Dictionary

zazen en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /zɑːˈzɛn/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 坐(ざ)禅(ぜん) (zazen), from 坐(ざ) (za, “sitting”) + 禅(ぜん) (zen, “meditation”).

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) A form of seated meditation in Zen Buddhism.
   • They had sent out scouts to try and locate the original cave where the practice of Zazen was first initiated. 1985, Lawrence Durrell, Quinx, page 1226:
   • For everyone—everyone—who first takes it up, zazen is tedious and awful... Zazen isn't about blissing out or going into an alpha brainwave trance. It's about facing who and what you really are, in every single goddamn moment. And you aren't bliss, I'll tell you that right now. You're a mess. We all are. 2003, Brad Warner, Hardcore Zen, page 92:
   • If Professor Jaynes had extended his studies of introspection into zazen or yogic forms of meditation, he would understand that the ego is just such a construction that is extended over the gaps in time from moment to moment. 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 269:
   • In the practice of Zen there is an exercise called zazen—similar, I think, to the Theravedic practice of vipassana. One sits facing a blank wall. No matter the emotion one feels, no matter how strong or violent, one remains motionless. Facing the wall. The discipline, of course, is in continuing to sit. 1992, Donna Tartt, The Secret History:

Forms

Synonyms

Zen meditation

Translations (5)

vi tọa thiền (form of meditation) · zh 坐禪 /坐禅 (form of meditation) · fr zazen (form of meditation) · cs zazen (form of meditation) · id zazen (form of meditation)