Dōgen
Zazen

Dōgen often stressed the critical importance of zazen, or sitting meditation as the central practice of Buddhism. He considered zazen to be identical to studying Zen. This is pointed out clearly in the first sentence of the 1243 instruction manual "Zazen-gi" (坐禪儀; "Principles of Zazen"): "Studying Zen... is zazen". Dōgen taught zazen to everyone, even for the laity, male or female and including all social classes. In referring to zazen, Dōgen is most often referring specifically to shikantaza, roughly translatable as "nothing but precisely sitting", or "just sitting," which is a kind of sitting meditation in which the meditator sits "in a state of brightly alert attention that is free of thoughts, directed to no object, and attached to no particular content". In his Fukan Zazengi, Dōgen wrote:

For zazen, a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros and cons. Cease all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha. Zazen has nothing whatever to do with sitting or lying down.

Dōgen also described zazen practice with the term hishiryō (非思量, "non-thinking", "without thinking", "beyond thinking"). According to Cleary, it refers to ekō henshō, turning the light around, focussing awareness on awareness itself. It is a state of no-mind which one is simply aware of things as they are, beyond thinking and not-thinking - the active effort not to think. In the Fukanzazengi, Dōgen writes:

...settle into a steady, immobile sitting position. Think of not thinking (fushiryō). How do you think of not-thinking? Without thinking (hishiryō). This in itself is the essential art of zazen. The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma-gate of repose and bliss, the cultivation-authentication of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the presence of things as they are.

Masanobu Takahashi writes that hishiryō is not a state of no mental activity whatsoever. Instead, it is a state "beyond thinking and not-thinking" and beyond affirmation and rejection. Other Japanese Dogen scholars link the term with the realization of emptiness. According to Thomas Kasulis, non-thinking refers to the "pure presence of things as they are", "without affirming nor negating", without accepting nor rejecting, without believing nor disbelieving. In short, it is a non-conceptual, non-intentional and "prereflective mode of consciousness" which does not imply that it is an experience without content. Similarly, Hee-Jin Kim describes this as an "objectless, subjectless, formless, goalless and purposeless" state which is yet not a blank void. As such, the correct mental attitude for zazen according to Dōgen is one of effortless non-striving, this is because for Dōgen, original enlightenment is already always present.
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