7 February, 2023.

I have written little in the journal for a couple of weeks now, probably because my meditation experiences have felt unremarkable, repetitive, even ineffective.  There are many possible private explanations for this slackening at the moment.  But I also wonder if it has something to do with my effort to move my practice over to shikan-taza, which is in some ways easier and in real ways much harder than the breath-counting methods I have relied on for years now.  I was prompted to this change by descriptions of the practice in Yasutani-Roshi’s lectures on zazen compiled in Kapleau’s Three Pillars of Zen.  This whole section (29-72) is invaluable for those needing guidance on zazen.  Yasutani-Roshi says,

“[…] shikan-taza is a practice in which the mind is intensely involved in just sitting […] In shikan-taza the mind must be unhurried yet at the same time firmly planted or massively composed, like Mount Fuji let us say.  But it must also be alert, stretched, like a taut bowstring.  So shikan-taza is a heightened state of concentrated awareness wherein one is neither tense nor hurried, and certainly never slack.  It is the mind of somebody facing death.” (61)

He adds that shikan-taza requires a concentration so intense that the sitter can wind up sweating.  One should not sit in shikan-taza for more than thirty minutes.

            This is little to go on for practice, though.  Some of Kapleau’s earlier remarks indicate that in shikan-taza there is no counting the breaths, no koan to meditate on, and above all no conscious or deliberate wish or quest for enlightenment.  Given some of my earlier entries admitting my doubts about the very possibility of enlightenment, I was attracted, perhaps foolishly, to this description.  Although enlightenment is not an object of shikan-taza, Kapleau warns that “this sitting is entered into in the faith that it will one day culminate in the sudden and direct perception of the true nature of this Mind—in other words, enlightenment” (7-8).  I recommend reading more of Kapleau’s discussion so as to avoid some common Western misunderstandings of it.  At any rate, I have been attempting shikan-taza for a couple of weeks or so.

            And I have had, as I said, some of my least “effective” sittings.  I am less sure of the purpose of my meditation; the lack of counting is pleasant, but perhaps it creates less structure and focus.  “Just sitting”—which is more or less what shikan-taza means—seems harder to pursue, not easier.

            This is perhaps the point at which I need a teacher; or, more disappointingly, a retreat to the prior forms of sitting that have driven this journal so far.  Yet I suspect I will persist in shikan-taza for some time yet.  I have encountered some further helpful remarks on the practice in Albert Low’s Zen and the Sutras, the gift of a friend, that may help me.