Core tenet of Sōtō
Just sitting.
Shikantaza: practice and realization are one — Dogen's single word on the whole matter.
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held
Shikantaza — just sitting — is Sōtō's practice: no kōan, no object of concentration, no goal, just sitting upright and awake. Dōgen's teaching is that sitting is not a technique for producing enlightenment but the expression of an enlightenment already present, which makes goal-seeking the one thing that will not work. The practical difficulty is exactly that: practitioners report the hardest part is doing it without trying to get anywhere.
The same ground, other faiths
claims that share this one's ideas
Zazen — just sitting.
Buddhism · rite
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Sitting is itself enlightenment, not a means to it.
Zen
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The koan breaks thought open.
Rinzai
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Many paths, one goal: knowledge, devotion, action, discipline.
Hinduism
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Samayika — forty-eight minutes as a monk.
Jainism · rite
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The four who went into the orchard.
Judaism · story
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