Ed Gabrielsen

Limiting Your Activity

In Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki writes:

            You may think that if there is no purpose or no goal in our practice, we will not know what to do. But there is a way. The way to practice without having any goal is to limit your activity, or to be concentrated on what you are doing in this moment. Instead of having some particular object in mind, you should limit your activity. When your mind is wandering about elsewhere you have no chance to express yourself. But if you limit your activity to what you can do just now, in this moment, then you can express fully your true nature, which is the universal Buddha nature. This is our way.

            When we practice zazen we limit our activity to the smallest extent. Just keeping the right posture and being concentrated on sitting is how we express the universal nature. Then we become Buddha, and we express Buddha nature. So instead of having some object of worship, we just concentrate on the activity which we do in each moment. When you bow, you should just bow; when you sit, you should just sit; when you eat, you should just eat. If you do this, the universal nature is there. In Japanese we call it ichigyo-zammai, or “one-act samadhi.” Sammai (or samadhi) is “concentration.” Ichigyo is “one practice.” (page 75)

Some comments about silent practice:

            When we think about silent practice, the focus is on not talking. So this becomes a central point: don’t talk. But there is nothing magical about not talking. To refrain from talking is only one aspect of meditation practice. The point is to limit our activity. If we begin with this in mind, then keeping silence makes more sense.

            The goal is not to keep silent. The goal is to stabilize the mind. So we practice silence as one method among many. Actually, silence is not silence. When we stop talking, we become aware of the continual flow of sound. Sounds arise out of nothing. A car goes by on the street. A bird sings in the tree outside the window. There is the sound of the breath. And the sound of the heart beating. By not talking, we become aware of a new dimension of sound.

            There is nothing wrong with talking. Even our own speech comes out of nothing. It appears, like the wind in the trees. It is a sound, too. But sometimes there is too much. So we limit our activity. It is the same thing in walking meditation. We focus on just taking this one step. This one step becomes our entire world. The universe expressed itself in taking one step. It is just this.

            So there is nothing special about not talking. When we talk, we talk. And when we keep silent, then we just do that. This way, keeping silent is not a big deal. It’s a part of limiting our activity so we don’t try to do everything at once. As Suzuki Roshi says, “If you do this, the universal nature is there. Then, we become Buddha, and we express Buddha nature. We just concentrate on the activity which we do in each moment.”