Some thoughts on zazen

 Zazen is sitting down in order to not do harm. That's the first thing. You could say it's to calm down or just be or to concentrate or let go of thoughts and emotions, but really, I think, the first thing that happens when I sit on a cushion is no harm. No harm can be done on that cushion. Zazen is a training in, first, doing no harm. It's actually a small miracle: sitting down and not doing anything means no harm can be done in that space. There's a lot more that is going on in zazen, but the very first thing is doing no harm. In the space of doing no harm, all kinds of other things can open up: calmness, understanding one's mind, just being, a sense of expansiveness, a sense of settling into reality as-it-is, without any overlay of mind, compassion for the existence that you're part of. But for any of that to be there, to be witnessed or seen into, first there is the space of doing no harm. The space of doing no harm is like drinking water from a cool spring - that cool water reminds you of something, and in the same way, the space of doing no harm reminds you of itself. It's not yours. It's just a thing that is there. I think harm is done every day in little ways. Not necessarily the big ways we see on TV, the big forms of violence and oppression that are omnipresent. But just: a cutting glance, a curt word, an easy meanness. We don't talk about them, they don't make the news or the internet, but these are all small forms of harm. We maybe say sorry after that or maybe we don't, but what zazen does is give a space where no harm can occur, and then allows that space to bloom, to spread, to be felt more deeply - then one can see one's actions, ones past moments of harm, much more easily, and can much more easily see how to treat others in the future, the next moment. A course gets charted without any volition because when you sit in the space of no harm, you want to stay in that space, and you want to make it spread, and you want to follow it. This is what the Buddhist's call "sowing good seeds." Sowing good seeds just means creating a space in your body and mind of no harm, a gentle, calm space that radiates outward and becomes a little path you want to follow.