On February 8th, 2026, after meditation we watched a recorded Dharma talk from the Reverend Issho Fujita entitled “Zazen as a Way of Harmonizing the Self ”.

Zazen is the core practice of Zen and Chan Buddhism. “Zazen” is a Japanese word usually translated to English as “seated meditation”. It’s often described as “objectless meditation” or “just sitting”. However, Rev. Fujita introduces his talk by emphasizing that zazen is not meditation. Meditation, he says, is a human technique in which one exerts effort to achieve a goal. Zazen, by contrast, has no goal, and should not involve effort. (It must be noted that many schools of Buddhism do practice “meditation” by this definition, and these are valid and respected practices. Zen Buddhism simply emphasizes a different practice.)

Saying that zazen is effortless makes it sound like it’s easy to achieve, but understanding what that means is not necessarily easy. Rev. Fujita shared that he practiced for 10 years, trying to do zazen, before he realized that what he’d been doing wasn’t zazen. He’d been trying too hard, exerting effort, and so he hadn’t really grasped what zazen was.

Zazen is about harmonizing the body, harmonizing the breath, and harmonizing the mind. Rev. Fujita quotes Dogen in saying that this harmonization can be achieved by the following:

Just set aside your body and mind, forget about them, and throw them into the house of Buddha

then all is done by Buddha. When you follow this,

without effort or calculation, you are free from birth and death and become a buddha.

The Rev. Fujita summarizes this instruction as “Release, Receive, and Appreciate”.

This practice cannot be done in isolation. Harmonizing the body must be done in collaboration with the ground, for example. Breathing is harmonizing the relationship with the air. For your mental state, you harmonize your relationship with your sense inputs.

For each of posture, breath, and mind, one releases, receives, and appreciates.

With posture, we release our body weight into the ground. Relax, let our tension go, and stop trying to defend ourselves. “Be movable without moving.” When we do this, we receive support from the ground. And then we can appreciate the resulting ease.

With our breath, release the out breath as an offering. Offer up our life. You then receive new air, new life, as a gift, and can appreciate the three pleasures of breathing.

With our mind, relax the six sense organs and release the sensations we’re holding onto. In return, we fully receive the sensations around us and can appreciate the wonders of the world.

After listening to the talk, the group discussed the Reverend’s teaching about zazen not being “meditation”, trying to understand his meaning behind this distinction. We also explored the idea of “effortlessness”, as all the instructions given in the talk sounded like a lot to keep track of. We recognized that our many habitual tendencies in thoughts and behaviors often get in the way, making it hard for us not to exert effort.

The Reverend Fujita’s talk is a valuable perspective on the nature of zazen, and perhaps it can give you some insight on the nature of “effortless effort” and “just sitting”.

Scroll down to listen to the full recording of the talk. Happy Learning!

  

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