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The Chan and Huayan Master Guifeng Zongmi¹ spoke of five different kinds of
zazen. These are bompu zen or “usual zen,” gedo zen or “Outside Way zen,” shojo
zen or “Hinayana practice,” daijo zen or “Great Practice zen” and saijojo zen or “Easy
and perfect” zen. Bompu and gedo zazen are meditation practices used to cultivate
health, attain mastery or power over oneself and others, or as part of a religious
endeavour of communing with gods or spirits or other mythological figures. Neither
bompu or gedo zazen involve the Dharma at all. Shojo, daijo, and saijojo zazen are
broadening and deepening ways of allowing Dharma to reveal itself through zazen.
In fact, zazen is only zazen when it truly is zazen itself without any strategy but
simply as the easy and perfect practice of Reality.
However, while zazen is necessary in order for there to be any Dharma at all,
Zen practice is not only zazen. When Dogen speaks of continuous practice as the
most important thing in the Way of the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors, he also
means samu or caretaking practice. He means consistency and thoroughness in how
we do what we do. He means exerting the Way beyond struggle, despite hesitations
and hopes and hardships. He means following through on what we have been taught
and what we have recognized.
Zen is historically a particular school or a particular way of doing Dharma. In
fact there are various schools of Zen. But what Zen most essentially is has nothing to
do with sectarian and organizational matters. Zen is essentially the original Teaching
of Sakyamuni Buddha. If we say that, what does it mean? I do not mean that Zen is
based upon or follows or even puts much emphasis or importance on the Pali suttas,
the oldest and earliest records of what has been purported to be what the Buddha
said. Although Zen is consistent with the Pali suttas and with many of the later
Sanskrit Mahayana sutras, it is not about what the Buddha said. It is about what the
Buddha did. 
I think it’s obvious that Sakyamuni Buddha, who lived and died in India
almost 2,600 or so years ago, might not at first recognize very much about what
Chinese, Japanese, Korean and now Western people are doing in Zen monasteries.
In fact, even monasteries would be strange to him because he taught, in the warm
climates of northern India, that his Dharma should be practised in the forests and
that monks should not build or maintain buildings or property. The forms of
gyohatsu, of practising the bowls, in oryoki would be very strange to him compared
to reaching into a begging bowl, making a ball of rice and curry and soup and meat
and whatever else patrons had flung into the bowl and popping it into his mouth.
Koan study, katsu shouts, and especially samu or caretaking practice and so on
would be very foreign to him. And of course it would be. He was a man who lived
and died in the India of long ago.  Zen is what the Buddha originally practised and
realized and Taught as it has been Transmitted through the lives of people from the
time of the Buddha to right now. The manner of expressing the Dharma has changed
and developed. It has become at times entangled in creeping vines and tendrils of
needless complexity. It has also become much more subtle, profound, and dynamic.
One ancient description of the Buddha’s original Teaching is that of the noble
eightfold path, asta-marga. The eight aspects of the path or Way are correct, right,
whole or complete view, complete understanding, complete speech, complete action,
complete livelihood, complete effort, complete mindfulness, and complete practice.
The eightfold path is rarely mentioned by Zen Teachers and when it is, it is usually
referred to in passing or perhaps even in negating its demarcations. And yet,
regardless of how it is spoken of, Zen is the continuous practice of the eightfold path
through body, speech, and mind in walking, sitting, standing, and lying down.
                                                
1
Guifeng Zongmi (Kuei-feng Tsung-mi, Keiho Shumitsu) 780-841. A Chan Master and Fifth Ancestor of
the Chinese Huayan school.