Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of Shunryu Suzuki’s lecture, “Breathing”:
If time come, space will follow. So there’s no choice for you. But when you separate idea of time and space you feel as if you have some choice, but actually you have to do something or you have to not-to-do something. …
All what we should is, just do something. Do something! Whatever it is, we should do something, including not-doing. So we should live on this moment. So when you sit we are concentrated on our breathing. We become a swinging door and we do something we should do, we must do. This is Zen practice.
(“Breathing”, Thursday Morning Lectures, November 4, 1965, Los Altos; Los Altos box title: Swinging Door http://shunryusuzuki2.com/Detail1?ID=77)
In a prior post, I wrote:
The presence of mind can utilize the location of attention to maintain the balance of the body and coordinate activity in the movement of breath, without a particularly conscious effort to do so. There can also come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.
I would say that when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention, time has come, and because the location of attention can shift, a feeling for the space in which attention is placed follows.
In the excerpt from the transcript, Suzuki continued, “So there’s no choice for you”. When the location of attention shifts freely in the body as a function of breath, the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation can follow solely from the location of attention. If the activity of the body follows solely from the location of attention, choice in the activity of the body has ceased.
In “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”, Suzuki said:
Do something! Whatever it is, we should do it, even if it is not-doing something.
(Weatherhill 1st edition, edited by Trudy Bell, p 26)
“We should do it, even if it is not-doing something”: we should act, even if we only restrain ourselves from doing something. That is indeed what Suzuki’s prior remarks say (most of which I have not quoted), so Trudy Bell’s editing in “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” makes perfect sense.
In the transcript, he said:
Do something! Whatever it is, we should do something, including not-doing.
“Do something, including not-doing”: we should act, even if only to embrace the time and space when choice in the activity of the body ceases.
A little further on in the lecture, Suzuki said:
And the important thing is you must have — if you become — if you want to become purely one with the activity of inhaling and exhaling your mind should be pure and calm enough to follow the activity. If you think, ‘I take breathing’. I is extra. There is no you to say I. This is enough. When your mind is pure and calm enough, there is no idea of I.
Gautama the Buddha described a “purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind”, in the fourth of the initial concentrations:
… (one) suffuses (one’s) body with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind.
(AN Book of Fives 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg 18-19, parentheticals universalize pronoun)
“The pureness of (one’s) mind” I believe refers to the lack of any intent in the mind. If the activity of the body follows solely from the location of attention, a presence of mind is possible such that no matter where the breath shifts the location of attention, the activity of the body follows solely from that singular location. Presence of mind as the location of attention shifts “suffuses (one’s) body with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind”.
Dogen wrote:
When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.
(“Genjo Koan”, Dogen; tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi)
Gautama also described a “fifth limb” of concentration, a “survey-sign” that follows the experience of the fourth concentration, consisting of an overview of the body that can be used to return to concentration as appropriate. I would say that in Suzuki’s nomenclature, the survey-sign makes possible “not-doing”, when the time comes.
Suzuki continued:
When we become ourselves, purely, in its true sense, we just become a swinging door and we are purely independent and dependent to everything. Without air, we cannot take breathing. Each one of us is in the midst of myriads of worlds. We are in the center of the world.
Always moment after moment we are the center of myriads of worlds. So we are quite dependent and independent. So, if you understand, or if you experience this kind of experience, you have absolute independence. You will not be bothered by anyone.
Contact in the senses, even contact with something beyond the conscious range of the senses, can enter into the placement of attention, and in so doing become a part of the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation.
Dogen wrote:
When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point…
(“Genjo Koan”, Dogen; tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi)
Suzuki said “we are in the center of the world”. Gautama described the extension of particular mental states throughout the world:
[One] dwells, having suffused the first quarter [of the world] with friendliness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; just so above, below, across; [one] dwells having suffused the whole world everywhere, in every way, with a mind of friendliness that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence. [One] dwells having suffused the first quarter with a mind of compassion… with a mind of sympathetic joy… with a mind of equanimity that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence.
(MN I 38, Pali Text Society volume I pg 48)
Particularly when something beyond the conscious range of the senses enters into the placement of attention and generates activity, there is a sense that the place of attention is “the center of the world”, and that the activity generated solely through the placement of attention is independent of the apparent circumstance. If such activity arises with the extension of the mind of friendliness, of compassion, of sympathetic joy, or of equanimity, then the experience can be accompanied by a feeling of “absolute independence” from immediate circumstances.
Dogen wrote:
Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.
(“Genjo Koan”, Dogen; tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi)
I return to Shunryu Suzuki’s guidance:
If time come, space will follow. So there’s no choice for you.
… All what we should is, just do something. Do something! Whatever it is, we should do something, including not-doing. So we should live on this moment. So when you sit we are concentrated on our breathing. We become a swinging door and we do something we should do, we must do. This is Zen practice.