Have Fun
Responding to the end of Fukanzazengi, where Dogen says that zazen will open a “treasure store” for the practitioner, Kido Inoue summarizes, “We should all have fun in life” (For Those Who Want to Practice Zazen, Coppell, TX, 2026, p. 239)
It hadn’t occurred to me that Dogen’s treasure-store remark implied “we should all have fun,” but now I suppose it does. Zazen does open the way to fun in living.
In time, zazen fundamentally removes the barrier to such fun, which is a person’s belief that he or she is a solid, real, substantial self. With that barrier removed, a person no longer worries about how he appears to others, or seeks to impress others by money or clothing or whatever, or compares himself to others and competes with them, or experiences pain if others seem to slight him, or seeks some vague fulfillment besides just being alive.
Instead zazen frees him from such botheration. He finds that his sense of solid personal self is just an idea that he can drop whenever he wants. Then he lives expansively and has fun.