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Beautiful article about Shikantaza

JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran

I came across this and thought it was worth passing on… if you do shikantaza, this might show you a few new tricks. If you don’t do shikantaza, this might convince you to give it a try.

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/wisdom-of-shikantaza/

However, the surprising twist of shikantaza, or “just sitting,” is that one sits feeling radically satisfied just by the act of sitting, putting down all measures of some “lack” and desiring nothing but sitting. The root of disappointment, anger, comparisons, despair, fear, frustration, and other desires drops away, and thus dukkha drops away. The goal of sitting is sitting, which is satisfied by sitting.

Shoshin1lobsterLittleleaf

Comments

  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    edited July 2022

    The degree that we simply stop manipulating our habituated responses to phenomena, turns out to be the same degree to which we are no longer indulging in suffering's causes.
    Here, in a nanosecond of experience, what some might sometimes call being radically satisfied, is little more than a taste of suffering's absence.

    lobsterShoshin1Littleleaf
  • lobsterlobster Veteran

    Don't just sit there.
    …or sit elsewhere.

    … eh wait … gone wrong again …

    Sit, walk, be

    Shoshin1Littleleaf
  • ZAZEN IS GOOD FOR NOTHING

    JeroenShoshin1Littleleaf
  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    Perhaps worthwhile for @littleleaf?

    Littleleaf
  • Beautiful article song about Shikantaza

    And after you have practiced shikantaza for a while...You flow through the day like this ;)

    Littleleaf
  • Shoshin1Shoshin1 Veteran
    edited December 2022

    Abandoning my self to breathing out
    and letting breathing in naturally still me
    All that is left under the vast sky
    an empty cushion...the weight of a flame

    Or this slightly different version

    Abandoning myself to breathing out
    and letting breathing in naturally still me.
    All that is left is an empty cushion
    under the vast sky,
    the weight of a flame.

    ~Master Keizan Jokin~

    Littleleaf
  • I’ve noticed giving everything to God and sitting shikantaza is similar, in that when I give things over to God, there is the space ( is this what you call Buddha nature?) which accepts it.

    Blessings/ Metta.

    FleaMarketShoshin1Jeroenlobster
  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    As I understand it, Buddha nature is a little different, and has to do with the capacity for making an internal shift from seeing a narrow individual point of view, to seeing and acting from a more inclusive, holistic viewpoint.

    howFleaMarketShoshin1
  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    A little joke…

    Two older women were sitting in a cafe, talking about their adult children. “I hear your youngest son is living at home again,” said one to the other. “Yes”, said the other, “he spends all day meditating.” “Whats that,” says the first. “I don’t know,” says the other, “but it beats doing nothing.”

    KotishkaShoshin1FleaMarketlobster
  • @Littleleaf said:

    I’ve noticed giving everything to God and sitting shikantaza is similar, in that when I give things over to God, there is the space ( is this what you call Buddha nature?) which accepts it.

    Blessings/ Metta.

    The intersection between giving things over to God an sitting shikantaza reminds me of a video I saw on Quakers and their practice.

  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    @Littleleaf said:
    I’ve noticed giving everything to God and sitting shikantaza is similar

    I’m not that familiar with the practice of ‘giving everything to God’ but it does sound similar to just sitting. In both cases you relinquish everything, but in just sitting you have something to focus on.

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