shikantaza
Sign in to saveAlso known as shikan taza, zhiguan dazuo
In Zen Buddhism, is the practice of "just sitting." It is Dōgen's Japanese translation of the Chinese phrase zhǐguǎn dǎzuò (). 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, ), or "serene reflection," famously taught by the Caodong master Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157).
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- zazen
- Religion
- Caodong school
- Country of origin
- Southern Song dynasty
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Encyclopedic overview
12 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Background
- Practice
- Classical sources
- Modern sources
- Similar techniques
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Sources
- Further reading
- External links
In Zen Buddhism, is the practice of "just sitting." It is Dōgen's Japanese translation of the Chinese phrase zhǐguǎn dǎzuò (). 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, ), 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."
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “shikantaza” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.