What Is Activity?

Drop a pebble into a still pond, and suddenly—ripples. Movement. Change. What if Zen isn’t just about stillness but about the rippling activity itself?

Last time, we asked how to define activity, spirituality, Buddhism, and Zen. Today, we begin with the first piece—activity. Because if Zen is part of Buddhism, and Buddhism is part of spirituality, and spirituality is just one aspect of human activity… then Zen isn’t a thing. It’s something happening.

Philosophers, scientists, and Zen masters all point to the same truth: the universe isn’t a collection of objects but an ongoing event—a dance of expansion and contraction, emergence and disappearance. As we explore the nature of activity, we start to glimpse something even deeper—the mystery of Zero.