Zazen Analysis in A Tale for the Time Being

Zazen is a type of Zen Buddhist meditation. Practitioners usually sit on the floor with their legs crossed and their backs straight. The purpose of zazen is to relax, sit still, and focus on one’s breathing. Practitioners try to suspend all judgment and simply observe their thoughts and surroundings. According to Master Dogen, “Nonthinking […] is the essential art of zazen.”

Zazen Quotes in A Tale for the Time Being

The A Tale for the Time Being quotes below are all either spoken by Zazen or refer to Zazen. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Time, Impermanence, and the Present Theme Icon

It’s the cold fish dying in your stomach feeling. You try to forget about it, but as soon as you do, the fish starts flopping around under your heart and reminds you that something truly horrible is happening.

Jiko felt like that when she learned that her only son was going to be killed in the war. […] In fact, she said she had lots of fishes, […] but the biggest fish of all belonged to Haruki #1, and it was more like the size of a whale. She also said that after she became a nun and renounced the world, she learned how to open up her heart so that the whale could swim away. I'm trying to learn how to do that, too.

Related Characters: Naoko “Nao” Yasutani (speaker), Ruth, Jiko Yasutani, Haruki #1 Yasutani

Page Number and Citation: 180

Explanation and Analysis:

[…] I climbed up on [my chair] and then onto my desk, and I stood there, tall and straight. Then, when everybody was looking, I flipped back my hoodie.

A gasp went around the room that sent shivers up my spine. The supapawa of my bald and shining head radiated through the classroom and out into the world, a bright bulb, a beacon, beaming light into every crack of darkness on the earth and blinding all my enemies. I put my fists on my hips and watched them tremble, holding up their arms to shield their eyes from my unbearable brightness. I opened my mouth and a piercing cry broke from my throat like an eagle, shaking the earth and penetrating into every corner of the universe. I watched my classmates press their hands over their ears, and saw the blood run through their fingers as their eardrums shattered.

Related Characters: Naoko “Nao” Yasutani (speaker), Jiko Yasutani

Page Number and Citation: 287-288

Explanation and Analysis:

To study the self is to forget the self. Maybe if you sat enough zazen, your sense of being a solid, singular self would dissolve and you could forget about it. What a relief. You could just hang out happily as part of an open-ended quantum array.

[…]

Had Dogen figured all this out? He’d written these words many centuries before quantum mechanics [.]

Related Characters: Ruth, Oliver, Zen Master Dogen

Page Number and Citation: 398-399

Explanation and Analysis:

Zazen Term Timeline in A Tale for the Time Being

The timeline below shows where the term Zazen appears in A Tale for the Time Being. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

The Difficulty of Communication Theme Icon

...syndromes like ADHD and manic depression, as well as suicidal tendencies. Jiko told her that zazen meditation might not cure her, but that it would help her to be less obsessed... (full context)

...are friends, she will share something personal that has really helped her: Jiko’s instructions for zazen meditation, which Nao and Jiko refer to as Nao’s “superpower.” (full context)

Nao tells her reader that she will now describe how to do zazen: one has to sit down without slouching and stack one’s hands in one’s lap with... (full context)

(1) Ruth tries to sit zazen, but she always ends up dozing off. She wonders how this practice could open up... (full context)

(2) Ruth continues trying zazen meditation, but she keeps falling asleep. Between sleeping and waking, she hovers in a dreamlike... (full context)

(4) Oliver tells Ruth that she is perhaps trying too hard to succeed at zazen—she probably needs a nap instead. Ruth says her entire like is like a nap that... (full context)

...end of summer—she felt that she was “becoming a superhero.” Jiko encouraged Nao to sit zazen for many hours and showed her how to restrain herself from killing things, even the... (full context)

...to wage battle. Haruki #1 loved to fly—it gave him as much pleasure as sitting zazen. He concluded the letter by saying that Jiko would receive another “official” letter from him,... (full context)

Sexual Perversion and Violence Theme Icon

...Haruki #1 and these thoughts gave her courage. She summoned up her “superpower” and started zazen. Immediately, her classmates seemed like the mosquitoes that Jiko taught her to ignore. One of... (full context)

...her parents were asleep, Nao went to the bathroom and shaved her head. She sat zazen for the rest of the night, and she got dressed and left the apartment as... (full context)

...cure his fear, just like breaking the clocks wouldn’t stop time. He vowed to sit zazen and “study the self” as Dogen advised, so that he could improve himself in the... (full context)

...the Way is to study the self.” To study the self, one had to sit zazen, which to Ruth seems like a way of observing the self. Dogen had continued, “To... (full context)

A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth Ozeki

Zazen Term Analysis

Zazen Quotes in A Tale for the Time Being

Zazen Term Timeline in A Tale for the Time Being