Hi,
There are so many wonderful ways in which Zazen is taught. I would just mention this aspect of "Just Sitting" Shikantaza which I emphasize in our approach. It is a kind of "choiceless awareness", and "goalless" sitting, yet there is a bit more to the madness.
Our small self is always filled with countless desires ... the desire to be somewhere else, be getting somewhere, achieving some prize, some distant goal. This may be a common element of many flavors of "mindfulness" meditation as well, if done for some objective such as relaxation, greater efficiency or the like. Our body-mind is always judging this or that as somehow inadequate to what the body-mind wants, its likes and dislikes, needs, regrets and dreams.
Thus, when there is sat an instant of Shikantaza as wholeness in just sitting, with a view of the act of sitting as thoroughly sacred and whole just in the act of sitting alone ... the only place to be and act to do in that instant in all of reality that is required to fulfill life as life ... the Buddha and all the Ancestors just sitting in that instant of sitting, no other thing to attain or which ever can be attained ... no other place to go or in need of going ... all holes filled, whether full or empty or in between ...
... then all lack and excess are resolved in that one sitting, with not one thing to add or take away ... judgments dropped away, "likes and dislikes" put aside ... nothing missing from Zazen ... the sitting of Zazen and all life experienced as complete and whole as just the sitting of Zazen ... the entire universe manifesting itself on the Zafu cushion at that moment.
Anyway, I ask our folks to sit with such non-attitude in the bones, rendering Zazen a bit unlike functional ways of meditating.
Why? There is a purpose to this "purposeless" Zazen:
For, rising up from the Zafu sitting cushion to our day to day lives ... we may thus realize that there is no place to go, even as we have so many places to go ... no holes in need of filling, even as we grab a shovel and get to work to filling holes ... nothing to fix in life, even as we try to fix what can be fixed ... no life or death or disease to cure, even as we take our medicine or head to the gym, all on the road to our own funeral ... aversions and attractions fully dropped away, even as we retain those aversions and attractions of ordinary human life (dropped away and retained at once) ... nothing to attain, even as we follow the Precepts to keep a healthy and balanced life, manifesting the Teachings in each moment and choice ... fully knowing that each step of life's path is a total arriving, sacred in itself, even as we seek to choose the path to a balanced and loving life (and to avoid the paths which lead off the cliff!)
--All-- the Wholeness of the Dance.
As I said, every teacher has their shtick in teaching. Even, I feel (just one opinion), many teachers of so-called "Just Sitting" do not emphasize enough such sacredness and wholeness right in the action-non-action of sitting. Most mindfulness approaches are not taught with such a flavor in my limited understanding.
Gassho, Jundo
Priest/Teacher at Treeleaf Zendo, a Soto Zen Sangha. Treeleaf Zendo was designed as an online practice place for Zen practitioners who cannot easily commute to a Zen Center due to health concerns, living in remote areas, or work, childcare and family needs, and seeks to provide Zazen sittings, retreats, discussion, interaction with a teacher, and all other activities of a Zen Buddhist Sangha, all fully online. The focus is Shikantaza "Just Sitting" Zazen as instructed by the 13th Century Japanese Master, Eihei Dogen.
http://www.treeleaf.org