Normaal

According to Olga Mecking, there's  a popular Dutch proverb  that goes “niksen is niks,” meaning “doing nothing is good for nothing.”   This is meant to discourage idleness, to discourage niksen, but from my point of view, it connotes just the opposite.  "Nothing" is the perfect space, the sweet spot, between one extreme and the other.  Neither this nor that.  It's where potential is most abundant.  To do nothing, to practice niksen, is to be balanced, equipoised, between any two sets of extremes.  Nikseen is niks should be the mantra on every over-worked, distracted, hyper-stimulated denizen of these modern times. 

Another popular Dutch saying is, “doe gewoon normaal,” or “just be normal.”  Mecking states that to the Dutch, this is a suggestion to stay busy, but not too busy; to rest, but not too much. Above all, it means don’t be lazy. Be productive. Contribute.  Be ordinary, but in the root sense of the word from the Latin ordinalis, meaning one's place in the order or sequence of things. 

But in Zen, "ordinary" is not a matter of conformity or nonconformity, and an ordinary mind is beyond knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not knowing is confusion. Normaal is a balanced state not unlike niksen.  When one has really reached normaal, when one is "ordinary," one might find it as vast and boundless as all of space.