Zen Meditation
The Practice of Just Sitting
“Sit, and let the sitting be enough.”
About Zen Meditation
Zen meditation refuses almost everything other traditions offer. There are no stages to climb, no states to attain, and no technique in the ordinary sense — you sit down, and the sitting is the whole of it. This is called shikantaza, 'just sitting', and it is either the simplest practice in Buddhism or the most difficult, depending on how badly you want something to happen. Zen arrived in China as Chan around the sixth century, absorbed Taoist directness, crossed to Japan in the twelfth, and split into two temperaments: Sōtō, which sits without a goal, and Rinzai, which uses koans to exhaust the reasoning mind until it lets go. Both hold the same conviction — that awakening is not produced by practice but expressed by it. This guide gives you the posture, the eyes, the breath, and the honest difficulty.
Capabilities
Give exact zazen posture instructions for chair, seiza bench, or cushion
Explain shikantaza without turning it into a technique
Distinguish Sōtō and Rinzai approaches accurately
Explain what koans are for — and what they are not
Teach kinhin (walking) and how it fits between sitting periods
Troubleshoot leg pain, sleepiness, and the urge to make something happen
Core Teachings
Practice Is Enlightenment, Not Its Cause
Dōgen's central claim: you do not sit in order to become awakened later. The sitting is awakening expressing itself now. This dissolves the goal that makes most meditation frustrating — there is nowhere the practice is trying to get to.
Shikantaza — Just Sitting
No anchor, no counting, no object. You sit upright and alert, aware of everything and gripping nothing. It is not blankness and not concentration. Zen teachers describe it as being fully awake with nothing to do.
Eyes Open, Facing the Wall
Zen keeps the eyes half-open and lowered, gazing at the floor or a blank wall. This prevents both sleepiness and the private dream-world that closed eyes invite. Practice stays continuous with ordinary waking life rather than becoming a separate realm.
The Koan as a Dead End
In Rinzai practice a koan is not a riddle with a clever answer. It is a question engineered so that reasoning cannot solve it — and holding it long enough exhausts the reasoning mind's claim to be the only way of knowing.
Beginner's Mind (Shoshin)
Suzuki's formulation: in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few. Expertise in meditation is a liability. Each sit is approached as the first one.
Zen Is Not Anti-Intellectual, It Is Post-Intellectual
The tradition produced enormous literature while insisting on a transmission outside words. The point is not that thinking is bad — it is that thinking cannot reach what sitting reaches, and mistaking the two is the error.
Sacred Practices
Zazen (Seated Meditation)
The core practice. Upright posture, eyes half-open and lowered, hands in the cosmic mudra, breathing through the nose and settling in the belly. Typically 25–40 minutes per period.
Shikantaza (Just Sitting)
Sōtō's central practice — objectless awareness. Nothing is watched, counted, or cultivated. When thinking appears you neither follow nor suppress it; you simply keep sitting.
Kinhin (Walking Meditation)
Slow formal walking between sitting periods, one half-step per full breath, hands folded at the chest. Relieves the legs without breaking the continuity of practice.
Koan Introspection
The Rinzai method. A single koan — 'What is the sound of one hand?' — is held continuously until the discursive mind gives out. Traditionally requires a teacher and private interview (dokusan).
Breath Counting (Susokukan)
The standard entry practice before shikantaza. Count exhalations one to ten, then restart. Given to beginners precisely because just sitting is too unstructured to begin with.
Samu (Work Practice)
Cleaning, cooking, and sweeping performed with the same attention as sitting. Zen's insistence that practice does not stop when you stand up.
Sacred Symbols
Ensō (The Circle)
Painted in a single unbroken brushstroke, often left open. Represents completeness that includes imperfection — the drawing cannot be corrected, and is not meant to be.
The Wall
Sōtō practitioners face a blank wall. Nothing to look at, nothing to interpret. The wall gives the eyes somewhere to rest that offers no story.
The Zafu and Zabuton
The round cushion and the flat mat beneath it. Zen's insistence that awakening is a physical event, requiring a body in a particular position, not merely a mental one.
The Han
A wooden block struck to call practitioners to the hall, its rhythm accelerating as the moment approaches. A reminder that time is passing and this period will not come again.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is zazen?
Zazen means 'seated meditation' and is the core practice of Zen. You sit upright in a stable posture, keep your eyes half-open and lowered, breathe naturally through the nose, and remain alert without pursuing any particular object of attention. Unlike most meditation, zazen is not framed as a technique for producing a result — the sitting itself is the point.
What does shikantaza mean?
Shikantaza translates roughly as 'nothing but precisely sitting'. It is objectless meditation: no breath counting, no mantra, no visualisation, no scanning. You are simply awake, upright, and not gripping anything. Sōtō Zen treats it as the highest practice, though most teachers give beginners breath counting first because shikantaza offers nothing to hold on to.
Why do Zen practitioners keep their eyes open?
Two reasons. Closed eyes invite drowsiness and a private, dreamlike interior world that is pleasant but not the point. Open eyes keep practice continuous with ordinary waking perception, so that zazen is not a separate state you enter and leave. The gaze is lowered about forty-five degrees, soft and unfocused, resting on the floor or a blank wall.
What is the difference between Sōtō and Rinzai Zen?
Sōtō, associated with Dōgen, emphasises shikantaza — sitting without a goal, on the conviction that practice is already awakening. Rinzai, associated with Hakuin, uses koan introspection to build and then shatter a state of concentrated doubt. Sōtō is often described as gradual and Rinzai as sudden, though both reject that framing. In practice Sōtō sits facing the wall; Rinzai sits facing into the room.
What is a koan and how does it work?
A koan is a short exchange or question — 'What was your face before your parents were born?' — that cannot be resolved by reasoning. Working with one is not about finding a clever answer. You hold it continuously until the mind's habit of solving-by-thinking exhausts itself, at which point something else can respond. Genuine koan work requires a teacher, because the answer is tested in private interview rather than self-assessed.
Is Zen meditation the same as mindfulness?
No. Mindfulness practice typically involves noting or observing experience — an implicit subject watching objects. Shikantaza drops that structure entirely; there is no watcher and nothing being watched, just sitting. Mindfulness also usually has explicit aims like stress reduction, which zazen refuses on principle. They can look similar from outside and feel very different from inside.
How long should a Zen sitting period be?
Traditional periods run 25 to 40 minutes, usually two or three back-to-back with kinhin walking between them. For someone starting alone, 15 to 20 minutes is realistic — long enough that the initial restlessness passes and something settles. Shorter sits are fine and far better than skipping.
Do I have to sit cross-legged on the floor?
No. Full lotus, half lotus, Burmese, seiza on a bench, and an ordinary chair are all accepted postures in every serious Zen centre. What matters is a stable base, an upright spine, and a position you can hold without your body dominating your attention. Damaging your knees for authenticity is not a Zen value.
What do I do with my hands in zazen?
The cosmic mudra (hokkai jōin): left hand resting on the right palm, both palms up, thumb tips lightly touching to form an oval, resting against the lower belly. The touching thumbs act as a feedback loop — when you drift they separate or press together, so the hands quietly report on your attention.
What is kinhin?
Formal walking meditation performed between sitting periods. In Sōtō style you take one half-step per complete breath cycle, moving very slowly with hands folded at the chest. It relieves the legs and demonstrates that the quality of attention in zazen can be carried into movement.
Is Zen a religion or a philosophy?
It is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism with monastic institutions, ordination lineages, liturgy, and ceremonial forms — so, a religion by any ordinary definition. But its central practice makes no doctrinal demand, and zazen is widely practised by people who hold no Buddhist beliefs. Both descriptions are defensible depending on what you are asking about.
What should I do about thoughts during zazen?
Nothing. Do not follow them into their story and do not push them away — both are forms of engagement. Uchiyama's image is the best one: thoughts are like weather passing across an open sky, and zazen is being the sky rather than chasing the clouds. When you realise you have been carried off, you are already back. Resume the posture.
My legs hurt badly during sitting. What should I do?
Change position — properly, deliberately, and without shame. Chronic pain is not a spiritual achievement and joint damage is permanent. Use a chair, raise your cushion, switch to a seiza bench, or shorten your sits. The romanticisation of endured pain is a distortion of the tradition, not part of it.
Sources & Citations
- Fukanzazengi: Universal Recommendations for Zazen, Eihei Dōgen (Sōtō Zen Text Project, 1227)
- Zen — Buddhism (Encyclopaedia Britannica) (accessed 2026-09-05)
- Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) (accessed 2026-09-05)
- Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Shunryu Suzuki (Weatherhill, 1970)
Further Reading
- Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind — Shunryu Suzukibook
- Opening the Hand of Thought — Kōshō Uchiyamabook
- Fukanzazengi (Universal Recommendations for Zazen) — Eihei Dōgenarticle
- The Three Pillars of Zen — Philip Kapleaubook
- Everyday Zen — Charlotte Joko Beckbook
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