No Need to Do Zazen, Therefore Must Do Zazen | Tricycle last several paragraphs
Suzuki Roshi always emphasized no-gain zazen. Where gaining appears—not out there with someone else, but for us—where there is a belief of lack, please be attentive to that and practice skillfully with that; so gaining and lack doesn’t blind you, like the merit Emperor Wu was carrying around burdened and blinded him. Test it.
You have to do the right tests. If my car didn’t start, the battery sputtered, and I said, “Okay, I’m going to test it,” and then I took an air gauge to the tires, you’d say, “What’s the matter with you? That is not the problem.” We have to clarify: “How do you test the car?” Similarly, we have to clarify how to test.
The Buddha is saying, “You are this.” He doesn’t say, “I have something extra that I am going to give you.” Trust in yourself, trust in who you are. Sit down, breathe, be listening right now, hearing right now. Be intimate. But you have to do it for yourself. If you try to figure it out, that will not do. It is like a car needing a new battery and we keep it on the seat. It won’t start the car. You have to connect it to the electrical system. Then the electrical charge flows. You have to connect it into the correct system. Thinking about it and trying to fit it into our thought pattern isn’t going to do it. Nothing wrong with speaking and thinking, but it only goes so far. Similarly, nothing wrong with keeping things on the seat next to you; just use it when it is needed. So the Buddha says, don’t believe it because you heard the words, or have memorized it; test it. Do the correct, appropriate, skillful testing. Do the zazen of no-need-to-do-zazen. Then you will be the zazen of must-do-zazen; the practice life of no-need-to-practice, must-practice. You will be the wisdom and perfection of Buddha that you are, manifesting compassion as your life. It is not something else.
We need to be clear on what we are doing. Then the zazen that we do is the zazen of no-need-to-do-zazen, the zazen of practice that is in realization from the very beginning. One moment zazen, one moment Buddha. You are the one-minute Buddha, the thirty-minute Buddha, the all-day Buddha. You have always been this, from the beginning. Since you are such a person, not someone else, be such a person. Here is Bodhidharma’s vast emptiness, no holiness.
Elihu Genmyo Smith is a dharma heir of Charlotte Joko Beck and a cofounder of the Ordinary Mind Zen School. He currently lives in Champaign, Illinois, where he is resident teacher of the Prairie Zen Center. He is the author of Ordinary Life, Wondrous Life. This dharma talk was previously published on SweepingZen.com.
