Zen Sōtō practice is not limited to sitting meditation. It embraces every moment of daily life — from manual work to sewing the robe, from reciting the sūtras to the simplest gestures of eating and cleaning. Every activity, done with full awareness, becomes an expression of awakening.

Dōgen taught that practice and realization are one: there is no awakening to attain in a distant future, because zazen is itself awakening. This principle extends to all forms of practice — sitting, active, ritual. The following pages present the main aspects of this concrete path.