Seiza (静座): Sitting in Stillness

I meditate only at night, before sleep. After years of trial and error, I settled on the practice that finally made sense in my own body: what is called seiza (静座).

The word requires a moment's care, because in Japanese the sound "seiza" carries two meanings. The seiza (正座) commonly spoken of in Japan means "sitting in the proper posture" as a matter of etiquette, the way one sits in the tea room. The seiza (静座) I mean here has the same sound but a different character and meaning: "sitting in stillness." Both carry the sense of discipline, yet to my mind seiza as sitting in stillness holds the deeper sense of self-cultivation.

Moreover, while the posture of seiza belongs to the lineage of Zen, sitting in stillness has its source not in Zen but in Confucianism. A deeply Confucian philosophy runs through it, and set beside Zen or Buddhist meditation, its way of thinking feels markedly different.

If we ask what the essence of Confucian seiza is, it lies in seeing that to recognize a stray thought as a stray thought is already awakening — or in the language of Zen, satori (悟り).

We can call this the non-separation of stillness and movement, seido hibunri (静動非分離), or the unity of stillness and movement, seido goitsu (静動合一), and in grasping it, the true worth of Zen comes into view. Yet this is not something that can be understood as knowledge; it is a state that cannot be reached unless each person embodies it in daily life.

Tonight, or tomorrow morning, whatever your method or style of meditation, try sitting once with this thought as your premise. A good place to begin may simply be to notice how you yourself feel toward the stray thoughts that arise.

In reaction to this came the second way: leaving stray thoughts alone, on the premise that there is no need to turn them into some other thought. To my mind, Zen has placed its weight on this side. D. T. Suzuki, who carried Zen to the world, is a clear example: what defined his approach was that he rejected the older methodology of denying the rise of stray thoughts, and instead taught the practice of Zen by actively affirming them.

Seen in this light, what matters is not to agonize over the rise of stray thoughts, nor to chide ourselves as immature because we are swayed by them. Still less should we throw ourselves into confusion by treating stray thoughts as an object to be managed, left alone, or solved. Simply to know a stray thought as a stray thought is what matters in living a human life.

I see in this the historical root where Zen, in China, inherited the original character of Confucianism: traditional Chinese Confucianism met the newly arrived Zen, and the philosophical marriage that took place there was eventually carried to Japan and digested in its own way.

What he focused on was his own method of practice, "shikan taza" (只管打坐). It combines "shikan" (只管), single-mindedly, and "taza" (打坐), to sit in zazen, so it means "just sitting." It does not mean sitting in zazen with a purpose rooted in selfish desire, such as to gain something or to attain awakening. Sitting itself is the form of awakening.

As I said, it means "just sitting in zazen," and so it is very prone to error, because it is mistaken for the idea that something will be achieved if one simply sits. In my reading, what it is is not in sitting physically as such. It is keeping the mind itself at its own root.