Shikantaza
只管打坐 (shikantaza)
Shikantaza, "just sitting": *shikan* (只管), "nothing but," "just"; *ta* (打), "to strike"; *za* (坐), "to sit." The sitting without support—no counting of the breath, no *kōan*—where the mind is intensely engaged in nothing other than the sitting itself. The highest form of *zazen* in the Sōtō lineage, the one Dōgen practiced. Far from being a letting go, it is extreme vigilance: the mind of one facing death.
Shikan means "nothing but" or "just," while ta means "to hit" and za "to sit." So shikan-taza is a practice in which the mind is intensely involved in just sitting.
Yasutani-rōshi breaks down the word before defining it: “Shikan means ‘nothing but’ or ‘just,’ while ta means ‘to hit’ and za ‘to sit.’ So shikan-taza is a practice in which the mind is intensely engaged in just sitting.” No breath-counting, no kōan to crack: the mind has no support, leaving it all the more exposed to distraction. Inner posture thus becomes “doubly crucial.”
Hence the image the rōshi offers. The mind must be “unhurried yet firmly rooted, massively composed, like Mount Fuji,” but also “alert, taut, like a bowstring.” This is not relaxation: “It is the mind of somebody facing death.” Like the duelist of old before his opponent—let vigilance slip for an instant, and you’re struck down.
Dōgen practiced shikantaza at the moment of his great awakening, Kapleau notes: a sitting grounded in the unshakable faith that “sitting as the Buddha sat” is already the actualization of the awakened mind one carries within. Not seeking awakening—yet sitting with the certainty that the day will come when, “Oh, this is it!”, one will realize it. End and means coincide here.
Shikantaza ≠ passive sitting: the absence of support is not rest, but the highest tension, that of a man facing death. Shikantaza ≠ denial of kenshō: Yasutani warns that reducing “just sitting” to a rejection of awakening—under the pretext that all are already buddhas—demeans the highest practice to the lowest. Faith in awakening is never excised.