Just-Sitting Zazen (Shikantaza) & The End of Suffering

Shikantaza means “just sitting”, literally “nothing but (shikan) precisely (ta) sitting (za)”; ta is a powerful word, it suggests moving activity such as when an arrow hits the target, it emphasizes single-mindedness; while za as in zazen means sitting. Some have suggested that shikantaza bears a phonetic resemblance to the Pali word “vipassana”, but any etymological link is far from certain.

In Shikantaza, there is no focus. Whatever thoughts and feelings arise, one neither indulges nor pushes them away. Not adding, not taking away. Just being, letting the thoughts and feelings arise and pass. It’s very simple, but not necessarily easy in practice.

I would like to give a perspective now on how this relates to the end of suffering. Suffering (dukkha) is one of the three marks of existence, along with impermanence (anicca) and no-self (anatta). Suffering is at the heart of the Buddha’s most fundamental teaching: the four noble truths. These are that: suffering exists, the cause of suffering is craving, there is an end to suffering and the way to the end of suffering is the eighfold path. 

First thing to say is that suffering exists. In Pali, the term for it is dukkha, and the all-pervasiveness of this word is remarkably difficult to translate: it’s not getting what we want, getting what we don’t want, being separated from what we like, old age, disease, death. Suffering had a pivotal role in the life of the Buddha. It is said that as a young prince, he came across four people that changed his perspective on life. The first three were an old person, a sick person and a dead person. Then the fourth person that he saw was a wondering monk. Something about that person really spoke to him. He saw an inner peacefulness. It became his all-absorbing spirital quest: what to do about suffering. It’s the same for us. If everything were satisfactory, then we wouldn’t be interested ourselves.

Buddha asked three questions: (1) Why is there suffering? (2) Is there an end to suffering? (3) How can we find the end to suffering? The answers he found are given by the four noble truths. The first noble truth says that suffering exists. Trying to escape the suffering we get nowhere. We have to sit in the heart of suffering. It requires much coruage and this is where zazen comes in.

The second noble truth tells us that the cause of suffering is craving (tanha). A feeling arises, pleasant or painful. That’s not a problem so long as it does not progress onto craving. What do we do when a feeling arises? This is the point we have a choice. The crux is our reaction to the feeling. We tend to crave what’s pleasurable and try to ignore or be rid of what is unpleasant. If we avoid, it may come in another form. Even pleasurable things can cause problems because they’re impermanent, so if we try to hold onto them, they create disappointment. The more we indulge feelings of like and dislike, the more we consolidate these  ingrained patterns of discrimination, so suffering continues. At the next step, “I really want” becomes “I must have”. This is when craving can turn into clinging. I must have material goods, experiences, achievements. Even if I get all that, I worry that I’ll lose it. Whilst craving has the elements of desire, want, need, once it turns into clinging there’s also an element of fear, of desperately holding on, an insistence, a hardness.

Let me give an example: I’m feeling hungry, and I could nibble on some tea biscuits, but I remember there’s some chocolate ice cream in the freezer. But when I go and take a look in the freezer, I find there’s only a spoonful left, and I could really do with more of that. I can’t settle with that, so I head out in the car to get some more ice cream, but the store is sold out. You can guess how I’m feeling now. There’s nothing wrong with wanting chocolate ice cream. The tipping point is the development of the craving when I find there is not enough left. It’s the arising of the driven quality. 

The example I gave shows all three of what are called poisons: greed, anger and delusion. The greed and the anger are obvious, but there’s also the delusion of thinking I must have this chocolate ice cream for my completeness. In pursuit of what “I must have”, I might do things which harm myself, harm others, and later regret.

The third noble truth is that there is an end of suffering, and that this is possible in this life. We have a choice whether to be driven by our cravings, or whether we meditate on them.

The fourth noble truth is that the way to the end of suffering is the noble eightfold path. This is (1) right understanding, (2) right thought, (3) right speech, (4) right action, (5) right livelihood, (6) right effort, (7) right mindfulness, and (8) right concentration. One way of looking at the eightfold path is that this is a description of zazen, so the fourth noble truth is that meditation is the end of suffering.

Great Master Dogen went much further than this. As part of his teachings in non-duality, he said “training and enlightenment are one”. Meditation is not the path to the end of suffering, it is the end of suffering.

Suffering is caused by the belief in a separate permanent self, an “I”. Then, I’m always seeking reassurance for this uncertain sense of “I”, and look at the world through the lens of the ideals, expectations of the self, thus distorting the world, not seeing things as they really are. The more we try to shore up our self, the more we are driven by fear and desire, and so we enter a spiral of discontent. Suffering does not originate from trying to shore up the sense of self, but comes from the sense of separation itself. We can’t think our way out of suffering, but it involves an assimilation at a deeper level. So we just sit. Non-duality is something we come to see concretely for ourselves.

It’s not about what I want, but what’s the best thing to do. The driven quality of craving can be used for a good cause, but we have to be honest with ourselves about our motivations, we can be imaginative about alternative ways of doing things, and it’s never for us to judge the motivation, craving or delusion of another, but to look within ourselves first. This is where the precepts can be useful. They are a description of compassion in action. Zazen and the precepts together help us to manifest compassion and wisdom from within.

We’re not trying to get from one point to another, suffering to not suffering. This would involve a duality. Accepting "what is" undermines the craving that underlies our greed, hate and delusion. Instead of "being me", "just being". Let the wholeness of the experience just be. It’s a paradox that we have to be willing to learn to just be with suffering in order to end suffering. Whatever is here right now is accepted. Nirvana is not somewhere else, or some time else. It doesn’t work if we look for freedom from suffering. Freedom is found within the circumstances of our life.

Let me finish with a quote by Great Master Dogen about suffering and the end of suffering. Great Master Dogen says, “Could it be possible for us to understand that life and death are, of themselves, nothing more than Nirvana. There is obviously no need to try to escape from life and death or to search for Nirvana. And for the first time, freedom from life and death becomes possible.”

Source: This is merely written up by me. The speaker was a Zen nun. The video is Gudo Nishijima Roshi talking with Gustav Ericsson in Tokyo 2005 about the meaning of Shikantaza. The photo is mine.

Published originally on Buddhist Travellers in 2012.

Washing Your Face

Imagine you are washing your face...

I believe this is a very powerful meditation. 

Could anyone explain how to do it? 

What do you see when you wash your face? 

And now what do you see? 

And now…? 

And…

I look forward to hearing whatever insights you have about how to do this and what you experience...

I would like to share some extracts of the Sōtō Zen monk Eihei Dōgen (1200-1253), who taught on three separate occasions of the importance of washing one’s face (literally), the third time in 1250 from which the following was translated. The complete text from which this is taken is Shobogenzo Ch. 55, which may be found here:

http://www.shastaabbey.org/pdf/shobo/055semme.pdf

On Washing Your Face

In the Lotus Scripture it says in verse:

Anoint your body with fragrant oil 

After having washed away all dust and dirt, 

And put on a fresh, clean robe, 

So that you are clean both within and without.

This Teaching is one that the Tathagata voiced before the Lotus assembly for the sake of those who practice the four forms of conduct that ease the way of practice.

Bodhisattvas who are in their final body are different from other types of beings in all matters. Their meritorious wise discernment and the splendour of their body and mind are most precious and unsurpassed. The same will also be true for their methods of washing and cleansing, not to mention the fact that everyone’s body and mind, along with their limitations, differ according to the times. Within the time of one period of seated meditation, it is said, three thousand worlds have passed away. Even though such a period of time is like this, it is not some measure of self or other: it is the meritorious fruit of the Buddha Dharma. The measure of body and mind is beyond ‘five feet’ or ‘six feet’, because body and mind are beyond the five or six feet that we conventionally define as ‘five feet’ and ‘six feet’.

The place where body and mind exist is also beyond both the limits and the limitlessness of the realms of self or other, or of the whole universe or immeasurable universes, because “Right here is where the What is, whether the Matter is put clumsily or put delicately.” The dimensions of mind are beyond anything the discriminations of intellective thought can possibly know: they are beyond anything that the non-discriminations of not thinking can possibly fathom. Because this is the way the dimensions of body and mind are, it is also the way the dimensions of cleansing are. To grasp what these dimensions are and to train until one fully realizes them are precisely what Buddha after Buddha and Ancestor after Ancestor are concerned with and have held to. We should not take our estimate of ourselves to be foremost, nor should we take our estimate of ourselves to be real. Therefore, it follows that when we wash and cleanse ourselves in this manner, we fully fathom the dimensions of body and mind, and we make ourselves immaculate. Whether we see ourselves as comprised of six elements, or five skandhas, or of That which is indestructible, through our cleansing we can make everything immaculate.

This does not mean that we are immaculate only after we have fetched water and washed ourselves with it. How can water be inherently pure or inherently impure? Even if it were inherently pure or inherently impure, we cannot assert that it makes the place we bring it to pure or impure. It is simply that, when we preserve the methods that the Buddhas and Ancestors have trained in and actualised, then a Buddha’s methods for using water with which to wash the body and using the Water with which to cleanse the mind will have been handed down to us. Accordingly, in training to realise Buddhahood, we go beyond ‘clean’, we discard ‘unclean’, and we abandon ‘not clean’ and ‘not unclean’.

Hence, even though we may not yet have soiled ourselves, we wash and cleanse ourselves, and even when we have reached Great Immaculacy, we still wash and cleanse ourselves. Even if we were to reduce the five vital organs and the six forms of entrails to particles of dust so minute that they were like empty space, and then completely use up the waters of the great ocean in washing them, unless we washed the inside of these particles, how could they possibly be immaculate? We make use of Emptiness to cleanse emptiness, and we make use of Emptiness to cleanse body and mind. Those who, with faith, accept cleansing as a form of the Dharma will be preserving what the Buddhas and Ancestors trained in and came to realize.

In India and China, kings, princes, ministers of state, government officials, lay Buddhists, monks, men and women in court and country, all the people throughout wash their faces. After lay Buddhists and monks have washed their faces and straightened their clothing, they bow to those in heavenly states, and bow to the resident spirits, and bow to the Ancestors of their lineage, and bow to their parents. They bow to their teachers, and to the Triple Treasure, and to the myriad beings in the three worlds of desire, form, and beyond form, and they bow to the benevolent guardian spirits. There are none who forget to wash their face, not even farmers and rice growers, fishermen and woodcutters. Even so, they do not chew the willow twig. Meanwhile in Japan, amongst emperors and ministers of state, old and young, courtiers and gentry, householders and monks, both ordinary people and those in lofty positions, all remember to chew a willow twig and rinse out their mouth, but they do not wash their face. In each country, it is a case of one strong point and one shortcoming. To preserve and hold to the practice of washing the face and chewing a willow twig corrects this deficiency and is the luminous manifestation of the Buddhas and Ancestors.

This was published originally on Buddhist Travellers in 2011.