Dogen theme: Shikantaza

The particular kind of zazen that we do at Sanshin is shikantaza, or just sitting.  This is the practice we’ve inherited directly from Sawaki Roshi, Uchiyama Roshi and Okumura Roshi.  Uchiyama Roshi wrote that in the 1930s when Sawaki Roshi became a head teacher at Sojiji, one of the head temples of Sotoshu, “‘Zen’ didn’t mean much more than the kōan Zen of the Rinzai School, but Sawaki Rōshi concentrated entirely on shikantaza as it had been taught by Dōgen Zenji.  Looking at the history of Japanese Buddhism, it cannot be overlooked that Sawaki Rōshi was the first in our era to reintroduce shikantaza in its pure form and revive it as being equally valid as kōan Zen.”

According to Sotoshu, shikantaza has two important elements:

    • Not using zazen as a means to an end (oneness of practice and realization)
    • Setting aside other practices to emphasize zazen (full devotion to zazen)

Another way to consider “just sitting” is “nothing extra.”  One aspect of “nothing extra” is that we’re not filling zazen time with engagement in particular techniques or additional activities designed to move us toward a special outcome.  Another aspect is that we’re setting aside the habit of creating separation between ourselves and the universe by grasping our thoughts and interacting with them. “Nothing extra” means complete oneness, with no inside and outside, no ideas about sitting, no judgment of sitting, no use of sitting for something.  Real “just sitting” is nonseparation.  As soon as you act—as soon as there’s a separate and identifiable you—you’re adding something extra.

If there is even a bit of individuality left over, it isn’t pure, unadulterated zazen.  We’ve got to practice pure, unadulterated zazen, without mixing it with gymnastics or satori or anything.  When we bring in our personal ideas—even only a little bit—it is no longer the buddha-dharma.  (Sawaki)

Letting go of thoughts means letting go of all thoughts, even thoughts about the dharma.  This is why reading and writing are discouraged during sesshin.  It’s not the time for dharma study; filling our heads with reading material is counterproductive to zazen, even if it’s in the service of learning about the Buddha’s teachings.

Everyone believes they have to add something to their zazen.  You shouldn’t add anything.  It’s good as it is.  You don’t need to fool around with it.  (Sawaki)

Doing nothing other than just sitting sounds simple, as though there’s no real effort to be made.  Because we practice zazen on a daily basis, it can be easy to fall into a routine and just go through the motions.  However, anyone who’s ever tried sincerely to sit zazen for more than a few minutes knows it’s a challenge not to engage in additional activities like thinking, sleeping, judging, creating and daydreaming.  Although we sit zazen as an expression of the buddha-nature that already exists, we still have to pay attention and understand what we’re doing and why.

Unlike Dogen’s shikantaza, Buddhist meditation in early India can be thought of as a technique designed to change the condition of consciousness.  Samadhi, or concentration, referred to one-pointedness of mind, directing the attention to a single object.  Dhyana, though eventually transliterated into Japanese as “Zen,” in this context indicated a group of four altered states of consciousness which were aimed at withdrawal of the senses and thoughts from interaction with the external world and finally at bringing all mental activity to a halt.  This is the first half of the practice, or shamatha.  When stimulation from outside objects was cut off, the mind was said to become tranquil.

Once the mind was peaceful and not influenced by outside objects, the practitioner could contemplate important points of Buddha’s teaching, such as the four noble truths.  In this way, the distraction and delusion of everyday mental activity was replaced by the truth of the teachings.  This the second half of the practice, or vipassana.

This kind of practice is linear; one engages in this activity and then that activity in order to achieve an altered state.  Dogen’s shikantaza is very different.  It’s not about controlling the functioning of our minds or struggling to stop our thinking.  Instead, we just let go of thoughts as they arise.  Thoughts come and go even when we’re facing the wall in zazen and there is no object for our six sense organs other than the wall, which has no qualities about which we need to make a judgment.  There is limited sensory input in the zendo—it’s quiet, there are no bright colors, and we’re not moving about during zazen—so there isn’t much material with which to play and create stories.  Even so, the function of the brain is to produce thought, and the brain continues to work during zazen.  In fact, we need to have thoughts in order to engage in the practice of letting go of them. 

When we think, we as the subject grasp a thought as an object.  When we open the hand of thought, we stop interacting with thoughts and the subject/object separation disappears even though thoughts do not.  This is non-thinking (as opposed to thinking or not-thinking).  During shikantaza, along with other thoughts we let go of the concepts of “I” and “me.”  Thus, there is no “I” as the subject carrying out an activity called shikantaza; shikantaza is unfolding itself.  Dogen called it “all things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self.”  

Rather than trying to shut down thinking or perpetuating the separation between subject and object that occurs when we engage with our thoughts, we just sit in the zazen posture, breathe deeply, keep our eyes open and let go of thoughts.  These are the four points to which we return when we find that we’re thinking (or sleeping) during zazen.  This is how we remove the separation and restore oneness.  Because we are doing nothing other than sitting in oneness, this is shikantaza, or just sitting. 

Outside of sitting without an idea of self and without desires, there is no separate or hidden buddha or dharma for which to seek.  This is zazen as the total functioning of the universe clearly manifesting.  Sitting is the complete verification of the teachings, which are embodied and carried out in daily activity.  This zazen, study and work are the three main activities of the Sanshin style of practice.  Shikantaza is the intersection of our concrete human lives with existence completely free from purpose, goal, object or meaning.  Buddha nature is not contained within our lives but unfolds through our lives.

Okumura Roshi has written, “Zazen, or just sitting, is from one perspective the complete negation of the limited, conditioned karmic self that lives being led around by its own desires.  Yet from another perspective, within this letting go, everything is accepted and nothing is negated; in zazen everything is just as it is.  . . . This is sitting in the prajna (wisdom) that sees emptiness without the separation between subject and object.”  [Realizing Genjokpan 79-80]

He goes on, “When we refrain from ‘doing’ in this practice, the self is illuminated and verified by all things.  Shikantaza is not a practice carried out by the individual.  It is, rather, a practice in which we let go of the individual karmic self that is constantly seeking to satisfy its own desires.  In zazen the true self, the self that is one with the entire universe, is manifest.”  [Realizing Genjokoan 81]

Similarly, Uchiyama Roshi wrote, “Since enlightenment is in practice, we have to continue practice ceaselessly and endlessly.  But while you are actually practicing, you shouldn’t think that ‘you’ are practicing.  Though you are practicing, you should let go of the thought of practicing.  Within this letting go, the original reality is actualized; as Dogen Zenji said, the original enlightenment fills our hands.  This is shikan (just doing) practice.”

A shikantaza approach can be taken to all of our activities—anything we undertake without adding something extra (judgment, ego, distraction, etc.).  In addition to just sitting, we can just chant, just bow, just cook, just walk and just make a bed.  The activity itself is not necessarily “extra;” what’s important is our approach to it.  We practice awakening whenever we’re right in the middle of nonduality and manifesting buddha nature without obstruction.

From Sotoshu 

只管打坐 - Shikantaza
(Just Sitting)

In the Sotoshu Constitution (Sotoshu Shuken), Soto Zen Buddhist doctrine (Shushi) is set down as “…abiding by the True Dharma singularly transmitted by the Buddha-ancestors, the Sotoshu doctrine is to realize shikantaza (just sitting) and sokushinzebutsu (Mind itself is Buddha).”