“To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others.”

Dogen Zenji, 13^th century

Dogen is the founder of Soto Zen and he considered zazen to be the heart of the practice of Buddhism. It is definitely the heart of Soto Zen practice, and Zen Buddhists are sometimes known as the “meditation Buddhists.” Without going into the history of Buddhism, when Dogen returned to Japan from his studies in China the first thing he wrote was the Fukanzazengi, the universal recommendation for the practice of zazen. That is, zazen is not just for monks; it is for all people, men and women, old and young, rich and poor. In referring to zazen, Dōgen is referring specifically to shikantaza roughly translatable as “nothing but precisely sitting”, which is a kind of sitting meditation in which the meditator sits “in a state of brightly alert attention that is free of thoughts, directed to no object, and attached to no particular content.”

The importance Dogen attached to zazen is encapsulated in these quotes from his writings: “Therefore even if only one person sits for a short time, because this zazen is one with all existence and completely permeates all time, it performs everlasting Buddha guidance within the inexhaustible dharma world in the past, present and future. Zazen is equally the same practice and same enlightenment for both the person sitting and all dharmas.”

And:

“You should know that even if all the Buddhas in the ten directions, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges River, together engage the full power of the Buddha wisdom, they could never reach the limit or measure or comprehension or virtue of one person’s zazen.”

In other words, zazen is where it’s at in the practice of Soto Zen Buddhism. It is at the heart of the study of the way and of the self. It brings together what sometimes seem to be the separate entities of the body, breath and mind into one reality. Since the body has a way of communicating outwardly to the world and inwardly to the self, the position of the body while sitting zazen has a lot to do with what happens to the breath and mind. There are very specific techniques of sitting zazen that are integral to Soto Zen tradition handed down from Dogen 800 years ago. Whether one sits zazen in a full lotus, half lotus, seiza position or in a chair, it is crucial that the back is straight so that the diaphragm can move freely while breathing. In zazen we focus on the breath. Breath is life. Breath is the vital force, the central activity of our bodies, and mind and breath are one reality. When a person is agitated, breathing is agitated. When a person is nervous breathing is quick and shallow. When the mind is at rest the breath is deep, easy and effortless. Zazen gives the mind a rest from its incessant chatter, movement and attachment to the self.

One zazen instruction reads: “In the process of working with the breath, the thoughts that come up, for the most part, will be just noise, just random thoughts. Sometimes, however, when you’re in a crisis or involved in something important in your life, you’ll find that the thought, when you let it go, will recur. You let it go, but it comes back……Sometimes that needs to happen. Don’t treat it as a failure; treat it as another way to practice. Don’t use zazen to suppress thoughts or issues that need to come up…..Just be with the breath. Just be the breath. Let the breath breathe itself. That’s the beginning of the falling away of body and mind…..And it’s that power of concentration that ultimately leads to what we call samadhi, or single-pointedness of mind”

And it is there that one can begin to study the Way and study the self.