Zuochan

Chan Master Wei Chueh practicing "sitting meditation" (zuochan).

zuochan (J. zazen; K. chwasŏn 坐禪). In Chinese, “sitting meditation.” Often referred to in English-language sources by the Japanese pronunciation zazen.

Zuochan means "to sit cross-legged in meditation, usually either the full or half vajra posture, not giving rise to discriminatory thought, focusing the mind on a single meditative object."

The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism states:

In East Asia, zuochan is a distinctive form of meditation that has its early origins in Tiantai (as taught by Zhiyi 智顗) and which is further transformed in the course of the development of the East Asian meditation schools 禪宗 of Chan/Seon/Zen/Thien. In these schools, this form of meditation is held as distinct from the dhyāna or concentration (samādhi) that was considered to be one of the original "three disciplines" 三學 taught in Indian Buddhism.

The Chinese Chan texts begin to develop this distinction in their description of the teachings of meditation practice attributed to their early patriarchs, starting from Bodhidharma and continuing up to the sixth patriarch Huineng. As Chan literature develops in the Song dynasty, the notion of zuochan develops as more than just a physical act of sitting for meditation, referring to an attitude of mental nonabiding—a state of cessation of discriminatory thinking and a direct insight into reality, which may occur even when one is not formally engaged in seated meditation. The cultivation of this attitude is seen in the encounter dialogues of such legendary Chan monks as Mazu 馬祖, Baizhang 百丈, and Yunmen 雲門, as is recorded in their teaching records and gong'an 公案 collections. [Charles Muller; source(s): Hirakawa]

Etymology

Zuochan (坐禪) is a combination of two Chinese terms:

• zuo, “to sit”
• chan, a transcription of the Sanskrit term dhyāna (meditation);

  The word chan is shortened from chan-na 禪那, which is in turn derived from the transliteration of the Sanskrit (Skt. dhyāna), meaning meditative concentration, usually translated into Chinese as 靜慮 (Skt. jhāna, dhyāyin, pratisaṃlayana, Yogâcāra).