Making nothing and achieving no-mind, mind-without-mind.
There is an Zen phrase which is sometimes used: “Do not make anything ”
In meditation this means do not add anything to merely sitting and observing.
Sitting in meditation, Vipassana or Zazen – is actually a very simple theory, a very simple practice.
It is simple – but it is not necessarily easy.
The theory is easy, application of the practice itself can be more difficult.
We sit quietly, silently, and we only observe, remaining awake, alert and relaxed.
That’s it.
If you do that, you are meditating.
We sit in meditation with no aim to add anything or “make anything”. The only point of meditation is to observe or study our mind. There is – or should be - no other objective or purpose. We add nothing else. We make nothing. We do not practice to become anything – relaxed, enlightened, expert, happier, whatever. There should exist no idea to gain. We do nothing besides sit and study the mind - impartially.
The paradox lies in the fact that the simplicity of this practice is what makes it so complicated. By doing nothing except sit and observe our mind, the mind itself, not used to doing so little, being so disregarded, starts to cause us trouble.
Our mind seems to create a disturbance, distracting us and disrupting our sitting. But with some patience and commitment, we can learn to sit quietly, silently, and observe what happens around us, inside and outside our mind, and eventually we will notice the mind becomes still.
This kind of still mind doesn’t necessarily mean a mind without movement. There may still be some movement in the mind: you may have thoughts, you may experience feelings. But because we observe the mind only, and we do not follow the movement of our mind, after some time of sitting and observing, this movement slows down and our mind becomes clear and very spacious. This is also sometimes referred to as “mushin”. The term is shortened from “mushin no shin”, a Zen expression meaning “the mind without mind” and is sometimes called the state of "no-mind" or "no-mindness".
No-mind is something that happens all by itself and is not something you can accomplish through concentrated effort. You cannot set out to conquer your mind and command it into a state of no-mind. You can only achieve it by doing nothing.
Working with different meditation techniques – such as Koans – can be very revealing and assist us in gaining insights or understanding concepts which are beyond verbal explanations. However, specific technique can also add activity to the mind, whereas true meditation is no-mind.
Technique may also mean that we start off our meditation with some kind of anticipation, expecting to achieve a certain result, aspiring to a certain kind of feeling or experience. Which is no longer no-mind. When we only observe - when we detach from the need to add anything, make anything - when we can be disinterested in our mind being anything other than what we observe it to be at that moment, eventually our mind will become no-mind.
Longchen Rabjam writes in his book, The Practice of Dzogchen, “It is important not to be taken over by any kind of experience, even if it seems to be a wonderful and important sign, but to remain on the path of meditation without wandering.”
And from Shunryu Suzuki's 'Zen Mind, Beginners Mind' :
"Real practice has no purpose or direction, so it can include everything that comes".
