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A Short Glossary of Zen Terms

Zen vocabulary can feel like a velvet rope. It isn’t meant to be: most terms are ordinary words in Japanese, Chinese, or Sanskrit. Here are the ones you will actually meet, defined without mystification. (Terms link to fuller articles where we have them.)

The practice

• Zazen (座禅) — seated meditation; the core act of Zen. Guide.
• Shikantaza — “just sitting”: zazen with no object at all, the signature method of the Sōtō school.
• Kinhin — slow walking meditation between periods of sitting.
• Sesshin — an intensive retreat of continuous practice, typically 3–7 days.
• Zendo — the meditation hall; by extension, any dedicated place of sitting.

The teaching relationship

• Roshi — “old teacher”; an honorific for a senior Zen master.
• Teisho — the master’s direct presentation of the dharma, heard in meditation posture. Article.
• Dokusan — the private student–teacher interview. Article.
• Dharma — the teaching; also, reality as it is (the thing the teaching points at).
• Sangha — the community of practitioners.

Insight and its objects

• Kōan (公案) — a recorded case used as an object of practice; not a riddle. Article.
• Mu (無) — “no / not / nothing”; Zhaozhou’s answer in the first case of the Gateless Gate, and usually a student’s first kōan.
• Kenshō — “seeing one’s nature”; an initial glimpse of awakening.
• Satori — awakening; used loosely for deeper or more settled kenshō.
• Śūnyatā / emptiness — the absence of fixed, independent existence in anything; the theme of the Heart Sutra. Not nothingness.
• Buddha-nature — the awakened nature said to be intrinsic to all beings — the subject of endless kōans.

Schools and lineage

• Chan / Zen / Seon / Thiền — the same tradition in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese.
• Sōtō — the school emphasizing shikantaza; brought to Japan by Dōgen.
• Rinzai — the school emphasizing kōan training, descended from Linji.
• Patriarch / ancestor — a lineage holder; the Sixth Patriarch is Huineng of the Platform Sutra.

Around the cushion

• Gassho — palms together; the bow of greeting, gratitude, and beginning.
• Han — the wooden board struck to call practitioners to the zendo.
• Kin / rin — the small bright bells that mark intervals; large temple bells open and close the sitting.
• Oryoki — the formal meal practice of the monastery.

Vocabulary is scaffolding, nothing more. One period of honest zazen teaches more than any glossary — this one included.

Practice, not just reading: MyRoshi is a daily zendo — zazen with bells, then a teisho on the classics from a teacher who adapts to how you understand. Begin with 7 free days.