In all schools of Buddhism, you will find two paths: the hard one and the instant one. Although they are not as separate as they seem or claim to be, they have a slight different flavour. You may repeat endlessly a given mantra or surrender on the spot, you may sit a lifetime to reach the mountain top or find yourself instantly on the topless mountain :wink: , you may do it the hard way or the easy one. In fact, in reality once you do one, the other is automatically done: a Buddha is shikantaza, shikantaza is Buddha even if the bloke wrestling with lotus, karma issues, addictions, delusions, doubts and all the rest of it, even if this bloke thinks he-she is not.
And this is really posible thanks to the ever changing nature of this life. Thanks to each moment. Fresh. New. Unseen and often unnoticed. Kannon, the goddess of mercy, the listener, the shining empty centre does work in many mysterious ways. Once we wake up to the moment, that's what we may be ( not just see):

At any given moment, and the moment is always given, we may forgive ( not because we assume any superior position but just as we realize that we are not merely different than what we tend to judge), we may forget ( not just because it is well chewed and long digested but because of the nature of this transitory and fleeting world and the fact that everything comes and goes), we may truly live ( not because we are alive, but essentialy for we directly see through our dead life, our cherished sleepwalking habits). At any given moment, a lifetime of loosing our way can be embraced by Kannon manifested where practice is done and the world as it is met, embraced so it is loved, and loved it is instantly transformed. Dreams and faces and episodes or the past may whirl like incense smoke or glimmer like the sun sweeping waters, it is all OK. All IS well.
It takes less than a second, resonnates in the timeless, and knows no bounds.

gassho

Taigu