You’ve certainly done this many times. Treat your thoughts as though they’re clouds in the sky. Taigen Dan Leighton Preface to the book, The Art of Just Sitting, edited by Daido Loori, Wisdom Publications, 2002. It's also cleared of all sorts of esoteric tendencies, anyone could be doing this - you don't urgently need special tools/ statues/ pictures/etc except for a quiet room and a zafu. Starts after 30 seconds with three bells, In the 20-minute clap of wood block to announce the last 10 minutes. I do it outside on the patio, or on a couch. “Concentrate on the fact that you are breathing.”. For some, that’s 15 minutes; others a half-hour or more. Don’t try to concentrate on anything. The best way to understand Shikantaza is to practice it. But you don’t need to follow any school to meditate, or sit, as we say in Zen lingo. Chinese Man is a french alternative hip hop band composed by the trio High Ku, Matteo and Sly. Even if you don’t want to follow a path of meditation, or a particular tradition, just sitting for a few minutes every day can be a wonderful way to get back in touch with reality and recharge your brain. So, I would literally just sit, with my eyes open, and clear my mind. Instead of focusing on the breath as in Shamata meditation, the practitioner puts the awareness on awareness itself; the rising and falling, the coming and going of thought, the sensations of pain in posture of the body in the lotus positions, the rigidness of the mind, and to Dogen, “not- thinking versus non-thinking.” The goal isn’t to have a completely blacked out mind, but instead to go beyond thinking all together. . Dear All. It is this latter, S?t? After a while, though, you tend to feel when the right time has passed. You can use a meditation timer. A mudra is a symbolic gesture that is used within the Dharmic cultures and religions of India: Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. Let those thoughts go. This is a definition in terms of what it is not. I wrote an article for Macworld about iOS meditation timers. In Japan, it is associated with the Soto school. Feel your in-breaths; feel your out-breaths. “Don’t worry about the noise around you; you’ll get used to letting that just fade away too.”. The completeness of reality was always there, but trying to get somewhere was creating the sense of lack inside of you, blinding you from the real world. Just be with yourself, allow yourself to have that time to just sit. That’s not to say some occasional “house cleaning” wont be in order from time to time.”. When you’ve had enough, get up slowly, and don’t rush into whatever you have to do next. The way I interpreted the breathing comment is that it’s a good introduction towards being eventually able to not concentrate on anything. Comment section illustrates the confusing paradox of “no thought”. Shikantaza is more than the mere physical posture of sitting, although it certainly includes that. And because it's so easy to deceive ourselves with a story about "just sitting," it is absolutely essential to meet with a Zen teacherregularly in order to really plumb the d… The paradoxical trap is that the goal of “no-thought” is inherently unthinkable, and the very idea of it as a goal is itself thought. One way to categorize the meditation practice of shikan taza, or “just sitting,” is as an objectless meditation. For 2 years I’ve practiced all manner of techniques from different systems – moving up and down both the jhanas, as well as the stages of insight, respectively. Log in to Pronouncekiwi. It’s no surprise that all of the major religions have forms of meditation as part of their practices. I do it in trains, planes and busses; in doctors’ offices, dentists’ chairs, and I’ve even done it in MRIs. Shikantaza is the tenth piece in a series of works for instrument and live electronics I have been composing in the last few years. The world of Zen has two primary schools, that of shikantaza and that of koans. Think not-thinking. Instead, Zen people usually teach that you need to learn how to concentrate to some extent and calm your mind before you can be let loose with shik… I’ve been practicing meditation off and on for about 25 years. The guitar is tuned in just intonation and makes extensive use of a metal slide. Having practiced years of meditation on and off, I was more than aware that meditation maintained my vitality and allowed me to avoid illness, and gave me quick recovery times with weak symptoms when I did, so I picked it up again, using another slightly rigorous system. [CDATA[ aax_getad_mpb({ "slot_uuid":"800f1d12-bcfe-4cfa-97b8-e6396e28f53c" }); //]]>. Learn how your comment data is processed. Zen Meditation also works with improving sleep, and connecting more mentally with the body, improving the immune system and sleep cycles. Shikantaza is often presented as down to earth, very empirical and not mysterious. You need to stay with it and begin to take the whole environment as your body. (Not Shikantaza, by the way ... just something I played with during a cold Sesshin). And the sounds don’t have to fade away for successful practice. When we conclude our loving kindness meditation, we maintain our Present Moment Awareness and transition to Silent Present Moment Awareness. You can start with Anapanasati until you feel focused, and then let go of the breath and rest in pure awareness. Shikantaza is Zazen, which is basically just Anapanasati without using an anchor (the breath). This means Oh so literally what it says. Information and translations of shikantaza in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on the web. than it did of the the internal present moment (my thoughts) the way vipassana seems to. What am I missing. Just don’t get caught up in a rhythmic pattern since that would be continued participation in thought/mental imagery, and seems like that may also be a form of guided meditation, or chakra approach – I don’t know anything about that stuff. In the S?t? Pardon my ignorance. To Dogen Zenji, (the founder of Soto Zen in Japan), Shikantaza is the literal practice of Buddhahood, the sitting in enlightenment, the practice of enlightenment. The New Maria Callas Remasters: Good or Bad? I sit and think not thinking; I do that by non-thinking. Shikantaza is to practice or actualize emptiness. I’m certain it’s another workable approach to enlightenment, but I just happen to find the direct Zen approach first. [3] Even if you don’t want to meditate, you may find that just sitting for a few minutes every day – free of distraction – will clear your mind.[4]. At least not in a pure sense. Unlike other forms of meditation, shikantaza doesn’t involve concentrating on an object, such as your breath or a mantra. Simply select a language and press on the speaker button to listen to the pronunciation of the word. Turn off the TV, the radio, the computer, and put your cell phone away. Definition of shikantaza in the Definitions.net dictionary. But awareness of what? Shikantaza transcends thinking and non thinking. It isn’t ten minutes of “relaxation” or “relief” or “rest.” It isn’t ten minutes of you as body. Through their wide variety of philosophical systems, people in India have been studying meditation and the bodies en… Ideally … This is the Zen practice of shikantaza, or “just sitting.” You sit, cross-legged if you can, and let your mind alone. If my mind became mired in thoughts, I’d gently return it to thoughtlessness until it naturally came to prefer thoughtlessness to thinking (it didn’t take long for my mind to recognize the superiority of non-thinking to thinking in just about every aspect of life.) You're signed out. Letting it go takes diligence and determinism, takes time, and thinking only weakens your position proportional to it reinforcing the mind. I was about to post a comment so similar, it’s a bit eery! When a student is effortlessly there, comfortably in absence of attachment or resistance, this exercise is mastered. Shikantaza is so incredibly amazing because if you are really just sitting, you have satisfied your intention. It only takes a few minutes, it doesn’t cost anything, and you really can do it anywhere. It struck me that Shikantaza almost seemed like a "jumping in at the deep end" aproach to meditation. Shikantaza, sometimes called "just sitting," is the subtle and radically nondual practice at the heart of Soto Zen practice. …and currently the text is considerably altered into something else but my point is this; I know well the above exercise, and can appreciate how focusing one’s attention on an object, as in “meditation”, would serve as an excellent gradient approach in denying the monkey mind its center stage. I sit for twenty minutes, a half-hour, sometimes more. Just don’t serve them tea.”. Many other traditions involved closed-eyed meditation, and you can sit anywhere. All you should do is try and keep your back relatively straight (in other words, don’t slouch in a recliner). Many studies have shown that meditation of any kind is good for the brain. That’s what I did when I first started meditating because my brain needed something to focus on. However, this term has been used mainly with regards to zazen (meditation). But I just sit. Like one would be doing some surgical operation. But in Buddhism both of these are ideas of being. Or, on certain days when you have more time, you might want to resist the urge to get up when you think it’s time to get up, and sit a bit more. After following the Tibetan tradition for a while, I drifted among other forms of practice, notably Theravadan insight meditation, before settling on Zen. How To: Prepare an iOS Device for Return, Exchange or Sale, an article for Macworld about iOS meditation timers. Your thoughts are ephemeral: they arise, they take center stage, then they fade away. Shikantaza meditation is the main practice of the Soto Zen tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. You’ll probably notice that your mind starts showing you all sorts of pretty pictures, and you leap toward them like a puppy running after a new toy. “Take Ten Minutes of Nothing. Although you can have a tentative understanding of it through your thinking, you should understand emptiness through your experience. The lowest two strings are tuned in unison and one is detuned throughout the piece to create beating patterns ("organic" accellerandi and rallentandi). Then in my later 20’s, I started again, but I didn’t want a rigorous and long-winded approach to meditation, though I needed something that was genuinely effective while being minimalistic. Allow your thoughts to come and go. 30 Minutes Shikantaza / Zazen Timer. In my belief, neglecting these points robs Shikantaza of its power, like fire without its fuel. In Mahayana Buddhism, meditation is a key component in actualizing the “right concentration” and “right mindfulness” of the Eight-fold Path. If playback doesn't begin shortly, try restarting your device. In short, expect that there will likely be some not insignificant initial frustration as you do indeed feel that you don’t know how to do it. I found that Shikantaza made me more aware of the external present moment (such as the minutae of the environment, sounds etc.) This in itself is the essential art of zazen.”[2]. This is a silent exercise. This happens to all of us, from time to time, but you can cultivate it, practicing regularly. The other poster is correct. Fundamentally it is the practice of just being here, being present—except that we are not rocks or stones, but aware beings—so I think “just-awareness” more fully captures the essence of the term. Relaxing, and observing, rather than fixating on what comes. It isn’t ten minutes of picturing blankness. Proudly created with Wix.com. This kind of zazen, in my experience, is rarely taught in the West. Just sit, let the thoughts come and go, and, when you get lost, come back to your breath, again. Then when it got used to more stillness, I was able to get past having to concentrate on something. . This form of meditation is extremely useful in overcoming stress and emotional discord in our every day lives. It is the meditation of the mind watching the mind. The goal is not to get rid of thoughts, to silence yourself; it’s all about just letting those thoughts be and not getting tied up in them. It derives power from you, weather it be resisting or following. I’m glad there’s an actual name for this practice. For a few minutes, you felt apart from the worries of the world, and your mind felt clear. If you’re worrying about the noise, notice yourself worrying about the noise. When you get there, you know what it is. Try and let the relaxed feeling you experienced when sitting last a bit before you return to the world. Millions of people practice shikantaza, which is Japanese for just sitting. Just let them go. It’s the one whose main practice is just sitting. Or it may have been a lazy summer day, sitting on the deck, listening to bees buzzing around you. How do you manage the time that you “just sit” for? Meditation in Zen has been shown to help a great deal in many aspects of emotional, and mental health. It is the method of no-method, and invites us to just sit in stillness and openness, perceiving things simply and directly as they are, without engaging in thought, including thoughts of motivation. Often Such intensely heightened alertness of mind cannot be maintained for long periods of time. Shikantaza and Zazen (Sitting Meditation) is not to remain on the cushion when meditation is finished, but to be a literal practice that we carry over throughout the day. When you stop thinking, you reach a point of non-thinking. est un terme japonais utilisé dans l'école du bouddhisme zen Sōtō qui peut être traduit par « seulement s'asseoir » ou « être assis sans rien faire » et qui décrit l'attitude à adopter lors de la méditation zazen. Nope. Most experienced Zen practitioners have an appreciation for shikantaza but shrink from presenting it as a practice for beginners or as a meditative practice you can rely on to the exclusion of all others. If you can do this for a few minutes every day, you’ll start realizing that your body needs to put itself on pause every now and then. Chinese Man. Tap to unmute. This meditation practice is in Dogens words; “casting off of the mind and body.” Remaining simpleminded in the present of what ever comes up in the mind, to return back to the present. I just sit. Oftentimes people can interpret such comments as admonishing and may give up because they think they are “doing it wrong” . At first, you looked at the view, but then your mind went on pause as you appreciated the silence, and the simplicity of just being in the moment. Feb 21, 2019 | Articles. Shikantaza translates from Japanese to “just sitting.” Essentially, it is a practice of deep mindfulness. I went a couple more years and my health began to suddenly decline inexplicably. You see completeness directly and immediately, not after escalating some strenuous mountain. Leave a vote for your preferred pronunciation. Cancel. Practitioners of Zen koans, shikantaza, counting the exhalations meditation, and other forms of meditation may attain enlightenment while ignoring the sixteen steps of Tranquil Wisdom meditation, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness and the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. The dichotomy is achieving ability to think, or not think, as a self determined activity. Don’t try to push them away; simply let them move on on their own. Don’t try and stop them; they’ll just get stronger. “Sit with eyes closed. When someone is practising Shikantaza, one lets go of desires, stress, objects, goals, and method, to be fully present in the moment and in the mind and in the body. The thing about just sitting is that you can do it anywhere. I will note that, while living in Japan, it took me a good 2 to 4 weeks of attending a daily group sitting before I felt that “I knew how to do it”. Don’t worry about the noise around you; you’ll get used to letting that just fade away too. When events take place that bring stress, anxiety, worry, the practitioner returns to the present, being aware without judgement, recognising the event and letting go. Some use the word “meditation,” others call it “prayer” or “contemplation.”. You sit and you sit. Once you realize this, you understand that all your thoughts can just fade away if you let them. I advise you not touch this article, Shikantaza, because it belongs to none other than The Peculiar Sage, and requires my absolute permission to be edited or altered in any way, shape, or form. Zen tradition, one meditates with the eyes partially open, facing a wall. How To Pronounce Shikantaza. Whether you’re a Buddhist, Christian, Muslim or atheist, just sitting can fit in your worldview. But recently I’ve returned to this simple sitting and forgetting. Place your hands on your thighs, close your eyes, and feel your breathing. How To Pronounce Shika. Notice yourself noticing the sound? Now for Ten Minutes let us experience utterly NOTHING.”, …then by the 1970’s, the text had refined to read…. Shikantaza (只管打坐?) Focusing on breathing is quite enough to hold your attention long enough to outlast uninvited thought. Shikantaza is the practice of doing each activity in our life for the sake of that activity, regardless of whether we are sitting, lying, walking, or standing, or working. Shikantaza (只管打坐) is a Japanese translation of a Chinese term for zazen introduced by Rujing, a monk of the Caodong school of Zen Buddhism, to refer to a practice called "Silent Illumination", or "Serene Reflection", by previous Caodong masters. Just stop participating (struggling) within the trap and eventually you liberate as it dissipates. You can do this anywhere, at almost any time. How do you think not-thinking? Concentrate on the fact that you are breathing. Find a quiet place to sit: you don’t have to sit cross-legged on a meditation cushion, a chair is fine. “Once you have adjusted your posture, take a deep breath, inhale and exhale, rock your body right and left and settle into a steady, immobile sitting position. What does shikantaza mean? This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Info. An hour? 15 minutes? Dogen Zenji, this traditions founder, wrote about Shikantaza in his book called the Shobogenzo. If your practice goes well, you will experience the 'dropping off' of sensations and thoughts. But the learning curve is relatively brief in getting past that, so ganbatte! Very simple and effective Zen meditation technique explained. It felt utterly natural. You let go of it and it lets go of you! I had practiced a rigorous approach to meditation for a number of years in my early 20’s and abandoned it for several years. You can use just sitting to ground yourself, to take a few minutes away from the vortex of the world around you. Shopping. The history of Shikantaza comes from the Soto School of the Zen Tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. Autoplay is paused. It is “objectless meditation,” where you focus on everything you experience – thoughts, sounds, feelings – without attaching to any of them. Meditation works with the left prefrontal cortex of the brain, while reducing activity in the right prefrontal cortex. Shikantaza as the essential doctrine of Soto Zen Buddhism In the Sotoshu Constitution (Sotoshu Shuken), Soto Zen Buddhist doctrine (Shushi) is set down as “. Nope. One is always trying to Be, Do, Have, trying to Perceive SOMETHING. Meaning of shikantaza. What this means is that the practitioner does not focus on an “object” of any sort, not the breath, not the thoughts or emotions of mind, but just on the posture, and the “emptiness” of the mind. It’s one of the typical paradoxes of Zen that makes your brain try and twist around those words, “not,” “non-” and “thinking” to figure out what they mean. It means ten minutes of no body, no mind, no this, no that, really Nothing. Whos noticing who? Shikantaza teaches to instead simply observe and let them go. There is no twitching or moving, no “system or technique” or anything else added to simply “be there”. How can you come back from sitting? Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Up Next. © 2023 by Serenity Spa. You have an idea of emptiness and an idea of being, and you think that being and emptiness are opposites. Since the conventional means of purpose for this meditation practice is that of improving happiness, (while the ultimate means is that of enlightenment from the Buddhist perspective) and positivity, the practice of letting go of stress and emotions creates an atmosphere in the mind that is better suited for creating more feelings of calmness and less anxiety and stress in the everyday life of the practitioner. For a number of years, I used that singular and simple technique to brighten and freshen my mind and return it to a peaceful and highly creative, energetic thoughtlessness, before I, for some unknown reason, yet again abandoned meditation. This article was originally published in Issue 28 of The Loop Magazine. I am writing a longer chapter for a book that points up some aspects of sitting Shikantaza that seem to be often missing, misunderstood or understated in many explanations I've read and heard regarding "how to" Shikanataza. You can do it anywhere; all it takes is the intention of just sitting. The left side is connected with positivism, happiness, and feeling calm. SUBSCRIBED. It’s practice is to maintain mindfulness and awareness of all distracting and afflicting emotions and events that enter our lives. Is it possible that you are usually a sweaty guy, and just notice it when sitting? In referring to zazen, Dōgen is most often referring specifically to shikantaza, roughly translatable as "nothing but precisely sitting", or "just sitting," which is a kind of sitting meditation in which the meditator sits "in a state of brightly alert attention that is free of thoughts, directed to no object, and attached to no particular content". Zen, founded by Eihei D?gen in the 13th century, that feels right to me. MEDITATION TEACHER | HOLISTIC COUNSELOR | YOGA NIDRA TEACHER. Notice who? When you thoroughly practice shikantaza you will sweat-even in the winter. Don’t worry about that. In shikantaza, we try to go even further, to non-thinking, to objectless meditation. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! That is the first question. The great thing about just sitting is that you can do it no matter what your beliefs are. Mindfulness is being mindful of something and shikantaza is being mindful of nothing in particular. Honkyoku: Learning to play the shakuhachi. Not focusing on thoughts, feelings of sensations as separate bracketed information, but as a greater whole, without judgement or fixating, just simply observing. Perhaps you were on a hike in the mountains, and came across an especially nice view. I too didn’t know there was a name for that kind of practice, and just like Mark, it brings me so much happiness and wonder (and health!) I guess what I’m saying is that in my opinion, there isn’t a “do” or “do not”, whatever gets you where you intend to go is fine. Shunryu Suzuki states that; “Leave your front door and your back door open. Shikantaza is best practiced under the guidance of a teacher, lest it become what Eido Roshi once called “shikan-waste of time.” If you would like to explore the practice, I would recommend that you visit Jundo Cohen’s Tree Leaf Zendo at www.treeleaf.org.There you will find detailed instructions, as well as a daily opportunity to sit with Jundo in shikantaza. Otherwise, unless one is sitting Shikantaza very intensely (Yasutani Roshi once spoke of sitting with the sweat pouring down one's brow, not a common way to sit), then I don't think so. You may look at clouds, watch them move by, but you never forget that behind them is the clear, blue sky. If you worry about the noise, don’t “don’t worry”. By the practice of shikantaza, or “just sitting”—a form of meditation that is strikingly similar to Centering Prayer. Enter your email address to subscribe to Kirkville and receive notifications of new posts by email. Because shikantaza is so easily misconstrued, at GBZC, we teach shikantaza only after someone has gained substantial familiarity with breath-counting. It is the ultimate stage of meditation in the school of Soto Zen. I suspect that Connie Rossini and I would agree about this: While trying to prove Centering Prayer is straightforwardly Catholic, Frey has accidentally shown just how Buddhist it is. Wikipedia defines Meditation as “a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing their mind on a Particular object, thought or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state.”, With that said, try this approach, it’s taken from an obscure early 1950’s text (which “borrowed” from a much older source)…. Shikantaza. Once or twice a day, I sit facing a wall in my home[1]. Shikantaza is not sitting with nothing to do; it is a very demanding practice, requiring diligence as well as alertness. That's a useful way of moving from Anapanasati into Shikantaza. To find that blue sky that lies behind he clouds of thought. I’d forgotten how wonderful and relishable it is, and how it completely changes the experience of daily living into something beautiful, extraordinary, and blissful. Seems inescapable but detachment from this cycle is really simple – if you don’t overly think it. This is to minimize the distraction of seeing other people while you meditate. You sat on some rocks, and just sat. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window), Just Sitting: The Zen Practice of Shikantaza, The Art of Just Sitting: Essential Writings on the Zen Practice of Shikantaza. Being able to simply observe can take a while, especially in today’s era of constant overstimulation. So all I will add is thank you Kirk for writing this wonderful article. Copy link. Even if you don’t want to “meditate,” you can try just sitting as a way of unplugging your mind from the myriad distractions we face during the day. Expect to put many hours into this before a breakthrough comes about. So sit half an hour to an hour, then stand up and do a period of kinhin, walking meditation. Shikantaza, or just sitting, is the most direct of practices in all of Buddhism. First sit in zazen in the posture you normally use. In recent years, mindfulness, or a secular form of sitting meditation, has become mainstream, notably as a tool to reduce stress. If you notice the sound, notice yourself noticing the sound. This is the Zen practice of shikantaza, or “just sitting.” You sit, cross-legged if you can, and let your mind alone. Start at home; it’s easiest to start in a quiet place with no distractions. Shikantaza translates from Japanese to “just sitting.” Essentially, it is a practice of deep mindfulness. Shikantaza meditation is the main practice of the Soto Zen tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. When you stop thinking, you reach a point of non-thinking. This assists with depression, and anxiety. Don’t worry about how long you’re sitting, don’t worry about what you need to put in 15 minutes or an hour or a day. Thoughts and emotions are in this tradition are sides of the same coin, when they pop into the mind and the heart, our natural reaction is to grasp onto them. Hello, This is a summary of "How to" notes that I have compiled from various books/sources on meditation. Mudra’s are most commonly thought of as a hand and finger gestures; but are also used as a symbolic face and full body gestures in ritual, spiritual, and artistic practices throughout Asia.
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