Skip to main content

Sokuzan on Why Practice Shikantaza

 I have - on and off since my youth - practiced zazen.  But the sort of zazen that I was introduced to as a young man in the Isshin-Ryu dojo of my formative years was (as I have said before elsewhere on this blog) decidedly of a Soto-style nature.  Specifically, it was what is known in Zen as shikantaza, often translated as just sitting.  But "just sitting" can be a lot harder than it sounds.


The following is from Japanese-American monk-priest Sokuzan, in a new book of his entitled "108 Meditation Instructions."  I admit to knowing very little about Sokuzan, despite typically being familiar with the American-Buddhist "scene", but what he has to say here has a depth to it that you don't typically encounter in American Zen.


Enjoy!

Kodo Sawaki sitting in Zazen


Why do this kind of meditation (shikantaza) rather than shine or thaktong or samatha and vipassana?  Why not do creation/completion practices or deity yoga visualizations?  Or mantras?  Why not do walking meditations in the forest?  Or follow the breath?  These kind of practices try to stabilize the mind.  If you endeavor to calm the mind, you are calming what you think is the mind, not the actual mind.  It will just look like it is calm because you have done something artificial to it.


Shikantaza is not about training your mind to be more calmful - though that may occur.  If you are looking for peace, then this kind of meditation is not going to help you.  Shikantaza is much more rough, rugged, and realistic than that and will take you right into the labyrinth of your karma.  For that ambitious undertaking, it seems necessary to have a solid discipline that summons you to sit down, hold still, and watch what happens in the mind stream without agreeing or objecting.  Shikantaza is a practice because you may have to watch yourself shut down, disagree, or ignore what arises in your mind over and over.  But you don't have to fix anything.  You don't have to correct anything.  You don't have to get better.  It's pretty good news - you don't have to be somebody else.  You get to be exactly who you are.*



*From "108 Meditation Instructions and 6 Dharma Talks: A Foundational Guide to Zen Buddhist Meditation" by Sokuzan (from the book's introduction)

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Feel free to leave us some feedback on the article or any topics you would like us to cover in the future! Much Appreciated!

Popular posts from this blog

Marvin Eder’s Mass-Building Methods

  The Many and Varied Mass-Building Methods of Power Bodybuilding’s G.O.A.T. Eder as he appeared in my article "Full Body Workouts" for IronMan  magazine.      In many ways, the essay you are now reading is the one that has had the “longest time coming.”  I have no clue why it has taken me this long to write an article specifically on Marvin Eder, especially considering the fact that I have long considered him the greatest bodybuilder cum strength athlete of all friggin’ time .  In fact, over 20 years ago, I wrote this in the pages of IronMan magazine: In my opinion, the greatest all-around bodybuilder, powerlifter and strength athlete ever to walk the planet, Eder had 19-inch arms at a bodyweight of 198. He could bench 510, squat 550 for 10 reps and do a barbell press with 365. He was reported to have achieved the amazing feat of cranking out 1,000 dips in only 17 minutes. Imagine doing a dip a second for 17 minutes. As Gene Mozee once put ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Roll of the Dice: Planned Variety for Size and Strength

A Unique Training Idea for Renewed Size and Strength Gains (Plus a Little Fun)      To make consistent gains in size and strength, you need two vital components.  You need to actually be on a training program but you also need one that has enough variety for continued progress.  I’ve always believed that this is the reason training programs, even though they might be diversely different, such as Westside Barbell and Bill Starr ’s heavy-light-medium program work so well.  They have a template that never changes—you can stick with that template for years on end—but one with a lot of variety inherently “built” into its system.      Many of your average gym-goers train the exact same way all the time.  When they train their chest, it’s always flat bench presses for 3 sets of 10 reps or maybe 5x5 if they’re interested in more strength, or whatever it is.  It’s pretty much the same thing for all of their other muscl...
6 comments
Read more

Basic Training Advice for Full-Body Workouts

Some Thoughts on Programming Design and Proper Technique for Learning the Major Lifts Advice for Beginners or Those New to Full-Body Workouts or Serious Strength Training       Although I have covered the material below in various articles and essays, I wrote the following based on a couple of emails from new lifters that I have received the last few weeks.  If you’re new to full-body workouts or need to get “back to the basics” then pay attention!      When it comes to utilizing full-body workouts, I generally suggest using around 5 “big” compound lifts.  If you’re trying to pack on a lot of muscle—yes, this goes for any aspiring young bodybuilders who might actually be reading this instead of scrolling through mindlessly stupid Tik Tok shorts or YouTube videos that spit out the same information ad nauseam—then this is the route you want to take.  Whole body training isn’t just for strength training or for athletes, tho...
5 comments
Read more