The following is meant mostly for beginners to Shikantaza, but is also for all of us sometimes when we might forget for a time and need to remind ourselves that day why we sit ...
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"Shikantaza" is often taught these days as little more than "sit in a stable posture, follow the breath, don't grab thoughts, have no goals." That doesn't cut it. Unfortunately, such a bare bones description leaves a vital aspect out of 'Just Sitting' Shikantaza.
Instead, Shikantaza Zazen is truly what Soto Priest and Historian Taigen Dan Leighton calls an "enactment ritual."
(http://www.ancientdragon.org/dharma/...actment_ritual)
As strange as it may sound, Shikantaza has much in common with "method acting" in theater, in which one pretends with all one's heart & body and throws oneself physically into a role, all to embody and inhabit the character and bring the role to life. Method acting is defined as, "a technique of acting in which an actor aspires to complete emotional identification with a part." Shikantaza also has much in common with certain Tibetan meditation forms in which one visualizes a Buddha, and pretends to feel the qualities of that Buddha, all to bring the Buddha to life embodied as oneself. There is also an element of faith involved (some might prefer the words "deep trust" because "faith" carries some baggage for them) in which one has faith or "deep trust" at the outset in the completeness and fruition of the sitting until the sitting actually proves itself complete, in large part due to that same faith and trust.
HOWEVER, because what is being embodied has radically nothing to attain, nothing lacking, no action required beyond sitting for sitting's sake (thus no method to the method), let's call this "Non-Method Non-Acting." The beginning student embodies such role of radical non-attaining.
Let me try to explain more:
A "method actor" on Broadway gets totally into a role with mind and body, pretending to be her character, sometimes even off the stage. In Shikantaza, one enacts/pretends/sits through faith in such manner as if a method actor playing the role of Buddha sitting in the satisfaction of completeness. One convinces oneself through faith and method acting that "Zazen is complete, the one place to be and act needed in the universe." It is a feeling subtly held, not particularly verbalized during Zazen. One convinces oneself that one is feeling such fact in one's bones, and one has faith in its truth.
One sits dropping judgments, except a feeling of trust in the subtly positive nature of Zazen (meant to reflect the subtly positive nature of reality, also something upheld through faith and pretending if necessary.) Not grabbing thoughts, not wallowing in judgments, and a balanced posture are all extremely important. However, "dropping all goals" is often misunderstood: One radically drops all goals because one comes to know sitting itself as the pinnacle of existence and the only goal needed to attain (again, a matter of faith and self-convincing at first). One sits with sitting as the only goal, the one action necessary in the whole universe in that time of sitting. Sitting itself is the goal asked and answered, the challenge both made and achieved in one swoop. Pretend it is so if necessary, until one knows it is so.
Then, ipso facto, like the case of a method actor playing "Hamlet" who actually comes to embody Hamlet (or a Tibetan practitioner visualizing Taira who comes to life as Taira) ... one hypnotizes oneself into making such facts real. In other words, by truly feeling and believing so, it becomes a fact that there is no other place or act to do in that moment in all reality, and sitting itself comes to feel in actuality as the pinnacle of life. As other desires and judgments are dropped away besides sitting, and as thoughts of before or after are dropped away, we say that "sitting sits sitting" or "body mind is dropped away."
Through this self-convincing, one really experiences the completeness of the moment, the flawlessness of the experience, the wholeness of life.
I call this a "non-self fulfilling prophesy" in which the embodiment and goallessness fill one and flow as one, at first through faith and make-believe for the beginnner, which results in Zazen being experienced as totally fulfilled and fulfilling in actual reality. One might say that, by first pretending, one catches on and catches up to what has been true all along, and faith proves out. Zazen comes to be sat as the one place to be, the one act to do, needed in that moment. The hard divisions of "self" and "other" soften or fully drop away. There is a flowing Wholeness (sometimes misleadingly called "emptiness") which is felt to sweep in and out of all the separate things of the world, including you and me.
In other words, in Shikantaza, "Fake it timelessly until 'you' make-non-make 'it'" (meaning that there is no "you" to make some separate "it," that is how whole it proves to be.)
So, at the start, pretend and trust that Zazen is whole and complete, the one thing to do which brings life to fruition ... and let it become so. Lights, Curtain up.
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
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