The Dharma Gate of Ease and Joy
Leland Shields – September 14, 2026
Zazen is not the practice of dhyāna: it is simply the dharma gate of ease and joy. It is the practice and verification of ultimate bodhi
Dogen, “Zazen Universally Recommended,” TTS sutra books
What I just read is from Dogen’s essay, “Zazen, Universally Recommended,” in our sutra books. My intention this talk is to give you nothing to figure out and nothing to think about, so we can all breathe, walk, mu, chant, eat, wash…
The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism tells us that the Sanskrit word “dhyana” was transcribed in Chinese as zuochan, made up of the character zuo, meaning, “to sit,” and chan, meaning meditation – that is, sitting with legs folded, and eyes slightly closed. The Japanese transcribed zuochan as zazen. Zazen also sometimes refers to concentration.
Paraphrasing Dogen, zazen is not limited by any confounding ideas of meditation, it is the doorway to ease without goal or evaluation. It is the engagement and the actualization of…of what? We can use terms like, ultimate Bodhi, or Mind, or ease and joy, all intended to direct us right here. We are at ease here, when engaged in the day without effort that is extra to the activities of sesshin. It is useless to describe the color green, though the word “green” can evoke the experience of green.
In another translation of the same passage from Dogen, it is rendered in this way:
That which we call zazen is not a way of developing concentration. It is simply the comfortable way. It is practice that measures your satori to the fullest, and is in fact satori itself. It is the manifestation of the ultimate reality, and in it you will no longer be trapped as in a basket or a cage.
Dogen, Eihei; Cook, Francis Dojun. How to Raise an Ox: Zen Practice as Taught in Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo (p. 66). Wisdom Publications. Kindle Edition.
There is a luxurious open time in sesshin, during which no ideas or understanding of Zen are necessary. Zazen is not counting breaths. It is onnneeee, twoooo. Practice of mu is muuuuuu. Chanting isn’t practice, it’s kanzeon na mu….
Long before Dogen, 9th century Chinese master Huangbo said it this way:
Let there be a silent understanding and no more. Away with all thinking and explaining. Then we may say that the Way of Words has been cut off and movements of the mind eliminated.
Huang Po, translation by John Blofeld, The Zen Teachings of Huang Po: On The Transmission Of Mind, p. 34, Hauraki Publishing. Kindle Edition.
None of this is in opposition to the specificity of the form or our practice. In “Zazen Universally Recommended” and just a few paragraphs earlier than the quote I’ve shared already, Dogen also carefully described the ritual of zazen. I purposely first offered his expression of zazen as the “practice and verification of ultimate bodhi” as my prioritization for this sesshin, not because one is more important, but it seems to me our tendency is to readily forget that placing our left hand on our right, with tips of our thumbs touching is everything. Here is an excerpt of what Dogen said in earlier paragraphs:
In a place where you can sit regularly, spread a thick mat and place a cushion on it. Sit in either the full lotus or the half lotus position … For the half lotus, simply rest your left foot on your right thigh.
…place your right hand on your left foot, and your left on your right palm. Touch the tips of your thumbs together. Then straighten your body and sit erect. Do not lean to the left or right, backward or forward.
Your ears should be in line with your shoulders, and your nose in line with your navel. Touch your tongue against the front of your palate and close your lips and teeth. Your eyes should always remain open. Breathe gently through your nose…
Dogen, Zazen Universally Recommended.
Silent understanding is arranging legs to sit again after kinhin, and is manifestation of 2,500 years of Buddhism, and is community now with beings across the world. Just as chewing your food is the manifestation of 300 millennia of humanity, and is community with beings across the world right now.
Letting all thinking and explaining fall away is already ease. Without words, everything, everything is expressed by chanting when chanting. Word by word, syllable by syllable, sound by sound:
When I regard the true nature of the many dharmas,
I find them all to be sacred forms
of the Tathagata’s never-failing essence.
Each particle of matter, each moment,
is no other than the Tathagata’s inexpressible radiance.“Torei Zenji’s Bodhisatva’s Vow,” TTS sutra book.
Just chant, without goal of being a Buddha, without effort to recognize inexpressible or any other kind of radiance. Don’t bother with being separate or not-separate, it is enough – it is ease – to open our mouths and say, “When,” and say, “I,” and “the true nature of the many dharmas…” No need to understand or have articulate definitions of the words “dharma,” and “true nature.” Let the ink on the page and resonance in your voice make what they will of it.
Please join me in chanting the first two paragraphs of the assembly’s part for Torei Zenji’s Bodhisattva’s Vow, on page 8. I’ve chosen this piece because it’s familiar to us. That familiarity lets us chant it simply, word by word, without stopping to work out what it means — just giving ourselves fully to the sound and shape of the words, the way we might give ourselves to a bow. The chanting – and the bowing – speak for themselves. As you chant, there are no words before this one, and on end of chanting. There is this phrase; relinquish yourself to it.
In the Surangama Sutra, Buddha offers a parable of Yajnadatta, who looked in a hand-held mirror and fell in love with his face. In some translations, he again picks it up and mistakenly looking into the back of the mirror, is alarmed that he can’t see his head. He concludes he’s a ghost and desperately, madly runs around town in search of his own head. In later Mahayana retellings, Yajnadatta is captured and held by his friends, trying to help him come to his senses. In one of these versions, a friend eventually slaps his face to help him snap out of it; feeling the sting, Yajnadatta immediately understands – my face, my head is right here and was all along! (Bernie Glassman, Infinite Circle; Teachings in Zen, p. 24)
Running around desperately in search of your own head, too, is enough, but maybe not so comfortable as it is to just run around for its own sake. Or walking around for its own sake, as we do in kinhin, with left thumb in right fist, and left fingers over right hand, forearms level with the ground; one step, one step, one step…Doing just this is enough. I hesitate to say doing just this is everything, because there’s nothing grand about it, and perceiving one step as grand would be adding honey to honey. Your legs know what to do.
We foster presence by walking kinhin a little more slowly than our common pace – this is different than sauntering around the supermarket where our minds can flit without engagement from shopping list, to sugar content in the cereal, to the time I have to be home. There’s nothing wrong with flitting, and it’s different than releasing that which is extra to what is happening now.
We bow to the altar when entering the dojo. We bow to the altar when leaving the dojo. Each bow is a gift, such that palms come together seeing a Buddha figure anywhere, and of any form. But at lunch when we leave this room with its black cushions and altar to go to the kitchen, we are not leaving the dojo. We are still in the dojo and do not bow at the entrance when we return with a tray of food. Just this is enough. Your arms know what to do. Letting your arms do what is in accord is simplicity in motion.
Coming to dokusan, whether with something to say or nothing to say, just coming is enough. Just sitting in the dojo instead of coming to dokusan too, is fine too. Doing either without figuring anything out is enough, and is simplicity in action.
When breath, without an idea of breath and without measurements of attention to breath, there’s just breath. When there is just breath, the sound of an airplane is fully congruent with breath, as is a swallow and a cough.
We bow seamlessly together at the sound of the bell. With mindful attention to each movement together, we sidestep the understandable human tendency toward efficiency that can become slouching through the day.
Once again, from Huangbo:
Above all, have no longing to become a future Buddha; your sole concern should be, as thought succeeds thought, to avoid clinging to any of them.
Edited by Stephen Addiss, passage by Huang Po, Zen Sourcebook; Traditional Documents from China, Korea, and Japan, page 35
Now that I’ve spoken for these many minutes, please, forget everything I’ve said, forget everything you’ve said. At this point in sesshin, your body knows what to do. Let it; give up all else. Of course, even this week there will be occasions to stop and think – do I want broccoli or French fries with my dinner? Let those thoughts come and go in the flow of cooking as well. Relinquish yourself to the Way and you are already at ease.