer practice in different ways.

So here is one of the ways.

All right,

So Shikantaza then,

It literally means nothing but only sitting.

So za is the word sit,

To sit.

We have Zazen or Zafu,

It's the same za,

Sitting.

And particularly in the lineage of Soto,

Which comes from Dogon,

I think pretty much all Soto these days,

Comes,

Has its root in the teaching of Dogon,

The great Japanese Zen master from the 1200s.

It's very emphasised,

This Shikantaza,

Just sitting.

So you sit and that's it really.

So when you have this teaching about what to do in meditation in the Soto world,

Just sit,

Do nothing else,

Try to do nothing else.

And you think,

Well,

What am I supposed to do?

What do you mean just sitting?

That's just it,

Just sitting.

And it originated from the Chinese origins of the Soto school.

So Soto,

So and To are the two,

Comes from two Zen masters,

Tozan and Sozan,

Which were the founding ancestors,

I suppose,

Of Soto Zen.

And they were both Chinese masters.

So back in China,

They had a slightly different pronunciation.

I'm going to do something like the Kaodong school,

Which would have been Soto,

As it got translated into Japanese.

So the original Chinese Kaodong school,

Soto school,

Emphasised this,

What they call Mokusho,

Which is silent illumination,

Or kind of silent reflection.

And that was taught by a number of very early Zen masters.

And it kind of evolved its way through Dogon into what we know now as Shikantaza.

So normally,

We think of meditation practice as focusing on something.

Maybe when we start,

We're focusing on the breath,

Or we're focusing on sensation,

Or focusing on sound,

Becoming aware,

Making that the centre of our attention.

Typically,

It's breath,

Right?

So we might notice the flow of breath,

Feel the sensations of the breathing,

Might be counting the breath.

So we've got a focus point for our meditation practice.

But in Shikantaza,

There is no focus point.

And this can be quite unsettling,

I suppose,

Or difficult to get the head around,

You know,

What am I doing?

I'm not focusing on the breath.

Yeah,

But the breath may be part of your awareness.

So I'm not focusing on sound,

But sound may also be part of awareness.

So we're just being in this openness,

Just sitting,

Allowing the moments to unfold,

Allowing life to unfold and allowing our experience to be seen and acknowledged.

So there's no goal.

We're not trying to arrive anywhere.

There's no attempt to reach any particular kind of state.

Just sitting.

And actually,

When we start to understand it like that,

It is very profound.

Just sitting.

It's unlike anything we do in normal life.

When do we ever just sit?

There's always some kind of pretext or some kind of attempt to create some kind of state,

Right?

We're trying to relax or go to sleep or listening to music or we're having dinner or,

You know,

We're sitting on the train,

Watching the trees go past or listening to music,

All these kind of things.

But when do we ever just sit?

Sitting and experiencing.

Allowing what needs to arise to do so in its own time.

What needs to be acknowledged and seen to do so.

Some people sometimes call this choiceless awareness.

So we have an awareness but we're not choosing to direct it in any particular way.

It's just fully open.

Now it's simple but not necessarily easy.

Quickly,

In fact,

Shikantaza can become quite challenging because we're sitting in this kind of swirl of nothingness.

Like,

What am I doing?

Well,

I'm not supposed to be doing anything.

Don't do anything.

In fact,

Actually,

Don't do anything is the best instruction.

But then what do I do?

You know,

It's so confusing,

Right?

The mind really wants something to get hold of,

Right?

The mind is used to having something to do.

So then,

Without the absence of,

You know,

Formally doing anything,

It starts to latch onto things like,

Am I doing this right?

Shouldn't something be happening here?

Or then,

You know,

More sort of other things like,

What's for dinner?

You know,

I really must meet up with my friends again.

Those kind of thoughts,

You know.

Or it could be like,

Oh,

Listen to that.

Or isn't that lovely?

Or isn't that horrible?

Or don't I like that?

All those kind of other things.

So the mind jumps to do something.

And then we're in this swirl of thoughts and judgments and things.

And yet the instruction is to do nothing.

So really,

It's about allowing.

So none of those things are bad,

You know.

Like,

We're listening to sound.

We have these thoughts about,

We're going to have a dinner.

Or we start judging ourselves.

Am I doing it right?

It's not bad.

It's not good.

When we're just sitting,

We notice these kind of thoughts,

Sensations,

Arise.

We acknowledge them.

Don't push them away.

Don't try to edit them.

Or don't try to judge them in themselves.

And then they just disappear.

They dissolve.

And that's how we just sit without adding anything,

Without engaging in anything.

So,

Shikantaza,

Profound practice,

Because it gives the mind nothing to get hold of.

And that's really what it's all about.

There's nothing to get hold of at all here.

And if we do this over time,

We're just open in this place of experiencing what needs to be experienced on the outside,

On the inside.

We're opening this space.

In fact,

It's not even an opening,

Right,

Because that's got a kind of element of doing about it.

It's experiencing.

Experiencing.

In fact,

Language becomes extremely tricky at this point,

Because language is based in a subject,

Object,

Verb kind of way,

Right?

So we've got a me,

And then we've got a doing,

And we've got a that.

So that's the way that language is built.

It's built to encourage us to feel like there's a me,

And there's a doing,

And there's a something that we're doing.

But in fact,

If we take out the doing,

And we take out the me,

Then there's no language.

So this becomes very,

Very difficult to talk about it.

But we can experience it,

Right?

My challenge is to use language here to describe something which is really languageless.

But if we continue to do this Shikantaza practice over time,

Then the idea of me sitting,

Me doing nothing,

Me meditating,

Actually begins to just dissolve by itself.

And this me disappears,

Dissipates.

And what remains is our true nature,

The nature that is beneath or behind the sense of me doing something.

And then the moment,

If you like,

Becomes complete.

Like there's no lacking,

There's no needing to go anywhere,

Do anything.

It's just beauty.

It's just perfection,

If you like,

Right here.

So this is the Soto practice of Shikantaza.

Now,

We can contrast that with the more Rinzai teaching that comes from Zen Master Bankei.

Now,

Zen Master Rinzai was a Chinese master.

He was alive a long,

Long time ago in early medieval China.

And he ended up with his name being attached to this lineage or branch of Zen,

Just like Soto comes from the teachers Tozan and Sozan.

Then we have the other branch,

Rinzai branch comes from the teacher Rinzai.

And over the years,

These lineages have kind of like flowed across China into Japan and back to the West here in Europe and the US and wherever else you're listening from.

And along the way,

They kind of pick up,

You know,

Kind of flows around a bit,

Right?

So they pick up different ways in which the teaching has been expressed and different techniques which are found to be helpful,

Right?

So Zen Master Bankei,

He was alive in the 17th century in Japan,

So much,

Much more recent.

And he actually became probably the most popular Zen Master that's ever been.

He used to hold retreats with thousands of people coming.

And he was very,

Very warmly received and very well respected teacher in Japan at the time.

And he taught the practice of what he called Fusho.

Fusho,

Fu means not or un,

You could say,

And sho means born.

So we translate it as the unborn.

So over the centuries,

Since Dogen and the Soto branch has found its its sort of rooting within the Dogen's teaching,

The practice of Shikantaza become very form-based,

You could say,

Like,

It's very important that we have the right sitting posture.

Posture is very,

Very important.

How we sit,

Basically,

How we take our place within this.

And then,

Particularly,

Emphasising the long hours of sitting.

So just as one example,

In the Soto school,

They typically have periods of meditation 40 minutes long,

Whereas in the Rinzai school,

They have 25 minutes long.

So the kind of periods are extended,

Things happen more gradually,

More slowly and more sort of smoothly,

You could say.

Maybe Rinzai school emphasises kind of short,

Shorter,

Sharper,

A bit more like dynamic ways of working.

Bankai did not emphasise long hours of sitting.

He didn't emphasise a particular posture to do your practice in.

He just said,

Rest in the unborn.

That's all you need to do,

Just rest in the unborn.

So what is this unborn then?

The unborn is that which was never created and can never be destroyed.

It's like the awareness from which things arise.

So my awareness of looking at the camera,

Your awareness of looking at the screen,

Your awareness of sound,

It's the background from which these things arise.

Now,

It's not awareness itself,

Because awareness can also be,

We can have an awareness of our awareness.

And our awareness also shifts in its way of being,

It kind of like has a coming and going.

But there's something even deeper than that.

He used the analogy of a mirror.

So a mirror is like the unborn,

And then our experience comes in front of the mirror and is reflected.

So if we rest in the unborn,

We're resting in this mirror-like awareness,

Where whatever comes in front,

It's just being seen and acknowledged.

We don't try to edit it.

So like a mirror,

A mirror doesn't decide that this is beautiful,

This is ugly,

I'm gonna,

I'm gonna reflect that,

I'm not gonna reflect that because it's too ugly.

And a mirror doesn't decide I'm gonna edit that one or distort that one,

Because I just don't think that it's quite right.

The mirror just reflects,

Right,

It just simply reflects whatever it comes in front.

So that is our unborn awareness.

So as I say,

It's not really exactly the same as awareness,

Because awareness itself has a coming and going in it.

So it's kind of like,

Yeah,

Again,

We come up against the limitations of language.

It's like the clear,

Undisturbed openness,

Which lies underneath all things.

It's the flow of the universe.

And also,

It's none of those things.

As soon as we get caught up in thinking,

Oh,

It's that or it's that,

Then we've,

We've got caught.

So he says,

What I call the unborn is the Buddha mind.

This Buddha mind is unborn with a marvellous virtue of illumination and wisdom.

In the unborn,

All things fall right into place and are in perfect harmony.

Now,

Bankei didn't make up this term,

The unborn.

In fact,

The unborn is,

You can,

That term,

Fushō,

Appears in lots of teachings dating right back to the Buddha.

So the Buddha refers to the unborn and the undying,

This kind of like Buddha nature,

What underlies all things.

And also,

Fushō appears as two characters in the Heart Sutra,

Which we chant in our Zen practices,

Unborn,

Not born,

Uncreated,

That kind of thing.

Even the universe in the physics world has a beginning and potentially has an end,

Although we don't really quite understand that yet.

So it's not the universe even.

There's something deeper or beyond or something like that.

Bankei quite famously used the example of background sounds when he was trying to understand or trying to teach the unborn.

He says,

When I speak,

You can hear the chirping of birds or the sound of a bell,

And you don't try to hear them.

They're just simply heard.

So the unborn mind simply reflects them without effort.

So right now,

As we're,

As I'm speaking,

Or later when we'll be doing our meditation practice,

If you hear the sound of a bird outside,

We don't need to jump to it and label it and work out what bird it is.

We we're aware of it in the background.

Our awareness acknowledges its presence.

So that's the arising of experience that comes from this openness,

This unborn nature,

And then it sort of recedes back to it again.

So it's also a trap to think that things arise from something.

Like it's not the ocean where a wave comes and disappears back because the ocean itself is a thing.

Again,

It's a close analogy,

But not quite.

The unborn isn't a thing.

So in that sense,

We can't fix it into anything.

It's just the flow.

It's the flow.

It's the non-dual oneness,

The Buddha nature of all things.

So then Banke says very simply,

Sit or go about your day,

And when a thought arises like I'm hungry or I'm bored,

Don't try to stop it,

But don't follow it either.

Let it arise and disappear into the unborn.

Just rest in the unborn,

In your Buddha nature,

In your ease,

If you like.

Okay,

So we have these two approaches then,

Shikantaza and the unborn.

Shikantaza says sit in stillness,

Sit particularly in stillness and allow everything to just arise.

Banke says,

Well,

Actually,

There's nothing to do here.

You're already free.

Just don't interfere.

That's basically what he's saying.

Just rest into this.

And one can feel a little bit like a long,

Patient kind of unfolding,

And the other one can feel like a very immediate pointing,

Like the unborn is very immediate.

But the problem is we tend to get a bit stuck in different ways with these two approaches,

Right?

So with Shikantaza,

It's very,

Very difficult to do nothing.

The mind very quickly starts to make up things to do.

So we end up trying too hard.

With the unborn,

It seems very simple.

So then it feels like there's nothing to it.

What's there even to do?

There's not even a teaching here,

Is it?

So we think we've found it before we've really explored it.

Now the thing is that they're both really pointing at the same thing.

In fact,

All of them only points in one direction,

Or maybe from different angles,

But it's just pointing at the same thing.

It's pointing at being our true nature.

If we sit in Shikantaza,

Just allowing,

Experiencing,

After a while the effort falls away and it becomes effortless being.

We're no longer someone trying to sit.

It's not even just sitting,

It's just this.

And then in Bankei's approach,

Resting in the unborn,

We stop interfering.

We're allowing ourselves to be just as we are.

Thoughts come and go.

We don't follow them,

But we're also not shutting them out.

Then we become into this natural flow.

We become our true nature.

And of course,

Is it Shikantaza?

Are we in the unborn?

The language disappears,

The label disappears,

And we're just flowing.

Now in the Rinzai Zen approach,

There is also another method of practice which has become quite important,

And that is a koan practice.

So we've spoken a lot before about koans,

What they're for,

And different kinds of koans.

And koans have a much more,

I'm over here,

I want to get over there,

Kind of direction to them.

And there's also effort.

We have to apply ourselves.

We have to work on kind of entering this koan.

So we have these two sort of directions,

If you like.

There's the,

I'm over here,

I'm here,

And I want to go over there.

Like enlightenment's over there.

And a koan shows us the path.

So we practice with the koan,

And there's a sense of moving forwards on the path.

And the unborn,

Or the Shikantaza,

Is just about more and more arriving here.

So how do these two fit together?

Actually,

When we practice with our koans,

We realise that it's not really,

I'm over here,

And I'm going over there.

The koan shows us,

I'm here,

How to get more here.

So we come back to that phrase we said at the beginning,

An ordinary person tries to gain something every day,

Tries to go somewhere,

Achieve something,

Realise something.

Tries to get something which is out there and bring it here.

Whereas a person of the way tries to let something go every day,

Tries to become more here,

More now.

So whether we're doing koans,

Or whether we're doing the Fusho Unborn,

Or the Shikantaza,

The whole direction of it is arriving more and more here.

Taking our place in this moment,

In this body,

In this place,

As our true self.

There's actually nowhere to go.

It's just uncovering,

Allowing.

And I find that very,

Very refreshing,

That we have everything we need,

Of course,

Right here.

There's nothing else we need.

We just need to let go of what kind of restricts us.

So I've got a question here,

Lisa,

Thanks.

Yeah,

So is resting in the unborn similar to Kensho?

Yeah,

So good question,

Isn't it?

Kensho literally means to see your true nature.

And often we call it,

In terms of waking up,

The point at which we wake up.

And you could say it's more like a realisation,

Okay.

Now enlightenment has this connotation that out there is enlightenment and over here is silly old me,

Right.

And I'm trying to get enlightened.

So then I'm reaching out and trying to find something else.

But actually it's not really the way it goes.

Actually,

The awakening or the realisation as a word is much more helpful.

So awakening,

It's like we're asleep,

And we wake up.

Or realisation,

It's like we realise what's here already.

So Kensho can arise,

Whichever of these practices we're doing,

Whether we're doing Shikantaza,

Or the unborn,

Or the Koan practice.

It's like we do the practice attempt to do nothing,

I should say.

And then over time,

This sense of me attempting to do something or nothing,

Or whatever it is might be,

Kind of like fades or dissolves until this me falls away.

And then there's the other falls away.

And that point,

There can be a kind of realisation.

Suddenly we realise,

Oh,

I am the whole universe flowing right here.

I realise there is no separation between me and all other things.

I am a flow,

Not a thing.

And that I suppose you could say is Kensho.

So it happens within,

And it's like the camera lens shifts.

Nothing actually changes,

Just our perspective changes,

Our view of things change.

So it's kind of realisation,

In a sense.

So yeah,

All these practices can help us to move towards Kensho.

And Kensho can happen multiple times.

We think we've got it,

And then a year later,

Or a few months later,

Ah,

So that's what it is,

And we think we've got it again,

Or more.

And then gradually our understanding of it deepens and broadens and,

You know,

Integrates,

I suppose.

So what do they say?

There's a phrase in Japanese,

A little daikon is still a daikon.

Now,

Daikon is a piece of pickle that Japanese people eat with lots of meals.

So the idea is like a little piece of enlightenment or realisation is still a realisation,

You know,

And it's still important.

Because all that happens then is we just get deeper and broader in that realisation.

So I'm going to invite us all to do a little bit of practice in this Shikantaza,

Or unborn,

In just this moment.

But before we do,

If there's any other questions or comments or anything that's been resonating with you,

Please go ahead and just write them down in the chat or the comments.

Or if you're watching this later on,

Get in touch,

You know,

If there's any topics you want to explore or cover or look at in future talks,

Just let me know.

Otherwise,

We can prepare ourselves for a bit of sitting meditation,

Zazen,

So sitting zen meditation.

So kind of coming into a comfortable,

Upright,

Relaxed posture.

Allowing your eyes to lower.

Feel free to let them close or keep them open as you wish.

Turning your attention inside your body.

Noticing how you are.

So we're going to consciously direct our attention on a couple of things to let things stabilise and relax.

And then we'll let go of our focus.

Okay,

So noticing the feeling of weight in your body connecting with the cushion,

The floor,

The chair,

Whatever you're sitting on,

The feeling of weight.

Noticing any discomfort in your body,

Anything that's feeling a bit uncomfortable,

Maybe even painful,

Aching,

Anything you can just notice and allow.

Not good,

Not bad,

Not trying to change anything,

Just noticing.

Noticing your breath.

Firstly,

Just noticing that you are breathing.

And then noticing the feeling of breathing and where you can feel the movement of your breath.

Noticing whether you feel busy or calm inside.

It might be on the level of thought,

Or it might be fidgety sensations,

Buzzing or vibrating in your body.

Again,

No good,

No bad.

This is not about the right way or the wrong way,

Just noticing.

And now,

Let's see if we can just let go of this focus.

It's almost like you open your hands.

Maybe even it helps to physically just open your hands.

Let your attention become really broad,

Like you're opening a space.

It's a space in which anything at all can arise and be seen.

And in that space,

You may notice your body weight,

Discomforts,

The feeling of the breath,

And any manner of sensations and experiences.

But we're not consciously directing our awareness to any of these things.

We're just open to this moment.

There's nowhere to go.

There's absolutely no goal here.

We're not trying to get anywhere.

And this can be really hard for your brain to wrap itself around.

There is nothing to achieve.

Master Bankei,

He just said,

Rest back in the unborn.

Doing your very best not to edit anything.

If you feel like you need the toilet,

Allowing that sensation to be there.

If you have a memory of when you were a child,

Allowing that sensation,

That thought to arise.

If you have an itch on your ear,

Noticing that sensation.

If you feel terribly bored,

Restless,

Acknowledging that it's all allowed.

And if we get caught up in one of these things that arise,

We start thinking about other things,

Following a line of thought.

Just as soon as you notice that you've got distracted.

In fact,

The act of noticing brings us back into this openness.

There's nothing we need to do.

Openness.

Simply resting back in the unborn.

As we come to the end of our practice time together,

Maybe we could begin swaying the body from side to side.

Take a deeper breath,

If you like.

When you feel ready,

Allowing your eyes to lift.

We offer the merit of our practice today to all beings.

May all beings be safe.

May they be well.

May they be content and happy.

May they find realisation.

Thank you so much for joining today.