The 6th Ancestor in the Ch’an lineage, Dajian Huineng, once stood in a courtyard listening to novice monastics looking up at a flag flapping in the wind. One monastic said, “The flag is moving.” The other said, “The wind is moving.” Huineng said, “The mind is moving.”
Whether we are considering moving objects in space, or moving thoughts in mind, motion and stillness appear as opposites. This is the view from the mind of comparison, the mind which shapes and dwells in the dualistic world. In this mind stillness opposes motion as dark does light, as hard does soft. Even the great Huineng seems to suggest this, contrasting a mind in motion to one in stillness. And stillness seems to be desirable.
Much of Zen teaching follows Huineng’s (apparent) cue. Ancient Ch’an adepts said things such as ‘sit like the stump of a dead tree’, or ‘like an iron wall’. There are paintings and pictures of our great teachers sitting immobile, back straight, hands in the cosmic mudra at the waist. Images of immobility, suggesting a still body and a still mind. Many Zen altars feature Fudo Myoo, the fierce guardian of practice, brandishing a rope and a sword to bind and slay the twin enemies of delusion and desire…even as he stands imperturbable, surrounded by swirling flames. There are explicit teachings on the role of a still body in attaining a still mind. The yogacaric aphorism: for every body-state there is a corresponding mind-state, and for every mind-state there is a corresponding body-state. All schools of Buddhism encourage some degree of bodily stillness during meditation, but not to the extreme that Zen does. Does Zen really hold bodily and mental stillness as some sort of attainment?
Paraphrasing the eminent Rinzai monastic of the 17th century, Hakuin Ekaku Zenji, ‘a still mind amid activity is 100,000 times better than a still mind amid quiescence’. And even in the zendo we do ‘moving meditation’ in the form of kinhin. Many Zen practitioners also practice qigong, Tai Chi Chuan, even hatha yoga, all explicit teachings on stillness and motion. But during zazen, to the best of our ability, we ‘don’t move’. There is much to be learned by not moving: kshanti (forbearance or patience), virya (energy or strength), upekkha (equanimity), much more. Maybe even “no-where to go and no-thing to do”. The instruction is simple, ‘don’t move’…the execution another matter.
However, not moving is more than an intention to still the body-mind. Not moving is also an intention to experience a mind which does not habitually create, nor is attached to, dualistic constructs. In ‘things-as-it-is’ motion does not end in stillness, stillness does not arise from motion. For a ‘thing’ to be moving or still requires some other ‘thing’ for comparison. Where there are no ‘things’ being compared, there is no motion or stillness. It is all moving, it is all still.
Even so, the left hand doesn’t begrudge the right. We still step out of the way of the bus.