How to properly read in a "maze.txt" file in Java

Question

For my homework assignment we are to traverse a virtual maze using recursion. I am wanting to make sure I am reading in the file properly. The goal of my code at this point is to read in a text file containing the maze and place an 'X' at the starting point of the maze.

Additionally, I read on another SO post about using BufferedReader with FileReader but the post was kind of vague - what is advantage of that?

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;

public class ReadInMaze 
{
private static char[][] maze = null;
private static int rows = 0;
private static int cols = 0;
private static int xStart = 0;
private static int yStart = 0;

public static void Maze(File mazeFile) throws IOException
{
    File mazeFile = new File ("C:/Users/Mark/workspace/18-20_MazeTraversal_Hard/src/MazeForMazeTraversalHW.txt");
    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(mazeFile));

    Scanner lineOfFile = new Scanner(reader.readLine());

    rows = lineOfFile.nextInt(); //get the number of rows of the maze
    cols = lineOfFile.nextInt(); // get the number of columns of the maze
    maze = new char[rows][cols]; //create a char array of the proper size

    //For loops to iterate the rows and col to find the start/enterance of the maze as it pertains to the first char in the row
    for (int y = 0; y < cols; y ++)
    {
        lineOfFile = new Scanner(reader.readLine());
        for(int x = 0; x < rows; x++)
        {
            char start = lineOfFile.next().charAt(0);
            maze[x][y] = start;

            //statement to set the starting coorinates for the maze
            if (start == '.')
            {
                xStart = x;
                yStart = y;
            }

        }
    }


}

The maze from my text file looks like this:

# # # # # # # # # # # #
# . . . # . . . . . . #
. . # . # . # # # # . #
# # # . # . . . . # . #
# . . . . # # # . # . .
# # # # . # . # . # . #
# . . # . # . # . # . #
# # . # . # . # . # . #
# . . . . . . . . # . #
# # # # # # . # # # . #
# . . . . . . # . . . #
# # # # # # # # # # # #

Answer 1

I did something like this for one of my classes here is how I read in the maze, I used a filechooser so you should replace that with your file name, then once you have the maze you can manipulate it as you please

BufferedReader read = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(chooser.getSelectedFile()));
                        String rea = read.readLine();
                        String[] split = rea.split(" ");
                        width =  Integer.valueOf(split[0]);
                        height = Integer.valueOf(split[1]);

                        String readline;
                        int num = 0;
                        maze1 = new char[width][height];
                        while((readline = read.readLine()) != null){
                            char[] ch = readline.toCharArray();
                            for(int i = 0;i < ch.length;i++){
                                maze1[i][num] = ch[i];
                            }
                            num++;
                        }

that is assuming your maze is formatted like this with the width and the height at the top of the maze file separated with a space

12 12
# # # # # # # # # # # #
# . . . # . . . . . . #
. . # . # . # # # # . #
# # # . # . . . . # . #
# . . . . # # # . # . .
# # # # . # . # . # . #
# . . # . # . # . # . #
# # . # . # . # . # . #
# . . . . . . . . # . #
# # # # # # . # # # . #
# . . . . . . # . . . #
# # # # # # # # # # # #