Q: May I ask a question? In one of your recent videos you said that zazen is truly good for nothing and that nothing has substantially changed for you since your teen ages or the like. Why do zazen then? Just because there's nothing else to do? But certainly there are more entertaining things to do.
Since I started studying zen ~10 years ago, my entire life has changed dramatically. Zen hasn't given me anything, but it has taken away a lot of junk that I didn't and don't want in my life, so I do not have a feeling that zazen (and zen in general) is good for nothing.
If zazen is good for nothing, would you repeat your life if you had a chance to do so or would you spend it on something else?
A: I think I would repeat most things in my life (including the zazen, definitely!).
What I said recently on KZfaq was: When I do zazen now I do not notice a difference to the zazen I did at age 33 or at 16. What I meant was, at the the exact time of zazen, I am just here, just here in the present moment, and it was the same (as far as I can remember) 20 or 30 years ago. Of course, rather than saying that "it was the same", I should say: no comparison is possible. Because there is only the "here" and the "now".
Yes, I think that most people's lives will change a lot when they realize that their real home is in the here and now, and that they have never left it in the first place. But even though your life might change, here and now doesn't change. There it is often said that "Zazen is good for nothing" or "Zazen does not get you anywhere". Zazen brings you back to the here and now. There is no progress there. The progress only appears when you connect the imaginary dots of your life. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is important not to forget that even this "connecting the dots" (=making progress in life) only happens in the unchanging here and now.
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