BODHICITTA

Many persons think that zen practice is doing meditation in order to become better human beings, get better concentration and increase our patience and kindness.
There are many good practice traditions that help you do that very well. If that is your objective, keep going!
Buddhist practice in general, zen among them, rises out of a very particular item in the Buddhist tradition called "Boddhicitta".
Boddhicitta arises in humans suddenly, one day, or it can burn silently for a long time, creating a silent longing, like a burning ember, in our souls.
Sometimes people don´t know what it is and have a cold beer and forget about it. Sometimes it will not be ignored and one must do something about it.
"Doing" something about it is usually going to a meeting at a zen center (for some unknown reason), a "karmic encounter" you might say.
Boddhicita is the desire, or demand, to be whole again. We are born whole, but infancy robs us of this wholeness: "Billy, don´t take that car, IT belongs to Danny!"
Similar to a glass bottle that is dropped and breaks into a hundred tiny pieces... The little pieces have a longing to get together and be a whole bottle once again.
Human beings are fractured and alienated from the universe.
THAT´S why people practice zazen, to get together again.
Like Humpty Dumpty!
Zazen is wholeness...