Barry
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Barry,<\/p>\nI appreciate you raising the issues but (oh my god) in my limited experience I find an enormous range of actual practices under the single term \u201cshikantaza\u201d from following the breath (much of SF Zen from Suzuki\u2019s lifetime practice) to mindfulness of body (the rest of SF Zen w\/ Reb) to a samadhi practice (Tangen Harada\u2019s version) to just spacing out (often those without a teacher) to mindfulness of mind (apparently part of the White Plum \u2013 at least Daido\u2019s version \u2013 and even Uchiyama and Shohaku\u2019s in the sense that opening the hand of thought is about mind).<\/p>\n
Katagiri used to say shikantaza isn\u2019t anything in particular and that also fits for the Soto school\u2019s lack of single view on the issue \u2013 and it is pretty \u201cJapanese\u201d too in that they might talk politely about shikantaza publicly and mean very different things privately which wouldn\u2019t be discussed much \u2019cause it is rude to raise differences and soil the harmony.<\/p>\n
Katagiri also called following the breath shikantaza but once I could follow the breath, told me to not attach to anything. At least several of his successors, though, just teach following the breath as shikantaza.<\/p>\n
So a few more rambling thoughts on something that is a subject dear to me\u2026.<\/p>\n
My understanding of history is that prior to Dogen the Caodong school did silent illumination meditation which was severely criticized for sinking into quietism \u2013 a fitting criticism because it leads to a zombie kind of practitioner, imv, that still pops up today. Dogen\u2019s brilliant reframe on this practice and reconstruction of the tradition was based on adding \u201cwholeheartedness\u201d which changed silent illumination into \u201cearnest vivid sitting\u201d (literal trans. of shikantaza).<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not familiar with Carolyn Atkinson\u2019s book and am kinda surprised because my limited acquaintance with Kobun and what he taught is not at all so clean and tidy shamata\/vipassana that you describe. So even within lineage, in just a generation, the core practice moves a lot. I think this is one of the poisons\/medicines in Soto.<\/p>\n
By the way, I\u2019m of the persuasion that American Soto would be served by consciously identifying Dogen\u2019s work as source texts of the tradition (although I grant that there are a lot of problems with that) because at least it would give us a clearer starting point for discussion and we might also better understand when we\u2019re adapting the tradition and when we\u2019re not.<\/p>\n
RE: \u201cwholeheartedness,\u201d what I encourage is full devotion to no particular thing. That\u2019s a little different from seeing wholeheartedness as a state. For one thing, I emphasize the \u201cwhole\u201d and \u201cheart\u201d parts of wholehearted \u2013 nothing left out, including the flowing emotions. Nothing left out includes samadhi states, dhyanic states, and insight\/realization as well. But like a falling maple leaf, showing front, showing back.<\/p>\n
Recently when a student talked about seeing his practice washing the dishes as a particular mind state (traditional mindfulness with Puritanical overtones) I told him that his approach didn\u2019t seem very loving \u2013 excluded spacing out, resistance, etc. Since then I\u2019ve been talking with others in this way. I see wholeheartedness as very much like love \u2013 not any particular state but including the swoons of early romantic attraction and then all the rest of the emotional array including dislike \u2013 but still we love.<\/p>\n
It seems to me that the universe has this wholehearted quality and that when we step back, that\u2019s what we become too, rather than holding back and posturing in some way, trying to freeze the flow of being\/nonbeing. Posturing, of course, is also not the enemy.<\/p>\n
I see sitting on the cushion as one form of \u201cdoing.\u201d<\/p>\n
I just looked up the characters for \u201cwholehearted\u201d in the Fukanzazengi, like the part when Dogen says \u201cAlthough they say that there are ten thousand distinctions and a thousand variations, they just wholeheartedly engage the way of zazen.\u201d That last phrase literally is something like \u201conly hit seat diligently.\u201d In other places too, \u201cwholeheartedly\u201d seems to be used for \u201conly\u201d and \u201cdiligently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dogen doesn\u2019t give a specific set of appropriate objects \u2013 like the breath \u2013 (or lack thereof) for his wholeheartedness. The only time I know that he mentions the breath is in the Extensive Record where it isn\u2019t at all like we talk about following the breath.<\/p>\n
Anywho, this nonspecific object leaves the door wide open in this practice, imv, to include cultural developments in awareness \u2013 which is what I think you are doing by including your \u201canalytic training to uncover the latent gaining ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe more than enough. Such a simple thing and yet so much to say.<\/p>\n
Dosho<\/p>\n
![\"Ending](\"https:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/31gQxgvjOdL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_AA219_PIsitb-sticker-dp-arrow,TopRight,-24,-23_SH20_OU01_.jpg\")
<\/a>Here\u2019s an email from a Zen teacher that I deeply respect, Barry Magid<\/a> (a successor of Joko Beck) and my long-winded response. We had exchanged emails about my book and some concerns about \u201cwholeheartedness.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/4330911338438640912-6442854720629697965?l=wildfoxzen.blogspot.com\")
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