Zen 247 by Philip T. Sudo

Author:Philip T. Sudo [Sudo, Philip T.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2008-10-16T00:00:00+00:00

ZEN DRY CLEANING

We tend to make distinctions in life between activities that are “important” and those that are not. Completing a major project on deadline is important; dropping off the dry cleaning is not. When we look back on the last year, we don’t remember all the errands we ran, because what are we doing in running errands? Nothing in particular.

Therein lies zen.

The zen master Rinzai spoke glowingly of bu ji: Doing nothing. Literally, bu ji means “void of action” or “absence of action.” Rinzai was not praising the merits of idleness. He was saying we should simply allow nature to take its course through us.

When a leaf falls from a tree, when a river flows to the sea, when a bee flits from flower to flower, it happens without “action” or “doing.” Nature is simply being. In the same way, human beings should simply be, Rinzai says.

Intellectually, we may think bu ji is impossible to attain. On the contrary, it’s completely natural to us. We don’t always recognize bu ji because, by definition, when nature expresses itself through us, we’re not conscious of “doing” anything. When we walk, we don’t think about all the parts of our body working together to walk; we just walk. That is bu ji: Naturalness.

There are countless things we do during a day that seemingly have no significance, that we won’t remember a year later or even a week later. Yet they’re all part of living. Every mundane detail, quickly forgotten, marks our time on this earth. We’re doing nothing.

Just living.

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