This post about Zen is by a guy on the internet who tries his best to type think nonthinking. Please enjoy any amusing bits and gather what is helpful for your own journey.
Nailed it?
always hammer mind
only counting syllables
not autumn raindrops
Continuing our series on using questionable metaphors to talk about Zen-adjacent topics, today I bring you this hammer. You may wonder, why the hammer? I am not a DIY person, in case you are wondering.
Note in the following post I am going to be a bit overly direct about Zen practice. This is usually done much more subtly by more skillful people. But, I feel it can’t hurt too much to have some somewhat hyperbolic idea of Zen dangled in front of you. Just don’t attach to it, take from it exactly what is necessary for you to practice. If it helps you in any way, that is great.
Moreover, I want to talk about practicing zazen in our everyday lives. I intend this exactly for those people who have trouble with many thoughts distracting them all the time (I imagine that is a lot of people, but with my noisy head my perspective might be a bit biased). We often forget going from only just sitting that only just driving is also an opportunity to do zazen. In what follows, I may be seen as setting up our conventional, procedural mind up as our enemy. Please don’t read it like this. As I emphasize, this part of us has a rightful place as one of our “tools”, but we must learn how to put it down to be truly free.
a hammer swinging
nails nervously awaiting
passing hungry pause
I want to talk about our minds. Very often we talk about everyday mind in Zen, that it is nothing less than enlightenment expressed. You may also have heard about beginner’s mind, where it is better to approach life grounded in Emptiness (roughly, that is existing in the moment without being trapped by your presuppositions and plans).
By and large, we like thinking. We like to think about different things from each other, but we like thinking. For me, I spent time driving home in the car a bit grumpy because I hadn’t have any lunch, worrying about the next work challenge. It happens to everyone. We like thinking, even if we do not like thinking!
It would sound hyperbolic to say Zen is universal, but it does so by inviting all things to take refuge and rest together in this moment.
I want to suggest that your thinking is like a hammer. Beginning as a child, you have merrily been searching for nails to bang in with your hammer.
Some nails, it turns out, are in a row, compelling us to hit them in one by one, one after the other.
Hammering in a nail can be immensely satisfying. There is nothing wrong with hammering in nails, some people even make a good living from all this hammering.
The problem is, the world is not made up only of nails. Observe the humble screw. Superficially similar to the nail yet indeed of very different handling. For this we need the ballerina of the toolbox, the screwdriver. The screw is but a few pirouettes away from being suitably seated in the wood.
The problem is, we have a hammer and that screw is looking awfully like a nail right now. It is so compelling and irresistible, banging a screw into the wood. Satisfaction. Compulsion.
You will have noticed at least three things. One is that I deliberately avoided thinking about electric screwdrivers, and hence electric ballerinas with power pirouettes. Second, I think we use conventional, reasoning, procedural thinking too often (hammers for everything). But, three, conventional thinking is still useful when applied correctly (on nails) and in moderation (not too many rows of nails).
The mirror is originally free from nails
I think one of the things Zen proposes this. A moment arrives. See a nail that needs hammering, hammer it. It is done. But, cultivate non-attachment to hammering, so the nails do not control you and lure you into serial hammering. Simple right? If you feel discouraged, your practice is already perfect, but you must realize this fully.
Some of us are compelled, moment to moment, to keep thinking, to the extent that not thinking is anxiety provoking. Indeed, it may be such that you start identifying with that thinking, and stopping thought becomes an extinguishing of your self.
Tough sell then, being a well-stocked toolbox salesman when all the world has a trusty hammer.
But this compulsion is damaging in ways we notice, and ways we don’t. Obviously thinking too intensely is stressful. It also can distract us from things that really do need our attention. But Zen identifies something that goes unnoticed. In the deepest sense, we are losing our lives.
Now, I want to remind you, it is sometimes good to use the hammer. Conventional thinking is one of humanity’s greatest tools. But don’t you sometimes wish you could put the tool down and have some coffee? Who would you be then?
It is surprisingly difficult to put down the hammer, even if we want to. We sometimes think we put down the hammer when we’ve been furiously thinking during that coffee break. We barely start when constellations of nails tempt us in the geometric dance. We find ourselves compulsively picking up the hammer again and again. There is a lovely term for hammer brain that is particularly out of control. Monkey mind. This is thinking that chases after one thing after the other in a chaotic succession.
Zen proposes something simple. Go to work. Climb in car. Drive at speed limit, slowing down while going past park. At work, analyse and summarise an article. Screw, bolt, wingnut. Nail. That’s it. Save your hammer mind for doing the reasoning tasks, for planning, that sort of thing. But be able, for the rest of the time, to put down the hammer and be yourself in the wider sense. People complain about how smartphones have shortened our attention spans. But here, this is your brain on hammers.
“You do not know how to rest mentally. Even though you lie in your bed your mind is still busy; even if you sleep your mind is busy dreaming. Your mind is always in intense activity. This is not so good. We should know how to give up our thinking mind, our busy mind.”
— Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
The Zen of banging things
Zazen (in the narrow sense), can teach us how to put the hammer down. Not letting go of it just any which way, not hammering it down, instead, we let the hammer place itself on the surface. This is important, because trying to put the hammer down is like trying to hammer the hammer in with a hammer. Leave the hammer just lying around, some children may play with it and hurt each other. But if we let the hammer go, just so, letting go of letting go, the heaviest hammer finds its rest by itself. The metaphor fails a bit here in terms of the noise (the hammer, not the children).
Slowly, by the smallest degrees, we learn to put the hammer down when it is not needed. Eventually, the hammer places itself on a nearby table, in reach when it is needed. Ultimately, the hammer joins the rest of the toolbox, as do you, and all are revealed as Buddhas (from the very start, this is the way things are). Zazen in the larger sense. Moment by moment, you, the hammer and the screwdriver have been serenely at work as part of the great activity. Sometimes the three of you are out of view for a while. Is Buddha into DIY? All tools are no-tools, they lie down peaceably with the nails and screws.
“You should establish your practice in your delusion.”
— Dogen
Wouldn’t it be nice just to be yourself without the layers of noise? Wouldn’t it be comforting to realize there is enlightenment in the noise too?
Of course, this is a very utilitarian way of looking at meditation, we are warned repeatedly not to practice zazen with a gaining idea (Dogen above is cautioning that everyday mind is already perfect zazen, striving for something more perfect will create problems for you).
But I think it is helpful, and so might give you the temporary raft you need (at least, it has helped me). Just remember, don’t try to drop the hammer, and know that it is also the surface already (no need to gain, no gain is possible, but you can you lose everything by trying to gain). You don’t even have to think this, trust that this nature is already there. Dropping-you may also drop to the surface.
Losing our lives
That being said, someone may ask, what’s so good about not thinking?
This is where we recapitulate “we are losing our lives”. This is about our lives, this is about being really free, not chasing after ghostly nails until we die.
In a very real sense, thinking non-thinking is our true home. Here, after the compulsion to think conventionally has left us, we can expand and commune with all things. And yet, we must realize we have only this moment for that, how is that possible then?
It is not that there is no distinction between things any more, but there is a oneness, and thinking one or the other has to be true isn’t the point. The point is the smell of freshly mown grass cuttings. The point is wishing a loved one a very happy birthday.
This is our life, moment to moment. This moment now is all you have. Do you want it to go under the hammer, sold off to the highest bidder? If so, you will have had your reward. Rather spend your time with the handymen and the rocket-pirouetting ballerinas. They know the score. They know what happens in the meadow at dusk.
Think non-thinking. An evening’s mournful flute.
Think non-thinking. Being goalie for the kids is serious business.
Think non-thinking. Walking the dog, the cloudless sky.
This essay may give you the impression that this is impossible. Three things. Every moment of your life is a kind of zazen already, it can be done because it is already there. Secondly, in the end, even the hammer is already a Buddha, no need to let it go, no need to grasp too firmly. Thirdly, practically speaking, small steps are best. Practice.
The hammer was “put down” a few times on the way home just now. Deep breath, start again. There is no need to polish this mirror, but we polish it anyway. The hammer becomes a friend, not a rigid taskmaster. The friend may sometimes be a bit bubbly but that’s just how it is. Have faith in the nature of all your friends and yourself together. You all appear resplendent out of nothingness, now is the time to …
This is our practice, moment to moment, the world breathes in, the world breathes out.
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Commentary
This was a tricky post to write, because it makes some “mistakes” in maybe being too strong on what zazen is “for”. Zazen is for everything. Your hammer may indeed float to the ceiling, what would that be like? Like coming home?
But I think it worth dealing with something explicitly. If part of your experience is painful such that sitting is difficult, keep this in mind. Bearing avoidable, problematic pain (mental or physical) isn’t the point, this is where Buddha’s teaching against asceticism comes in. You may have to adapt zazen based on your circumstances. Zazen isn’t a purity test, get help if you need it. In this it is good to get advice from a trustworthy source (medical to help any conditions you might have, or Zen regarding meditation). Anything can be zazen, some forms will just be more skillful for you.
Zazen helps you be present, wherever the hammer ends up. I hope it is in the meadow at dusk though *winks*
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