Zazen Without an Intentional Aim

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Thank you. Shall we recite Kaikyoge to start the talk?

[recitation, 00:01:10–00:01:53]

One reason that we practise zazen facing the wall is to develop eyes in the back of our heads. Once we develop eyes in the back of our heads, we can notice, after we go through a door, that it's left open.

More seriously, especially in Western culture, we concentrate on what is in front of us, what we see and what we're thinking. This makes us excellent at projecting into the future, projecting into the space in front of us. And because of this cultural habit, we move forward. If we have an intention, we move forward towards the intention. If we have something to do, we move towards the thing to do. If the telephone rings, we move towards the telephone. And we completely forget about where we are, or the place we have just left behind us. So we rush forward into the future, leaving lots of things trailing behind.

One effective practice is that we can train ourselves to be where we are, and to look out of the back of our heads and the sides of our heads. Or, generally speaking, just to be aware. To be aware means we have to give up the eagerness for what we want to do. So we have to give up our eagerness, or control our eagerness, just a little. So try it. Does that make sense?

Participant: I mean, would it be sensible to be... I mean, it's okay to be eager, but to be eager all the time, you know, each moment, so that you continue to have this sort of positive outlook, but you're still in the moment, still being eager. Rather than eager to get to the end, can you still be eager while you're actually getting there, and you're still...

Mike: Well, when I say eagerness, I mean our tendency to want to be somewhere we're thinking about. But of course, there is another kind of eagerness, or vitality, which we can have at every moment. Does anybody have any questions or comments, generally about zazen, or around the subject I'm talking about?

Participant: You said this morning that there were different kinds of factions of Buddhism.

Mike: Yes.

Participant: Are there different factions of zazen as well, which have kind of broken away, or...

Mike: Yes, there are. For a long time, there has been a tradition of believing that if we practise zazen, we can make ourselves into a better person, living in a special state. And there were Japanese teachers in the Rinzai school, but not including Rinzai himself, who taught that if you practise zazen, you can get something very special, which they call enlightenment. So this creates in the person who is practising zazen a kind of hope or eagerness to get something better, to become special, to attain some special state. But according to the teachings of Dogen, the 13th-century monk who founded the teachings which I follow, zazen is giving up all those kinds of hopes and all those kinds of beliefs, and all hope to become a better person.

When we give up all hope to become a better person, or a special person in a special state, then we become a normal human being who is awake to the world. In Buddhism, that's called Buddha. So that's quite a different view, I think.

And then there are many other different forms of meditation, where people consciously have something in their mind, or consciously meditate on some kind of subject or some kind of image. But that kind of practice is completely different to zazen.

Robert: I have a question about zazen. I have such a feeling that I'm thinking too much during zazen, and sometimes I even feel that I'm thinking more than in daily life, simply one thought after another. I probably ask this question, but maybe you could say something about this.

Mike: When we sit in zazen, we notice how we are. If, for instance, we spend a lot of time thinking as part of our work, or just as part of our character, then when we practise zazen, we notice our thinking. But our thinking has no target.

So when we're thinking as part of our work, for instance, my work is computer work, so I spend a lot of time thinking and then typing. But I don't notice the thinking separately from the typing. It's my work; I'm just working. When I practise zazen, I'm not typing; only the thinking is left. So sometimes we notice that we're thinking so much. So it's a result of our life. Our zazen is the result of the way we live. And even when we practise zazen and notice we're thinking a lot, even though that's the case...

If we sit in the balanced posture, and if we stop ourselves every time we notice that we're thinking, then we become a little more settled. So we can't expect miracles. If we have a very, very busy, stressful couple of weeks and then practise zazen, we feel the whole stress coming out. If we have a nice holiday for a couple of days and feel rested and happy, then our zazen will usually be more peaceful. So zazen is not a way to get rid of all the things we did in our life. The way we live shows in our zazen, without fail.

So the effect of zazen is very subtle and slow. Even if we have very thinking-based work, if we practise zazen every day, we can just let ourselves settle a bit. Even if it's only a little bit, it's a very great help.

So I sometimes use the simile of a glass of water which has some ash in it. We put our finger in the water and stir the water around, and the water is cloudy. If we take our finger out of the water and stop stirring, the water, the cloudiness, settles. The ash settles to the bottom. So this is like our consciousness. We're always stirring our consciousness. And even in zazen, we take our finger out, and then... So we have to train ourselves: take your finger out. Again and again and again and again and again. So this training is very valuable.

Participant: I would like to ask maybe a deep question. Do you think maybe it's beneficial if during zazen there is a lot of thought? Most of the time the thoughts are not very useful, or they're stupid and so on. But sometimes it may happen that there is a thought which in ordinary, hurried life wouldn't come to you, because you are too busy thinking of something else. And I wonder what you do if, for example, you have this kind of thought, how you approach it. Do you analyse this thought, let's say after zazen, and say what this thought meant? Because I think some thoughts may be beneficial for the person, even if they come in zazen. So I think maybe it's not a good idea to follow them in zazen, because you should just let them go. But after zazen, maybe it can help, I don't know.

Mike: We often have thoughts in zazen, and we can't stop them unless we notice them. But usually we've already thought, and then we notice. We don't notice until after we're thinking, so then we can't stop it. Retrospectively, we can't stop it. So it's inevitable to think during zazen. But we don't intentionally think, and we don't intentionally keep thinking. So sometimes the thoughts which come up are strange. Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't. Sometimes we remember them afterwards; sometimes we forget completely. If we remember them afterwards, we can do whatever we like with those thoughts, quite freely. Only during zazen do we stop our train of thinking when we notice. And after zazen, we can do what we like.

Participant: Zazen and that highest pure state, shunyata, Buddha. Just a few words.

Roman: How does the state of shunyata, Buddha, relate to zazen?

Mike: The word shunyata in Sanskrit means emptiness. But I'm not sure of the connotation of emptiness when you put it into Czech. In English, emptiness suggests nothing at all. And so there has been lots of discussion about the word shunyata in Buddhist circles. But according to Dogen, and according to my teacher, the true meaning of shunyata is the very fine and nice balanced state which we experience in our lives, sometimes during zazen, when our busy mind settles: after we've been practising at the sesshin for a couple of days, for instance, or after you go for a long hike in the mountains and you sit to eat your lunch, and your mind is empty of all thinking, and you feel simply satisfied. So that is the emptiness of busyness in our consciousness, the absence of busyness in our consciousness. Does that make sense? So we all experience it, everybody, not only Buddhists. But it doesn't stay. It comes and it goes.

Participant: Mike, in the past I've heard you speak about certain sports, or associate them with practising zazen, and the similar state that perhaps you get in both. So why should we practise zazen and not just go and play sport?

Mike: Yes, I think zazen is the simplest sport. And even Dogen writes in his teachings that zazen is only one way to get the balanced state, and there are millions of other ways. However, if we practise a sport, we get a very nice balanced state of body and mind because of our effort. Most sports have some intentional aim, and that intentional aim sometimes, often, disturbs the sports person's nice state. But very excellent sports people train themselves to keep in a balanced state and to give up their intention to win.

At the highest level of competition, if you have a strong intention to win, you often make mistakes. So sport is an excellent way to get a balanced state, but it's very easy to lose it. So because zazen doesn't have any intentional aim, it's much more powerful, because we can attain the balanced state and there's no reason to get rid of it.

Participant: I was always told that one can learn from one's mistakes, and if one achieves a sort of perfect state in zazen, then theoretically one will never make a mistake.

Mike: Yes, that's true. Just for the one second when you have the perfect state, you never make any mistake. So it's true for one millisecond.

But often, for instance, if we come to the sesshin after practising zazen for some time and keeping away from the disturbances of everyday life, we go home and we feel, ah, very nice and happy and balanced and satisfied. And then sometimes, from our deep subconscious, we feel that we miss the disturbance. So we think, oh, I'll just have a couple of glasses of wine tonight. Or, hmm, I feel too peaceful, so I... And then we disturb ourselves a bit, and we feel better.

Participant: Yes, and actually we've been talking here about zazen being a means to some balanced state, and sport too being a means to it; whether the intention or purpose of zazen is to reach that balanced state at all.

Roman: We've been talking about zazen and sport as two different ways to achieve a balanced state.

Mike: Yes.

Roman: But is it true that there is this intention in zazen? Do we intentionally try to achieve a balanced state in zazen?

Mike: No.

Participant: No. I think the question is a bit different. I'm sorry, maybe I'm changing the topic.

Roman: Whether the purpose of zazen is a balanced state.

Mike: Yes, that's a good question.

Roman: Yes, it is.

Mike: But that purpose is in our mind. So before we practise zazen, we might have an intention: I'm going to sit to make myself balanced.

Roman: You know, my wife asks me: Why do you practise zazen?

Mike: This I can reply to. It's a question of the difference between thinking and doing. In our mind we say, I want to become more balanced, so I practise zazen; I'm going to practise zazen. This is the intention. We want to do it; we intend to do it. However, when we sit on the cushion and take the posture of zazen, we have to give up that hope, because that's the only way to make ourselves balanced. So we want to become more balanced, and then we sit down and give up that hope to become more balanced. This is very strange, but it's the same in sport. Somebody playing a competitive sport wants to win. For instance, in a judo competition, the person wants to win, wants to win. But when they get onto the mat, they have to give up that intention to win, to get the best chance of winning. So the best chance of being balanced is to stop wanting to be balanced.

Participant: That seems to tie in with what you're saying this morning about not having a hierarchy of any sort.

Mike: Yes. Of course, in our minds we have lots of intentions all the time. But in Buddhism, our intention is to have no intention, or our aim is no aim.

Participant: So when you go out in the mountains...

Roman: When you go hiking in the mountains, you achieve this balanced state. But do you think that when you practise zazen, the state you achieve has more value? Because both in the mountains and when you practise zazen, there is nothing special you get. So does zazen have some deeper meaning?

Mike: No, but it's more powerful, because there's nothing to distract us. If we go for a walk in the mountains, sometimes we can actually spend the whole time talking to our companions about some situation which we left behind. So we are not walking in a simple state. There are lots of ways of walking. But if we practise zazen, the situation is more bare, more stark. And so in that way, it's more powerful. So that's why I say zazen is the simplest sport.

Participant: Is that right? Is it because the result is nothing rather than something? The result is nothing, it's the emptiness.

Mike: No, just because it's simple. Simple and severe.

Participant: You said earlier, Mike, that when you notice a thought, we should stop the thought.

Roman: Yes.

Participant: And I wonder how the line from Fukan-zazengi translates so far, about the essential skill of Buddhas, which is neither thinking nor not thinking. Non-thinking, is that right?

Mike: Yeah, this is a very interesting subject, and it's difficult to understand if we think about it. And it's very closely connected with the development of Western civilisation. We know the state which we call thinking. We know the state which is without thinking, where there is no thought. But Dogen writes about a state which is different from both of those. And if we think about that problem, we can't become clear about it. The reason is that for thousands of years in Western civilisation, we have learned to separate thinking from doing. So we are taught, and our culture teaches us, that we think about something, then we do something. And we're not very familiar with the situation of thinking doing.

For instance, in human society, we believe that we think our way through our life. We plan and make a strategy, and then we act. And that belief has created our excellent civilisation. So, as a result of that, we've come to believe, or we've come to see, animals or nature, for instance, as not thinking. So, for instance, if you see a spider in the corner of your window making a web, and the spider is moving along, making the web, we don't usually imagine the spider is thinking about it: Okay, now I'll go up here and then put one down to there.

So we know the spider doesn't have the same way of being that human beings have. So the spider is somehow doing wonderful things, but he's not thinking like we think. This is the result of our belief in the separation of thinking and doing. We've forgotten that actions themselves contain intelligence. So every action of the spider has thinking inside the action, not separate from the action. We are so used to believing that thinking is separate from acting that we can't imagine something which is acting and thinking at the same time. Although we do it all the time, we don't believe it.

So what the spider is doing is different from thinking. It's not that the spider's not thinking, and it's not that the spider's thinking. He's doing thinking. Or he's whole. He's not separate. But human beings have been separating thinking and doing, or mind and body, for thousands of years. So we forgot that there can be action which is intelligent without separate thinking. But it's a big subject, because it's at the heart of one weakness in our Western culture, but also its greatest strength. That was a bit heavy, wasn't it?

Participant: Do you think that it's also a weakness for people in Asia, because Dogen wrote about this subject, so...

Mike: Yes, not only in Western culture, but especially in Western culture. Because in addition, we had Plato and Aristotle, and Plato said there is a perfect world of ideas and this imperfect world, which is a kind of shadow. So there's the perfect ideal and the imperfect physical world. And then Christianity came with the belief in a perfect heaven and an imperfect world. So that division was made much stronger in the West than in Asia.

Next time. I have to follow the bell. Thank you very much.

Participant: Shall we recite?

Mike: Yes. Let's recite Fueko. So, the first three lines are slow... sorry, the first four lines are slow. I can't read. And the last three lines... sorry.

[recitation, 00:56:17–00:57:18]