Fine Art of Doing Nothing

I clipped this quote from D. T. Suzuki. It began with the following exchange between a mother and child:

"Where did you go?"
"Out."
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."

Suzuki then comments on this:

This is very interesting! He said that he had been outdoors, but that he had done nothing. In actuality, of course, he did all sorts of things that playing children always do: he ran and he jumped, and after playing all morning he went home for lunch. How interesting! For him, doing all these things was the same as doing nothing. Running and jumping are marvelous activities, but in the eyes of a child there is nothing special about them-- they are nothing. This is what unobstructed freedom is.

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