(Here I am again, saying about the same thing I always say, like a broken music record that is stuck in the grove. However, that is because my advice never changes!Please, all the folks sitting our Rohatsu Retreat this weekend, make it the theme of your sitting!)
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Here is why I say that "Shikantaza Zazen is not meditation":
"Meditation" implies that there is some utilitarian function to Zazen, that it is a tool to get something, attain something, fix something. In fact, the disease of suffering, Dukkha, that we human beings live with morning to night is our constant need to get a prize, attain a reward, fix life from how it is. So, one sits Zazen as a ritual of wholeness in which the fruition of sitting is sitting itself, nothing more to attain, grab, fix. That is the medicine for our constant hunger to change and get. Sitting itself is complete and whole, nothing more to get, attain or fix when sitting.
Yes, there are aspects of meditation, such as crossing the legs, following the breath or sitting in open awareness, letting thoughts go. If deep Samadhi arises or anything arises, cherish so and let it be, neither running toward nor running away. But the vital point of Shikantaza is that there is nothing to attain, nothing in need of attaining.
That is how a Buddha sits, and what we emulate in Zazen. The Buddha saw the morning star simply shining, nothing to fix, nothing to keep distant. When the little self, with its constant judgements, dissatisfactions and hunger to get/attain/fix is given a rest, the little self drops away ... nothing more in need of getting, attain, fixing ... no separate self to pursue the getting, attaining, fixing ... and no separate other to be gotten, attained or fixed.
Dropping the constant need to get, attain, fix is really attaining some wisdom wonderful to get, the fix for what ails us.
Even many Zen teachers cannot help to present Zazen as some tool to get something.
Shikantaza is not meditation.
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Originally Posted by Jundo
