Do Nothing

In the late 80’s, I attended one of the first conferences featuring women Zen teachers. It was at the Providence Zen Center and I don’t remember much about it except one particular moment. The late Zen teacher Maurine Stuart, one of the first western women to receive Zen teaching transmission, was speaking. She was going on and on in front of a group of about sixty or seventy of us about the great 9^th century Chinese Zen Master Linji (Rinzai in Japanese). I was moderately interested but was also thinking about my dinner plans when she paused.  She looked directly at me, one of the few men in the audience, and said, with a great smile on her face: ‘The great Zen Master Rinzai said: ‘Doooooooooooo…..nothing.’  She looked away and went on talking.

I have not forgotten.

For these past thirty some years, I have tried to understand what this wondrous injunction might mean. From the everyday perspective, it is clearly nonsense. We have to do things. We have obligations and necessities. We have wants and needs. We must constantly choose one thing over another. Do I have a cup of coffee now or do I wait till after meditation? Do I stay inside to begin to clear off the piles of papers teetering on my desk or do I go outside and plant the seedlings longing for a home in the garden?

This doing nothing found its way into Zen Buddhist teachings through China’s rich and subtle Taoist tradition. Lao Tze, the Taoist teacher who dates back to 6^th century BC, wrote of the wondrous possibilities of wei wu wei – doing not doing. The emphasis here, as it is with Linji, is in the active engagement required by this form of ‘not-doing’.

How do I actively ‘Dooooo…nothing?’ Is it possible, even when doing something to do nothing? My experience has taught me that it is.

Doing nothing is an invitation to abandon our great and complex plans and give ourselves to the activity of the moment. Doing nothing is an invitation to the intimacy of everyday life. Not transcendence or going beyond, but rather fully entering and participating with what is already here.

Usually, in our activity, we fix our focus on the outcomes we want. ‘I’ll do this so that will happen.’ This is important and useful thinking that allows us to pay our bills and plant our gardens. We might say it is necessary but not sufficient. A life that is filled with plans and obligations and effort is exhausting and ultimately disappointing.

But what if we did whatever we were doing without being so focused on what will happen next? What if we appreciated the activity of the moment without regard to the outcome? Of course, sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail. Sometimes we are praised and sometimes we are blamed. What if that’s not a problem?

The active engagement is partly to begin to stop or limit the habit pattern of the mind’s leaping ahead. The default position that we have practiced all our lives is to be thinking ahead. Without clear intention, the horse of the mind usually gallops off into the future and drags us along with it.

The luxury of doing nothing is available to us all. Fingers dart and poke across the keyboard without thought. The light shines on the wet porch floor from last night’s rain. The trees, dressed now in their full summer leaves, watch as the uncut Temple lawn blooms with buttercups.

Personal Practice – Make it your job today to do nothing at some point. Don’t overdo it your first day. Start small. Pick a small task and give yourself to it. Make your bed, clean your desk, mow your lawn. Appreciate that there will come a time when you will not be able to do this simple activity. Lose yourself in the particularness of the doing.

Or take ten minutes to sit and stare out a window. Or walk through the garden without pulling one weed. Practice receiving what is already here.