Why Sit?

Sylvia Boorstein

I really love the title of Sylvia Boorstein’s book. Though I must confess, I have not read it. Still, the title itself has much to say concerning the practice of sitting meditation or zazen, as it is referred to in Zen Buddhism.

First, this obvious turnabout of the familiar American platitude, “ Don’t just sit there. Do something”, speaks volumes by offering a simple change of perspective. The phrase, as it is commonly used, points directly to the pervasive conditioning of Western culture in general and American culture in particular, that nearly every situation we are confronted with requires that we “do something” about it to fix it, make it right or improve it. Activity is set as the ideal, as opposed to inactivity.

Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with taking appropriate action according to the need of the moment. But more often than not, the tendency is to become enraged in reactionary activity based on our past conditioning. This personal conditioning stems from our internal value system of right and wrong, good and bad, comfort and discomfort, pleasure and pain, etc., etc. Such conditioning varies a great deal from individual to individual, within the broad parameter of the societal, racial religious, and ethnic background into which one is born. The variation and anomaly are due to personal experiences and their relation to our likes and dislikes. Furthermore, there is no consistency in the conditioning, but a host of contradictions that generate internal conflict. This reactive activity, based on conditioning, is only partial. That is, only one viewpoint can be acted upon, therefore the others must be repressed. Such activity cannot be appropriate to the whole person, let alone the whole situation.

Activity at the interpersonal level is fragmented even further! One partial person interacts with another partial person and the result could hardly be said to be adequate to the needs of the whole relationship. I leave it to you to expand this view to include larger groups, nations, and ecosystems. The ramifications are apparent everywhere you look.

It should be equally obvious that simply “doing something” when confronted with intrapersonal, interpersonal, or environmental concerns will only add to the conflict when the activity is based on a fragmented viewpoint.

However, such action is not a personal “doing” of anything, because this action is not based on a personal and therefore partial viewpoint. It is best described as “non-resistant to that which is, as it is.” What remains is freedom from conflict and the suffering that results from conflict.

Dogen Zenji, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, said: “To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to perceive oneself in all beings, in all things.” This is the essence of practice. This is an answer to “Why Sit?”

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