There is a practice with no object, no technique, and no goal, and it may be the hardest and simplest thing in the world: to sit down and be fully here. Shikantaza means nothing but sitting. You are not on the way to somewhere else. You have arrived.
OriginsThe Root of the Practice
Master Dogen carried this sitting from China to Japan in the thirteenth century, and called it the Dharma gate of great ease and joy. Before him the Chinese master Hongzhi taught the same path as silent illumination: a quiet mind that is bright, a bright mind that is quiet. The desert fathers of the Christian East knew it as hesychia, the holy stillness. The Taoists called it sitting and forgetting. Every lineage that has gone deep has found this room.
The WayWhat the Practice Teaches
Most practices give the mind something to hold. Shikantaza lets go of the holding. Thoughts rise and fall like clouds across a mountain, and you are the mountain. You do not push them away and you do not follow them. You sit with your whole body and your whole attention, awake to whatever is, and the sitting itself is the awakening. Nothing needs to be added. Nothing is missing.
BeginHow to Practice
- Take a stable seat, cushion or chair, with the spine tall and the chin gently tucked.
- Rest the hands in your lap, left over right, thumbs lightly touching.
- Keep the eyes open and lowered, resting on the floor a few feet ahead.
- Breathe naturally. Let thoughts come and go without comment.
- When you notice you have been carried away, simply sit up and be here again.
- Sit for twenty minutes if you can. Bow when you rise.
HarvestThe Fruit
A deep trust grows, the trust that you are already enough. Restlessness drains away. The ordinary day, with its dishes and doors and weather, begins to shine with a plain and lovely light.
May you sit down and find that the whole world has sat down with you.