Okay, you guys get a chance to watch the Zen sausage made. Do you think that all those old classic Koans and legends got done on the first draft? Far from it, it took revision after revision to capture spontaneity!
(Really, that's why so many of the old Koans and stories come in so many versions.)
In any case, below is the final final latest version. I think I may have this one as good as I can get it without messing with it more, and mucking it up more. It is really hard to get the "double entendre" meanings and counter-intuitive logic of the whole thing without getting even more tangled.
As always, any input welcomed from our crew of wise folks before I submit to Tricycle tonight ... (apologies for those who are reading this again. Your insights are cherished) ...
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Good for Nothing Happens
I am often asked what happens when sitting
Shikantaza. And what happens if we stop? I answer that absolutely "
Nothing Happens" when we sit Zazen, nor should we ever even want anything to happen. However, this wonderful "
Nothing Happens" is not just something not happening! So, when we quit sitting, what happens is that "
Nothing Happens" stops happening, and unfortunately, that ain't nothing!
As the great 'Homeless' Kodo Sawaki taught,
Shikantaza Zazen is radically "
Good for Nothing." Zazen is "
Nothing Happens" and "
Good for Nothing" because there is nothing to attain from
Shikantaza, no score-card, never any goal to reach. There is no reason to sit. There never will be any point in sitting, no aimed for effect or needed purpose. Zazen will earn you no cash, not a farthing or one red cent. Zazen burns few calories, and does not make you sexy.
Shikantaza Zazen does nothing for you, and in fact, one should abandon any hope or wish for gain when sitting.
Shikantaza won't cure your cold or save you from the undertaker. In fact, sitting has no middle point and no finish line, even when a bell rings at start and finish.
For that reason, to the uninitiated, Zazen probably make no sense at all! Why do something that has no pay-off?
Well, the answer to that becomes crystal clear if we consider what
starts happening when "
Nothing Happens" stops happening:
If we stop sitting this good something that's "
Good for Nothing," then our goal-driven, treadmill running, often frustrated, regretful, worried and judgmental little "self" is ready to fill the void. With the time saved by not sitting, we will have more time to chase life's constantly moving goal posts, ever out of reach and rarely long satisfying even when our greatest desires are attained. We will keep on keeping score in life, obsessively tallying whether we are getting ahead or falling behind where we should be. When we stop sitting this Zazen (in which the reason for sitting is simply sitting in the total fulfillment of Just Sitting), we can instead spend our day wondering whether human life has any reason at all, and when we will finally feel fulfilled in ours.
Of course, sitting or no sitting, the hands of the clock will keep moving, the calendar pages turning. We will grow old, sick and die someday, whether sitting Zazen or not. If we stop, we will have more minutes available to keep looking in the mirror, vainly checking our waistline and the new wrinkles on our faces. When we give up on the equanimious, clear "
Nothing Happens" mind of Zazen, our skulls can instead regret what happened long ago, wonder about when our life will finally start happening, worry about what may happen tomorrow. Will the future be something bad, or something good on which we might miss out? There are so many places to go, jobs to do and people to see in our day, those freed up hours will free us to go, do and see them.
In other words, what happens, if "
Nothing Happens" stops happening, is the
suffering for which only "
Good for Nothing Happens" can be the cure!
We sit precisely because sitting Shikantaza is beyond all goals to attain, and any scores to keep. We untangle from thoughts, posture stable and breath deep, but the only goal of sitting is sitting, which is thus sitting as all goals attained! It is sitting right here, free of falling ahead or falling behind, and all worry about doing so. Each instant is its own moment of arrival, its goal achieved, its own return home, and every instant of life is known as a new finish line crossed right again. A moment of sitting is whole and complete, a timeless moment, beyond birth and death, sickness and health, any years to measure. This cushion encompasses all the world, leaving no other place to go. There is no "us" which is not "them" to rush to see, not any job left undone in the act of sitting.
"
Nothing Happening" Zazen is sitting in the radical equanimity of
everything just happening! It is the "
Good for Nothing" that leaps through our endless judgements of good vs. bad ... illuminating the Emptiness which ain't never nothing, the Wholeness of "no things" so good!
Yes, Good for Nothing Happens.
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Sat Today lah
Originally Posted by Tairin
aprapti
It is different again than the other two. Since you spent most of the article describing what happens when not Nothing Happens there’s a weird double negative going on through out which was kind of neat and keeps the reader (or at least this reader) on their toes. 
