Keeping It Real: Chan and the Pursuit of Experience (A Revision)

Below is a revision of an essay I wrote a few years ago (the original appears on the Zen Site), with a few minor improvements. This is one of my favourites from the strange delusional period I considered becoming an academic.

Keeping It Real:

Chan and The Pursuit of Experience


“What I see, I want all people to know.”
-Linji, quoted by Yuanwu (Cleary; Cleary 1994: 104)

The origins of the Chinese Chan tradition, known in Japan as Zen, are mysterious. There is general agreement that a form of “proto-Chan” arose within the early centuries of Chinese Buddhism. This proto-Chan consisted of a meditation tradition that likely did not conceive of itself as a distinct school or tradition of Buddhism. Rather it was an informal lineage of Buddhist practitioners who focused on experiential realization of Buddhist doctrines through intensive meditation. Other streams of the early Chinese Buddhist tradition focused on translation, scholastic philosophy, devotion, or Tantra. Some practitioners, though, apparently put a strong emphasis on meditative experience and practiced in the mountains and forests much as Buddhist yogis interested in direct realization have done since the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, regardless of their country or sect. The primary goal these proto-Chan practitioners were after, it is fair to surmise, is an authentic and experiential realization of the Buddha's teachings. They were not primarily interested in tantric power, spiritual merit, influence in government, rain making, or intellectual comprehension, although the records suggested they sometimes engaged in all of these things.As Peter Hershock has written, “In sharp contrast with the three other major schools of Chinese Buddhism, Chan did not originate in the Chinese adaptation of Indian Buddhist texts. Instead, its origins can be traced to the appropriation of Indian Buddhist practices” (2005:66, italics mine).

This desire to “keep it real”, to avoid the traps of ossification, mere intellectuality, or worldy enchantments, is one of the main driving forces behind the historical development of the Chan tradition. Mahayana Buddhism in India came to view itself as a great Medicine chest, offering tailor-made therapies for the sicknesses of sentient beings. Taking this analogy further, you could say that early Chan was distinguished for its insistence on a simple, direct regiment of healing using only the strongest medicines. As the Chan tradition grew and flourished in the Tang and Song dynasties, it sought to produce medicines not just for worldy sicknesses and Confucian sicknesses and Buddhist sicknesses but for Chan sicknesses too, side effects of its success, or of its quest for success. In this paper I aim to trace this urge towards authenticity as it manifested in Chan. This urge impacted not only Chan but the wider culture of China both Buddhist and non-Buddhist.

The Dhyana School: East Mountain

Between 624 and 674 Dayi Daoxin (J. Daii Doshin, 580-651) and Daman Hongren (J. Daiman Konin, 601-674) shepherded a community of practitioners on Mt. Huang-mei in what is now Hubei Province. Later Daoxin would be considered the 4th Ancestor, and Hongren the 5th, in the principal historical lineage of Chan transmission. This community was the locus of the proto-Chan tradition. They sought direct experiential realization of Buddhist doctrines through meditation, and had apparently gained widespread fame and esteem by the time of Empress Wu Zetian (625-705), who invited a disciple of Hongren named Yequan Shenxiu (J. Gyokusen Jinshu, 606?-706) to the Capital in 701, a move which would impact the Chan tradition forever, as we shall see.
The scanty surviving literature of the East Mountain school suggests that their own pursuit of authenticity in Buddhist practice led them to cultivate meditative absorption in seated meditation (tso-chan, Japanese zazen) as a step towards realizing the ultimate nature of mind and phenomena and attaining Awakening. The tradition represented by Shenxiu, although accused of being mired in a gradual approach to awakening, most likely taught something more similar to the Tiantai “complete, or supreme approach#.  The Tiantai tradition recognized both gradual and sudden approaches to Awakening but also advocated a Complete, or Supreme approach which united sudden and gradual modes of practice at once. This approach, which has parallels in other nondual traditions like the Longchen Nyingthig and Mahamudra traditions of Tibet, consists in resting in the ultimate state of the mind while simaltaneously engaging in purification and transformation practices which transform the relative states of the mind. This acts as a kind of safety net. If you can plunge into the ultimate view immediately, wonderful, but if you can't the dualistic practices will help to ready you for it. This view at once has integrity because it does not abandon the ultimate perspective, as well as pragmatism since it concedes that most people cannot wholly embody that perspective immediately. As well as teaching this type of “complete” approach to cultivation, Shenxiu apparently sought to overcome excessive attachment to Buddhist ritual, scripture, and merit making practices by reframing scriptural references so that they all applied to meditation. In this way Shenxiu attempted to present an authentic, experiential teaching that could be practiced by anyone (Mcrae 2004: 50).

Beginning in 730 a monk named Heze Shenhui (J. Kataku Jinne, 684-758) began publicly criticizing Hongren's students, accusing them of teaching a gradual practice which distorted the true sudden teaching of Hongren, which Shenhui claimed to have received from his master, the obscure but soon to be famous Dajian Huineng (J. Daikan Eno, 638-712). Of late Scholars have argued that Shenhui was a self-serving polemicist who distorted the teachings of Shenxiu and Hongren's other “Northern School” heirs. His version of Chan history won the day, however, even though he himself did not have much success as a teacher or garnish much respect personally in the eyes of the later Chan tradition. The question I am concerned with here is why his polemics caught on, and I would argue that it is because his rhetoric and its development by the later tradition caught the imagination of Chan seekers in their pursuit of authenticity and non-reification of the forms of practice. Where the East Mountain School and Shenxiu had made self-cultivation and realization primary, jettisoning other aspects of Buddhist tradition as peripheral at best, Shenhui went one step further and jettisoned the idea of self-cultivation entirely. As he put it, “‘sitting’ (tso) is not activating thoughts, and ‘meditation’ (ch’an) is seeing the fundamental nature” (Mcrae 54). Thus only a direct breakthrough to realization will do; even seated meditation is extraneous. This amounted to an insistence that gradual cultivation was in fact an obstacle to immediate entry in to the ultimate nature of the mind. This perspective is one which in fact occurs with regularity in nondual traditions to this day. A famous modern example is the late Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), and more moderate versions can be found taught by the contemporary German-Canadian mystic Eckhart Tolle, or the late HWL Poonjaji (Papaji, ??- 1997).

Shenxiu's invitation to the court of Empress Wu began the movement of Chan into the mainstream. Shenhui's criticisms led to the triumph of the rhetoric of sudden realization.

From the Tang to the Song

In the Tang dynasty styles of Chan proliferated and began to define themselves both in terms of differences in doctrine and differences of lineage. Chan became self-conscious in the Tang and the struggles to define itself began. Intense debate about how to attain direct realization, and what the content of that realization was, flourished in this period. Zongmi (780-841), himself both a Chan practitioner and Hua Yen Ancestor, compiled a canon of Chan teachings as an attempt to increase the acceptance of the school and to clarify its doctrines. In his preface to the canon Zongmi listed all of the Chan traditions extant in his time period. His descriptions show a rich selection of practices, ranging from antinomian rejections of all rules, ritual, and praxis to various styles of cultivating devotion and meditative absorption though mantras, liturgies, and ceremonies (Broughton 2004:11-53). The evidence suggests that despite the Chan emphasis on practice the study of Buddhist scriptures was still generally undertaken amongst Chan practitioners. Records of the sermons of members of the Hongzhou school, which would prove to be particularly influential in the late Tang and early Song, show masters like Mazu Daoyi (J. Baso Doitsu, 709-788) and Huangbo Xiyun (J. Obaku Kiun, d.850) had a thorough mastery of Mahayana sutras. These developments suggest, as several modern scholars have argued, that the sudden approach to realization which gained prominence in the centuries following Shenhui was more a matter of rhetoric than practice. In practice sutra study, rituals and seated meditation continued to be practiced as students aimed to apply these gradual methods to one day break through to sudden realization. This amounts, of course, to nothing more than the complete approach of Shenxiu, but regarded through a different lense. These same sermons of Mazu and Huangbo present both masters as relentlessly pushing their disciples to not stop satisfied with intellectual knowledge or gradual practices, but rather seek direct comprehension of the nature of their minds, ie. to seek Awakening. Song Buddhist literature presents these masters as using unconventional shock tactics to inspire a direct breakthrough to Awakening. The famous Linjilu (Record of Linji) presents the famous Hongzhou master Linji (J. Rinzai,d.866) as using obscenity, shouts, and blows to jump over any and all obstacles to direct, liberating contact with his students minds.

The Hongzhou tradition began to judge masters on the basis of their spontaneous expression of Awakened mind as opposed to their ability to translate scriptural terms into direct pointers to realization, a technique still very much in use in the Platform Sutra of Huineng and the recorded sermons of Mazu and Huangbo. Records of these awakening tactics began to be collected in the denglu (Transmission Records) literature which showed how the Awakened mind was transmitted and what lineages different families of practitioners belonged to. These developed into the important yulu (Encounter Dialogue) literature of the early Song, which showed the way that different Masters manifested spontaneously enlightening speech and gestures. This style came to be associated particularly with the early house of Linji, but arose in all lineages. It is the early Song that we find the first occurrence of the following famous definition of Chan: A special transmission outside the scriptures; not relying on words and letters, pointing directly at the mind and becoming a Buddha (Welter 2006). The yulu literature showed how this special transmisson took place. It also showed how its authenticity was judged: by the disciples ability to spontaneously, fearlessly, and sincerely express his own enlightened understanding in dialogue with a master.
The yulu literature became very popular with the literati at court and helped to gain support for the new style of Chan. The Confucians of the period were craving a new discourse, one more spontaneous and subversive. While some scholars argue that the the yulu literature was written largely in order to gain the support of the literati, that is putting the cart before the horse. The yulu represent a religious and artistic movement which fomented over centuries, and is obviously based in the intense experiential and intellectual efforts of Chan monastics. In any case, with the support of the literati the now self-conscious Chan movement, strongly influenced by Hongzhou Chan, attained a dangerous thing: success. Chan now became the new Mainstream Buddhism#.

Confucian Echoes

Since we have noted the effect of the patronage and preferences of Confucian literati on Chan, it is interesting to note in passing the effect that the Chan pursuit of direct, experiential awakening had on the Confucian tradition of the elite. The classical Confucian tradition was fundamentally an ethical and political tradition whose solution to the challenges of life was learning, ritual, etiquette and interpersonal humaneness and rectitude. By the end of the Han dynasty the Confucian tradition had become sterile. In the Wei-Jin period it attempted to revivify itself by incorporating Taoist principles in what came to be known as the Mysterious Learning movement. Despite these efforts, as Xinzhong Yao writes, Confucians “were unsuccessful in reviving Confucianism as a philosophy guiding persoinal and social life” (2000: 96). Confucianism could only maintain “superficial values in the state administration” and had to fight for its place in Chinese life (Ibid.). In the Sui and Tang dynasties Confucians succeeded in holding executive responsibilities for government and administration, and increased their influence through the education system and civil service administration. In the late Tang and early Song dynasties Confucians reacted to the growing Chan tradition in a number of ways. Some argued that Buddhism had no rightful place in China, some tolerated it, and some learned from it. Among the latter were Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073), Shao Yong (1011-1077), Zhang Zai (1020-1077), Cheng Hao (1032-1085), Cheng Yi (1033-1107), Zhu Xi (1130-1200) and Lu Jiuyan (1139-1193). These Confucian philosophers were the architects of a reborn tradition that oversaw a creative new focus on metaphysics, the study of human nature, and self cultivation through meditation. The understanding of the heart (xin), paralleling the same focus in Chan, was shifted to the center of the new Confucianism(2000: 96-109). In this way the Chan obsession with direct experience and creative expression inspired a generation of Confucians to develop methods for translating Confucian principles and intuitions into realization in the body and mind of the individual Confucian.Thus the contemplative systems and fully articulated metaphysics of Song Confucianism were born under the tutelage of the Chan tradition.

The Birth of The Koan and Kan-hua Chan

With the recording of the awakening behaviour of the Chan masters, and the compilation of those records naturally followed the analysis of those records. Hence was born the gong’an, or kung'an (Public Case) tradition. This tradition took the sayings and doings of previous masters as recorded in yulu dialogues and used them as the basis for contemplation and commentary. This mirrored the use of precedents in a legal case, which set a standard for judgement. These koans (in their more famous Japanese pronunciation) were used to test and refine the awareness of seekers, and to showcase the understandings of masters. This led in the Song to literary masterpieces by Chan luminaries like Hongzhi Zhengjue (J. Wanshi Shogaku, 1091-1157), and Yuanwu Keqin (Engo Kokugon, 1063-1135). These masters presented collections of koans for the contemplation of Chan students accompanied by their own creative, and often cryptic commentaries.

These new developments were not without their problems for the Chan tradition. The Hongzhou penchant for blows and shouts led to cheap imitation, as the Japanese Zen master Dogen complained when he visited Chinese monasteries in the early 13th century (Tanahashi 2000: 3-28). The literary study of koans led to intellectuality and threatened to make Chan into the very scholastic tradition it had critiqued and distanced itself from in its quest for direct realization. The two main houses of the Song responded to these problems in different ways. The Caodong school, as epitomized by its most prominent teacher in the Song, Hongzhi Zhengjue, took one approach. Hongzhi himself wrote a koan commentary and was on friendly terms with the author of the most famous kung'an commentary, Yuanwu Keqin. The central practice Hongzhi taught, however, did not rely on contemplation of koans. Hongzhi's central practice, which came to be known as Silent Illumination Chan (mo-chao Chan, J. soto zen), was a seated meditation practice where one cultivated a non-grasping, vivid awareness that enacted, and ultimately led to, direct realization of the Buddha nature or mind ground. For controversial reasons Dahui Zonggao (J. Daie Soko, 1089-1163), a Linji master contemporaneous to Hongzhi, criticized Silent Illumination Chan as misguided, characterizing it as self-indulgent quietism that lead nowhere. Dahui advocated an aggressive, goal-oriented practice in its stead, a practice that revolutized koan practice and the future of Chan. Known as k'an-hua Chan , or Koan Introspection Chan, this method involved focusing intensely on a hua-t'ou, or critical phrase, from a koan. The student was to focus singlemindedly on the hua-t'ou without trying to understand it intellectually, focusing all of one's doubt and psychic energy until a breakthrough into Awakened awareness was achieved. Interestingly, both Hongzhi and Dahui's methods circumvent the “intellectual Chan” that was developing in the Song. Hongzhi's approach is a direct non-conceptual meditation on the mind itself. Dahui's approach takes the critical phrase out of its literary context and focuses on it nonconceptually as well, in effect de-intellectualizing the hua-t'ou.

Interestingly Hongzhi appears comfortable with the more intellectual approach to koans, perhaps because he saw them as a supplementray tool to refine the understanding of students and not the main practice. Dahui, by comparison, worked directly with material from koans as his central practice, and it was Dahui who ordered his teachers koan commentary to be destroyed by fire. Unlocking the power of the koans could not be done through intellectual contemplation, but only by using them as a tool to disrupt and break through the superficial intellectual mind. Thus Dahui was led to create an approach to koan practice that was designed not only as a tool for meditative breakthrough, but as a cure for the sicknesses created by the koan literature itself. These two approaches became the major streams of Chan practice in both China and Japan up to modern times. The first made mo-chao Chan central, identified as tso-chan itself (J. zazen), and tolerated the refinement of understanding through the use of koans. The second used koans centrally, but contemplated them non-conceptually in the form of hua-t'ou2. Both of these streams of Chan practice can be seen, then, as expressions of the Chan pursuit of transformative experience as opposed to mere practice or intellectual knowledge. The Silent Illumination tradition pursues this through cultivation of seated meditation and direct experience of core Buddhist doctrines, particularly the Buddha-nature and the nature of mind. This approach is in fact an old one in the Chan tradition, and is evidenced as far back as texts ascribed to Shenxiu at least (Mcrae 2004: 53). Hongzhi is thus not responding explicitly to sicknesses brought on by the koan. The emphasis in his teachings on silent, non goal oriented contemplation does, however, stand in apparent opposition to the model of sudden awakening in fierce dialogue with a master. Perhaps Hongzhi's emphasis on mo-chao is to come extent a reaction to the yulu model. Although yulu type interactions are ascribed to him as well, perhaps Hongzhi feared they could lead to an egoistic grasping after awakening or simulacra of enlightened behaviour involving lots of cryptic witticisms and incoherent yelling. We have seen how Dahui strove to work directly with the koans but in a way which removed the intellectually seductive content from them. It is also clear that Dahui's method arose as a reaction to Silent Illumination Chan, which he viewed as encouraging complacency and blurring the distinction between the awakened and unawakened state (Schlutter 2002: 109-148). Both men's Chan were thus attempts to ensure their students did not go astray but arrived directly at experiential awakening.

Concluding Reflections

Chan history can be examined from many perspectives. According to the predilections of the scholar it can be examined through the lens of art, language, philosophy, or politics, and a particular set of forces which shaped its historical developments will be illumined. Above I have examined Chan history up into the Song dynasty from the perspective of its own self-proclaimed central impulse as a spiritual tradition: the ideal of giving primacy to the direct experiential realization of the Buddha's teachings. The struggle to maintain that focus as it became a self-conscious tradition with its own mythical history, institutional structure, distinct literature, practice traditions, and success at the Confucian court, gave rise to the distinct forms of Song Chan, as well as influencing the wider Chinese culture.




Works Cited

Broughton, Jeff. “Tsung-mi's Zen Prolegemenon: Introduction to an Exemplary Zen Canon”, in The Zen Canon: Understanding The Classic Texts. NY: Oxford University Press 2004.

Cleary, J.C.: Zen Dawn. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2001.

Cleary, J.C.; Cleary, Thomas. Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu. Boston: Shambhala Publications 1994.

Heine, Steven; Wright, Dale S. The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism. USA: Oxford University Press 2000.

Hershock, Peter D. Chan Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai Press 2005.

Mcrae, John R. Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism. University of California Press 2004.

Schlutter, Morten. “Silent Illumination, Kung'an Introspection, and the competition for Lay Patronage in Song Dynasty Chan”. Gregory, Peter N.; Getz Jr., Daniel, ed. Buddhism In The Sung. Honolulu: University of Hawai Press 2002.

Welter, Albert. Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism. NY:Oxford University Press 2006.

Yao, Xinzhong. An Introduction to Confucianism. NY: Cambridge Uinversity Press 2000.

Issho Fujita: "Zazen is not Shuzen"

An interesting piece from the Dharma Eye magazine. I am posting it mostly because I think it is such a clear articulation of Zazen practice in modern Soto Zen, particularly in the Kodo Sawaki lineage. This is Dogen's Zazen according to that lineage.  I like this piece a lot. Enjoy:

My Footnotes on Zazen 1 Zazen is not Shuzen (1)
Rev. Issho Fujita
Director, Soto Zen Buddhism International Center


In my Zazen Sankyu Notebook (1)[Dharma Eye Number 2], I wrote, “Zazen as the body of text is always seeking to be freshly re-read with new footnotes under the renewed light of the present age. Those who practice zazen in this modern society are being requested by zazen itself to bring their own unique words to it”. More than ten years have passed since I wrote that impression and I still feel so. I would like to share with Dharma Eye readers some footnotes I have made during these years. I hope my little effort to add new footnotes to zazen will inspire, even a little bit, the readers to creatively make their own footnotes. 

Around early 6th century CE a strange Buddhist monk came to China from South India. Unlike other visiting monks, he did not bring any new Buddhist scriptures or commentaries. He did not translate nor give lectures on Buddhist scriptures, either. He did nothing that could be called “missionary work.” What he did was just sit all day long facing the wall in a room at Shaolin temple. So people gave him a nickname, “wall-gazing Brahman” (an Indian monk who indulged in meditation facing the wall). This monk was Bodhidharma who is now revered as the “First Ancestor of Zen”.

Except for his own disciples (small in number), very few could understand the true meaning of what he was doing by facing the  wall. For example, a famous Buddhist scholar- monk, Nanzan Dousen(Tang dynasty, a founder of Nanzan Vinaya School), classified Bodhidharma in a shuzen section when he complied The Sequel of Biography of Eminent Monks. That implies that Dousen thought of Bodhidharma as a shuzen practitioner, one who engaged in meditation to attain a special state of mind called “dhyana” (Sa. Jhana, Pa). But Dogen criticized Dousen, saying that such an understanding is completely wrong and irrelevant because zazen encompasses the whole Buddha Dharma, not a part of it. In Shobo- genzo Gyoji he wrote, “This was the utmost stupidity, which is lamentable.” According to Dogen, the sitting zazen facing the wall that Bodhidharma practiced in silence is totally different from what had been practiced as zazen to train (shu) a meditative state of dhyana (zen). What Bodhidharma did was authentic zazen, which had been correctly transmitted through generations of ancestors from Shakyamuni. “The ancestral teacher (Bodhidharma) alone embodied the treasury of the true dharma eye transmitted from buddha to buddha, from heir to heir”. Zazen is not a training of dhyana (shuzen) which is one genre of Buddhist practice, like the Three Studies (sila, samadhi, prajna) or Six Paramitas (dana, sila, kshanti, virya, dhyana, prajna) . It is a quite different practice from zazen. In other word shuzen is a personal training to achieve a human ideal (small vehicle, hinayana) and zazen is an expression of something transpersonal or universal (great vehicle, mahayana).

I believe that it is crucially important for us as zazen practitioners to distinguish zazen as the entirety of Buddha Dharma from shuzen as one genre of it, even though these two practices look similar at a glance. We should avoid confusing them. That is why Dogen repeatedly emphasized this point (zazen is not shuzen) in his writings (Fukanzazengi, Shobogenzo, Eihei Koroku, etc..). It could be said that the bulk of his wirings were written to clarify the criteria for discerning authentic zazen.

Then, what is the difference between zazen and shuzen? This is a very important question to consider when we practice zazen. Even if we are sitting with almost the same posture, it does not mean the content is also the same (“If there is a hairsbreadth deviation, it is like the gap between heaven and earth” Fukanzazengi). I am wondering how many zazen practitioners are keenly aware of the importance of this question. 

I stayed at a small zendo in western Massachusetts from 1987 until 2005 as a resident teacher and practiced zazen together with a group of people. That was a great experience for me to deepen my understanding of zazen. Luckily in that area many people were inter- ested in Buddhism and many Buddhist centers and groups (large and small, Theravada, Ma- hayana, Tibetan) were full of activities. Moreover, the colleges nearby all offered introductory courses in Buddhism and seminars on Buddhist philosophy. Those classes were very popular and many students attended them.

Because I was living in such a “hot place” of Buddhism, I was often visited by people who had already studied and practiced various traditions of Buddhism such as Theravada, Tibetan Buddhism, or Rinzai koan practice before coming to my zendo. I was, in a sense, forced to distinguish shikantaza (just sitting) from those types of sitting meditations. It is not a matter of showing off the superiority of my practice to the other but I needed to clarify what shikantaza is all about in comparison with other kinds of practice. Otherwise I could not fulfill my responsibility as a teacher of that practice.

In English speaking countries zazen is usually translated as “zen meditation” or “sitting meditation”. But this translation makes it almost inevitable that people think of zazen as an effort to control the mind and attain a certain state of mind by applying a certain method. This is exactly what shuzen means. Therefore I had to explain that zazen was different from meditation. When I talked about zazen, I decided to use Japanese word, zazen, instead of using English translations. Then it was quite natural that people started asking me, “Ok. Then what is zazen? What should we do to do zazen?”


I realized that when people tried to do zazen based on the shuzen-like assumption they first physically sat down with a certain posture and then applied some mental technique (with emphasis on the mental technique). They thought they had to do some psychological work l in addition to physically sitting. But zazen should be practiced within a totally different framework. So I had to clarify the difference between zazen and their deeply held assumptions.

Near the zendo where I resided there was a vippassana meditaion center founded by S. N. Goenka in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. This center, formally called Dhammadhara (land of Dhamma), was the first meditation center in North America (founded in 1982) among about 100 centers worldwide. The center consists of 108 acres of land and many buildings, including a bathhouse, two dining rooms, meditation hall for 200 people, a 60 cell pagoda, separate residences for men and women and a center manager's house. Every year around 2,000 people participate in their 10-day course of vipassana meditation. (for more information, see their website at http://www.dhara.dhamma.org/ns/index.shtml). I attended 10-day courses offered by this center twice.

During the 10-day course, for the first three days they practice anapanasati, focusing the attention to the physical sensations around the nostril and the rest of the period they keep “scanning” the whole body by using the cultivated attention to the sensations ( for the details of this technique, see Art of Living by William Hart).


Later I met Larry Rosenberg, a guiding teacher at Cambridge Insight Meditation Center and an author of an excellent book, Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation. He kindly invited me as a guest participant to the 10-day course for advanced yogis he led at Insight Meditation Center in Barre, MA. There I experienced another style of vipassana called “labeling” in the tradition of Mahasi Sayadaw. In this practice practitioners are encouraged to keep noting/labeling every activity all day long.

Before I came to America, I had experienced 5 day or a week long Zen sesshin many times. But I never had a chance to experience 10-day meditation retreat in Japan. Physically it was not so hard for me to sit for many hours for 10 days. But it was the first time I had to apply a certain meditation technique for that long period. These were practices such as exclusively focusing on the sensations around the nostrils, or keeping scanning the whole body for a long time, or labeling whatever is happening in body and mind. Metaphorically speaking, I used “mental muscles” a lot which I seldom use during zazen. And I felt mental “muscular pain” from overusing them. In zazen our mind pervades throughout, resting with the body that is sitting and breathing. It does not engage with any other activity. In zazen we do not intentionally use or actively control our mind, applying a certain method and technique. In those two types of vipassana practice I had a different “taste” of sitting, compare to the one I had in zazen. Where does this difference in taste come from? It was very informative to think about it. Of course this is but my personal impression as a complete beginner of this practice. It is highly likely that the “taste” will change as I deepen the practice further. And also it could be that vipassana is quite different from shuzen. 

Another helpful hint for me in clarifying the difference between zazen and shuzen is Uchiyama Roshi’s definition of zazen. He says it is “an effort to continuously aim at a correct sitting posture with flesh and bones and to totally leave everything to that.” In his definition there is no shuzen element which assumes the central role of mind in shuzen practice. In opposition, the somatic element of zazen is strongly emphasized. If we can understand Bodhidharma’s “wall gazing” as an effort“ to keep sitting with bodymind being like a wall, whatever happens, let it flow as it is, without clinging to or fighting against it”, it is very similar to Uchiyama roshi’s definition of zazen. In this kind of practice, to do zazen means just to sit solely aiming at a correct posture. There is no other need to reach a certain state of mind as a goal or to attain a special experience. Therefore we are freed from anxiety and frustration which comes from seeking for a special state of mind and experience which we have not yet attained and are able to peacefully rest in the here-and-now as it is, nothing special. There can be no competition or ranking based on what is achieved because there is no fixed attainment target. All those human struggles are totally suspended in zazen. That is why zazen is called the “dharma gate of joyful ease”. We simply make a sincere and straightforward effort to sit zazen with body and mind all together without desiring to get something however lofty it may be. This is the way of zazen and in that sense it is quite different from shuzen.

This is easy to say but very difficult to do for us because we are usually driven by a desire to achieve something which does not exist here and now. When we hear that zazen is about no achievement, we immediately ask, “If zazen is that, how can I do it?” But this is a question exactly stemming from the framework based on “means and end” which is always behind the shuzen approach. It is nothing but an undertaking to grasp zazen using the shuzen concept. This shuzen attitude is deeply rooted in our way of behavior and thinking. That is why we should take a radically different approach to zazen so that we can avoid changing zazen into shuzen, consciously or unconsciously.


How can we clearly understand total difference in quality between zazen and shuzen?

(to be continued)

My Footnotes on Zazen 2
Zazen is not Shuzen (2)


Rev. Issho Fujita
Director, Soto Zen Buddhism International Center


I often use “Magic Eye” to illustrate a difference in quality between zazen and shuzen. “Magic Eye” is a picture of a two- dimensional pattern generated by a computer graphics. When you continue looking at it in a certain way, a three-dimensional image emerges out of the pattern. In Japan, it has become popular thanks to a sales pitch - “Good for improving your vision.” Some of you might have already had “Magic Eye experience”.


If you look at a Magic Eye picture in an ordinary way, the three-dimensional image hidden in the picture will never come out. If you stop seeing it in the usual way, tensing the muscles around the eyeballs to focus on the object and find out something – if you relax those muscles, giving up the effort to find something and wait patiently with a soft- focused eye (this kind of eye is called “Magic Eye”), a three-dimensional image suddenly emerges from nowhere. When we try to see the image more clearly, thinking “Wow, this is interesting!” and return to the ordinary way of seeing, the image immediately disappears. The attitude, the way of seeing and what is seen are interrelated. There is no way of cheating this relation.


An interesting thing about this “Magic Eye” phenomenon is that, depending on how we see the same picture - with ordinary eyes or with “Magic Eye” – a totally different visual world unfolds. I don’t know how we can see a three- dimensional image in a two-dimensional picture, but I am sure it is not just psychological but a matter of the physical way in which we use our eyes.

I think “Magic Eye” is an interesting and helpful metaphor for the whole different world of experience that unfolds depending on whether we sit zazen, in the shuzen way of using bodymind or in zazen way of “dropped- away bodymind.” In an old commentary to Shobogenzo, there is a phrase, “When sitting zazen, zazen becomes the self. It is not the self at ordinary times.” If we replace “self” with “bodymind,” it would go like this:” When sitting zazen, zazen becomes the bodymind. It is not bodymind at ordinary times”.


By extending the metaphor of the two types of eyes, ordinary eyes and “Magic Eye” and applying it to describe the characteristics and differences between ordinary bodymind and magic-eye-like bodymind, it is possible to say that shuzen is done with the former bodymind and zazen with the latter. With ordinary bodymind, we first set up the goal, control our body and mind in a certain way to accomplish the goal, and make a conscious effort to make result of our action match with the goal through comparing the two. Whatever we do, there is a basic structure of “I (consciously) operate my bodymind to accomplish a purpose.” In the case of shuzen, the purpose is to produce a certain state of mind which can be clearly described as “dhyana” and the practitioner applies a various methods (Dogen Zenji called it “means to brush it clean”), like counting breath, following breath, body-scanning, mental noting, etc.. With these methods, body and mind are consciously and purposely used to make progress toward the goal. It is an act of self-control - “I” control “my body and mind” - and an approach of actively doing something to achieve a goal.

In contrast, magic-eye-like bodymind is an approach of undoing what we do not need to do or what we should not do. Physically speaking, it is a state of deep relaxation with unnecessary tension totally released. Psychologically speaking, it is a state of resting ease in a relaxed way in which the ordinary way of actively run- ning the mind is put aside (Dogen Zenji called it “give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness”). In Dogen Zenji’s “Birth-Death”, he wrote, “Just letting go of and forgeting body and mind, casting them into the house of Buddha, being activated by the Buddha - when we go along in accord with this, then without applying effort or expending the mind we part from birth and death and become Buddhas”. I think this is a wonderful descrip- tion of magic-eye-like bodymind. Therefore zazen should not be a “job done by self-power.” Essentially zazen is not what we can ”do” directly by exerting our own power. Keizan Zenji wrote, “Just sit zazen. Do not fabricate anything. This is the essential art of zazen” in Zazen Yojinki (Notes on What to be Aware of in Zazen).


To give zazen instruction, we often say, “straighten your back,” “keep your eyes half- open, half-closed” to regulate the body, “make your out-breath long,” “do abdominal breathing” to regulate breath, and “do not think anything,” “focus your attention on your breath” to regulate the mind. I think there is a big problem here. Zazen should not be something forcefully built up by imposing a ready-made mold onto our body-mind from outside. It should be what is naturally and freely generated from inside as a result of non-fabrication. There is a danger that a rote way of giving instruction is leading us to change zazen into shuzen.

In zazen, the spine should elongate by itself instead of our lengthening it by effort. I would like to briefly touch upon the topic of “outer” and “inner” muscles. When we try to lengthen our spine consciously, we use the “outer muscles” – the volitional muscles. These are designed for purposeful movement. When the spine elongates by itself, the body is using the autonomously-controlled “inner muscles.” These are the muscles of “being” – the non- volitional muscles - designed as a system of supportive movement (Jeremy Chance, “Alexander Technique”).


In many cases the natural function of inner muscles is blocked by unnecessary tensions of outer muscles. We must reactivate and fully develop the intrinsic functions of inner muscles by undoing unnecessary tensions in the outer muscles. The fundamental problem of human beings is that the outer muscles tend to take every chance to intrude where the inner muscles are supposed to play a main role. I think this is closely related to saying that zazen (inner muscle dominant) is not shuzen (outer muscle dominant).

Anyway, the principle of “it is good to spontaneously become so but not good to artificially make it be so” should be applied not only to spine but also head, eyes, hands, arms, legs and the all other parts of zazen posture, breath, and the mind. In zazen, we should not perform a special breathing method to control the breath but leave everything to the natural breathing, which is a life-sustaining activity of the body sitting with a correct posture. Dogen Zenji never tells us to breathe this way or that way. He just says, “breathe softly through your nose” or “your in-breath and out-breath are not long nor short (leave them alone).”


The idea of outer and inner muscles is about the body but I think we can also apply this idea to the mind. When we are absorbed in our thoughts, thinking of this or that - as usual - it is a function of “outer-muscle mind.” In everyday expression, we say “use your head.” In contrast, “inner-muscle mind” functions to support the appearing and disappearing of thoughts at the basic level. It enables intuition, awareness, and mindfulness to arise. Here again in zazen, we can say that we are calming down an excessive activity of outer-muscle mind and activating and manifesting the func- tion of inner-muscle mind which has been sup- pressed. Therefore as Dogen Zenji said, “stop measuring with thoughts, ideas and views.” We should avoid bringing the “side job” of various meditation techniques like the four foundations of mindfulness, Sun meditation, Ajikan meditation and so on, into zazen. When we engage in these meditation techniques, our mind inevitably becomes active and is dominated by “outer-muscle mind.” In zazen, the mind is dominated by “inner-muscle mind.” It is not focused on any particular spot. It evenly and softly permeates inside and outside the body, calmly receiving sensory inputs (including all kinds of thoughts) with equanimity. It suspends any reaction and control against the inputs whatever they may be.

So far I have been using strange metaphors like “Magic-Eye-like bodymind” and “outer muscle, inner muscle.” I did this to help you become familiar with the zazen approach in which we practice zazen as zazen, not as shuzen. For us the shuzen approach is much easier to grasp than zazen approach and we are much more familiar with it. Because it’s difficult to understand and unfamiliar, we often lose sight of shuzen being totally different from the zazen Dogen Zenji recommended so highly.
As a result, we are actually doing shuzen very hard believing it is zazen or zazen becomes “a dead letter,” a matter of appearance, or just an imitation of the form. I think something has to be done to change such a sad situation. It is the main reason why I started writing this article.


Of course, I do not have an ultimate answer to the problem. As I quoted earlier, “when we sit zazen, zazen becomes bodymind.” I am now exploring one step further to discover what kind of bodymind arises during zazen and what we should do in order to have such a bodymind. Zazen is not just a training or exercise for us to attain some preferable goals but a spiritual practice of “immediately entering into Buddhahood.” I really hope that we can open up the way we, today, can practice such zazen as a template of following what the buddhas and ancestral teachers practiced . 


another talk by Rev. Fujita on the same topic: http://www.milwaukeezencenter.org/pdf%20files/Newsletters/2011/mzc_news_9-11.pdf

What is Zen?

Below is my response to the following post, "That's Not Zen" on the excellent Nyoho Zen blog:

http://nyoho.com/2012/05/25/thats-not-zen/#comment-77

When I first started practicing Zen I felt clear about what it was. I read Roshi Philip Kapleau’s Three Pillars of Zen, and thought Zen was a set of practices which would lead to a direct experience of your “true nature” or “original face”. I had read of this concept before in earlier and extremely crude readings of Zen when I was 13 and 14- I remember explaining to an assuredly perplexed father when I was 16 that I did not want to go to school and pursue a normal job, I wanted to see “my face before my parents were born”.  When I started practicing Zazen, at the age of 18 or 19, I thought it would be a way to experience the essence, the true reality, of my self and of life.

I’ll insert a spoiler here and tell you that more than 15 years later, after many changes of view and path, I have come back to this same opinion: Zen is a set of practices which aim at a realization, an understanding, a direct experience, and an embodiment, of the reality of the self and of life. This reality is sometimes called “buddha nature” “one mind” “mind ground” “tathagatagarbha”, and goes hand in hand with the understanding of the emptiness of self and things, of subject and object. Put another way, the self is ungraspable, and things too are ungraspable. The reason this realization is important is that it frees us from our deluded grasping, which is the source of the suffering of both ourselves and of others, and also the source of our inability to truly serve others, which is the same thing as serving that which is deepest within us.

After I began sitting Zazen I continued reading books on Zen, and after an initial ecstacy of love became more and more confused. Within about a year I felt I no longer had any idea how to practice Zen. When I tried I found I was trying to fake various Zen-like attitudes I didn’t really understand. It was then that the late Patrick O’ Connel, great Manitoban poet, Buddhist, and sometimes Christian, handed me a copy of Nyaniponika Thera’s Heart of Buddhist Meditation.
The Burmese Mindfulness meditation of that book was a revelation. The gentle attentiveness, the pursuit of reality, the whole body and mind presence, and the promise of self knowledge and freedom I had also found in Zen, but here it was without the pretense and obfuscation!

I took up Mindfulness meditation and read Goldstein, Kornfield, Salzburg and crew. I felt relieved and energized by the clear, simple teachings. When I applied them my clarity increased and my afflictive emotions decreased. All aspects of my life improved.

I took up Theravadin practice and ultimately ordained as a bhikkhu (monk) in the Thai Forest Tradition under the brilliant scholar and meditation master, Thanissaro Bhikkhu. I benefitted tremendously from his teachings and from Buddhist practice as taught in the Pali Canon (the earliest, pre-Mahayana scriptures) and Thai masters like Ajaan Lee, Ajaan Chah, and Ajaan Maha Boowa.

The other side of the story was that I slowly became a slave to technique, form and dogma. I lost sight of the possibility of radical insight here and now, of direct penetration, freedom, and contemplative creativity. I felt I had to perfect my monastic discipline, my renunciation, and my jhana (sankrit: dhyana) before I could hope to have any real insight or freedom beyond character development and increased skillfulness and happiness.

To simplify the story considerably this was what led me back to Zen, which I keep on coming back to like an old lover ever since I tremblingly took the four Bodhisattva vows as a teenager. To my thinking Zen is exactly as it was described by Bodhidharma: “Not depending on words and scriptures, a special transmission outside the teachings, direct pointing to the heart and becoming Buddha.” Zen goes to the same place as other forms of Buddhism, but does it not by relying on the Buddha’s techniques and philosophies but by direct realization of the Buddha’s mind of freedom. The Buddha’s mind is the mind of non-grasping, the mind of nirvana. The only difference between Zen realization and Theravadin realization, in my opinion (whose worth is questionable and you will question very justifiably) is that Zen takes the mind of non-duality and non-grasping further, going beyond realization of nirvana to the Mahayana ideal of non-grasping to nirvana or samsara, to emptiness or form, to rejecion of the world or addiction to to it. This is the path of the Bodhisattva- endless non-abiding practicefor the sake of self and other, beyond self and other, the ultimate mind of non-grasping.

I believe that Zen attempts to keep practices to a minimum, well aware of the tendency to worship the means and forget the end. Of course this happens in Zen still, but no one is perfect and everything flowing in the stream of samsara is relentlessly pulled into the muddy waters. Only the steel guts of the Bodhisattvas pull Zen out again and pass it along until the next muddy wave.

I understand Koan study to be a technique for transmitting understanding of that which leads to the non-grasping mind- understanding of the ever-free nature of our own awareness, our Buddha nature; understanding of the illusory and projected nature of our concepts and perceptions; understanding the emptiness of self and phenomena; understanding our non-seperation from all things; understanding the non-grasping compassion of a Bodhisattva. It is a thorough training in the seeing through, in barrier-lessness, in letting go.

Shikantaza is a direct taking up of the mind of a Buddha, the non-grasping, luminous mind. Even though Shikantaza by definition must be done without desiring attainments, without doing, and without grasping to any ecstacies, insights, or even any simple ease and pleasure, that comes with it, I believe that shikantaza properly done leads to a real “dropping off of body and mind” where one realizes directly the always and ever free Buddha nature and the emptiness of self and other.  I believe that the writings or teachings of Dogen Zenji and Keizan Jokin, Hongzhi Zhenjue, or for that matter Obaku Zenji (Huangpo) or Eko Zenji (Huineng) amply point in this direction.

I do not believe that this means Zen rejects monasteries, precepts, sutra study, chanting, or for that matter psychotherapy, psychiatric medication, yoga or tooth brushing. It just means that these things, though they help stabilize and put in order body and mind for practice, do not lead to freedom are not Zen. Zen is the direct realization of the Buddha’s heart. It is the wholehearted effort to let nothing else get in the way.

Some may argue, rightly, that Zen says there is nothing to attain. That is true. We are already free and all of our suffering is an illusion. But until we know that we must practice. We will not gain anything, but we will lose every thing, which is exactly what we need.