Shikantaza Talks

Shikantaza (只管打坐) is Dogen's Japanese translation of the Chinese phrase zhǐguǎn dǎzuò (只管打坐 / 祇管打坐), "focus on meditative practice alone", although many modern Western practitioners have interpreted this very differently. The phrase was used by Dogen's teacher Rujing, a monk of the Caodong school of Chan Buddhism, to refer to the meditation-practice called "silent illumination" (Chinese: 默照禅), or "serene reflection", taught by the Caodong master Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157). In Japan, it is associated with the Zen Soto school, Dogen'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. However, the 13th-century origin of the expression indicates a general emphasis on meditation in any form as sufficient for spiritual enlightenment. The original teaching was meant to criticize the complicated ceremony, abstruse study, endless tracing of spiritual lineage, and other aspects of Buddhism that even by the 12th century had been identified as excessive.

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, thus becoming stabilized 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.

From shikantaza on Wikipedia