Meditation in Chan functions as the very heart of the path, not as an auxiliary technique but as the central and defining mode of practice. It is through meditation that practitioners seek direct insight into their own Buddha‑nature, the originally pure mind that Chan teachings affirm as ever‑present. Rather than relying primarily on study or ritual, Chan emphasizes an immediate, experiential realization, often described as sudden awakening. In this sense, the meditative mind is regarded as both the means and the expression of enlightenment, so that practice and awakening are not sharply separated.

The core form of practice is seated meditation, zuòchán, which stabilizes attention and allows discursive thought and emotional reactivity to settle. Within this stillness, Chan speaks of the inseparability of samādhi, the collected and concentrated mind, and prajñā, the wisdom that sees through delusion and conceptual fabrication. Meditation is used to cut through habitual patterns of grasping and to transcend reliance on words, doctrines, and abstract reasoning, pointing directly to the nature of mind itself. In this way, the cultivation of calm and the arising of insight are understood as mutually reinforcing aspects of a single process.

Alongside simple sitting, Chan developed distinctive contemplative methods such as working with gōng’àn (koans) and huàtóu, brief critical phrases or questions. These practices are not intellectual puzzles but tools for bringing the mind to a point of intense, unified inquiry that undermines ordinary conceptual thinking. By repeatedly turning the mind toward a koan or huàtóu, practitioners aim to exhaust the tendency to grasp at fixed meanings, opening the possibility of a sudden breakthrough into a state sometimes described as “no‑mind,” where rigid distinctions between self and world fall away. Such experiences are then traditionally examined and verified in the context of a relationship with a teacher.

Chan also insists that meditation cannot be confined to the meditation hall. The clarity and non‑grasping awareness cultivated in formal sitting is meant to permeate walking, working, speaking, and resting, so that everyday activity becomes an arena for practice. In this broader sense, meditation is not merely a posture but a way of being in which Buddha‑nature is allowed to function freely in all circumstances. Through this continuous integration, the realization uncovered in meditation is gradually embodied in the whole of one’s life.