Shikantaza | Silent Reflection

#NithyaShanti #Shikantaza #SilentReflection
In the Zen and Chan tradition, there is a practice known as “Shikantaza” - the art of Just Sitting. There is great power and potency in simply being. Not just being this and that. Simply being. Just sitting. Silent reflection.
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[@rmsomya]

I keep hearing in my mind ... chicken taaza
:)

[@mcgee227]

I do Shikantaza, study The heart Sutra and The Genjokoan, and live my life, that's all. I call it Genjo Zen.

[@palanichidambaram]

Thanks Nithya. Is this something similar to what Ramana Maharishi said Just Being or Robert Adams / Nisgardatta said Being in IAM ?

[@NithyaNow]

palanichidambaram I would say so yes.

[@sonali5242]

so lovely....but the thoughts... just see them...without getting carried away...right?

[@NithyaShantiNow]

Yes notice the thoughts and come back to your immediate experience - what you see, hear, feel.

[@amadlover]

@@NithyaShantiNow hello... would not what you see, hear, feel be mindfulness? and people swear that mindfulness is different from shikantaza. please clarify if possible. have been doing vipasanna and zen since October '19. thank you. cheers

[@Uji_Metal]

@@amadlover shikantaza is definitely different from mindfulness, when he says come back to breath, feeling etc that is mindfulness. I've been sitting shikantaza for 11 years 😀 I'm going to respectfully say that most teachers who claim to be teaching shikantaza are in fact mistakenly teaching a form of mindfulness.😀

[@mcgee227]

When sitting, attention might wander to memories or imagination, then return to the present. I don't tell it to return, it does it on its own. I'm not controlling it or willing it or making an effort, it just happens.
Sometimes thoughts and memories fade completely, sometimes attention rests with just one thing. None of this has anything to do with me. I'm the attention of attention, the sensing of sensing, the Being of being.
Any effort, any technique at all is a step away from Shikantaza. Because relying on efforts and techniques means we're making a gate to Just This and restricting Just This to only when we're sitting, to only when we use some method or expend some effort.
Shikantaza is a radical non-effort, a non-technique. Just sitting, doing nothing at all, abiding nowhere. Because doing is the problem. Seeking and trying and practicing are hindrances. There's no gate until I make an effort or focus on something conditional, then I've made a gate. Even the breath is too much to focus on. Because the breath is empty.
After focusing on emptiness, it's time to move on and leave it behind. Knowing the empty, we don't focus on it anymore. After directly grokking anicca, anatta, and dukkha, emptiness has nothing else to offer us. So we let go of whatever it is we've been doing and we can Just Sit non-abiding.
Can't rely on emptiness to set us free, because any freedom given by emptiness would also be empty. Koans, Hua Tou, study, dana, mettā, chants, mantras, Jhāna, mindfulness... These are empty. They only offer insights into emptiness. They take us to the gate but do not let us pass through it. This is why even long time practitioners continue to suffer in delusion. Because they haven't seen that insight into emptiness is what tells where to no longer look for freedom. Seeing that, freedom is the one place we never look... Right now. No practices can take you to right now, to things as they are. Only abandoning all practices and methods will do that. Thanks to language, we call this non-method Shikantaza.

[@Uji_Metal]

@@mcgee227 Amazingly well said. When you said your attention comes to the present on it's own, that is a very critical and important thing to say. That which differentiates it from most forms of meditation and mindfulness practice. That's what makes it Zen. Also the more one sits the more that space in which that natural attention happens, happens more frequently, extending that space even longer. I also feel like there is a difference between "paying attention" "and you have my attention". Western Mindfulness etc is the former, Zen is "the present moment has snatched my attention" , almost distracted by it's "truthness" or whatever it is.