Shikantaza Talks

In Zen Buddhism, Shikantaza (只管打坐) is the practice of "just sitting." It is Dōgen's Japanese translation of the Chinese phrase zhǐguǎn dǎzuò (只管打坐 / 祇管打坐). The phrase was used by Dōgen's teacher Rujing, a monk of the Caodong school of Chan Buddhism, to refer to the meditation practice called "silent illumination" (mozhao, Chinese: 默照), or "serene reflection," famously taught by the Caodong master Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157).

In Japan, the practice is associated with the Sōtō school, Dōgen's offshoot of Caodong. Some practitioners teach that shikantaza means that one should not focus attention on a specific object (such as the breath), instead "just sitting" in a state of conscious awareness. As the modern Sōtō Zen teacher Shohaku Okumura explains, "We don’t set our mind on any particular object, visualization, mantra, or even our breath itself. When we just sit, our mind is nowhere and everywhere."

According to Buswell and Lopez, the Sōtō school presents shikantaza as a radical simplification of practice which is necessary in the degenerate age of the Dharma, or mappō. That is, rather than try to master a range of concentration techniques, such as breath counting or the investigation of koans, by simply adopting the posture of the buddhas and ancestors, the practitioner becomes identical to them in body and mind. In this way, one stabilizes oneself in "a state of full clarity and alertness, free from any specific content," which is also described as the state of "body and mind dropping off" (shinjin datsuraku).

From shikantaza on Wikipedia