The teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated by Buddhas and Ancestors. The meaning of this practice of suchness is not in words, and yet it responds to our energy, it responds to our effort. It comes forth and meets us. We sit here and the blue jays sing it to us, the stream sings it to us, because we come and listen. This is our practice of sitting, just sitting. It is a themeless meditation, a seamless meditation. It has no form, no beginning, no end, and it pervades everything completely. It leaves no traces, and if I try to trace it, it’s not that I trace it, but that it generously and compassionately responds to my tracing, to my speaking, and to your listening.
     Shakyamuni Buddha transmitted the teaching of thusness. He said:

Please train yourselves thus: In the seen, there will be just the seen. In the heard, there will be just the heard. In the sensed, there will be just the sensed. In the cognized, there will be just the cognized. When for you, in the seen there is just the seen, in the heard just the heard, in the sensed just the sensed, in the cognized just the cognized, then you will not identify with the seen, and so on. And if you do not identify with them, you will not be located in them; if you are not located in them, there will be no here, no there, or in-between. And this will be the end of suffering.
This is themeless meditation. It is seamless meditation. There is no seam between you and the heard; there is just the heard. No seam; only the heard, and the seen, and the imagined. This is having no object of thought.
 Shakyamuni Buddha also said, “If you approach the five skandhas, if you approach colors or sounds, or if they approach you, this is misery.”
 Approaching colors is not just the colors being the colors, but you approaching them. This is misery. Approaching feelings, approaching perceptions, approaching emotions, approaching consciousness, making these approaches, or being approached by these phenomena, this is misery. But if we do not approach these phenomena, if there is no seam between them and us, then these very same skandhas, these very same colors and sounds, are bliss. We can see the roots of the Zen tradition of objectless meditation in this teaching of the Buddha.
 When the twenty-first Ancestor Vasubandhu was talking with Jayata, the Ancestor Jayata said,
                I don’t seek enlightenment, nor am I deluded. I don’t worship Buddha, nor am I disrespectful. I don’t sit for long periods, nor am I lazy. I don’t eat only once a day, nor am I a glutton. I am not contented, nor am I greedy. When the mind does not seek anything, this is called the Way.
     Hearing this, Vasubandhu realized the undefiled knowledge. Hearing this. Now those words are gone. What were they about? Can you hear the spirit of enlightenment, can you smell and taste the spirit of enlightenment in those words? Does it sound familiar? Does it sound like your school song?
     After Vasubandhu had realized the undefiled knowledge, he taught his successor, Manorhita. Manorhita asked Vasubandhu, “What is the enlightenment of the Buddhas?” Vasubandhu said, “It is the original nature of mind.” Manorhita asked, “What is the original nature of mind?” Vasubandhu said, “The emptiness of the sense organs, the sense consciousness, and the sense fields.” Hearing this, Manorhita was enlightened. What are you hearing?
     The realization of just conception is the truth, the teaching, the enlightenment of the sages. For the mind to stop on just conception is the way Buddha functions. Vasubandhu does not deny a level of perceptual experience where there is no sense of self, and no self-clinging. However, this level is unknown to us in our daily life. The level of our normal experience, where we know things clearly, is concepts. In the practice of sitting, of awareness of body and breath, what we’re aware of at the level of knowing is a concept, or a beautiful string of concepts, of the body. If the mind can realize just the concept of body, your work is done. There is direct or immediate bodily experience, and it is from this immediate bodily experience that the conceptual experience of body is created. Just sitting practice is just the mind terminating on the concept of sitting, on the concept of the body and the mind and the breath, sitting.
     I looked up the word “just” in the dictionary. In the term shikantaza, the word shikan is sometimes translated as “just,” or “only.” Ta means hit, and za means sit. It literally means “hit sitting,” but the ta really intensifies “sitting.” So it means “sitting.” Shikan means just, but it also means “by all means do it,” or “get on with it.” It has been translated into English as “just,” or “only,” and although that wasn’t necessarily the meaning of the original Chinese, the English word “just” is kind of a wonderful word. As an adjective, “just” means honorable, fair, as in “just in one’s dealings.” It means consistent with that which is morally right, fair and equitable. It means properly due, or merited, like “just desserts.” There is a specialty bakery in San Francisco called Just Desserts. "Just desserts” means proper retribution for what you’ve done, and it also means specializing in or concentrating on after-dinner sweets. It also means honorable after-dinner sweets. The people from Just Desserts have a very good reputation, in two ways: one is, their good reputation for their tasty desserts, but they also have a good reputation for their moral conduct.
     Our sitting is a kind of just dessert. “Just” also means valid within the law, legitimate, suitable or fitting. It means sound, well-founded. It means exact, accurate. It means upright before God, righteous, upright before the Truth.
     Live “just.” Just concept, just sitting, just the heard in the heard, just the seen in the seen. Upright hearing, righteous hearing, exact hearing, accurate hearing, sound hearing, hearing in accord with the Law, honorable hearing. “Just” is a big word in Buddhism. It’s all over the place, everywhere just exactly fitting right with what’s happening. That’s the sitting we do, perfectly settled right on itself.
     A friend of mine was waiting for the Fillmore bus in San Francisco, and there was also an old man there waiting for the bus, an old black man. My friend got into a conversation with him, and he told her that he was one hundred years old. Of course she asked him, “How did you get to be so old?” He quoted from the Bible: “Not a thing will I withhold from you if you stand upright before me.”
     You do your part: you put the just sitting out there. That’s your job. You just sit. That’s your energy, coming right down on your energy; precisely, exactly, upright, honorably you, being your experience. And you will get a response called enlightenment. It’s already there, completely pervading you already, you just have to put a little energy forward in order to realize it. But it’s not exactly a little energy, or a lot of energy, but just the energy of this moment, whatever it is. That’s why we don’t need anything else but what we’ve got. We don’t need to be more awake or less awake. We don’t need to have more food or less food than we already have. We just need to be just this. This is our upright, honorable self that we have right here. We’ve got to celebrate it, we’ve got to be there for it.
     What I’m saying here is just reminding you of what you already know, what you already intend. Mostly, what I will be doing besides reminding you will be simply adjusting you, just “justing” you. That’s all. That’s all I can do. I’m not correcting you, I’m adjusting you. Of course, I can’t really adjust you; you’re already adjusted, but sometimes I may feel that you’d look a little more “just” if you sat like this, rather than like that. If I see your mudra over here, I may think, “You’d be a little bit more just if it was over there.” Of course, this way is just too, but still, I may adjust it over there. It’s just my aesthetic opinion. It’s just my personal adjustment for you.
     I try to steer clear of any kind of judgment in the adjustment, I just adjust. And then it’s for you not to think about being judged, but rather whether you feel more just after the adjustment. At first, you may feel sometimes, “Gee, this is kind of wacko. I feel kind of off. I thought I was sitting upright, but now I feel like I’m leaning somewhat.” Maybe in that doubt that you feel after a postural adjustment, or after a verbal adjustment, in the reorientation that you experience at that point, even though it may be sort of a surprise and you may wonder what’s going on, doesn’t that remind you of something that you heard before about the Buddha Way? "I’m not seeking enlightenment, and I’m not deluded." I’m not right or wrong. I’m in some place that’s beyond hearing and seeing. So, if you were in the realm of hearing and seeing, and you get adjusted into the space that’s beyond hearing and seeing, there may be a slight disorientation for a while. Suddenly you’re living someplace where you can’t get a hold of anything.
     When you’re just sitting, you can’t get a hold of anything, because you’re just sitting. You’re not sitting and getting a hold of something. You’re just sitting; you’re earnestly doing just that. When you lose that something else which may have given you some orientation—of being here, or there, or in between—at first you may wonder what’s going on. But you might trust that new space, that space where you don’t know exactly what’s happening. At least trust it for a little while.
     It was like this for Bodhidharma. He didn’t have any special teachings for his disciple Huike. He just said, “Outside, have no involvements.” That’s it! No involvements. “Inside, have no sighing or coughing. With your mind like a wall, thus you enter the Way.” With your mind like a wall: in other words, just. With your mind just, or your mind thus. Thus you enter the Way.
     He didn’t say too much, but that’s the teaching for a lifetime, right there. That’s all you need: “Outside, stop all involvements. Inside, no sighing or coughing in the mind.” No sighing, no shrinking away from exactly just this. Inside, no shrinking violet: “I can’t live up to this experience, it’s too much for me! It’s too fast, it’s too intense, it’s too yucky!” None of that! Also, no coughing or scoffing. Like, “This is beneath me. I’ve got better things to do than think this way. There are better birds than blue jays to listen to. Now, woodpeckers are different. They’re really interesting.” No coughing in the mind, and also no shrinking away. Don’t get rid of it, don’t shrink away from it. Just, inside let it be thus. Let your experience be like a wall.
     We have a traditional meal ritual in Soto Zen. The set of bowls which we use for this ritual are called Oryoki. Oryoki means "just enough equipment", or "bowls that are just enough" to support our life. At the end of the meal we lean forward to wash these bowls. This is a time when being tall might be difficult. Somebody who is quite tall is many feet away from his bowl. If you’re tall and you wear glasses and you don’t have them on, you can’t even see your bowls down there, right? So you may have the impulse to get your eyes closer to look: “Say, what’s happening down there? There are some bowls and food and all kinds of stuff!” It’s okay if you want to get your face way down there; but keep your back straight. If you bend over, bend over with a straight back. Don’t hunch over. It’s another one of those “just” types of things. In other words, be aware of your back. It makes quite a difference, and it’s good exercise for your back, too, incidentally. Most of these things happen to be good exercise.
     Also, try not to put your elbows on your knees to hold yourself up. Use your back. Leaning on your elbows is kind of friendly, it’s true. “Well, here I am, I’m working on my bowls, and, you know, what’s the problem?” It’s not really a bad thing to do. But a straight back is very precise. It’s more present. When you hunch your back, your consciousness goes. I don’t know what happens to it. You can get bent way over without noticing that you’re really doing it. These little things like keeping your back straight and being on time, these are about justness, too.
     There’s a poem called Love, by George Herbert which I think is about justness. It’s about our uncertainty, our lack of faith, as to whether we can really be just, in all the meanings of just.

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
   

Guilty of dust and sin.


But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
    

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lacked anything.


“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here”:
    

Love said, “You shall be he.”


“I, the unkind, ungrateful?

Ah, my dear,
  I cannot look on thee.”


Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
    

“Who made the eyes but I?”


“Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
    

Go where it doth deserve.”


“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”


“My dear, then I will serve.”


“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
    

So I did sit and eat.