What you describe is lovely,
if ... hand-in-hand ... one simultaneously drops all thought or need for having to "find stability" "relax and relieve tension" "letting things steady themselves" "achieving open awareness" "dropping body-mind" and the like. Why?
Hard to explain in the
mad-sane practice of Shikantaza, but perhaps it is because the True Stability is something that swallows both the stable and unstable, True Peace is both peace and war. It is the small self which demands that one "relax" and "drop the small self" ... so, if one truly wants to "drop the small self, drop body-mind" one must (paradoxically) drop
to the marrow any chasing after the need to "drop the small self, drop body-mind"! :shock:
Perhaps a bit like walking a tightrope by ... giving up all effort and thought of
trying to walk a tightrope, how far the ground is, how thin the rope, how near death, or any desire to cross ... just walking the tightrope!
Don't think "
I can only walk the tightrope when things are still and the wind stops blowing". Far from it, the true master walks the rope however the wind is blowing, and from whatever direction ... taking everything as it comes. That is true balance! True Sitting Zazen without need to sit zazen on a quiet, windless day.
If one looks to find the Self by searching for the Self, it is much like one's nose searching outside for the nose! Trying to make the Zazen experience into "open spacious awareness" or what you think "open spacious awareness" should feel like ... trying to change the way things are ... actually brings one more distant from how things are, and "open spacious awareness". Nonetheless, we sit in "open spacious awareness" as you describe.
This Practice is Wonderfully Strange like that!
And, yes, this is a Koan!