In this form of Sōtō Zen meditation, the body is settled first, because the way of sitting quietly shapes the way of seeing clearly. One sits on a cushion, bench, or chair in a stable posture—full lotus, half lotus, Burmese, seiza, or with both feet flat on the floor—so that the spine is upright and naturally extended, the shoulders relaxed, and the chin slightly tucked. The hands rest in the cosmic mudra, left on right, palms up, thumbs lightly touching to form an oval at the lower abdomen. The mouth is closed, the tongue gently touching the roof of the mouth, and the eyes are usually half-open, softly gazing downward without fixing on anything in particular. This dignified posture is not ornamental; it expresses the very attitude of the practice: alert, grounded, and unforced.

Breathing is left as natural as possible, quiet and unmanipulated, usually through the nose, with the breath felt in the lower abdomen. There is no deliberate counting or shaping of the breath in this practice; rather, the breath is allowed to find its own depth and rhythm. Attention may lightly register the breath as part of the field of experience, but it is not taken as a special object to hold onto. In this way, the body and breath together form a stable yet ungrasped foundation for what follows.

The mental attitude is one of open, objectless awareness. Nothing in particular is chosen as the focus; thoughts, images, sensations, and emotions are allowed to arise and pass of their own accord. There is no attempt to chase after them or to push them away, and equally no attempt to manufacture a blank mind. When attention becomes entangled in a train of thought, the practitioner simply notices this and gently returns to upright posture and open awareness, without self-criticism. Calm, restlessness, boredom, and insight are treated alike as passing phenomena, neither prized nor rejected.

This is called “just sitting” not because it is passive, but because it is free of striving for a special state or attainment. Sitting itself is regarded as complete in each moment, an enactment rather than a means, and the practice is to embody this completeness as fully as possible. Periods of practice often last from about twenty to forty minutes, sometimes interwoven with walking meditation, and are sustained more by regularity than by intensity. Over time, this simple discipline of upright posture, natural breath, and unselective awareness allows experience to unfold as it is, without adornment, and the sitting becomes an expression of inherent clarity rather than a technique to acquire it.