By: Hee-Jim Kim
Shikantaza (just sitting) consists of four aspects:
(1) It is that seated meditation which is objectless, imageless, themeless, with no internal or external devices or supports, and is non concentrative, decentered and open-ended. Yet it is a heightened, sustained, and total awareness of the self an the world.
(2) It seeks no attainment whatsoever, be it enlightenment, an extraordinary religious experience, supernormal powers, or buddhahood, and accordingly, it is non-teleological and simply ordinary.
(3) It is “the body-mind cast off” as the state of ultimate freedom, also called the samadhi of self-fulfilling activity (jijiyu zammai)
(4) It requires single-minded earnestness, resolve, and urgency on the part of the meditator.
Note: This quote is from Dogen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection of His View of Zen
Further note: Here is Katagiri Roshi (1928-1990), founder of the Minnesota Zen Center and an important figure in the transmission of Soto Zen from Japan to the West, on the meaning of jijuyu zammai (self-fulfilling samadhi):
Ji means self, ju means receive, yu means use and samadhi means oneness. This means you receive your life and simultaneously the whole universe. That is why samadhi is translated into Japanese as “right acceptance.” Right acceptance is to receive yourself and simultaneously the whole universe. We have to receive the universe and use it. You are you, but you are not you, you are the whole universe. That is why we are beautiful. If we wholeheartedly paint a certain scene from nature on canvas, it becomes not just a portion of nature that we pick out, it represents the whole picture of nature. At that time, that picture becomes a masterpiece… Drawing one line is not one line, this one line is simultaneously the whole picture. That is called jijuyu samadhi.
—This quote is taken from Katagiri’s book Returning to Silence.