Zazen and Shikantaza (Mark Bykoski)

Chinese characters	坐	禪
Japanese / Mandarin Chinese pronunciation	za / zuò	zen / chán
English meanings for each character	sit	short for 禪那, phonetic transliteration of Sanskrit Dhyāna; meditation, absorption in awareness
Set phrases / compound words	sitting meditation, sit in meditative absorption

 

Zazen is a Japanese word borrowed from the Chinese language. As with most words of Chinese origin, each syllable has a distinct meaning and is written with a character that has meaning as well as pronunciation associated with it. Za simply means “to sit.” The origin of the word zen is a little more complicated. It originally comes from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which is translated into English variously as “meditation” or “absorption.” Sanskrit was the ancient literary language of India, and the language of the written texts used by the Mahayana Buddhists in northern India. When Buddhism spread in ancient times from India, through central Asia and into China, there arose a demand for Chinese translations of Sanskrit Buddhist texts. Teams of Chinese, Indian and central Asian scholars began producing translations. The translators mostly used Chinese words with meanings more or less equivalent to the Sanskrit words. But some words (that were considered special technical terms or perhaps difficult to translate) were not translated, but rather Chinese characters were chosen to represent approximations of the Sanskrit sounds. This is similar to the way modern American Zen practitioners use a mix of English, Japanese and Sanskrit words to talk about Zen Buddhism. The Chinese character chosen to represent the Sanskrit word dhyāna was 禪. Its pronunciation was probably closer to dhyān in ancient Chinese, but in modern Mandarin Chinese it is pronounced “chán.” The Chinese word originally meant “altar area” or “to prepare an area for an altar.” It may have been chosen to transcribe dhyāna not only for its pronunciation, but also because the left-hand part of the character, 示 (which means “to show” or “reveal”) is often used in characters having to do with ritual or religion. The right-hand part of the character, 單 ,is there to roughly signify the pronunciation, and is used in several characters pronounced something like “tan” or “dan.” At some point the Chinese word was imported into Japanese, and now in modern Japanese it is pronounced “zen.” This same word, 禪, is also the name of the Chan tradition of Buddhism in China, and the Zen tradition in Japan.

禪 also has a long form, 禪那, where “那” is the “na” at the end of “dhyāna.”

Although zazen literally means “to sit in dhyāna,” broadly construed it can mean bringing dhyāna to any of life’s activities, standing or walking, sitting or lying down.

 
Shikantaza

Chinese characters	只	管	打	坐
Japanese / Mandarin Chinese pronunciation	shi / zhĭ	kan / guăn	ta / dă	za / zuò
English meanings for each character	only	manage, take care of, control	do, make, hit, strike	sit
Set phrases / compound words	just, merely, nothing more than, do not hesitate to		sit in meditation
	the practice of just sitting

 
Shikantaza is another Japanese word borrowed from Chinese. It is composed of two distinct words, shikan and taza, which themselves are compounds, each made up of two distinct words. The shi in shikan means “only.” Kan basically means “manage” or “take care of.” As a compound word, shikan means “merely” or “nothing more than.” In modern Chinese (where it is pronounced zhĭguăn), it is often used as an invitation (“By all means, don’t hesitate to go ahead and do it.”), or even an exhortation (“Just do it!”). The ta in taza originally means “to hit,” but probably means “to do” in this context. Za means “to sit,” the same za in zazen. As a compound word, taza (pronounced dăzuò in Chinese) means sitting meditation practice.

Just sit!

About Mark Bykoski