Within the depth-psychology corpus, zazen occupies a singular position: it is simultaneously the technical core of Zen practice, a locus of doctrinal controversy, and a recurring point of contact between Buddhist and psychoanalytic phenomenologies. The term designates seated meditation in the Japanese Zen tradition, but the corpus reveals that this apparent simplicity conceals profound internal tensions. Cooper’s sustained engagement with Dogen’s Soto lineage insists that zazen — particularly in its shikantaza form — must not be read as a preparatory technique leading toward enlightenment but as the direct enactment of realization itself, a position that distinguishes Dogen sharply from both quietist and insight-meditation schools. Watts provides a more descriptive, historically oriented account, situating za-zen within the institutional rhythms of monastery life and tracing its genealogy through dhyana and ts’o-ch’an. Brazier approaches zazen therapeutically, mapping the psychophysiological mechanics — tanden, posture, ‘body and mind dropping away’ — onto clinical concerns with stillness and presence. Dogen’s own voice, present through the Shobogenzo Zuimonki passages, frames zazen not as self-cultivation but as selfless functioning whose benefit transcends individual gain. The central tension throughout is between zazen as instrument and zazen as expression — a debate whose resolution, Cooper argues, determines the entire architecture of practice and its analogy to psychoanalytic attention.
How can polishing a tile make it into a mirror? Nangaku says, ‘How can sitting in zazen make you into a buddha?’ … Dogen turns the meaning of the story around … he verifies and validates Baso’s zazen as expressive of realization
Cooper deploys the Nangaku-Baso koan to demonstrate Dogen’s foundational argument that zazen is not an instrumental means toward buddhahood but is itself the expressive activity of realization.
, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting, 2019thesis
Literally, za of taza is zazen, and ta means to hit; so, from moment-to-moment, we have to hit the bulls-eye of zazen itself. This is not a technique.
Cooper defines shikantaza through Uchiyama’s formulation to argue that zazen, properly understood, is not a psychological technique but a moment-to-moment total engagement that constitutes the enactment of the Soto Zen ethos.
, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting, 2019thesis
various approaches to zazen might include choiceless awareness, following the breath, counting the breath … concentrating on the wato of a kōan such as ‘Mu’ … ‘To practice [za]zen is to get free of body and mind. Just to sit is to have attainment from the beginning’
Cooper surveys the internal diversity of zazen methodologies while anchoring the discussion in Dogen’s declaration that sitting itself constitutes attainment from the outset, not as a result of practice.
, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting, 2019thesis
Shikantaza constitutes the structural core of the Soto Zen belief system and practice. Whether on the cushion or off, the principles of meditative awareness and insight guide our mode of being in the world.
Cooper argues that shikantaza — the specific form of zazen developed by Dogen — is not confined to formal sitting but extends as a comprehensive orientation to reality that pervades all aspects of lived experience.
, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting, 2019thesis
Zazen is not for our personal benefit … satori in zazen practice is like a burglar sneaking into an empty house. Although the burglar finally enters after strenuous effort, there is nothing to gain once he is there.
Dogen’s commentary, mediated through Sawaki Roshi’s aphorism, advances the radical claim that zazen yields nothing appropriable by the ego, thereby dismantling any gaining-mind orientation toward the practice.
, Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, 1234thesis
zazen and chanting a buddha’s or bodhisattva’s name … are basically the same; these are merely different names for the total functioning of the network of interdependent origination through which we are enabled to live.
Uchiyama Roshi’s teaching, preserved in the Zuimonki commentary, equates zazen with nembutsu practice as co-equal expressions of dependent origination, dissolving any privileged status for the seated form.
, Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, 1234supporting
what he called ‘turning the light inward and illuminating the self’ (ekō henshō) in the ‘Universal Recommendation of Zazen’ (Fukanzazengi)
The commentator connects Dogen’s waka poetry to the Fukanzazengi’s injunction of self-illumination, establishing zazen as the practice of reflexive awareness that turns perception back upon its own source.
, Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, 1234supporting
An approximation to this condition can be achieved by most serious practitioners who adopt zazen practice on a regular basis. Generally, we sit for thirty or forty minutes at a time … When one sits, as a beginner, even for fifteen or twenty minutes, one is liable to find that there are all manner of discomforts which distract.
Brazier presents zazen from a therapeutic standpoint, emphasizing its psychophysiological mechanics — posture, tanden, duration — as the practical means by which the state of ‘body and mind dropping away’ becomes accessible.
, Zen Therapy: Transcending the Sorrows of the Human Mind, 1995supporting
Both Rinzai and Soto Zen as we find them in Japanese monasteries today put enormous emphasis on za-zen or sitting meditation … To practice Zen is, to all intents and purposes, to practice za-zen
Watts identifies za-zen as the practical and institutional center of gravity for both major Japanese Zen schools, noting that for Rinzai this is supplemented by sanzen and koan introspection.
, The Way of Zen, 1957supporting
To think that practice and enlightenment are not one is a non-Buddhist view. In the Buddha-dharma they are one … the practice of a beginner is itself the whole of original enlightenment.
Cooper cites Dogen’s Bendowa to establish the non-dual identity of practice and enlightenment that undergirds his reformulation of zazen as expressive rather than instrumental activity.
, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting, 2019supporting
The genuine practice of being in accordance with the [Buddha’s] teaching is nothing other than just sitting, the essence of our practice in this monastery.
Dogen identifies ‘just sitting’ as the singular authentic expression of Buddhist practice, subordinating all other ritual and doctrinal activities to the primacy of zazen within the monastic community.
, Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, 1234supporting
Living by total exertion demands that the practitioner goes beyond the bounds of what can be defined as formal aspects of practice, in addition to zazen, ritual performance, prayer, and work practice. Total exertion as practice encompasses all activity.
Cooper extends the scope of zazen-informed practice beyond formal sitting to encompass every ordinary activity, arguing that the principle of total exertion (gūjin) dissolves the boundary between meditation and daily life.
, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting, 2019supporting
Much importance is attached to the physical posture of za-zen. The monks sit on firmly padded cushions with legs crossed and feet soles-upward upon the thighs.
Watts provides a detailed ethnographic account of the physical form of za-zen within the monastery, underscoring the institutional weight attached to correct posture as constitutive of the practice itself.
, The Way of Zen, 1957supporting
Even though the buildings are dilapidated, it is certainly a better place [to do zazen] than on the bare earth or under a tree … Realization has nothing to do with whether a dwelling place is good or bad
Zen Master Fanghui’s injunction that environmental conditions are irrelevant to zazen practice reinforces the Soto position that realization is not contingent on circumstance but on the quality of sitting itself.
, Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, 1234supporting
the Buddhist scholar Carl Bielefeldt writes that ‘The Zen school is the meditation school, and the character of Zen can be traced in the tradition of its meditation teaching’
Cooper frames the entire project of relating Zen to psychoanalysis through Bielefeldt’s authoritative claim that zazen and its lineage of instruction constitute the irreducible identity of Zen as a religious system.
, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting, 2019supporting
Sit either in the full-lotus or half-lotus position … sit upright in correct bodily posture, neither inclining to the left nor to the right, neither leaning forward nor backward.
Cooper reproduces Dogen’s Fukanzazengi instructions for physical posture in zazen, demonstrating that the practice is grounded in precise somatic discipline prior to any psychological or spiritual elaboration.
, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting, 2019supporting
there would have been an almost universal practice of dhyana — that is, ts’o-ch’an (Japanese, za-zen) or sitting meditation — among Buddhist monks … Zen became a distinct school only as it promulgated a view of dhyana which differed sharply from the generally accepted practice.
Watts locates za-zen within the broader Indian and Chinese dhyana tradition, arguing that Zen’s distinctiveness lies not in the adoption of sitting meditation but in its radical reconception of what that sitting means.
, The Way of Zen, 1957supporting
they are divided into ‘quietist’ or concentration techniques and wisdom or ‘insight’ techniques … In the Rinzai Zen tradition, concentration techniques, such as counting the breath, often serve to prepare the practitioner for kanna-zen or kōan introspection
Cooper maps the taxonomic field of meditation practices within which zazen is situated, clarifying the distinction between quietist and insight orientations that the Soto tradition’s shikantaza deliberately transcends.
, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting, 2019supporting
zazen (shikantaza) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Brazier’s index confirms the sustained cross-referencing of zazen with shikantaza throughout Zen Therapy, indicating the term’s centrality to his therapeutic application of Zen principles.
, Zen Therapy: Transcending the Sorrows of the Human Mind, 1995aside
‘Acupuncture Needle of Zazen,’ 392 … ‘Ocean-Seal Samādhi,’ 392–93 … shikantaza. See just sitting (shikantaza)
The Shobogenzo index cross-references zazen across multiple fascicles including the Zazenshin, revealing the structural centrality of the term to the organizational logic of Dogen’s primary doctrinal text.
, Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, 1234aside
Wholehearted Practice of Zazen, 389–93 … zazen, 397
The waka collection index identifies a poem specifically titled ‘zazen’ and a fascicle on its wholehearted practice, confirming the term’s presence across Dogen’s poetic as well as doctrinal writing.
, Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, 1234aside