![[poster with zen for nothing white text against a japanese interior of tatami and open screens to show landscape graphically positioned above eight images of exteriors and people]](https://buddhistfilmfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/in-theaters-zen-for-nothing-poster.jpg)
Zen for Nothing, by Werner Penzel, opens April 5 at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, California.
Other venues booked by distributor Zeitgeist so far include The Roxie, in San Francisco; Rialto Sebastopol; and Rialto Elmwood (Berkeley). The documentary—which had its US premiere at Screening Buddha, Buddhist Film Foundation’s ongoing film series at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC last year—was filmed on location at Antaiji Zen Monastery in Japan.
The title may be provocative, but this film is a masterly immersion into life at a Japanese Zen monastery over three seasons of a year. Swiss novice Sabine arrives at Antaiji, and after a brief welcome, the learning process of the monastery rules begins: how to bow, how to sit in the meditation hall on the cushion in front of the empty wall, how to carry out the individual movements with the chopsticks in connection with the three black painted wooden bowls, how to behave…
There’s more to life in the monastery than meditation, farming, and maintenance—there are picnics and music, and Wi-Fi. And after the last snow has melted away, the nuns and monks travel to Osaka where they recite sutras in front of subway entrances as they solicit offerings in their traditional monk’s robes. Quotes from renowned early 20th century Antaiji abbot Koda Sawaki are interjected throughout. Simple, and beautifully filmed, this is Into Great Silence meets Enlightenment Guaranteed, with Fred Frith, composer, performing the eclectic and elegant score.
