Originally Posted by DontKnow
To clarify, I think what I was trying to suggest was that it requires concentration to stay in that small, point-like place where our mental activities balance and therefore drop away ...
...I am suggesting that maintaining awareness requires a mental skill best called concentration. "Attention" might be a substitute, but I think both words imply a cognitive focus on an object, thereby sacrificing awareness of all things that aren't the object. So maybe attention in shikantaza becomes field-like instead of point-like.
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Here's another explanation by Steve Hagen (a particularly clear writer in my opinion).
"In shikantaza . . . The mind settles, but not on a particular point. In Shikantaza, Awareness is objectless and subjectless--there's no "you" who does shikantaza. It's as if concentration has been filed down to a single point--yet, at the same time, has expanded outward and is taking in everything: sights, sounds, feelings, sensations, thoughts, movements. And this Awareness is sizeless and timeless. In shikantaza we discover that there is no clear distinction between self and other."