What is Zen Practice?

Zen Practice is foremost the practice of zazen, or meditation. Dogen Zenji (1200-1253), one of the great Zen masters says “The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the Dharma gate of joyful ease, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment.” From this perspective zazen is not a means to an end, but an important, engaged, vital, and enlightened activity. At the same time zazen is the means to experiencing our true enlightened nature, which in turn can transform our life and our relationship to suffering. As this perspective is developed through practice we become increasingly able to face and accept the inevitable changes and difficulties that life brings us.

Zen Practice is also a way of becoming more intimately present and engaged with our life, in all of our activities. We must admit that much of our life is spent lost in thought. We miss the present when we are distracted by worries about the future, regrets about the past, or fantasies. The ability to be engaged in our life can be cultivated and grown over time, and Zen practice seeks to do just that. Through our engagement with life we can connect with what moves our heart. In doing so, and as the imagined barriers between self and other drop away, we begin to find joy in benefiting those around us, and in taking care of the world.

Finally Zen Practice is becoming intimate with the truth that everything we experience is fine, just as it is. This is not a denial of the fact that our life is more satisfying and rich if we are present for it, but an acknowledgment that even our confusion and pain are perfectly complete and acceptable. From this perspective nothing that happens is a problem, just something to respond to. This response can be made from a place of choice, and being able to make a choice about our response, even in difficult situations, is liberation. This is guided by our studies of ethical living, so that our spontaneous freedom is balanced by self-discipline and a concern for the benefit of others.

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