We are so often chasing after things, rarely still ... whether it is attainments, dreams and goals, fame and fortune and possessions, whatever we think will 'finally' make us happy and content in life (once we get there, if we get there).
It may be the same in our spiritual practices, if we are always searching for something, someone or some truth distant or just out of reach. It may be Enlightenment, the Buddha or some other Power that seems so far away.
The Practice of Shikantaza may be unique in being, unlike most other ways of seeking, a radical stopping of the search, a true union with life 'just-as-it-is', dropping of all looking 'beyond' so to make life complete here and now.
Yet, far from being mere resignation, a half-satisfied complacency or lazy "giving up" ... Shikantaza is, instead, finding what we are longing for by allowing all just to be. Life is complete when one allows life to be so. All things are perfectly just what they are if we see them as such.
We discover stillness and peace, not by running after stillness and peace ... but by being truly still and at rest.
Thus, we find that what we have been searching for here all along!
It may be the same in our spiritual practices, if we are always searching for something, someone or some truth distant or just out of reach. It may be Enlightenment, the Buddha or some other Power that seems so far away.
The Practice of Shikantaza may be unique in being, unlike most other ways of seeking, a radical stopping of the search, a true union with life 'just-as-it-is', dropping of all looking 'beyond' so to make life complete here and now.
Yet, far from being mere resignation, a half-satisfied complacency or lazy "giving up" ... Shikantaza is, instead, finding what we are longing for by allowing all just to be. Life is complete when one allows life to be so. All things are perfectly just what they are if we see them as such.
We discover stillness and peace, not by running after stillness and peace ... but by being truly still and at rest.
Thus, we find that what we have been searching for here all along!
(remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells;
a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended)
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