SHIKANTAZA
Just Sitting
Means Just Sitting
The Japanese word Shikantaza is normally translated as “Just Sitting.”
I find that to be a good, unequivocal translation that clearly and precisely specifies what you’re supposed to do.
Curious, however, I took a look at the literal translation of Shikantaza and found the following:
Shikantaza literally translates from Sino-Japanese (from Chinese zhǐguǎn dǎzuò) as “just sitting” or “nothing but sitting,” meaning to focus exclusively and precisely on the act of sitting without any goals, techniques, or conceptual grasping, allowing thoughts and feelings to arise and pass without interference, just being present in bright, open awareness.
While this is a great and concise outline of what to do, I find that it falls a little short, because more precisely:
Shikan (只管): “Just,” “only,” “solely concerned with,” or “to focus exclusively on”.
Ta (打): A strong word meaning “to hit” or “strike,” implying a powerful, direct activity, but here it emphasizes the precision and focused doing of the sitting itself, not a separate action.
Za (坐): “Sitting” or “to sit” (as in zazen).
This, to me, means that it’s not a passive sitting, but a state of non-doing awareness where you are simply and precisely engaged in the act of being present and sitting, without expectation or seeking.
An even simpler look at Just Sit: Just means to do only that, absolutely nothing but that; while Sit means to maintain a strict physical position.
A key for me here is the word “Just,” which, when magnified, implies a particular activity and only that activity, nothing else, NO-THING else but this activity.
I have come across many definitions of Shikantaza that include modifiers to just sitting, such as sitting “with bright, open awareness,” as mentioned above.
To me, that is not “just” sitting, that is “sitting with bright, open awareness.”
Just sitting means just sitting.
Such as sitting with “panoramic attention.”
That is not “just” sitting, that is “sitting with panoramic attention.”
Just sitting means just sitting.
Such as sitting, “allowing thoughts and images to rise and fade.”
That is not “just” sitting, that is sitting “allowing thoughts and images to rise and fade.”
Just sitting means just sitting.
Let us elevate the status of the word “just” up into undisputed holiness, in which case there is absolutely, repeat absolutely nothing aside from the sitting going on.
There is no self-awareness; there is just sitting.
There is no body awareness; there is just sitting.
There is no ignoring thoughts; there is just sitting.
There is no escaping images; there is just sitting.
It does not matter how many adverbs and definitions are piled on top of “just sitting” (and there are a few in the literature), underneath them all, there is simply “just sitting.”
And nothing (taken to its logical extreme) else.
Realizing this came as a great relief.
And in this mode, I have discovered that Shikantaza yields “effortless, volitionless absence of thought” (Ramana’s words), aka Silence.
© Wolfstuff
