Alternating sense awareness as Shikantaza

[shikantazen]

All,

In shikantaza we don't put attention on any objects (yet try not to get caught up in thought chains) and sit without seeking. I recently came across a zen teacher recommending "Alternating sense awareness" practice. It goes like below.

Summary: Pay attention to sense objects one at a time as you sit
Description: I sit with attention to hearing. I listen to all the sounds happening. If I notice I'm caught up in thought, I come back to listening. After a couple of minutes I switch to seeing. Whatever I'm looking at I see without getting caught up. Then after couple of minutes I move to smell sensation. Then to taste (I try to receive the sensations of taste in the mouth whatever they are). Then I move to body sensations. Notice the sensations arising in my body / touch sensation. Then I circle back to listening. Keep repeating like this.


I certainly am less caught up in thoughts when sitting this way compared to sitting without attention on any object. Just wanted to check with the sangha on whether this is considered shikantaza or is there more doing (ego involved) in this practice

Gassho,
Sam
ST

[Jundo]

All,

In shikantaza we don't put attention on any objects (yet try not to get caught up in thought chains) and sit without seeking. I recently came across a zen teacher recommending "Alternating sense awareness" practice. It goes like below.

Summary: Pay attention to sense objects one at a time as you sit
Description: I sit with attention to hearing. I listen to all the sounds happening. If I notice I'm caught up in thought, I come back to listening. After a couple of minutes I switch to seeing. Whatever I'm looking at I see without getting caught up. Then after couple of minutes I move to smell sensation. Then to taste (I try to receive the sensations of taste in the mouth whatever they are). Then I move to body sensations. Notice the sensations arising in my body / touch sensation. Then I circle back to listening. Keep repeating like this.


I certainly am less caught up in thoughts when sitting this way compared to sitting without attention on any object. Just wanted to check with the sangha on whether this is considered shikantaza or is there more doing (ego involved) in this practice

Gassho,
Sam
ST

Sounds (pun intended) like more of a Vipassana tracking Practice, or maybe something in the flavor of Joko Beck who moved from a Rinzai Koan Practice to something much like Vipassana tracking.

Do what works for you of course, but it is not the radical Just Sitting of Shikantaza.

Gassho, Jundo

stlah

[Kokuu]

Hi Sam

For me, the beauty of Shikantaza is in going beyond picking and choosing and resting in the wholeness of everything that is arising without trying to control it. ~

I can see that working with one sense at a time in sitting might be interesting but is not generally how we experience the world. Did the teacher give a reason for why he suggests it?

I get the sense from you that you might prefer it because you find yourself lost in thoughts less, but the measure of Shikantaza is not in how often that occurs.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[shikantazen]

Thanks Jundo and Kokuu.

Kokuu, can you please elaborate on what you mean by "but the measure of Shikantaza is not in how often than occurs.". Probably there's a typo in there somewhere

This is recommended by Sokuzan of Sokukoji monastery in Michigan, USA. I don't think he says to sit 1-2 minutes with each sense field. It is more like switch every moment (or breath). I also don't think he recommends any order in which to move. I thought switching every moment or breath is too frequent and instead tried to be couple of mins with each sense field. He calls what he teaches (alternating sense awareness practice) as Shikantaza. To me it doesn't feel as Shikantaza though but seems effective in that I'm more aware. But I wonder if it's because there's more ego involved in the process of switching between sense fields.

Gassho,
Sam
ST

[Bion]

Thanks Jundo and Kokuu.

Kokuu, can you please elaborate on what you mean by "but the measure of Shikantaza is not in how often than occurs.". Probably there's a typo in there somewhere

This is recommended by Sokuzan of Sokukoji monastery in Michigan, USA. I don't think he says to sit 1-2 minutes with each sense field. It is more like switch every moment (or breath). I also don't think he recommends any order in which to move. I thought switching every moment or breath is too frequent and instead tried to be couple of mins with each sense field. He calls what he teaches (alternating sense awareness practice) as Shikantaza. To me it doesn't feel as Shikantaza though but seems effective in that I'm more aware. But I wonder if it's because there's more ego involved in the process of switching between sense fields.

Gassho,
Sam
ST

Sorry for butting in, but you gave yourself a useful tip there, when you said “it seems effective”. That implies, even on an unconscious level, that you expect for something to go a certain way while sitting before you’re satisfied. Quick “scans” of the body are normal for me during zazen and by that I mean returning to the posture, acknowledging a slouching back, a sagging mudra, tenseness in the muscles, closed eyes, loud breath, etc, and to do that and then to be able to correct it, I need to observe those individual things, but it’s an “aerial” view of it all, rather than a lingering on each aspect uniquely.

Sat Today

[Kokuu]

Kokuu, can you please elaborate on what you mean by "but the measure of Shikantaza is not in how often than occurs.". Probably there's a typo in there somewhere

You are right there is a typo and it should be: "the measure of Shikantaza is not in how often that occurs", the 'that' being how often we find ourselves chasing thoughts. As Bion points out, we also do not judge Shikantaza for the degree of awareness we maintain.

I like Sokuzan's teaching and find a lot of it corresponds with traditional Shikantaza, but he also learned a lot from Chögyam Trungpa and his instructions tend to be whatever he finds helps people to see into their own nature.

My advice would be to pick a teacher and work with them exclusively for a while. If you want to learn Shikantaza, here is a good place to do it. If you like Sokuzan's teachings, practice with Sokukoji. The two are not totally distinct but even in Zen, different teachers will have different ways of teaching, and even what they call Shikantaza.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Tokan]

Hey all

Yeah I wonder too if the practice might be influenced by psychology as well. So much of our perceptual awareness is driven by sight and sound, more so in the computer and smartphone age, that to restore balance there are exercises in deliberately activating the other senses - kind of like balancing them out to be more in harmony with each other. Still not shikantaza zazen as the others point out which (in part), for me, is radically accepting whatever is and not directing my attention towards anything, so while all my senses might be providing me with constant feedback (what else can they do?), I am allowing that all to exist without any attachment taking place, no labelling, no judgement. I prefer to keep my practice consistent and tend not to try different techniques these days as I find no great additional benefit to doing so, but we are all different (thankfully!) At the end of the day though it doesn't sound like a harmful activity and it doesn't sound like you are using it to daydream. Although I would always advocate shikantaza zazen as per Fukanzazengi, a question I ask myself is "am I trying to be a better Zen Buddhist or am I trying to be a better piece of this universe" (i.e. more kind, helpful, and so on). Small steps each day

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Daiman]

It is interesting that in Mindfulness-Based approaches like MBSR, etc., most of what people are doing is the Vipassana tracking practice and some Zen folk who have adopted this kind of thing like Joko Beck as Jundo points out. However, the founder of modern Mindfulness-Based approaches, Jon Kabat-Zinn did not see the Vipassana tracking as the most advanced part of the mindfulness-based practices. He said that all of the tracking types of practices lead to what he referred to as Choiceless Awareness (which was a term actually used earlier by Krishnamurti). (Jon's first teacher was Zen Master Seung Sahn before he studied Vipassana, so there was always an element of Zen practice in MBSR).

I find this idea of choiceness awareness very close to the practice of Shikantaza in that we are just allowing whatever appears in the field of awareness to be there and not holding on to or pushing away any of it. When the breath, then just the breath, when sounds, then just sounds. This open field of awareness contains all of it. Awareness is always there, we are just not always paying attention to it unless we bring a purposeful attention to it.

However, the part that I find where choiceness awareness seems to differ from Shikantaza is the part that includes the sacred act of sitting and the timelessness of that sitting and how when we sit we embody the body of the Buddha and we do this beyond the use of some yardstick to measure our experience rather than being fully the experience that is already here.

Gassho,

Daiman
ST/LAH

[Tairin]

I need to observe those individual things, but it’s an “aerial” view of it all, rather than a lingering on each aspect uniquely.

^{(My bolds)}


I like that perspective (sorry for the pun). I think that is how I see it too. It is almost like I am looking at myself as a third person and reminding myself to not slouch, straighten my mudra, etc. Somedays that third person needs to carry a kyōsaku


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Jundo]

I find this idea of choiceness awareness very close to the practice of Shikantaza in that we are just allowing whatever appears in the field of awareness to be there and not holding on to or pushing away any of it. When the breath, then just the breath, when sounds, then just sounds. This open field of awareness contains all of it. Awareness is always there, we are just not always paying attention to it unless we bring a purposeful attention to it.

However, the part that I find where choiceness awareness seems to differ from Shikantaza is the part that includes the sacred act of sitting and the timelessness of that sitting and how when we sit we embody the body of the Buddha and we do this beyond the use of some yardstick to measure our experience rather than being fully the experience that is already here.

I agree with this very much. I would say "choiceless awareness" is another way to describe "open, spacious awareness," open to everything, anything and nothing in particular, in equanimity and without judgement ... one of the key aspects of Shikantaza.

However, the other key aspect of Shikantaza is what you say, "the sacred act of sitting and the timelessness of that sitting and how when we sit we embody the body of the Buddha and we do this beyond the use of some yardstick to measure." It is precisely this that distinguishes Shikantaza from many flavors of meditation which are subtly goal oriented or "instrumentalist" as tools to get something. It is the very drive to "get get get" that is the source of suffering, and the very dropping of the tools and goals that is "getting the job done." It is so much so, that we like to say that Shikantaza Zazen is not even "meditation" (although it is, a kind of "non-meditation meditation.")

I do not criticize other forms of meditation for those who benefit from those, but the brilliance of Shikantaza is the realization that the true cause of Dukkha, and our separation of our self from all reality, is this need to get, do, find a tool, fix and accomplish, achieve, get somewhere.

In my understanding, Rev. Sokuzan considers himself as much a successor to Trungpa as well as Sokuzan's teacher in the Kobun Chino Lineage, and even the Kobun folks can be a bit grab bag in their approaches. It is lovely, many ways to make the soup. Find the soup right for you.

I like the soup of Shikantaza, for it helps us realize the delicious nature of life's soup, and to become "one with our bowl," because we radically stop looking for the "True Soup" in somebody else's bowl, stop dreaming of some other kitchen, radically stop thinking that we just have to add this or that to make soup into soup, thus to discover the Buddha's old recipe ... and simply taste the richness and nutrition of this Buddha Bowl of Soup which has always been here all along. Then, diner, water, carrots and broth, bowl and breath, air and chair, sky and tongue, spoon and stomach all are just one ...

... YUMMY!

Gassho, J

stlah

[shikantazen]

I found a Guided Meditation video where he described the method. It's an hour long video but the main instructions are from 4:07 to 12:40.



I tried this today when I was sitting Shikantaza and my mind is getting caught up in long chains of thought. I noticed I was able to come back much quicker when I do alternating sense awareness practice. So the method I followed is this. I sit with awareness of hearing and when I notice I am caught up in a thought chain, I briefly come back to hearing and then switch to the next sense which is sense of seeing. Then again switch to the next sense after I notice I'm caught up in thought (before switching I briefly stay with previous sense). So I move between hearing -> seeing -> smelling -> taste -> body/touch sensations -> hearing (cycle repeats). Roughly on an average I am with each sense for about a minute (based on the fact that I did about 6 cycles in a 30 min sitting). I like this method more than other methods (like breath following, just using hearing as object)

Kokuu brings up a good point "do not judge Shikantaza for the degree of awareness we maintain". I'm struggling with this aspect. I understand we get caught up in thoughts frequently and I'm ok with that. But whenever I notice I don't come back quickly but am stuck in a long period of day dreaming, I feel like shit. I start thinking this is not working out. I'm wasting my time. After a few days like this I try to fix it by sitting with some online or local group or have a dokusan with some teacher etc (or these days using this sense awareness technique seems to work almost every time). I also have good periods especially during a sesshin where time seems to be very slow and I keep coming back so many times. I'm aware that there is no good or bad zazen. I'm also aware that sitting with this uncertainity and with these feelings about lack of focus or progress is itself zazen. It also is possible though I don't feel more aware during the sit, the desired progress (towards not seeking) is happening. But it is also possible nothing happens and this becomes a waste of time. The degree of awareness gives me some feeling of certainity. Would like to hear your thoughts and what I could be missing

Gassho,
Sam
ST

[Bion]

I found a Guided Meditation video where he described the method. It's an hour long video but the main instructions are from 4:07 to 12:40.



I tried this today when I was sitting Shikantaza and my mind is getting caught up in long chains of thought. I noticed I was able to come back much quicker when I do alternating sense awareness practice. So the method I followed is this. I sit with awareness of hearing and when I notice I am caught up in a thought chain, I briefly come back to hearing and then switch to the next sense which is sense of seeing. Then again switch to the next sense after I notice I'm caught up in thought (before switching I briefly stay with previous sense). So I move between hearing -> seeing -> smelling -> taste -> body/touch sensations -> hearing (cycle repeats). Roughly on an average I am with each sense for about a minute (based on the fact that I did about 6 cycles in a 30 min sitting). I like this method more than other methods (like breath following, just using hearing as object)

Kokuu brings up a good point "do not judge Shikantaza for the degree of awareness we maintain". I'm struggling with this aspect. I understand we get caught up in thoughts frequently and I'm ok with that. But whenever I notice I don't come back quickly but am stuck in a long period of day dreaming, I feel like shit. I start thinking this is not working out. I'm wasting my time. After a few days like this I try to fix it by sitting with some online or local group or have a dokusan with some teacher etc (or these days using this sense awareness technique seems to work almost every time). I also have good periods especially during a sesshin where time seems to be very slow and I keep coming back so many times. I'm aware that there is no good or bad zazen. I'm also aware that sitting with this uncertainity and with these feelings about lack of focus or progress is itself zazen. It also is possible though I don't feel more aware during the sit, the desired progress (towards not seeking) is happening. But it is also possible nothing happens and this becomes a waste of time. The degree of awareness gives me some feeling of certainity. Would like to hear your thoughts and what I could be missing

Gassho,
Sam
ST

What are you trying to accomplish while sitting? What is the end goal? I am genuinely asking this, it’s not some zenny koan question or rhetorical thing… Can you sum it up in just a couple of words?

Sat Today

[Kokuu]

But whenever I notice I don't come back quickly but am stuck in a long period of day dreaming, I feel like shit. I start thinking this is not working out. I'm wasting my time. After a few days like this I try to fix it by sitting with some online or local group or have a dokusan with some teacher etc (or these days using this sense awareness technique seems to work almost every time).

Hi Sam

Thank you for going into greater detail. That is really helpful.

For me, the issue is not that the thoughts of not thinking it is working coming up, but in buying into them. The idea of gaining in practice seems to be something you have dealing with for some time, and I don't say that as a criticism but merely an observation - we all have different parts of practice we struggle with based on our life circumstances and personalities.

The great thing about Shikantaza is that by putting down the idea of gaining mind, we get to see where this appears for us and can observe it, and any behaviour that follows. Sitting with the uncertainty of whether you are doing something worthwhile seems really tough for you and I don't know what the answer is. Continuing with Shikantaza will mean you get to face up to this uncomfortableness and address it directly, but I know that not every practice suits every person.

Jundo, and others of us here can keep working with you on this, and remind you of the principles of Shikantaza, and the deep wisdom of just sitting with everything that is in each moment. I also find it really helpful to refer back to Dogen's Fukan Zazengi:

The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease, the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the koan realized; traps and snares can never reach it.

What we are doing is essentially to work with the grasping after something else, something 'better', and realising that everything is right here and right now. Whether that approach can work for you, I don't know. What do the other teachers tell you in Dokusan? Jundo is also available to talk through what you are coming up against but, as I said before, it is really good to pick one teacher and follow their instructions otherwise what you are being told may well conflict and leave you (literally) none the wiser.

Apologies for length.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Daiman]

I agree with this very much. I would say "choiceless awareness" is another way to describe "open, spacious awareness," open to everything, anything and nothing in particular, in equanimity and without judgement ... one of the key aspects of Shikantaza.

However, the other key aspect of Shikantaza is what you say, "the sacred act of sitting and the timelessness of that sitting and how when we sit we embody the body of the Buddha and we do this beyond the use of some yardstick to measure." It is precisely this that distinguishes Shikantaza from many flavors of meditation which are subtly goal oriented or "instrumentalist" as tools to get something. It is the very drive to "get get get" that is the source of suffering, and the very dropping of the tools and goals that is "getting the job done." It is so much so, that we like to say that Shikantaza Zazen is not even "meditation" (although it is, a kind of "non-meditation meditation.")

I do not criticize other forms of meditation for those who benefit from those, but the brilliance of Shikantaza is the realization that the true cause of Dukkha, and our separation of our self from all reality, is this need to get, do, find a tool, fix and accomplish, achieve, get somewhere.

In my understanding, Rev. Sokuzan considers himself as much a successor to Trungpa as well as Sokuzan's teacher in the Kobun Chino Lineage, and even the Kobun folks can be a bit grab bag in their approaches. It is lovely, many ways to make the soup. Find the soup right for you.

I like the soup of Shikantaza, for it helps us realize the delicious nature of life's soup, and to become "one with our bowl," because we radically stop looking for the "True Soup" in somebody else's bowl, stop dreaming of some other kitchen, radically stop thinking that we just have to add this or that to make soup into soup, thus to discover the Buddha's old recipe ... and simply taste the richness and nutrition of this Buddha Bowl of Soup which has always been here all along. Then, diner, water, carrots and broth, bowl and breath, air and chair, sky and tongue, spoon and stomach all are just one ...

... YUMMY!

Gassho, J

stlah

Jundo, Thank you for this. This is wonderful soup you have prepared today.

As far as mindfulness, I find it a wonderful set of practices that I can use in my psychotherapy practice and in the MBSR classes that I lead. For most of these folks, they do not want to go beyond just mindfulness as an offered remedy for suffering. For me that is okay because perhaps saving all beings in this moment means that this is the very remedy that is needed for them at this point in their lives and maybe at some point they realize that when they approach practice as another self-improvement project , it is not where they want to be, and that always expecting the soup to taste good and to always solve all problems is at the heart of the problem itself.

Interestingly, some people that have done this mindfulness practice begin to realize that the "instrumentalist" approach isn't quite at all what they are looking for. The Zen group that I currently facilitate are folks that did mindfulness with me in the past or with other teachers and are looking for their full bowl of soup. I hope that I am able to provide that for them, although they ultimately are the ones that have to learn how to prepare it and eat it each day, I can only do my best to demonstrate how the soup is prepared. They need to do the rest and realize for themselves this very bowl of soup is their bowl of soup and even though it resembles the bowls of soups of the many traditions and even many of the ancestral teachers, it is not fully the soup of the Buddha until it becomes their own bowl of soup. And then perhaps they realize that there is enough soup to go around and so they start sharing their soup with other people and showing them how to prepare their own bowls of soup.

The soup of shikantaza has no flavor, but it also includes all flavors, interestingly delicious! Perhaps there is no flavor, or perhaps the flavor is not something we expected or even something we wanted and it tastes differently than we would like, but somehow when we accept it for what it is, it fully nourishes us like no other.

We are the Soto Soup School after all.


Gassho,

Daiman
St/Lah

[paulashby]

I think the source on this teaching is perhaps Shinzen Young. He teaches a walking meditation
where you notice and note if your primary sense focus is seeing,hearing or feeling. The
level of constant scanning is quite different energetically from shikantaza. Instead of a
mind continuously pointing to this and that out there, zazen invites us to welcome everything
and no thing without pointing fingers.

Gassho, peace,Paul sat lah

[Mokuso]

It is not Shikantaza. It is more and almost fully like vipassana. There are different exercises within vipassana, that you focus on different shakras in the body. And then as you describe; focus of mind.
I practiced these many years ago, before I got hooked on Soto zen and Shikantaza.

For me Shikantaza is the best. Sitting in stillness, not focusing on anything in particular, but just being a part of everything around without any demands or performance. In my opinion, it is only when you really reach into yourself and experience life and everything around you as it really is.

But I think everyone feels difficulties in one way or another sometimes in their practice in Shikantaza. But that's how it is with everything in life. I usually focus on exhalation and count to 10, the times It feels difficult with Shikantaza.
It's just sitting. Without any performance. No one Shikantazas are the same. No two days are alike. It's just sitting. I don't want a life without Shikantaza.

But in philosophy and everyday thinking, Zen fits with vipassana. To be aware in every moment of what is happening. But the meditation practice separates them.

Hope you find what is right for you!

Gassho. Mokuso