I would like to share a little bit about my personal practice, shikantaza (just sitting). Humans have a tendency toward goal orientation. We generally get into a car so that we can arrive at our destination. We go to school so we can obtain better paying jobs. We get up and walk to the kitchen so we can make something to eat. We eat so we can alleviate hunger. Generally speaking every behavior we engage in has as its goal the achievement of something other than the behavior itself. In fact, a major psychological revolution was based on this idea under the paradigm of behaviorism. This is not without merit. As we observe human behavior, we, as animals, are driven by the antecedent-behavior-consequence formula as well as the law of conditioning.
Buddhism and science have been involved in an intimate dance since its arrival in the West. I might say that in the West science is to Buddhism what Confucianism was to Taoism in China. It is a base, a foundation upon which the insights of the mental experiences of meditation can be made sense of. This is not a perfect comparison of course, as Confucianism had more to do with social etiquette than science, but it does serve as a base upon which mystical experience intersects with the predominant social belief structure. Most of the intersection between Buddhism and science that you will read about and hear about involves the theories of quantum physics (non-locality, the wave-particle paradox, and the like). This intersection, in my opinion, goes a long way to explaining some of the deeper meditation experiences. The science of behaviorism may go a long way to explaining dependent origination in a way that is perhaps more accessible to minds not inclined toward “spooky” science, as Einstein may have phrased it. Very basically stated, the karmic cycle is the process of conditioning.
When we are born we are born into a set of conditions. These conditions include our genetic heritage as well as the social circumstances we are born into, nature plus nurture. As we grow we adapt to these conditions by learning what behaviors get us what we want and what behaviors free us from what we don’t want. This happens by basic positive and negative reinforcement. We may eventually rise above maladaptive conditioning or continue acting in maladaptive ways dependent upon the combination of nature-nurture that we inherit. Dependent origination in its most basic form states something very similar, no thing or action is dependent from the causes and conditions that precede it. In other words, behaviors are dependent on antecedents.
Behaviorism takes things one step further in factoring in the animal capacity to anticipate the future. In this way, behavior is also dependent on what the anticipated consequences of that behavior are. In many texts and Zen stories it is conceded that we are never truly free from the cycle of karma, Buddha or not. However, the process of enlightenment is often described as the process of freeing oneself from the cycle of samsara, or birth and death, which is believed to be perpetuated by none other than karma (or our conditioning).
Right mindfulness, one of the skills on the eightfold path, is the moment in which an individual becomes fully observant in this moment, the present moment, with no regard for memories arising from the past (antecedents) or fantasies of the future (consequences). The perfectly mindful moment is a full absorption of the attention on the present moment. If thoughts of past and future are eliminated then the mind is left with nothing to ponder but now, which ultimately is the body and its processes as a singularity. This is shikantaza. In shikantaza the meditation is the posture. The breath is often a part of this as it is a rhythmic and constant body process contained within the posture. When sitting zazen you are a reflection of your Buddha nature. Your Buddha nature is manifest.
This, of course, is not to say that zazen or shikantaza makes you enlightened. What it does do is bring you to the only place in which your enlightenment can be experienced, this moment. This is where my personal experience and practice of shikantaza comes into the picture. My first teacher, Un Shin Cindy Beach’s, dharma talks often focused on Bodhidharma’s definition of patience as “not waiting for anything”. Not waiting for anything. This, in its pure essence, is the idea of mindfulness. If we are not waiting for anything, truly not waiting for the mind to settle down, or the legs to stop cramping, or the bell to ring, then we are purely in the present moment.
This may be glimpsed for shorter or longer periods depending on the level of your meditation practice, but even short moments of this, lasting seconds or milliseconds, after they are experienced become yet another “consequence”, a reward, for our concentrative efforts. Once this occurs it is then bound up in our conditioning, our karma. I have heard H.H. The Dali Lama say that we should maintain an awareness of the difference between wise selfishness and unwise selfishness. In other words, if our feeling good increases the happiness of others then this is wise selfishness and should be propagated. And indeed, Sensei Un Shin has told me on many occasions, “we do not sit only for ourselves; we sit for all of humanity”. While it is the case that reinforcement for sitting is this experience, it can also set us up for a grand “mind looping”. But then there seems to be a difference between “wise looping” and “unwise looping”.
For me personally, this comes directly back to the idea of patience, true Bodhidharma style patience. The process has on more than one occasion looked (or should I say sounded) like this in my mind;
“I wonder how much longer it will be until I experience it again?”
“Now you are waiting.”
“If you are waiting then you have a goal in mind, if you have a goal this is not shikantaza!”
“Now you’re, judging.”
“What you are waiting for is happening right now! If you keep waiting for some preconceived expectation, then you will miss it”
“Miss what exactly?”
“Right now, it’s right now, it’s right now, it’s right now…”
And then “It’s right now” becomes a useful mantra for some time until it fades.
This process, while being an aspect of my monkey mind, is perhaps my “wise monkey” driving a car that never leaves the garage. This wise looping always, and inevitably, leads me back to my present moment, my body, my posture, and my breath.
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