Zazen as the Gateway of Total Relaxation

The Quote

"Zazen is the gateway of total repose and bliss. The body and mind of all buddhas are the body and mind of all beings. Zazen is neither a technique nor a method. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease."

— Dogen, Bendowa (A Discourse on the Practice of the Way)

Original language: Japanese

Historical Context

The Bendowa was composed by Dogen in 1231, shortly after his return from Song-dynasty China where he had trained under the Chan master Rujing at Mount Tiantong. It is one of Dogen's earliest writings and presents his teaching in a relatively accessible form, structured as a dialogue between teacher and student. The text introduces the practice of shikantaza — "just sitting" — as the distinctive method of the Soto school.

Dogen wrote the Bendowa at a critical moment in his career. He had brought the Caodong lineage from China and was beginning to establish his teaching at Kennin-ji in Kyoto. The text addresses the questions that his contemporaries would naturally raise: Why sit if one is already enlightened? What is the relationship between practice and awakening? How does zazen differ from other forms of meditation? Dogen's answer — that zazen is not a means to enlightenment but its expression — would become the foundation of his entire philosophical project.

Meaning

This passage distills Dogen's teaching of shikantaza into a single statement. The key claim is that zazen is "neither a technique nor a method." In most meditative traditions, practice is instrumental: one meditates in order to achieve a particular state, gain insight, or reach liberation. Dogen rejects this entire framework. Zazen is not a tool for producing awakening; it is the activity of awakening itself.

The phrase "gateway of total repose and bliss" (or "total relaxation" in some translations) names the experiential quality of shikantaza. When the practitioner sits without goal, without expectation, without the effort to achieve anything, the tension of striving falls away. What remains is not dullness or blankness but a vivid, relaxed alertness — the mind in its natural state. The "bliss" is not an ecstatic experience but the ease that comes when the self-centered project of becoming something drops away.

The statement that "the body and mind of all buddhas are the body and mind of all beings" carries the central Mahayana claim that Buddha-nature is not a potential to be developed but a present reality. The distinction between buddhas and ordinary beings is not ontological but epistemological: buddhas see what is already the case, while ordinary beings do not. Zazen is the practice of seeing what is already the case.

Philosophical Interpretation

The Bendowa's teaching of shikantaza represents one of the most distinctive positions in the Buddhist tradition. Most Buddhist schools understand meditation as a means to an end — a tool for developing insight, calming the mind, or cultivating wholesome qualities. Dogen's Soto Zen rejects this instrumental understanding entirely. Zazen is not practiced in order to become enlightened; it is practiced because it is enlightenment.

This teaching is grounded in Dogen's doctrine of practice-enlightenment (shusho ichi), which he develops at length in the Genjokoan and throughout the Shobogenzo. If practice and enlightenment are identical, then there is no gap between the means and the end. The person sitting in zazen is not a future buddha working toward awakening but a buddha expressing awakening through the act of sitting.

The claim that zazen is "neither a technique nor a method" has significant philosophical implications. A technique is a procedure that can be learned, applied, and evaluated by its results. Dogen's shikantaza resists this framing because it has no result apart from itself. One does not "do" zazen in order to "get" something; one does zazen because zazen is what buddhas do. This does not mean that there is nothing to learn — posture, breathing, and mental attitude are all part of the practice — but it means that the learning is not instrumental. The practice is complete in each moment of sitting.

The "joyful ease" that Dogen names is not a feeling to be cultivated but the natural condition of the mind when it is no longer distorted by striving. It is the ease of being actualized by myriad things, as the Genjokoan puts it, rather than by one's own self-centered narratives. In this sense, zazen is both the easiest thing — simply sitting, doing nothing — and the most difficult, because it requires giving up the project of achieving anything through it.

Related Concepts

• Meditation: The practice of zazen as the heart of Soto Zen — not a technique for achieving awakening but the expression of awakening itself.
• Mindfulness: The quality of relaxed, non-striving awareness that shikantaza cultivates — attending to the present moment without trying to change or achieve anything.
• Inner Peace: The "total repose" that Dogen describes — not the absence of experience but the presence of ease when the self-centered project drops away.

Related Learning

• Explore the Dogen thinker page for his broader philosophical vision, including the Genjokoan and the Shobogenzo.
• The Zen philosophy page situates shikantaza within the tradition's core practices.
• The Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Dogen provides scholarly context for his teachings.

Sources

1. Tanahashi, Kazuaki, ed. and trans. Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1985. Bendowa.
2. Nearman, Hubert, trans. The Shobogenzo. Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2007.
3. "Dogen." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dogen/