Dharma Film Series: Zen For Nothing

What is Zen good for? Nothing at all…or, if one comes to embody its iconoclastic teachings on the precious nature of the ordinary, everything! Zen For Nothing takes us along with Swiss actress, Sabine Timoteo, as she arrives with that end in mind at the steps of the venerable Antaiji, a monastery nestled among the rugged mountains of western Japan. Hoping to escape the confines of her modest European celebrity for a few months, Sabine (and we) fall into the contemplative rhythms and sublimity of the everyday—not just ‘chopping wood and carrying water,’ but also poetry, music, lively conversation, and illuminating instructions passed down from Antaiji’s most famous abbot, the late Kodo Sawaki. As the seasons change from fall to winter to spring, the shared pain and keen humor of this secluded community gradually emerge, along with the sheer humanity and profundity of its mission. As with 2007’s Into Great Silence, just the cinematic experience alone of Zen For Nothing is a retreat—a nourishing meditative immersion in the dharma, awakening to life as it is