Going into the Dark, Employing Nonthinking

We begin sesshin tonight and will sit through Tuesday evening. Sesshin, for those of you unfamiliar with the practice, is an intensive period of practice – not a “retreat” as one might think with lots of time to meander by the lake in a thoughtful manner. 

We sit quite a lot, beginning at about 4am and ending at 9pm, with just a few short breaks during the day.  And a little nap after lunch time that I’ve added to Katagiri’s style.

Even after more than 30 years of regularly doing sesshin, still it is entering the unknown darkness, sometimes wondrous, sometimes not so much. 

And that’s just the point. It is, to borrow a phrase from Dogen, “employing nonthinking” where thinking and not-thinking, good and bad, right and wrong, success and failure are just different costumes in the dance of life. 

The full Dogen phrase adds another dimension. “Employing nonthinking is always crystal clear.” 

Lulled out sitting, in other words, is not nonthinking.  Shikantaza is earnest, vivid sitting.

What is it to employ nonthinking? Well, first it’s always employed, never still or stagnant or fixated, but is open, free, and focused. 

For example, this morning I was at Bald Eagle Lake with Bodhi, my dog buddy, throwing a tennis ball as far out into the lake as I could. This is one of our favorite things to do together. As I waited for him to swim out and back, an eagle came leisurely by (not the one above – that’s from Google Images and was much closer than the one this morning), then swooped down and plucked a fish out of the water. 

For a good part of the swoop, the fish must have been out of the eagle’s sight. Eagles also miss quite a lot, I’ve noticed. Catch or miss, something else was at work and I laughed in delight (and then put myself in the fishies skin…). From my zen-centric view, a great dharma presentation of employing nonthinking. 

But in a human life, how do we do it?