Nonthinking
By: Hee-Jin Kim
Nonthinking should be understood as…radically nondualistic thinking…objectless, non-referential thinking.
Note: Hee-Jin Kim is a leading scholar of Dogen and Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Dogen Kigen—Mystical Realist and Dogen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen.
By: Lewis Richmond
In the last few years neurologists have been wiring up Zen meditators, and they’ve been discovering that the electrical patterns of the meditating brain look different than those of the normal waking mind. We might say that zazen is a different way to be awake. This difference may rest not so much in the cortex—the part that does thinking and logical tasks—but in the older parts of the brain, those having to do with emotion, spatial perception, and the faculty that defines the boundary of self and other.
This emerging neurological understanding may help us understand “think not-thinking” as a state where the higher brain functions are all operative and alert, but not purposefully active. We don’t shut down ordinary consciousness, as we would in states of deep concentration or trance. But we don’t apply our mind to anything in particular, either. Instead, we just rest in awareness itself, consciousness itself.
By: Sojun Mel Weitsman
Often we read or hear that we should stop the activity of thinking in order to meditate properly. But that is almost impossible. The mechanism of thinking is going on constantly like a rushing torrent, and although you can stop it for a few moments, it always wins. It’s like the bubbles in a fish tank. When we sit, we think the thought of zazen. When we breath, we think the thought of breathing, when sitting up straight, we think the thought of balance, and when working, we think the thought of work. In other words, our thought and our activity become one. Thinking and that which is thought are not separate.
Master Dogen calls this (“Think not thinking”) the art of zazen. When there is no gap, there is no discrimination. When our thoughts wander, as they will because they are always hungry, we bring them home where they belong, and include them in some satisfying work. When our thoughts sit zazen, they become enlightened. So when you sit, think the thought of zazen.
Note: Sojun Mel Weitsman (1929-2021) was a Soto Zen teacher and the founder, abott and guiding teacher of the Berkeley Zen Center. He practiced in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi and received dharma transmission from Hoitsu Suzuki, the son of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. This quote is from a post on the Berkeley Zen Center website.
By: Josho Pat Phelan
In everyday language, it sounds like Dogen is saying to stop thinking. We all know what thinking is, and not-thinking is its opposite. But trying to stop thought by using discriminating consciousness to control consciousness creates a narrow, controlled experience. Both thinking and stopping thinking are found in the realm of duality; they are relative to one another. One can’t exist without the other because they mutually define each other like hot and cold, light and dark, forward and backward. But Dogen’s nonthinking is outside duality. Actually, the character translated as “non” in “non-thinking” includes the aspects of beyond, transcendent or emancipated. Kaz Tanahashi translated “nonthinking” both as “beyond thinking” and as “before thinking”. So, “nonthinking” is considered emancipated thinking which transcends and is free from both thinking and stopping thought.
Dogen was critical of meditation methods that involved stopping thought and controlling the mind in order to become absorbed completely in the object of meditation. This type of absorption usually removes awareness from the immediate environment and from one’s bodily presence.
Note: Josho Pat Phalen is the Guiding Teacher of the Chapel Hill Zen Center and is the dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman in the Soto Zen lineage of Suzuki Roshi. This quote is taken from one of a series of dharma talks that she gave on the Fukanzazengi, and which can be found here.
By: Kosho Uchiyama Roshi
I have said that if you sit and think during zazen, then that is thinking and not doing zazen. Does that mean that no thoughts at all should occur to us during zazen? Is good zazen that condition when all thoughts have ceased to come into our minds?
Here we have to clearly distinguish “chasing after thoughts and thinking” from “ideas or thoughts merely occurring.” If a thought occurs during zazen and we proceed to chase after it, then we are thinking and no doing zazen. Yet this doesn’t mean that we are doing zazen only when thoughts have entirely ceased to occur. How should we understand this contradiction?
Imagine placing a large rock next to a person doing zazen. Since this rock is not alive, no matter how long it sits there, a thought will never occur to is. Unlike the rock, however, the person doing zazen next to it is a living human being. Even if we sit as stationary as the rock, we cannot say that no thoughts will occur. On the contrary, if they did not, we would have to say that that person is no longer alive. Of course, the truth of life never means to become lifeless like the rock. For that reason, thoughts ceasing to occur is not the ideal state of one sitting zazen. It is perfectly natural that thoughts occur. Yet, if we chase after thoughts we are thinking and no longer doing zazen. So what should our attitude be?
Briefly, our attitude in zazen is aiming at maintaining the posture of zazen without our flesh and bones, and with our mind letting go of thoughts.
What is letting go of thoughts? Well, when we think, we think of something. Thinking of something means grasping that something with thought. However, during zazen we open the hand of thought that is trying to grasp something, and simply refrain from grasping. This is letting go of thoughts.
Note: Kosho Uchiyama Roshi (1912-1998) was a Soto Zen priest and Abbott of Anatai-ji Monastery near Tokyo. Among his dharma heirs are Shohaku Okumura. This quote is taken from his book Opening the Hand of Thought.
By: John Daido Loori
When you’re doing shikantaza you don’t try to focus on anything specifically, or to make thoughts go away. You simply allow everything to be just the way it is. Thoughts come, thoughts go, and you simply watch them; you keep your awareness on them. It takes a lot of energy and persistence to sit shikantaza, to not get caught up in daydreaming. But little by little, thoughts begin to slow down, and finally they cease to arise. When the thought disappears, the thinker disappears. This is the samadhi of falling away of body and mind.
Note: John Daido Loori (1931-2009) was the founder of Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper, New York and was a dharma heir of Taizan Maezumi Roshi. This quote is taken from an article in Lion’s Roar which can be found here.
By: Brad Warner
If you start really paying attention to your own thought process—I’m talking here about the process itself and not just the contents of the individual thoughts that make it up—you’ll notice that thoughts don’t just go on and on continuously. There are little spaces between them. Most of us tend to habitually try and fill these spaces up with more thoughts as fast as we possibly can. But even the best of us can’t fill them all, so there are always little gaps. See, you might say that there are two basic kinds of thought. There are thoughts that pop up unannounced and uninvited in our brains for no reason we’re able to discern. These are just the results of previous thoughts and experiences that have left their traces in the neural pathways of our brains. You can’t do much to stop these, nor should you try. The other kind of thought is when we grab on to one of these streams of energy and start playing with it the way your mom always told you not to do with your wee-wee in front of the neighbors. We dig deep into these thoughts and roll around in them like a pig rolling in its own doo-doo, feeling all that delicious coolness and drinking deep of their lovely stink.
To practice “thinking not thinking,” all you need to do is ignore the first kind of thoughts and learn how not to instigate the second. This is easier said than done, of course. But get into the habit, and it begins to come naturally.
…Now try to look at the natural spaces between thoughts. Learn what it feels like to just stop generating more and more stuff for your brain to chew on. Now see if you can do that for longer and longer periods. A couple of seconds is fine. Voilà! Thinking not thinking!
Note: Brad Warner is a Soto Zen teacher, writer and former punk rock bass guitarist. His books include Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth About Reality, and Don't Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master. This quote is from an article by Warner titled “Think Not Thinking” in Tricycle Magazine, which can be found here.
By: Sotan Tatsugami
Dogen Zenji asks: "How do you think the unthinkable?" Answering himself, Dogen says: "non-thinking". "Non" is not merely a negation. In this case "non" means beyond, transcendent, or emancipated. Non-thinking is the state of one's mind beyond the thinkable, yet including it. Non-thinking is to transcend "no thinking" and to become free. The function of thinking exists, of course, but you are able to transcend it and free yourself. You cannot attain freedom, however, when you cling to something, when you cannot abandon everything. Your view of things becomes very one-sided then. In Japanese there is a very interesting word: tam-pan-kan. This means a person who carries a board on his shoulder. He can see just one side of the board, not the other. Therefore, tam-pan-kan denotes an inflexible and unadaptable person. You should not be a tam-pan-kan. I would like to recommend that you practice zazen. By doing so you will get a taste of what non-thinking means. It is difficult to understand what non-thinking means by listening to a lecture. Please practice zazen. The experience of non-thinking is not only very important, but essential in the practice of zazen. It enables you to realize how valuable zazen is.
Note: This quote is taken from a series of lectures given by Sotan Tatsugami at Tassajara Monastery in 1969-70, translated by then Katagairi Sensei, later Katagiri Roshi (founder of the Minnesota Zen Center and one of the early Japanese Zen pioneers in America). Sotan Tatsugami served for 12 years as the head of training at Eiheiji Monastery in Japan, which was founded by Dogen.
If you are interested, there is an interesting piece on David Chadwick’s Crooked Cucumber website on the relationships and differences in practice and viewpoints between Tatsugami, Katagiri and Suzuki when they were practicing together at Tassajara that can be found here:
By: Barry Magid
"Think nonthinking" is a phrase by Dogen that people stumble over and find confusing. People in Dogen's time, and even now, misunderstand it to mean "don't think." A better translation of "Non Thinking" is "just think." Like, "just sit," this is not a simple phrase. Our thinking is not something contaminating our mind, something we're trying to get rid of. We let it be there empty of intention. Let thought just be thought, not something we have to do anything about whatsoever.
Note: Barry Magid is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and Zen teacher. He is the founder of the Ordinary Mind Zendo in New York City and is a dharma heir of Charlotte Joko Beck. The above quote is from a dharma talk by him that can be found here.
By: Issho Fujita
When we refer to the qualities of…beyond thinking…we mean that sitting posture is (itself) beyond thinking and has no thought…not that we ourselves are. We will never be beyond thinking…as long as we live. What we can do is sit with the faith that zazen posture itself is Buddha, that zazen posture itself is beyond thinking.
We tend to think that we are sitting zazen. This is not the case. The entire universe is sitting zazen.
Note: Issho Fujita is a Soto Zen teacher who was the Abbott of Valley Zendo in western Massachusetts and the Director of Soto Zen International Center in Japan. This quote is taken from a talk given by Josho Pat Phelan.
By Norman Fischer
In zazen we’re not trying to think something in particular or to orient the mind in a particular direction. Nor is it necessary for us to somehow shut off thinking, which, though difficult, is actually not impossible when the mind is concentrating. Instead, he says think not-thinking, which is called nonthinking—a sort of thinking. It is very, very similar to the way we usually think, but there’s a little, tiny difference. And that little, tiny difference makes a categorical difference, even though we could miss it. The difference is so small that it is hard to see, but once you see it, it makes all the difference.
In usual thinking, and most of the time we are not at all conscious of this, what drives the thinking is some hook, some catch to thinking. That hook and that catch is “I” or “me.” “I’m thinking.” The thinking has to do with me. This fact inspires and conditions the thinking at all points, and that’s all we know in our life. So Descartes, who never dreamed of anything like zazen, was right when he said, “I think therefore I am.” That’s exactly right: “I think therefore I am.” And he could have added, “And therefore I suffer, and I screw up right and left, and I ultimately make everybody miserable.
So that’s what characterizes ordinary thinking—that hook, that catch of “I”, which is the most natural thing in the world. When we think of not-thinking or non-thinking, the “I,” that little catch, is naturally set aside, because instead of putting our energy into it, which we normally and automatically do, we are putting our energy into our breathing posture. We’re trusting that and developing that, and we’re doing a little kind of brain surgery. We’re gently removing “me” and “I”, and we’re replacing it with breathing and posture. Therefore the thinking has a completely different force and energy. It might not even be the same thoughts! The content could be almost the same, at least at first. But the sense of what the thinking is and its meaning and the energy behind it are utterly and completely different. Thoughts can arise and pass away without that hook or that catch. Each thought is free—it doesn’t have to be in service or me or I. It doesn’t have to be my thought. It just comes and goes.
At first non-thinking might not feel so different from thinking, but it is totally different, because fundamentally there is no suffering in it. Even if the thoughts that come and go are very negative—nasty, smelly, awful thoughts—if you just let them come and go without that hook, without that catch, there’s really no suffering in the thoughts. Eventually, if you continue to practice non-thinking, there will be serenity and peace, and the kinds of thoughts that arise will be different. Thoughts will just float up into the mind and float away, with no more trouble or anguish than a cloud floating by in the sky. Practicing in that way, the backward step occurs.
Note: Norman Fischer is the founder and Spiritual Director of the Everyday Zen Foundation and is a Soto Zen teacher in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi. The above passage is from a talk that he gave on Fukanzazengi, which can be found on the Everyday Zen website here.
By: Shohaku Okumura
When we are sitting, we do not follow our thoughts, nor do we stop them. We just let them come and go freely. We cannot call it thinking because the thoughts are not grasped. If we simply peruse our thoughts, it is just thinking; it is not zazen. We cannot call zazen not-thinking either, because thoughts are coming and going like clouds floating in the sky. When we are sitting, our brain does not stop functioning, just as our stomach is always digesting. Sometimes our minds are busy; sometimes our minds are calm. Just sitting, without being concerned with the conditions of our mind, is the most important point in zazen. When we sit in this way, we are one with Reality, which is beyond thinking. To say it another way, Reality manifests itself through our body and mind.’ (notes on Fukanzazengi)
By: Charlotte Selver
...Many people have learned to say to themselves, ‘Stop thinking,’ and then they control their thoughts and try to stop their thinking. Like somebody who is being choked, thoughts are being choked off. [But] we are sometimes very desirous to come to quiet....this state of quiet is something wonderful. Quiet is not dullness. .... Quiet is also not forbidding thoughts. Quiet is a different state into which we gradually ... come. You cannot stop thinking from one moment to the other without violating your thinking, but you can – when you feel you would like to rest — gradually allow the giving up of thoughts...let me call it allowing peace inside."\
... it’s not a command with the expectation that right away something will happen. It may be a long way which we have to go until we can gradually allow – altogether – more quiet..."
Note: Charlotte Selver was a transformational teacher of a practice which she called Sensory Awareness. She frequently taught Zen students at the San Francisco Zen Center. Sensory Awareness has a wonderful affinity with Zen practice, and there are a number of quotes by Selver on this Readings page of our website. The quote above is from her book Waking Up. There are several links on the Resources page of our website to Sensory Awareness practice.
By: Suzuki Roshi
If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means your are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything. It appears as if something comes from outside your mind, but actually it is only the waves of your mind, and if you are not bothered by the waves, gradually they will be come calmer and calmer.... That everything is included within your mind is the essence of mind.