Makōtō - Honesty as a Meditation Practice

誠 (Makoto) carries a ruthless simplicity. Sincerity. Undividedness. No daylight between what is seen and how one lives.

Humans struggle with it not because it is complex, but because it leaves nowhere to hide. Without honesty, nothing coheres. Speech fractures from action. Intention drifts from impact. Identity becomes theater.

Zuigan’s call points straight at this...

“Master.”

“Yes.”

“Are you awake?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Do not be deceived by the other.”

“I will not.”

The so-called “other” is not primarily the person across the room. It is closer. More intimate. The survival self. The adaptive emissary. The one that learned early how to manage threat, approval, control, and belonging. Useful. Necessary. But not the master.

Trouble begins when this emissary quietly claims the seat. When it speaks for Awareness. When it edits truth in the name of safety. When it calls evasion “kindness,” strategy “wisdom,” and self-protection “discernment.”

Zen practice does not moralize this. It exposes it.

Zazen places us where the survival self cannot fully run the show. No task. No gain. No performance. Just seeing. Over time, this seeing sharpens sincerity. Not as a virtue, but as a byproduct of clarity. When the false master is seen clearly, it loses authority. When it is no longer believed, honesty stops being heroic and becomes natural.

誠 is not about telling more truth. It is about being less rather than more divided. In that undividedness, deception has nowhere to land. The master answers for itself.

一We Are the Practice Itself