While I was in sesshin, the following comments/questions on my recent posts about the apparent lack of "purpose" or "goals" in Zen practice appeared in this blog:

Greensmile asked, "Then it is a practice for those of us who truly wish to cease living wishfully and live truly?"

Old Sam noted, "I have been asked enough times why I practice to realize that the closest I can come to an answer is, 'To make myself more useful to others/the universe.' Somehow any other words I use - including 'understanding this life,' and the like - end up with some unintended egocentric content," and "Practice just as practice-enlightenment has been taught for millennia: utility would, at face value, seem antithetical to this. But how does one reconcile this with the apparent utility required by the boddhisattva vow to save all beings?"

Regarding Greensmile's question, the practice for those who wish to cease living wishfully is to stop wishing, including wishing for their desire for wishing to stop. As long as we try to defeat wishfulness with a wish, we keep finding ourselves right back where we started - i.e., wishing. The way to hit the "reset" button and stop the endlessly cycling question of "how do I stop wishing I could stop wishing I could stop wishing" and so on is to quiet the mind, and allow to drop away all of the concepts inherent in the question, including that there's an "I" that can wish and a time other than right now for that wish to be fulfilled. In quiet zazen, these concepts will drop away, but through forceful action, they won't. When we come to realize our true nature and learn to accept our selves, includng the wishfulness in our nature, the wishing that we could stop wishing is gone.

Old Sam's comments concern the Bodhisattva vows. In Zen practice, we vow that no matter how innumerable all beings are, we vow to free them all (some translate "free" as "save"). Regardless of the translation, this is not the purpose of Zen practice, but rather a part of the practice. To let go of egocentric goals, we first take the focus off of our own enlightenment, and instead vow to help all other sentient beings achieve realization first. But this is a part of the Zen method, an expedient means (upaya), not the mission or purpose of Zen itself. To attain the goal of having no goal, we first vow to help all others before we help ourselves, and once rid of the burden to save/free ourselves, sit down in quiet meditation and allow body and mind to drop away.

Of course, telling others that we practice for this reason is fine, and probably better than saying "for no reason at all." When asked, I just like to shake my head dismissively and say, "It's what I do - it's just the way I am." Naturally, everyone has a purpose or goal in order to start a spiritual practice - if no one had a reason to come to the Zen Center, no one would come. But once started, the real work begins in letting go of those initial goals and just practicing just for the sake of practicing, not for the sake of an outcome of the practice. This real work is shikantaza ("just sitting"), not sitting and meditating, not sitting and reciting mantras or sutras, not sitting to realize enlightenment, not sitting to save/free all beings, but just sitting.

My initial post about the reason for not clinging to a goal was that by considering goals and realization as something to attain, something outside and separate from ourselves that we need to obtain, we are moving away from discovering our own Buddha-nature, the enlightenment already inherent within us. My second post, quoting Matsuoka Roshi, pointed out that by clinging to the concept of a goal as something that may be achieved at some future date, we take our awareness and mindfullness out of the present moment and long for a hypothetical future, when the very nature of realization is in the present moment, this instant, right now.

Or at least, that's how I see it. Your views may differ and that's fine.