Deeply understanding that zazen is good for nothing

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Deep study of Dogen Zenji’s teachings as a means of truly understanding the practice of regular intensive shikantaza is an antidote to the “Zen sickness” described in the “Zazenshin” fascicle of his Shobogenzo.  That danger can come with doing a lot of sitting with gaining mind—searching for a peak experience or some personal benefit.  Thus, dharma study is not an end in itself but assists our sitting practice.  As Sawaki Roshi often said, “All Buddhist scriptures are only footnotes to zazen.”

At Sanshin, studying the teachings of the Buddha, Dogen and our immediate ancestors is aimed at helping us to remove the obstacles that prevent us from seeing reality, particularly the reality of interconnectedness.  Without a deep understanding that we are one with all beings, we can’t carry out our bodhisattva vows and liberate beings from suffering.  However, we can’t wake up to that reality by means of our individual efforts; we become free from delusion by studying the teachings.  Those teachings include not only what our ancestors said and what their students wrote down and preserved, but reality itself.  Okumura Roshi says, “All beings in this universe—trees, leaves, and animals—teach us to awaken to the reality that is impermanent and egoless.  We are not sensitive enough to hear this teaching without effort, so we must actively listen and study.”

We undertake dharma study as a support for our zazen practice, and this was the genesis of Sanshin’s semi-annual genzo-e, a five-day retreat during which periods of zazen surrounded two daily lectures by Okumura Roshi on a fascicle of Dogen’s Shobogenzo.  “When I began genzo-e, I thought it is dangerous to sit so much as we do at Sanshin without understanding the deep meaning of zazen practice taught by Dogen Zenji.  For me, zazen is the main thing; studying Dogen Zenji’s teachings is a support for intensive zazen practice.  Intellectual understanding alone without sitting is not so meaningful.”

“Zazen is good for nothing” is Okumura Roshi’s translation of an expression (“beyond gain and beyond satori” [mushotoku-mushogo 無所得—無所悟]) used frequently by his dharma grandfather, Kodo Sawaki.  This simple phrase is a distillation of the essence of shikantaza, and all of our dharma study comes back to “zazen is good for nothing” in some way, yet another manifestation of non-reliance.  Dogen wrote about why there is nothing to be gained from sitting practice from a variety of perspectives, and it’s a theme that emerges regularly in his texts.  Intensive shikantaza is at the core of Sanshin’s style of practice, so it’s crucial that we delve deeply into what “just sitting” really is, and why it’s good for nothing.  After all, if there’s no point, why do it in the first place?

Our problems begin when we follow our natural human tendency to look for meaning in our activities.  We usually don’t do anything without knowing the point of that action.  We ask ourselves what the outcome is, why it’s important, how others are affected and whether or not there’s a benefit for us.  By extension, we look for the meaning of our lives.

Okumura Roshi had the same kinds of questions.  As a student, he wondered about societal expectations that everyone would do well in school, get good jobs, make money and buy impressive things.  He questioned the value of competition for wealth, power, fame and luxury.  Was this really a useful measure of what was good and what was not? He read widely in a variety of disciplines looking for answers, but “Whatever I read seemed to be one person’s idea from his limited experiences in a certain time and society.  I wanted to know the meaning of meaning.”
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Then he encountered Sawaki Roshi’s teachings.  “To stop looking for meaning and simply do good-for-nothing zazen seemed like liberation from that endless circle of a dog chasing its tail.”  [Homeless Kodo p. 232]

Not surprisingly, when we first come to shikantaza we’re looking for something.  There are varieties of meditative or contemplative practices designed to improve concentration, deepen one’s connection to God, lower blood pressure, enhance creativity, manage anger, cultivate spiritual powers, and many other things.  Within the Zen tradition there are practices aimed at moving one toward an experience of satori, or kensho.  We can be forgiven for assuming at first glance that shikantaza is also a means of changing ourselves in some way and that perhaps if we approach it as though we were training for a marathon or studying for a qualification we will get the reward we seek.

But shikantaza isn’t like that at all.  In other kinds of endeavors, we might say that keeping one’s eyes on the prize or never losing sight of the goal is a fine demonstration of commitment and strength.  Doing a lot of sitting with gaining mind—searching for a peak experience or some personal benefit--is actually a hindrance.  It keeps us tied to our conceptual thinking and feeds our ideas about what “our” zazen “should” be, even though zazen is not the practice of an individual but the activity of the universe as a whole.  We take the posture, breathe deeply, keep the eyes open and let go of thought.  These four things are all we do in zazen, so there’s no way to maintain focus on a goal.  We have to release our hold on prizes.

That’s not to say that we may not notice ourselves becoming calmer, more balanced, or more clear-sighted after we’ve been engaged in sitting practice for awhile.  However, zazen is not a method or a therapy designed simply to improve our daily functioning.  It won’t turn us into people we like better or give us qualities we don’t already have.  Okumura Roshi’s teacher Kosho Uchiyama harbored these kinds of hopes when he began practicing with Sawaki Roshi; he wanted to be more like his charismatic teacher, but he discovered that zazen wasn’t a means to that end, and that he was perfectly fine as he was.  “ A violet blooms as a violet and a rose blooms as a rose,” he concluded.  “For violets, there’s no need to desire to become roses.”  [Homeless Kodo p. 232]

Zazen is not a matter of trying to get to somewhere else, have some mystical experience or become people we like better.  It’s good for nothing, but we do it anyway.  We don’t need to look for meaning in it; we’re released from chasing a goal.  However, saying that zazen is good for nothing implies that it has no value.  Yet Okumura Roshi saw an important nuance in his translation of Sawaki Roshi’s phrase.  He explained, “Zazen is good—but not for something.  It is good in itself.”

It’s enough that our practice of zazen is wholesome.  We get to let go of our delusions and hindrances, and the attachments that give rise to our suffering.  We get to manifest the authentic self that is not pulled around by karma.  Sitting is something we can do freely and without obstruction, embodying the active life of the entire universe.  Zazen is good.  Period.  It doesn’t have to be good for anything.

We run into trouble when we try to separate this moment from the reward for this moment.  We like to time-travel back to better days or forward to events we anticipate—even though we can’t take action in the past or the future.  The only thing we have is this moment.  The zazen of this moment doesn’t point toward an outcome in some other time, so there can’t be a reward for sitting.  There is only the sitting that is happening now, because it’s always now.  This moment contains everything there is about zazen and there’s nowhere else to look.

Okumura Roshi has written, “Meaning isn’t an absolute, objective truth decided before we’re born.  Rather, when we begin to do something, like birds flying or fish swimming, help and meaning appear within us and in response to our activity, a meeting of ourselves and all beings.”  [Homeless Kodo, p. 232] When we’re sitting, we’re meeting the world with our zazen, and an action and a response arise together. This moment of zazen is complete in itself and isn’t a lead-up to something else, but we don’t understand that until we let go of our ideas about what sitting is about and what we can get from it.  Even the idea that zazen is good for nothing is extra.  There’s no room for it in a moment of zazen where our only activities are taking the posture, breathing deeply, keeping the eyes open and letting go of thought.  As soon as we wonder whether zazen is good for nothing, it isn’t good-for-nothing zazen.  We’re no longer focused on what’s happening here and now.  We’ve left here-and-now and gone off to a place we’ve invented, without realizing that we’re simply immersed in our own ideas.

And, of course, one of the key things about our assumption that zazen must be good for something is that there is a fixed and permanent self to receive the reward for that sitting.  I want zazen to be good for something for me.   That means I’m separate from sitting and from whatever I think arises from sitting.  But if this moment of zazen really does contain everything there is about sitting, then I and sitting and the total dynamic activity of the universe aren’t really separate -- and there’s nothing I can identify as “me” that gets the prize.  Even if we decide that we’re sitting for the good of the world, non-separation pokes holes in that idea too.  We can say “Zazen is good for nothing,” but we can also just stop at “Zazen is good.”  Good is good enough.  It doesn’t need anything else.
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​Zazen is good for nothing
Shohaku Okumura (2002)

I lived in Massachusetts for five years, from ‘75 to ’81. We started building a small zendo, but we had no financial support, so we had to work to get some income. The first job we found was blueberry picking. There were blueberry farms, and the blueberry fields were really beautiful, especially in the morning—each blueberry was covered with dew, and in the light of sunrise they were just like gems. 

It was really beautiful, but picking blueberries was terrible work!  The blueberry bushes were very low, and we would pick the berries with a scoop, like a dustpan but with metal tines on the bottom.  We would keep working this way all day long. I would get a pain in my back. Blueberries are beautiful but they would stick to my body all over and start to smell over the course of the day. At that time, I was 26 or 27 years old, so I was still young, healthy and strong, and I could do the work. 

Picking blueberries is not a job for actual workers, so almost all those doing it were high school students or the like. They would not do the picking very carefully. Their attention was elsewhere—to make money.  Within the blueberry field there are some areas where another kind of berry grows, and those berries are not edible. They’re called dogberries. The owner of the farm was always shouting at those young people when they were picking in the area where there were many dogberries: “Don’t pick those good-for-nothing berries.” 

That was the first time I heard this expression “good for nothing.” I really liked it!  I found that that was the way I aimed to be—good for nothing. I had become my teacher’s student or disciple because of an expression of Sawaki Roshi’s which I now translate as “Zazen is good for nothing.” 

Those good-for-nothing dogberries really are not good for anything. They’re beautiful, but they’re not edible, so they have no market value. Market value arises only among human beings, in the human community.  Dogberries don’t care whether they’re valuable or not. They’re beautiful and they grow just the same as blueberries, but it is only because we human beings can eat blueberries—because blueberries taste good—that they have a positive market value, while those other berries don’t. 

The same idea appeared in the History of Chuang Tsu, the Chinese Taoist philosopher. He talked about an example of a huge tree that was good for nothing, that could not be used for timber or anything, since it was too weak and crooked, and really unsuitable for anything. But because it was good for nothing, no human beings cut down the tree, so it was able to grow huge and provide shade for people. That tree was good for nothing, but that was good enough. I felt I wanted to live in that way, and that practicing zazen is like those dogberries. We don’t need to be good for something, but zazen is good, and that’s enough. Our zazen does not need to be good for something else. Zazen is good, period. That is, for me, the meaning of “zazen is good for nothing.” Zazen is good, but for nothing. That means zazen is good as it is, in itself.  I wanted to live in that way. I don’t think I need to be good for something else. If my life is good, that’s enough. I don’t need to chase after someone else’s ideas or even my  own. Just be who I am and just live. 

There’s another expression used by Katagiri Roshi and by Uchiyama Roshi, my teacher: just burning the fire of the life force. Nothing but burning the fire or flame of the life force. We don’t need to burn anything. Just be the burning itself, or as is expressed in the title of the book of Suzuki Roshi anecdotes called To Shine One Corner of the World—just be shining, even in a tiny corner. That’s enough. We don’t need to be like a sun; we can be just a small candle or even a small incense tip. That’s enough.

I think this is the really important point in our zazen—zazen is good for nothing. We just sit. We don’t need to find any market value. We don’t need to add any value onto our zazen. It’s very simple, very peaceful.

However, this is a problem, I think. I knew this and had faith in practice in this way. Yet I had a question. I was still young and had a lot of energy. I came from Japan to practice with American people, but while I was living in the mountains of New England, no one came. When we arrived in this country, Uchiyama Roshi encouraged us not to do advertising, not to gather a large number of people, not to collect money, but just to practice, just quietly practice for at least ten years. We did earnestly follow his encouragement. We didn’t make any advertisements. We didn’t do any fundraising activities. So, we had to take other odd jobs like picking blueberries, helping with potato harvesting or working at a tofu factory.  We had many different jobs. We just tried to keep sitting quietly, doing good-for-nothing zazen, but not many people came. Even though some Americans came, they didn’t stay long. So that was my question: why am I here, why do I have to practice in this way, in this country? I could be practicing in Japan.  I didn’t need to be doing blueberry picking. In Japan I could support my practice with begging and I didn’t need to speak English.  It was a very difficult matter. It was a problem for me. If I had come here to practice with American people, why was I practicing in this way? How could we share the dharma or this simple practice with more people? That was another koan for me.

So, it seems these two approaches are quite at odds with one another. If we cling to one side, we may lose the life of our practice. If we cling to the good-for-nothing side, then we may as well just practice by ourselves—we don’t need to practice with other people. But if we put too much emphasis on practicing with many people or making dharma accessible to many people, then we might forget about the good-for-nothing side of our practice. In order to attract people, we have to talk about why we are here, and what this practice is good for. This is very difficult and
actually I haven’t yet resolved this contradiction, and I don’t think I can in this lifetime. 

I have been working toward establishing another Zen practice center. We are going to build a zendo from scratch. I did the same thing 25 years ago in Massachusetts, so I think this must be my karma, to start something from scratch.  However, when we practice as bodhisattvas, we cannot neglect other people. How can we share this dharma, this simple practice, with other people? This is a very important point of our practice. If we are not careful, we may try to make a kind of commercial product out of this simple good-for-nothing practice. If we wanted to, we could make a commercial enterprise out of this practice. What I wanted to do this evening is just mention this point. There are many Buddhist sanghas or Soto Zen sanghas in this country, but somehow, we need to find the middle path, the middle way of sharing practice with other
people, yet still keeping our practice good for nothing. How can we do this? This is our koan, for each one of us, as well as for us as a sangha. 

So, this is the point: even in different traditions, cultures or societies we really need to transmit without misunderstanding or misinterpretation. We’re trying to find the middle path, and the middle path is always moving. The middle path is not one fixed path; it’s really moving, changing, and includes two seemingly opposite sides. The middle path is not one fixed point. If we cling to one fixed point, we make a mistake. Somehow, we have to be careful and alert each time, at each moment, in each situation. That’s why I think Dogen Zenji said our practice is endless. We cannot say that if we practice in this way we will be safe, we will be good forever.  We have to be careful at each moment—otherwise we’re going to miss the middle path or middle way.  This is a very essential point.  

I think I have been really lucky from the very beginning—even before I was interested in Zen or Buddhism or whatever spiritual practice—that the first thing I encountered was my teacher’s particular teaching. Through Uchiyama Roshi, the first Buddhist or Zen teaching for me was that “zazen is good for nothing.” So, I was quite fortunate—from the very beginning I knew that zazen was good for nothing, which means that, according to Dogen, we should not practice with some desire to attain a certain good or desirable result. I really understood this, even though I knew nothing about Zen or Buddhism, and even though I was just 17 years old. I really felt that was the way I wanted to live. Somehow, I wanted to be my teacher’s disciple. I then went to Komazawa University to study Buddhism and Dogen’s teaching. Through studying Buddha’s teaching and the history of Buddhism, Dogen’s teaching and the history of Soto Zen, as well as devoting myself to my teacher’s teaching, I really found this to be the way I wanted to live. 

I was ordained as a Soto Zen priest when I was 22, while I was a university student. So as a kind of idea, I was aware of this teaching from the very beginning. I know many people who have encountered different approaches, and for those people it’s very difficult to accept this good-for-nothing attitude. If it’s good for nothing, it’s really good for nothing, they think.  However, although I had practiced on the basis of this “good for nothing” teaching, I was still looking for something. 

One important turning point came for me when I had been practicing in Massachusetts for five years in this spirit and we had nothing but the land. We cut down the trees, cleared the land and took out the stumps, and I dug a well with a shovel. I dug down about ten feet and we found water. In my twenties, practicing  zazen and working that way was OK. My idea was that the more I used my body, the stronger it would become. But when I turned 30, I learned it didn’t work in that way. I had a problem with my body. I developed pains in my neck, shoulders, elbows, back, knees—everywhere. I had to leave. I went back to Japan. My body was half-broken. I couldn’t practice in that way any longer. 

We would hold a five-day sesshin every month, with twelve sesshins a year. During the five-day sesshin we would do nothing but sit one period of 50 minutes and then do ten minutes of kinhin—and we would just do this, 14 times a day for five days. We would do nothing but sitting. It was a really powerful practice. I thought I was practicing this zazen without desire or expectation. I thought I knew for certain that zazen was good for nothing. I had really devoted my entire life to that practice for five years at Antaiji in Kyoto, and then five years in Massachusetts, so I had practiced in that way for a total of ten years.   Throughout my twenties I had really focused on that practice.  When I was 31, I could no longer practice that way because of bodily pain. I went back to Japan and Uchiyama Roshi asked me to work on translation—because I couldn’t work with my body, I should work with my head. So, at that point I started working on translations (and have continued that work since). But before I could find some mode of practice, I was really in trouble, because I had nothing. My body was half-broken and I had no job, no practice, no sangha, nothing.  

I stayed at my brother’s apartment for several months because I had no money and no job. I did takuhatsu [begging] to cover my treatments by a kind of Japanese chiropractor. When we do takuhatsu, we hang our bag from our neck, and I had developed a pain in my neck. The chiropractor told me, “If you practice takuhatsu, your neck will never get better.” I had to make a choice to discontinue both takuhatsu and treatment, because I didn’t have money to afford a treatment, so I did. I really gave up everything. I did takuhatsu only for food, enough for one month. That meant a few times a month, and that was enough, perhaps the equivalent of 150 dollars in this country.

All of this was difficult, not only physically, but mentally—and I was rather puzzled. I thought to myself, why is this a problem, if zazen is good for nothing and I was not expecting anything? Now I was no longer able to do this; if practice was good for nothing, then why was I having a problem? That was a good question—and a very difficult one—for me to ask. This was questioning Dogen’s teaching, my teacher’s teaching, and my own personal belief. I found that even though I had been practicing in that way and thought I had been harboring no expectation, I was still really relying on that way of practice, that way of life. My view was that because I had been living and practicing in that way, my life was OK or my life was better than other people’s, or that this was a kind of lofty or noble way of practice or life, even among the Buddhist community. I felt it was the highest practice and that others were not so good.  I discovered a kind of illness based on my own faith that this was the highest practice and that because I was practicing in this way, I was living in the highest way, so my life was OK. That was a problem, but why was it that when I couldn’t practice that way any longer, I felt my life was no longer good for anything?

This was a really terrible recognition, and I had to face up to that problem because I had been living by myself. Before that, I had been living with the sangha. There I could explain it using some Buddhist philosophy, but now I had only myself. I could not deceive myself, so I had to be really honest. I was really alone and had no reason to practice, no reason to sit, and I couldn’t sit. I had so many reasons not to practice, but somehow one evening I found myself on a cushion. I didn’t want to and didn’t need to, but somehow in sitting I found a kind of very profound peace. I found this to be what Dogen Zenji said and what Sawaki Roshi said: “good for nothing.” Before that I thought I practiced with my personal understanding of that practice what is good for nothing and I thought that is highest practice but I found I didn’t need to say so.  I didn’t need to compare myself with other people. I didn’t need to practice in such a difficult or strict way. I didn’t need to sit a five-day sesshin every month. I could sit just for this moment, and that was enough. I didn’t need to claim this was the highest practice or discipline, or that I was a good Buddhist. I didn’t need to be a good Buddhist. This was really a kind of turning point in my practice when I found that I first understood what Dogen, what Sawaki Roshi, what Uchiyama Roshi had said: that zazen is good for nothing.  

[from a transcription of Just Sitting:  The Spiritual Legacy of Dogen Zenji. 30th anniversary talk at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, 2002.]