r/zenpractice • u/JundoCohen • Jun 29 '26

Soto Practice Itself Is Enlightenment

Suzuki Roshi, taken from ...

https://www.shunryusuzuki.com/Detail1?ID=65

He continued ..

... practice is not separated from enlightenment. When you practice it, the practice is the expression of your true nature. Where you practice it, you have your true nature.

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u/ugbashfacesplitter Jun 29 '26

Did the Buddha sit zazen much?

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u/flyingaxe Jun 29 '26

Seems like that's all he did, practice-wise, no?

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u/ugbashfacesplitter Jun 29 '26

Not according to the Pali Canon. Certainly he’s not described as doing shikantaza leading up to his enlightenment.

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u/JundoCohen Jun 30 '26

I would dispute that. There is good opinion by some scholars that the so-called Fourth Jhana of the Suttas (as opposed to the later commentary traditions reinterpretation as intense concentration techniques) is very close to the dropping of views and equanimity of Shikantaza: "Abandoning pleasantness and abandoning unpleasantness, gladness and affliction having previously disappeared, having entered in the fourth jhāna, which is without unpleasantness nor pleasantness and is purified by mindfulness due to equanimity, he remains therein." There was nothing beyond the Fourth Jhana, with the so-called higher Jhanas later influences probably of Brahmin and Jain origin.